I have constantly to recalibrate the sense of unreality enveloping the marriage issue because the distance from reality seems to grow day by day. One of my touchstones is Richard Cohen’s column in the Washington Post, whenever he addresses the subject, as he just has again in his May 20 column. The occasion was the release of an HBO film, “The Normal Heart,” a movie version of Larry Kramer’s play about the beginning of the HIV-AIDS epidemic and the apparent indifference of President Ronald Reagan and New York Mayor Ed Koch. The air of unreality in this column could not be thicker.
We begin, of course, with his experience of homophobia as a mere lad of 16, when some yahoo told him about how he beat up homosexuals with brass doorknobs. In benighted America of that time, Cohen tells us, “we knew of racism and anti-Semitism,” but were really unaware of homophobia. I grew up in the 1950s, but I don’t really remember it being okay to beat up anyone with brass doorknobs. I didn’t meet the yahoo with whom Cohen was acquainted, so I can’t contradict him (but I do know that most violence against homosexuals is perpetrated by other homosexuals). (more...)
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