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Session 4B: Our Lives Were Forever Changed by AIDS
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with Rev. Jim Mitulski, Rev. Karen Ziegler, Barbara Satin, Bishop Zachary Jones, Rev. Dr. Rick Mixon, Rev. William R. Johnson
Together we consider the ways that the AIDS epidemic shaped and continues to shape our analysis of how race, class, gender, and religion form and deform our lives and the social fabric. We consider how our feelings and experiences of AIDS help us to discern what is going on now, and how to move forward in our spiritual lives and our activism. What does/did AIDS teach us about how to do an analysis of current events and how to shape our lives and activism today? How does AIDS puts us in the heart of intersectionality?
Gabrielle Garcia, 2021 summer intern who transcribed this session, wrote this reflection on hearing the stories told in this session.
Transcription
Rolling the Stone Away Conference: Session 4B Our Lives Were Forever Changed by AIDS
with Rev. Jim Mitulski, Rev. Karen Ziegler, Barbara Satin, Bishop Zachary Jones, Rev. Dr. Rick Mixon, Rev. William R. Johnson
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
Video link: https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1367
Together we consider the ways that the AIDS epidemic shaped and continues to shape our analysis of how race, class, gender, and religion form and deform our lives and the social fabric. We consider how our feelings and experiences of AIDS help us to discern what is going on now, and how to move forward in our spiritual lives and our activism. What does/did AIDS teach us about how to do an analysis of current events and how to shape our lives and activism today? How does AIDS put us in the heart of intersectionality?
Transcribed by: Gabrielle Garcia
Summer 2021
Rev. Jim Mitulski: Our lives were changed forever by AIDS. Together we will consider the ways that the AIDS epidemic shaped and continue to shape our analysis of how race, class, gender, and ability form and de-form our lives and the social family. We will consider how our feelings and experiences of AIDS help us to discern what is going on now and how to move forward in our spiritual lives or activism, what does it [AIDS] teach us about how to do an analysis of current events, and how to shape our lives and activism today, how does AIDS put us in the heart of intersectionality. We appreciate that you’ve given enough time in the course of this conference to be here. We know that it was essentially, initially a conference about LGBTQ issues with sexuality and religion, a history conference. And yet I'm sure none of us are all flawless. HIV/AIDS is an interrelated topic. So we look at this past 50 year period. So we wanted to be sure that it was included and for those of us who are the panelists it served as part of our AIDS experience and we also know that there is significant experience represented in the room. And that’s why this is called a conversation. We are part of a planned conversation. We also of course want you all doing this piece as well. So we have some prepared questions that we’ll respond to and then we want to involve you in it. And for us it is about our pasts and as you’ll hear it’s also very much about the present. We’ve come a ways to make that point clear. First, our group chant. Act up. Fight back. Fight AIDS. [x2] But wait there’s more. Act up. Fight back. End AIDS. [x3] And then perhaps you saw in the news in the last just a couple of weeks something that brought a number of us back 30 years. What brought us back to the 30 years was that if you were working in AIDS politics in the 1980s, you might recall in California there was a state count, a state ballot proposition called proposition 64 that was sponsored by a politician named Lyndon LaRouche.
Rev. Karen Ziegler: You know, I’m afraid we’re gonna lose this if we don’t turn it off because I keep losing this–
Rev. Jim Mitulski: All right, which was about 14 people with HIV. So two weeks ago that failed. Numbers really don’t matter. Two weeks ago Benny Price, state legislator from Georgia had this to share, “...of partners tracking contacts, that sort of thing. What are we legally able to do and I want to say the quarantine word, but I guess I just said it. Is there an ability since I would guess that full public tax dollars are expended heavily in prophylaxis and treatment of this condition. And so we have a public interest in curtailing the spread. What would you advise or– are there any methods legally that you could do that would curtail the spread? Seems to me it’s almost a frightening number of people living there potentially carriers– potential to spread whereas over the past they died more readily. And then at that point they weren’t posing a risk, so you got a huge population of those at risk, then they’re not—”
Rev. Karen Ziegler: Well you take away their health insurance so then they won’t be able to pay for their treatment.
Rev. Jim Mitulski: You can find this online. It’s a livestream from a hearing before the state legislature in Georgia. Benny Price is a medical doctor.
Audience member: You’re kidding me.
Rev. Jim Mitulski: We hate to do this, but she is the wife of Thomas Price of Health and Human Services, who just got moved or resigned one step ahead being removed from the Trump administration cabinet for his misuse of air. Private jets. So the fact that this discourse two weeks ago by a medical doctor in the state legislature for whatever reason is being used again or being tested out again or being used again and not being challenged in any significant way. May us all in our planning group realize oh this is not just a history piece this is happening here now again. So we didn't need that, but we just thought to get your blood boiling before we started, raising the temperature of the room. So I'm gonna ask each of us in one sentence—and I’m going to take a risk—to say in one sentence before our panelists do their introductions, in a sentence your name and why you came to this workshop. Okay alright because we're a small group. This might not go around all the way. Is there plenty of cord? And then when we get to the panelists, when it hits them, we’re going to ask them to do their longer first go around, which was your name, your context, your first AIDS story alright.
Lynn Gerber: Alright my name is Lynn Gerber. I'm here because I'm writing a history of MCC San Francisco and AIDS and I'm here in part because I really want history, our present, and future to be in conversation with each other and I'm trying to learn how to do that with everyone here.
Nancy Wilson: I'm Nancy Wilson, Metropolitan Community Churches. This is a 12-step group for people who are survivors around HIV and AIDS and Jim Mikulski once told me that someday maybe we'd have 15 minutes to process what happened so I'm here for that.
Bobby Raymer: I'm Bobby Raymer and I'm a 27-year survivor. I have had zero viral load for well over 20 years and just here to be part of things and to talk about the past maybe and to kind of catch up on what's going on, I moved to Ogden, Utah in 2009 so I feel I'm kind of in a backwater.
Aubrey Thonvald: My name is Aubrey Thonvald and I came because my hope is that, one to learn and to listen, to learn through this need, and then just to think about what I can bring forward through my organization for World AIDS Day.
Jeanette Mott Oxford: Jeanette Mott Oxford and Empower Missouri is staffing the effort to reform Missouri's HIV specific criminal codes so I'm here to be inspired about that current work.
Heather White: Heather White. I'm here because you all are amazing.
Brian McKnight: Brian McKnight. When I was the mayor of Boston’s liason to the gay community in 1982, I started the first Task Force on AIDS in the United States at a city level. And there were only three cases in Massachusetts and people were saying you're overreacting and we did some pretty amazing work, including write the blood donation code at the time.
Kevin Pilot: I'm Kevin Pilot, a 31 year survivor and just here to learn and to share.
Micah Horton: I'm Micah Horton and I came into Metropolitan Community Church in 1984 so I was actually starting to begin ministry right in the AIDS crisis in the Metropolitan Community Church and I wondered where were all the Christians that were helping us, that were supposed to help us in this time and all I knew is at that point I was Gina and not Micah and we were the ones that stood up to take care of our brothers and sisters that were dying. And my first hands on was Darrell Stephens. He was the partner of a district coordinator, Bob Arthur and he had the AIDS virus had gotten to his head. And so I called him and said do you want to come to Montana and be in my home, and Irene Anaria[?] and I’ll take care of you. And so he came to my house on the 26th of May and he had died by June 12th, but I did all the care of myself. The church let me have the time off and they preached his sermons and I did full care totally crossed over, met his parents over the phone, and then got the arrangements made for him to be shipped back to Los Angeles where he didn't want to go because they put his brother in a nursing home. So that was my first hands-on with loving someone as they cross over and it's been a series of that since.
Dwayne Davis: I'm Dwayne Davis and I'm here because you know well when I came of age, I came from age and was coming out the cocktail just changed that it was like I didn't really have to experience what so many people gone through. But when I became a pastor and really became a pastor to African-American gay, bi, MSMs [men who have sex with men], and the spread of HIV I just am in this place of frustration and trying to want to know everything that you all did and how you face this challenge because we have a challenge right now that I'm on the ground for in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and in St. Paul and it just it's very frustrating to see that kind of ignorance and I see it every day you know just in working with people in organizations and government. So I just want to know as much, learn as much so that we can do that work and make some change the way the earlier generation did.
Justin Tanis: My name is Justin Tanis and I'm here because I know I continue to be impacted by the trauma and the grief that I experienced in the 80s and 90s in ministry. I know that continues to impact me in both positive and difficult ways and because I still have loved ones who are living with HIV who I love very much.
Alex McNeal: Hey everybody I'm Alex McNeal and I serve as executive director of More Light Presbyterians and I think part of my role as a younger person working with people across decades is to be a story sharer and collect as many stories and experiences as I can to reflect those back to churches that are trying to figure out how to welcome people, are trying to figure out how to be their best selves. And I often reflect about how much the experience of AIDS in the 80s has impacted our movement and I want to do everything I can to keep learning about that.
Lina Lassroom: Hi, I'm Lina Lassroom. First, I second everything you just said as the younger person in the movement I think it’s important to remember the the trauma and also how we can continue to heal the generational trauma that's in our movement and to keep telling the stories of those who are no longer with us so that's why I'm here.
John D’Amelio: Hi, I am John D'Amelio. You know AIDS is the most important thing in our history of the last hundred years and more than twice as many people in the US. died of AIDS then US [soldiers] who died fighting in Vietnam in the 60s and early 70s. You can teach the 60s and you always teach about Vietnam. You teach the 80s and it doesn't even appear in books about the Reagan years. It's insane.
Steve Fourtner: I'm Steve Fourtner. I was Dignity MCC, now back Dignity again, living beyond AIDS and moving past all of that and saying let's look at the future. We look at AIDS and get stuck in it. We don't look at living beyond that part of AIDS. AIDS holds us. I want to look at further down the road.
Rev. Jim Mitulski: Here beginneth our panel.
Rev. Karen Ziegler: You beginneth.
So that means—
Rick is gonna go.
Hey don’t whine.
[inaudible]
Rev. Jim Mitulski: So I’m gonna ask you to change modes slightly: name, context, as we did in our Zoom conferences, what was your AIDS story? It doesn’t have to be comprehensive, just representative.
Rev. Dr. Rick Mixon: Oh come on I wanna be comprehensive. I'm Rick Mixon, he/him/his. What do I say? I'm the pastor of First Baptist Church of Palo Alto California currently. But for about 10-12 years I did AIDS work in Berkeley in San Francisco. I was— I did a PhD in Religion and Personality [inaudible] Counseling at GTU (Georgetown University) and my dissertation title which is “Learning the Language of Lament: On Suffering and Human Hold Us” deals with how gay and bisexual men responded to the HIV crisis in particular and what we learned from suffering and the capacity to— for the necessity of learning how to lament, to cry out, to name our suffering so that we could move on. And the story I wanted to tell— [inaudible] told us briefly— it’s in my dissertation, but it's just a story that came to me and stuck with me somewhere in the early mid 80s. I was trained in the Shanti program in San Francisco, which was kind of the premier training program for people who are going to do AIDS support work. Kind of a new agey, kind of spiritual training. And it was a tense weekend of learning how to sit with people at the very deepest level of their pain and their spiritual expression and just the deepest kind of religious, spiritual living that you can— living and dying that you can imagine. And so I was working at the Pacific's— I was a volunteer at the Pacific Center in Berkeley, the LGBTQIA mental health and support agency in Berkeley and I was one of the first group of people trained in Shanti. And I was sent out to see the first AIDS patient from Pacific Center in 1980, whatever it was, and so I went. I got all dressed up and went to Highland Hospital, the county hospital, to see this AIDS patient and of course in those days you’d mask and you’d gown’d and he was isolated in a room by himself. And I went in prepared to have this conversation of great depth and meaning. And he didn’t want to talk about that stuff at all. He had very practically served as a very practical down-to-earth kind of guy about what was going to happen to his apartment, what's gonna happen to his stuff and it was a huge lesson for me and learning to be with people where they are and not come with my set of assumptions, which I think we often tend to do. And it went into my dissertation in the sense of learning something about accompaniment, being willing to be with people where they are, to walk with people where they need to go. It's part of learning as [inaudible] Sutherland said back in the day, “The church has AIDS,” and for people who are willing to be open and to learn something about this, it did have a huge impact on those churches that were open to it and it did help to shape the nature of ministry and helped us redefine what it meant to do ministry in the church. Accompaniment was a huge thing.
Rev. William “Bill” R. Johnson: [inaudible] I'm Bill Johnson. Was I supposed to say something else?
Rev. Jim Mitulski: A little bit about your context.
Rev. William “Bill” R. Johnson: I’m his.
Rev. Jim Mitulski: Pronouns, context, tell a story.
[inaudible]
Rev. Jim Mitulski: Tell a story that’s the most important part.
Rev. William “Bill” R. Johnson: It was July 1981 and in New York we opened the New York Times and read about this new disease and 42 men out in California and New York had been diagnosed with illnesses that were not normally seen. Not long after that my very good friend and a friend to several people in this room, Reverend Michael Collins was diagnosed with the strange new disease that had no name. And I became part of his support circle. One day I walked— he was in the hospital— I went to see him and I walked into his room and he was lying in his own excrement. There was a food tray out by the door. He was crying and very distraught and the nurses were not responding to his calls. And that is the day that I became that angry AIDS activist. Up until that time I wasn't quite sure how all this was going to dovetail with all of the LGBT work we were doing in the church. And you know there was part of me though that was sort of happy that this epidemic emerged. Don't over-do that when you hear it and that at least the AIDS epidemic gave us an opportunity to talk about sex in the church in a way that the LGBT conversation never had really gotten to. Now sex was really in people's— well people were thinking a lot more about sex because they were thinking about safe sex and what does that mean. And the church had to start thinking about if we're gonna protect the lives of people or help people protect themselves, we have to teach them more about sex and safe sex and all of that. And eventually I developed a course on safe, safer, and safest sex, which I gave to young people, to teenagers who lapped it up. No pun intended. But the thing about the epidemic from my perspective is you know there were not only colleagues and friends, there are relatives of mine who died of HIV. You know one day when the first person that I knew died I wrote his name on a piece of paper and I added— I created— I began a list. And by the time I left New York in 1990 there were 383 names on that list of friends and neighbors and acquaintances and loved ones that literally died. So the other thing I want to say before I pass the microphone is, and our group has talked about this, I came up— I described it yesterday as post traumatic grief syndrome. I've never, I've never gotten over the grief and I don't know but I ever will get over the grief that I experienced in my life and I suspect that that's a huge part of the ministry that has to be done today with literally hundreds of thousands of people and I'm not sure we're doing it.
Bishop Zachary Jones: Thank you. Good morning, I’m Bishop Zachary Jones of Community Fellowship Church Movement. My pronouns are he, his, him, miss thing, girl please, or any of the other— No, not honey girl have you lost your mind. I actually had thought that I could avoid this conversation ever again in my life because I came to this work in 1987 when I buried my lover and common-law husband at that time. But I came to it because I came to the conference as a stand-in for Carl B and when I did finally arrive Mark had already assigned me to be— to this particular panel so it doesn't look like we can get away from it even when we want to because I am still healing. I asked that question in the earlier session this morning because to even dream or imagine a world, our lives, without HIV and AIDS must be just that the dream for some of us, but certainly to touch those who lived pre-AIDS, one can only imagine what that must of been like even with all of the challenges that they had. I guess I could write my story in my introduction and I'll say more as we move forward, but yes.
Barbara Satin: Good morning I'm Barbara Satin with the National LGBTQ Task Force. I do the faith work for the task force. My involvement started way before I came out. I was on the board of the Regional Blood Center for the Red Cross and the Upper Midwest and was offended and traumatized by the way in which the Red Cross was handling its notification of people who came— were diagnosed and basically they had no understanding of the impact that that diagnosis was going to have on people. So they would send letters or they would make phone calls and just leave a voicemail saying by the way you know you have been diagnosed with HIV not realizing that you know in many cases people were living at home with families or they with people that didn't want to know this. So we started an AIDS Oversight Committee to try and work throughout the Red Cross to try and help them understand the impact that this was going to have. That was the beginning of my involvement. When I came out I have had the honor of being on the board of number of organizations including Serving with Duane and Minneapolis Nuclear Housing, doing work with the Aliveness Project, and I do a lot of work around aging issues. And I've been struck by the fact that one of the major tragedies is the fact that there are— people don't understand the fact that there are many people who have— who are now living with AIDS and living as old people. There's nothing wrong with the word old. Anybody from Moloch would tell you that. I was struck by an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about a person saying I'm the unluckiest lucky person in the world because I'm living with AIDS, but I didn't expect to and it's a challenge for them because they've lost support systems, they've lost financials, their financial resources. They just didn't expect to be old. And so that's a current focus of the work that I’m trying to do.
Rev. Karen Ziegler: I'm Karen Ziegler, she/hers. I was pastor of MCC New York most of the 80s and what I feel that we witnessed during that time was really genocide because people started to die and die at accelerating rates and nothing was being done and we were just watching with horror. You know Michael Collins was also a friend of mine and we couldn't believe it. We couldn't believe it. A few years before I had lived in Philadelphia during the Legionnaires disease when a few white businessmen died and it was on the front page every single day. And that contrast did not escape me as hundreds and then thousands of men died and walked through Greenwich Village with their Hickman catheter. But the story that I want to tell is not one of the many many many stories of being in dingy Chelsea apartments with friends with uncontrollable diarrhea or the funerals or the suffering or the anger. What I want to tell about was one time when I was with a young man, David DeLuca, who was a cabaret singer. Gorgeous man, bright blue eyes, curly dark hair, and he was covered, his face and his entire body covered with Kaposi’s. And what I saw in him was— what I saw many many many times and it's really my dominant memory of AIDS, which was a luminous quality of his face. He just shone and my experience was that those young men who weren't afraid of going to hell— and there were a lot of young men afraid of going to hell whose parents had sent them tracks that said you are going to hell and you deserve this, but the young men who got through that we're not afraid. They were not afraid on the whole. They were amazing people who taught me such profound lessons of what it really means to be a human being. And on that day he looked at me and he said you know, I think I volunteered for this. He said, “I have the sense that this epidemic and our suffering and our death is going to change human beings and will create compassion.” And for that moment I just believed him because he spoke with such conviction. And just one other little story about him was he called me up and he was in the hospital and I knew he was very close to death and I said how are you and he said I'm excited. And I thought I misunderstood him because he was really close to death and I said what, but he said I'm excited I'm going to see him. And in that moment of that conversation on the phone the veil completely lifted for me because it had completely lifted for him. And it was as though we were peering together. And for me I think the reason why... why I don't cry very much it's because I think, I think that what was happening in those years that he showed me, and that other young men showed me, and then I learned about what death is and what human life really is became the dominant memory for me. And I just want to say one thing about trauma and I'm so glad that this young woman mentioned trauma because I've been thinking a lot about intergenerational trauma and about how young gay people are traumatized by us in the same way as children of Holocaust survivors who are traumatized by their parents experiences. And there are people writing about this now and I've been thinking a lot about post traumatic slave trauma and the trauma of people of color, and especially Black people in this country, in relation to that. And what I realize is that Black people in this country did survive so much trauma, but also lived because of that same luminous survivor spiritual strength. And that is our legacy to our young people as well as the violence and the genocide and the death and the suffering.
Audience member: I’m still thinking. I’m feeling [inaudible]
Rev. Karen Ziegler: So I also really want to say that we are revisiting a time of genocide. It is completely clear to me that— and William Barber says you know the reason why they want to cut off people's life insurance— I mean health insurance is because the people who will die as a result of this are not Republican voters. And that is not a cynical statement. That is a statement of historical fact. This is what happened to health plans for people who had been slaves and they were discontinued when those people started voting and when people lose their health insurance they die. So I feel like that spirit of activism that was in ACT UP and that many of us participated in.
Audience member: We don’t want people to hear what we were saying.
Audience member: Were we being too loud?
Rev. Karen Ziegler: The spirit of activism— I’m sorry.
[...]
Rev. Karen Ziegler: But that spirit of activism the people with AIDS, the people in ACT UP, the people fighting for their lives we have to fight for the people's lives who, look now there's a huge train called genocide heading down and you know we're on the tracks but so we're a whole lot of other people.
Rev. Jim Mitulski: So my name is Jim Mitulski, and I was the pastor out of the MCC Church in San Francisco in the 80s and 90s for 15 years. So principally eight years I've done other AIDS things, but that probably has shaped my life more than anything. [begins to cry] Sorry. It started back then [points to another speaker] and it’s just been [gestures by moving arm in a wave-like fashion]. I hate this. So I cry all the time. I know, but I do I cry all the time. Three times a day at least. I haven’t yet today. So it was this morning’s now. And I didn't before AIDS so maybe I should’ve. So an AIDS story, I have to say it’s also shaped not only my life, but my spiritual life. This is not what I had to say, but I do think it has shaped my spiritual life being with so many people on a journey of living from the time I was in my 20s. Probably when maybe we were too young or who knows if you’re too young or too old, but certainly just affecting— I think twisted me in some ways, but I was not prepared in my 20s to accompany so many people, to do hundreds of funerals, which I literally did do. Saturday was funeral day. Sunday was Church day right. And the people that I was doing funerals for in the 80s were my age you know. Where does that— and also it kicked up a need in me for constant prayer. You know I went to a very liberal seminary, as they say a silver spoon of religion, and what characterized us as MCC students was we were— that we were churchgoers unlike our fellow students. That we went to church. How weird was that, you know, in the 80s that was weird you know. And I still— I go to Mass every day. How weird is that, you know, I'm not a Catholic anymore, but maybe once a Catholic, always a Catholic. Yeah because— I go and I sit in the back. I don’t take communion. I cry. I sit there and I cry because it's like it's high peace and I order my day and I feel close to my— to my Saints and I don't mean like the alabaster ones. And I know that comes from my AIDS experience. It's like this is the only way I find peace in it, when I pray the rosary. You know down at the hour of our death, that little phrase that you learn as a child, it was like a seed planted that came back to comfort me being at the death of so many people, you know, and not lose your mind right. Okay so there's one AIDS story. It’s a funeral story I told before, but you know you do all these funerals and what I love about MCC is we did not have a prayer book. We had the freedom to show Al Parker clips at Al Parker’s funeral. I did Al Parker’s funeral and darned if we didn’t show Al Parker clips at it, you know because he wanted to be remembered in his vigor, you know. And I did not learn how to do that funeral at PSR, I’ll tell you that. The funeral I remember— I did this couple’s wedding because we did a lot of deathbed weddings right, before they were legal. And it wasn't quite deathbed, but one— the first guy lived about three weeks and at his funeral, the first guy’s funeral, everyone got an orchid and because you want people to have something lovely when they left, something beautiful because it was not pretty. And at the door his lover, as he agreed to hold the door afterwards, his lover said, “Orchids, just like him, high maintenance,” and I just burst out laughing you know. And I remember Jerry, it was affectionate, but it was funny I mean it's pretty funny. Hey, your lover’s funeral, you know. And I remember the importance of laughter even in the midst of very deep sadness. And a couple months later, we had his funeral, and he had provided for this, and he swore me to secrecy, his lifelong collection of Fiestaware in the sanctuary. And you know only gay men have the cult of Fiestaware. They don't just like it okay, they worship it. It was all there and you know at gay funerals we did— we had stuff, you know like a leather jacket on a chair, you know the memorabilia. All kinds of them were doing it. So the queens came in and were like maybe I'll get some afterwards because that was what they thought. Of course they missed their friend, but it's nice to get a little bonus at the memorial. And at the end—he had instructed me to do this—I picked up a piece, so this is— you don't know much he loved this, and I broke it. The gasp. The Fiestaware. Then I broke another piece and I said let's all do this because—Jerry Robinson was his name—he said he wanted us to get angry. He wanted us to feel our anger, nothing pretty. Like we did— I can’t remember [inaudible] at his lover’s funeral, you know but he wanted us to get angry and feel our anger. And so there we were breaking dishes at the funeral in the sanctuary. And that anger— also I felt it again this morning when Chuck Lewis talked about smashing the light bulbs. Oh I just felt so alive. Did you feel it for a second? So unassuming should the anger and I thought oh this is why we did this panel, so that we can see that and feel it. And that's kind of when you asked Dwane about, you know, how do you do this. Anger is an important part of it. Find your anger. I know that's probably dysfunctional, but I swear to god that is how I got through it— that and you know [inaudible] but I think my anger has kept me alive as much as medical science you know.
Brian McKnight: I was trained as a buddy. I think probably a lot of us in this room were trained as hospice workers, as best could be done. And one of the men that I took under wing and brought to my home and spent time with, without me knowing it, asked his parents about if I would be the one who led his funeral, you know. So there are— and it was not unusual for people who were not clergy to be asked to be the person who spoke for them. And for those of you who don't know the time, what happened at the time his parents said to me that please do not say that he was gay or how he died. My first buddy that we buried, we had the same instructions: do not say that he was gay and do not say how he died. And one can get self-righteous in those situations and defy the will of the parents or you can figure out a way to do what needs to be done without anybody getting upset. So the second guy that I spoke for was a florist and his gay friends were back of the room and his great-aunts were in front of the room. And I talked about his uniqueness as a flower and how in bouquets you know we all come in different shapes and colors and sizes and the gay men were nodding their heads in the back of the room, the aunts we're thinking that this was quite colorful, how sweet. But it wasn't a time in which— in San Francisco was different than Boston, New York was different than Boston, and Boston was different than Cleveland, and you did what you could do and needed to do where you were with the needs of the people that you said you were there to help. So I didn't get angry. It's not my style, it's just never been. I do go underwater and scream. That's my scream room: water. But going to the question the man in the back asked about how do you handle the situation. We didn't have ACT UP in Boston because we kept the community informed from day one. I wrote a weekly column. I started a column to the gay community of Boston telling them what was— we knew— what we knew you know. What was the name, why was it called this, you know, what did— what do we think is going on, so that people didn't live in a vacuum of no information. And so the dynamics of a community, I think, create how you respond. But it's important to know that at that time, you just didn't talk about it without knowing or feeling that the needs of the parents and the needs of the family had to be taken into consideration.
[Our sincere apologies due to technical difficulties the remainder of this session was not recorded.]
Executive Producer: Mark Bowman
Director & Editor: AhSa-Ti Tyehimba-Form
Videographer: John Peckham
Copyright 2017 LGBT Religious Archives Network at Pacific School of Religion. All rights reserved.
with Rev. Jim Mitulski, Rev. Karen Ziegler, Barbara Satin, Bishop Zachary Jones, Rev. Dr. Rick Mixon, Rev. William R. Johnson
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
Video link: https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1367
Together we consider the ways that the AIDS epidemic shaped and continues to shape our analysis of how race, class, gender, and religion form and deform our lives and the social fabric. We consider how our feelings and experiences of AIDS help us to discern what is going on now, and how to move forward in our spiritual lives and our activism. What does/did AIDS teach us about how to do an analysis of current events and how to shape our lives and activism today? How does AIDS put us in the heart of intersectionality?
Transcribed by: Gabrielle Garcia
Summer 2021
Rev. Jim Mitulski: Our lives were changed forever by AIDS. Together we will consider the ways that the AIDS epidemic shaped and continue to shape our analysis of how race, class, gender, and ability form and de-form our lives and the social family. We will consider how our feelings and experiences of AIDS help us to discern what is going on now and how to move forward in our spiritual lives or activism, what does it [AIDS] teach us about how to do an analysis of current events, and how to shape our lives and activism today, how does AIDS put us in the heart of intersectionality. We appreciate that you’ve given enough time in the course of this conference to be here. We know that it was essentially, initially a conference about LGBTQ issues with sexuality and religion, a history conference. And yet I'm sure none of us are all flawless. HIV/AIDS is an interrelated topic. So we look at this past 50 year period. So we wanted to be sure that it was included and for those of us who are the panelists it served as part of our AIDS experience and we also know that there is significant experience represented in the room. And that’s why this is called a conversation. We are part of a planned conversation. We also of course want you all doing this piece as well. So we have some prepared questions that we’ll respond to and then we want to involve you in it. And for us it is about our pasts and as you’ll hear it’s also very much about the present. We’ve come a ways to make that point clear. First, our group chant. Act up. Fight back. Fight AIDS. [x2] But wait there’s more. Act up. Fight back. End AIDS. [x3] And then perhaps you saw in the news in the last just a couple of weeks something that brought a number of us back 30 years. What brought us back to the 30 years was that if you were working in AIDS politics in the 1980s, you might recall in California there was a state count, a state ballot proposition called proposition 64 that was sponsored by a politician named Lyndon LaRouche.
Rev. Karen Ziegler: You know, I’m afraid we’re gonna lose this if we don’t turn it off because I keep losing this–
Rev. Jim Mitulski: All right, which was about 14 people with HIV. So two weeks ago that failed. Numbers really don’t matter. Two weeks ago Benny Price, state legislator from Georgia had this to share, “...of partners tracking contacts, that sort of thing. What are we legally able to do and I want to say the quarantine word, but I guess I just said it. Is there an ability since I would guess that full public tax dollars are expended heavily in prophylaxis and treatment of this condition. And so we have a public interest in curtailing the spread. What would you advise or– are there any methods legally that you could do that would curtail the spread? Seems to me it’s almost a frightening number of people living there potentially carriers– potential to spread whereas over the past they died more readily. And then at that point they weren’t posing a risk, so you got a huge population of those at risk, then they’re not—”
Rev. Karen Ziegler: Well you take away their health insurance so then they won’t be able to pay for their treatment.
Rev. Jim Mitulski: You can find this online. It’s a livestream from a hearing before the state legislature in Georgia. Benny Price is a medical doctor.
Audience member: You’re kidding me.
Rev. Jim Mitulski: We hate to do this, but she is the wife of Thomas Price of Health and Human Services, who just got moved or resigned one step ahead being removed from the Trump administration cabinet for his misuse of air. Private jets. So the fact that this discourse two weeks ago by a medical doctor in the state legislature for whatever reason is being used again or being tested out again or being used again and not being challenged in any significant way. May us all in our planning group realize oh this is not just a history piece this is happening here now again. So we didn't need that, but we just thought to get your blood boiling before we started, raising the temperature of the room. So I'm gonna ask each of us in one sentence—and I’m going to take a risk—to say in one sentence before our panelists do their introductions, in a sentence your name and why you came to this workshop. Okay alright because we're a small group. This might not go around all the way. Is there plenty of cord? And then when we get to the panelists, when it hits them, we’re going to ask them to do their longer first go around, which was your name, your context, your first AIDS story alright.
Lynn Gerber: Alright my name is Lynn Gerber. I'm here because I'm writing a history of MCC San Francisco and AIDS and I'm here in part because I really want history, our present, and future to be in conversation with each other and I'm trying to learn how to do that with everyone here.
Nancy Wilson: I'm Nancy Wilson, Metropolitan Community Churches. This is a 12-step group for people who are survivors around HIV and AIDS and Jim Mikulski once told me that someday maybe we'd have 15 minutes to process what happened so I'm here for that.
Bobby Raymer: I'm Bobby Raymer and I'm a 27-year survivor. I have had zero viral load for well over 20 years and just here to be part of things and to talk about the past maybe and to kind of catch up on what's going on, I moved to Ogden, Utah in 2009 so I feel I'm kind of in a backwater.
Aubrey Thonvald: My name is Aubrey Thonvald and I came because my hope is that, one to learn and to listen, to learn through this need, and then just to think about what I can bring forward through my organization for World AIDS Day.
Jeanette Mott Oxford: Jeanette Mott Oxford and Empower Missouri is staffing the effort to reform Missouri's HIV specific criminal codes so I'm here to be inspired about that current work.
Heather White: Heather White. I'm here because you all are amazing.
Brian McKnight: Brian McKnight. When I was the mayor of Boston’s liason to the gay community in 1982, I started the first Task Force on AIDS in the United States at a city level. And there were only three cases in Massachusetts and people were saying you're overreacting and we did some pretty amazing work, including write the blood donation code at the time.
Kevin Pilot: I'm Kevin Pilot, a 31 year survivor and just here to learn and to share.
Micah Horton: I'm Micah Horton and I came into Metropolitan Community Church in 1984 so I was actually starting to begin ministry right in the AIDS crisis in the Metropolitan Community Church and I wondered where were all the Christians that were helping us, that were supposed to help us in this time and all I knew is at that point I was Gina and not Micah and we were the ones that stood up to take care of our brothers and sisters that were dying. And my first hands on was Darrell Stephens. He was the partner of a district coordinator, Bob Arthur and he had the AIDS virus had gotten to his head. And so I called him and said do you want to come to Montana and be in my home, and Irene Anaria[?] and I’ll take care of you. And so he came to my house on the 26th of May and he had died by June 12th, but I did all the care of myself. The church let me have the time off and they preached his sermons and I did full care totally crossed over, met his parents over the phone, and then got the arrangements made for him to be shipped back to Los Angeles where he didn't want to go because they put his brother in a nursing home. So that was my first hands-on with loving someone as they cross over and it's been a series of that since.
Dwayne Davis: I'm Dwayne Davis and I'm here because you know well when I came of age, I came from age and was coming out the cocktail just changed that it was like I didn't really have to experience what so many people gone through. But when I became a pastor and really became a pastor to African-American gay, bi, MSMs [men who have sex with men], and the spread of HIV I just am in this place of frustration and trying to want to know everything that you all did and how you face this challenge because we have a challenge right now that I'm on the ground for in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and in St. Paul and it just it's very frustrating to see that kind of ignorance and I see it every day you know just in working with people in organizations and government. So I just want to know as much, learn as much so that we can do that work and make some change the way the earlier generation did.
Justin Tanis: My name is Justin Tanis and I'm here because I know I continue to be impacted by the trauma and the grief that I experienced in the 80s and 90s in ministry. I know that continues to impact me in both positive and difficult ways and because I still have loved ones who are living with HIV who I love very much.
Alex McNeal: Hey everybody I'm Alex McNeal and I serve as executive director of More Light Presbyterians and I think part of my role as a younger person working with people across decades is to be a story sharer and collect as many stories and experiences as I can to reflect those back to churches that are trying to figure out how to welcome people, are trying to figure out how to be their best selves. And I often reflect about how much the experience of AIDS in the 80s has impacted our movement and I want to do everything I can to keep learning about that.
Lina Lassroom: Hi, I'm Lina Lassroom. First, I second everything you just said as the younger person in the movement I think it’s important to remember the the trauma and also how we can continue to heal the generational trauma that's in our movement and to keep telling the stories of those who are no longer with us so that's why I'm here.
John D’Amelio: Hi, I am John D'Amelio. You know AIDS is the most important thing in our history of the last hundred years and more than twice as many people in the US. died of AIDS then US [soldiers] who died fighting in Vietnam in the 60s and early 70s. You can teach the 60s and you always teach about Vietnam. You teach the 80s and it doesn't even appear in books about the Reagan years. It's insane.
Steve Fourtner: I'm Steve Fourtner. I was Dignity MCC, now back Dignity again, living beyond AIDS and moving past all of that and saying let's look at the future. We look at AIDS and get stuck in it. We don't look at living beyond that part of AIDS. AIDS holds us. I want to look at further down the road.
Rev. Jim Mitulski: Here beginneth our panel.
Rev. Karen Ziegler: You beginneth.
So that means—
Rick is gonna go.
Hey don’t whine.
[inaudible]
Rev. Jim Mitulski: So I’m gonna ask you to change modes slightly: name, context, as we did in our Zoom conferences, what was your AIDS story? It doesn’t have to be comprehensive, just representative.
Rev. Dr. Rick Mixon: Oh come on I wanna be comprehensive. I'm Rick Mixon, he/him/his. What do I say? I'm the pastor of First Baptist Church of Palo Alto California currently. But for about 10-12 years I did AIDS work in Berkeley in San Francisco. I was— I did a PhD in Religion and Personality [inaudible] Counseling at GTU (Georgetown University) and my dissertation title which is “Learning the Language of Lament: On Suffering and Human Hold Us” deals with how gay and bisexual men responded to the HIV crisis in particular and what we learned from suffering and the capacity to— for the necessity of learning how to lament, to cry out, to name our suffering so that we could move on. And the story I wanted to tell— [inaudible] told us briefly— it’s in my dissertation, but it's just a story that came to me and stuck with me somewhere in the early mid 80s. I was trained in the Shanti program in San Francisco, which was kind of the premier training program for people who are going to do AIDS support work. Kind of a new agey, kind of spiritual training. And it was a tense weekend of learning how to sit with people at the very deepest level of their pain and their spiritual expression and just the deepest kind of religious, spiritual living that you can— living and dying that you can imagine. And so I was working at the Pacific's— I was a volunteer at the Pacific Center in Berkeley, the LGBTQIA mental health and support agency in Berkeley and I was one of the first group of people trained in Shanti. And I was sent out to see the first AIDS patient from Pacific Center in 1980, whatever it was, and so I went. I got all dressed up and went to Highland Hospital, the county hospital, to see this AIDS patient and of course in those days you’d mask and you’d gown’d and he was isolated in a room by himself. And I went in prepared to have this conversation of great depth and meaning. And he didn’t want to talk about that stuff at all. He had very practically served as a very practical down-to-earth kind of guy about what was going to happen to his apartment, what's gonna happen to his stuff and it was a huge lesson for me and learning to be with people where they are and not come with my set of assumptions, which I think we often tend to do. And it went into my dissertation in the sense of learning something about accompaniment, being willing to be with people where they are, to walk with people where they need to go. It's part of learning as [inaudible] Sutherland said back in the day, “The church has AIDS,” and for people who are willing to be open and to learn something about this, it did have a huge impact on those churches that were open to it and it did help to shape the nature of ministry and helped us redefine what it meant to do ministry in the church. Accompaniment was a huge thing.
Rev. William “Bill” R. Johnson: [inaudible] I'm Bill Johnson. Was I supposed to say something else?
Rev. Jim Mitulski: A little bit about your context.
Rev. William “Bill” R. Johnson: I’m his.
Rev. Jim Mitulski: Pronouns, context, tell a story.
[inaudible]
Rev. Jim Mitulski: Tell a story that’s the most important part.
Rev. William “Bill” R. Johnson: It was July 1981 and in New York we opened the New York Times and read about this new disease and 42 men out in California and New York had been diagnosed with illnesses that were not normally seen. Not long after that my very good friend and a friend to several people in this room, Reverend Michael Collins was diagnosed with the strange new disease that had no name. And I became part of his support circle. One day I walked— he was in the hospital— I went to see him and I walked into his room and he was lying in his own excrement. There was a food tray out by the door. He was crying and very distraught and the nurses were not responding to his calls. And that is the day that I became that angry AIDS activist. Up until that time I wasn't quite sure how all this was going to dovetail with all of the LGBT work we were doing in the church. And you know there was part of me though that was sort of happy that this epidemic emerged. Don't over-do that when you hear it and that at least the AIDS epidemic gave us an opportunity to talk about sex in the church in a way that the LGBT conversation never had really gotten to. Now sex was really in people's— well people were thinking a lot more about sex because they were thinking about safe sex and what does that mean. And the church had to start thinking about if we're gonna protect the lives of people or help people protect themselves, we have to teach them more about sex and safe sex and all of that. And eventually I developed a course on safe, safer, and safest sex, which I gave to young people, to teenagers who lapped it up. No pun intended. But the thing about the epidemic from my perspective is you know there were not only colleagues and friends, there are relatives of mine who died of HIV. You know one day when the first person that I knew died I wrote his name on a piece of paper and I added— I created— I began a list. And by the time I left New York in 1990 there were 383 names on that list of friends and neighbors and acquaintances and loved ones that literally died. So the other thing I want to say before I pass the microphone is, and our group has talked about this, I came up— I described it yesterday as post traumatic grief syndrome. I've never, I've never gotten over the grief and I don't know but I ever will get over the grief that I experienced in my life and I suspect that that's a huge part of the ministry that has to be done today with literally hundreds of thousands of people and I'm not sure we're doing it.
Bishop Zachary Jones: Thank you. Good morning, I’m Bishop Zachary Jones of Community Fellowship Church Movement. My pronouns are he, his, him, miss thing, girl please, or any of the other— No, not honey girl have you lost your mind. I actually had thought that I could avoid this conversation ever again in my life because I came to this work in 1987 when I buried my lover and common-law husband at that time. But I came to it because I came to the conference as a stand-in for Carl B and when I did finally arrive Mark had already assigned me to be— to this particular panel so it doesn't look like we can get away from it even when we want to because I am still healing. I asked that question in the earlier session this morning because to even dream or imagine a world, our lives, without HIV and AIDS must be just that the dream for some of us, but certainly to touch those who lived pre-AIDS, one can only imagine what that must of been like even with all of the challenges that they had. I guess I could write my story in my introduction and I'll say more as we move forward, but yes.
Barbara Satin: Good morning I'm Barbara Satin with the National LGBTQ Task Force. I do the faith work for the task force. My involvement started way before I came out. I was on the board of the Regional Blood Center for the Red Cross and the Upper Midwest and was offended and traumatized by the way in which the Red Cross was handling its notification of people who came— were diagnosed and basically they had no understanding of the impact that that diagnosis was going to have on people. So they would send letters or they would make phone calls and just leave a voicemail saying by the way you know you have been diagnosed with HIV not realizing that you know in many cases people were living at home with families or they with people that didn't want to know this. So we started an AIDS Oversight Committee to try and work throughout the Red Cross to try and help them understand the impact that this was going to have. That was the beginning of my involvement. When I came out I have had the honor of being on the board of number of organizations including Serving with Duane and Minneapolis Nuclear Housing, doing work with the Aliveness Project, and I do a lot of work around aging issues. And I've been struck by the fact that one of the major tragedies is the fact that there are— people don't understand the fact that there are many people who have— who are now living with AIDS and living as old people. There's nothing wrong with the word old. Anybody from Moloch would tell you that. I was struck by an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about a person saying I'm the unluckiest lucky person in the world because I'm living with AIDS, but I didn't expect to and it's a challenge for them because they've lost support systems, they've lost financials, their financial resources. They just didn't expect to be old. And so that's a current focus of the work that I’m trying to do.
Rev. Karen Ziegler: I'm Karen Ziegler, she/hers. I was pastor of MCC New York most of the 80s and what I feel that we witnessed during that time was really genocide because people started to die and die at accelerating rates and nothing was being done and we were just watching with horror. You know Michael Collins was also a friend of mine and we couldn't believe it. We couldn't believe it. A few years before I had lived in Philadelphia during the Legionnaires disease when a few white businessmen died and it was on the front page every single day. And that contrast did not escape me as hundreds and then thousands of men died and walked through Greenwich Village with their Hickman catheter. But the story that I want to tell is not one of the many many many stories of being in dingy Chelsea apartments with friends with uncontrollable diarrhea or the funerals or the suffering or the anger. What I want to tell about was one time when I was with a young man, David DeLuca, who was a cabaret singer. Gorgeous man, bright blue eyes, curly dark hair, and he was covered, his face and his entire body covered with Kaposi’s. And what I saw in him was— what I saw many many many times and it's really my dominant memory of AIDS, which was a luminous quality of his face. He just shone and my experience was that those young men who weren't afraid of going to hell— and there were a lot of young men afraid of going to hell whose parents had sent them tracks that said you are going to hell and you deserve this, but the young men who got through that we're not afraid. They were not afraid on the whole. They were amazing people who taught me such profound lessons of what it really means to be a human being. And on that day he looked at me and he said you know, I think I volunteered for this. He said, “I have the sense that this epidemic and our suffering and our death is going to change human beings and will create compassion.” And for that moment I just believed him because he spoke with such conviction. And just one other little story about him was he called me up and he was in the hospital and I knew he was very close to death and I said how are you and he said I'm excited. And I thought I misunderstood him because he was really close to death and I said what, but he said I'm excited I'm going to see him. And in that moment of that conversation on the phone the veil completely lifted for me because it had completely lifted for him. And it was as though we were peering together. And for me I think the reason why... why I don't cry very much it's because I think, I think that what was happening in those years that he showed me, and that other young men showed me, and then I learned about what death is and what human life really is became the dominant memory for me. And I just want to say one thing about trauma and I'm so glad that this young woman mentioned trauma because I've been thinking a lot about intergenerational trauma and about how young gay people are traumatized by us in the same way as children of Holocaust survivors who are traumatized by their parents experiences. And there are people writing about this now and I've been thinking a lot about post traumatic slave trauma and the trauma of people of color, and especially Black people in this country, in relation to that. And what I realize is that Black people in this country did survive so much trauma, but also lived because of that same luminous survivor spiritual strength. And that is our legacy to our young people as well as the violence and the genocide and the death and the suffering.
Audience member: I’m still thinking. I’m feeling [inaudible]
Rev. Karen Ziegler: So I also really want to say that we are revisiting a time of genocide. It is completely clear to me that— and William Barber says you know the reason why they want to cut off people's life insurance— I mean health insurance is because the people who will die as a result of this are not Republican voters. And that is not a cynical statement. That is a statement of historical fact. This is what happened to health plans for people who had been slaves and they were discontinued when those people started voting and when people lose their health insurance they die. So I feel like that spirit of activism that was in ACT UP and that many of us participated in.
Audience member: We don’t want people to hear what we were saying.
Audience member: Were we being too loud?
Rev. Karen Ziegler: The spirit of activism— I’m sorry.
[...]
Rev. Karen Ziegler: But that spirit of activism the people with AIDS, the people in ACT UP, the people fighting for their lives we have to fight for the people's lives who, look now there's a huge train called genocide heading down and you know we're on the tracks but so we're a whole lot of other people.
Rev. Jim Mitulski: So my name is Jim Mitulski, and I was the pastor out of the MCC Church in San Francisco in the 80s and 90s for 15 years. So principally eight years I've done other AIDS things, but that probably has shaped my life more than anything. [begins to cry] Sorry. It started back then [points to another speaker] and it’s just been [gestures by moving arm in a wave-like fashion]. I hate this. So I cry all the time. I know, but I do I cry all the time. Three times a day at least. I haven’t yet today. So it was this morning’s now. And I didn't before AIDS so maybe I should’ve. So an AIDS story, I have to say it’s also shaped not only my life, but my spiritual life. This is not what I had to say, but I do think it has shaped my spiritual life being with so many people on a journey of living from the time I was in my 20s. Probably when maybe we were too young or who knows if you’re too young or too old, but certainly just affecting— I think twisted me in some ways, but I was not prepared in my 20s to accompany so many people, to do hundreds of funerals, which I literally did do. Saturday was funeral day. Sunday was Church day right. And the people that I was doing funerals for in the 80s were my age you know. Where does that— and also it kicked up a need in me for constant prayer. You know I went to a very liberal seminary, as they say a silver spoon of religion, and what characterized us as MCC students was we were— that we were churchgoers unlike our fellow students. That we went to church. How weird was that, you know, in the 80s that was weird you know. And I still— I go to Mass every day. How weird is that, you know, I'm not a Catholic anymore, but maybe once a Catholic, always a Catholic. Yeah because— I go and I sit in the back. I don’t take communion. I cry. I sit there and I cry because it's like it's high peace and I order my day and I feel close to my— to my Saints and I don't mean like the alabaster ones. And I know that comes from my AIDS experience. It's like this is the only way I find peace in it, when I pray the rosary. You know down at the hour of our death, that little phrase that you learn as a child, it was like a seed planted that came back to comfort me being at the death of so many people, you know, and not lose your mind right. Okay so there's one AIDS story. It’s a funeral story I told before, but you know you do all these funerals and what I love about MCC is we did not have a prayer book. We had the freedom to show Al Parker clips at Al Parker’s funeral. I did Al Parker’s funeral and darned if we didn’t show Al Parker clips at it, you know because he wanted to be remembered in his vigor, you know. And I did not learn how to do that funeral at PSR, I’ll tell you that. The funeral I remember— I did this couple’s wedding because we did a lot of deathbed weddings right, before they were legal. And it wasn't quite deathbed, but one— the first guy lived about three weeks and at his funeral, the first guy’s funeral, everyone got an orchid and because you want people to have something lovely when they left, something beautiful because it was not pretty. And at the door his lover, as he agreed to hold the door afterwards, his lover said, “Orchids, just like him, high maintenance,” and I just burst out laughing you know. And I remember Jerry, it was affectionate, but it was funny I mean it's pretty funny. Hey, your lover’s funeral, you know. And I remember the importance of laughter even in the midst of very deep sadness. And a couple months later, we had his funeral, and he had provided for this, and he swore me to secrecy, his lifelong collection of Fiestaware in the sanctuary. And you know only gay men have the cult of Fiestaware. They don't just like it okay, they worship it. It was all there and you know at gay funerals we did— we had stuff, you know like a leather jacket on a chair, you know the memorabilia. All kinds of them were doing it. So the queens came in and were like maybe I'll get some afterwards because that was what they thought. Of course they missed their friend, but it's nice to get a little bonus at the memorial. And at the end—he had instructed me to do this—I picked up a piece, so this is— you don't know much he loved this, and I broke it. The gasp. The Fiestaware. Then I broke another piece and I said let's all do this because—Jerry Robinson was his name—he said he wanted us to get angry. He wanted us to feel our anger, nothing pretty. Like we did— I can’t remember [inaudible] at his lover’s funeral, you know but he wanted us to get angry and feel our anger. And so there we were breaking dishes at the funeral in the sanctuary. And that anger— also I felt it again this morning when Chuck Lewis talked about smashing the light bulbs. Oh I just felt so alive. Did you feel it for a second? So unassuming should the anger and I thought oh this is why we did this panel, so that we can see that and feel it. And that's kind of when you asked Dwane about, you know, how do you do this. Anger is an important part of it. Find your anger. I know that's probably dysfunctional, but I swear to god that is how I got through it— that and you know [inaudible] but I think my anger has kept me alive as much as medical science you know.
Brian McKnight: I was trained as a buddy. I think probably a lot of us in this room were trained as hospice workers, as best could be done. And one of the men that I took under wing and brought to my home and spent time with, without me knowing it, asked his parents about if I would be the one who led his funeral, you know. So there are— and it was not unusual for people who were not clergy to be asked to be the person who spoke for them. And for those of you who don't know the time, what happened at the time his parents said to me that please do not say that he was gay or how he died. My first buddy that we buried, we had the same instructions: do not say that he was gay and do not say how he died. And one can get self-righteous in those situations and defy the will of the parents or you can figure out a way to do what needs to be done without anybody getting upset. So the second guy that I spoke for was a florist and his gay friends were back of the room and his great-aunts were in front of the room. And I talked about his uniqueness as a flower and how in bouquets you know we all come in different shapes and colors and sizes and the gay men were nodding their heads in the back of the room, the aunts we're thinking that this was quite colorful, how sweet. But it wasn't a time in which— in San Francisco was different than Boston, New York was different than Boston, and Boston was different than Cleveland, and you did what you could do and needed to do where you were with the needs of the people that you said you were there to help. So I didn't get angry. It's not my style, it's just never been. I do go underwater and scream. That's my scream room: water. But going to the question the man in the back asked about how do you handle the situation. We didn't have ACT UP in Boston because we kept the community informed from day one. I wrote a weekly column. I started a column to the gay community of Boston telling them what was— we knew— what we knew you know. What was the name, why was it called this, you know, what did— what do we think is going on, so that people didn't live in a vacuum of no information. And so the dynamics of a community, I think, create how you respond. But it's important to know that at that time, you just didn't talk about it without knowing or feeling that the needs of the parents and the needs of the family had to be taken into consideration.
[Our sincere apologies due to technical difficulties the remainder of this session was not recorded.]
Executive Producer: Mark Bowman
Director & Editor: AhSa-Ti Tyehimba-Form
Videographer: John Peckham
Copyright 2017 LGBT Religious Archives Network at Pacific School of Religion. All rights reserved.