by Dwight Cathcart | Nov 11, 2016 | Hillary Rodham Clinton, The future, The Myth of Sisyphus
We’ve always known that nothing lasts forever, despite the fairytale, whose last words are “happily ever after.” We know that everything changes. Decay is real. Divorce is real. We have known that this time in our lives was going to end. Barack Obama’s term will end...
by Dwight Cathcart | Nov 6, 2016 | A single man, Adam in the Morning, Anger, APA, Ceremonies, Charles Howard, Coming out, Coming to terms with the past, Fighting, Fighting Back, Gay Pride, Publishing, Race Point Light, Stonewall Riots, The future, Winter Rain
At the time I started writing my first gay political novel, I had only been out for 24 months, and I was steeping in the literature of gay political theory. The weekend that Charles Howard was murdered (July 7, 1984)—he was the man on whom Bernie Mallett of Ceremonies...
by Dwight Cathcart | Jul 26, 2016 | Gay Pride, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Marriage, Queer, Sexuality, Stonewall Riots, The future, The Gay Revolution, Transgender
Chris Hayes is said to have said, “Great political theatre,” just after Bernie Sanders proposed that the nomination of Hillary Rodham Clinton be accepted by the convention and just after the roll call of states was concluded. But it was much more than that. As Andrea...
by Dwight Cathcart | Jul 26, 2016 | Celebration, Fighting Back, Freeing yourself of it, Hillary Rodham Clinton, The future, Victory
I don’t know of anything so deeply moving as to be here, now, in front of the TV, at 5:46 in the afternoon on July 26, 2016, watching the roll call of states as the assembled delegates from the Democratic Party in the United States cast their votes, one state after...
by Dwight Cathcart | Jun 13, 2016 | Courage, Courage, Fighting Back, Orlando massacre, The future, Transgender, Walking wounded
It was one of those surpassingly beautiful scenes in late spring in New England—the sun gone now, the sky at dusk beyond the buildings still glowing white, and the people, residents of Boston, slowing down in crossing Copley Square and joining the group of men and...
by Dwight Cathcart | Jun 10, 2016 | Assimilation, Barack Obama, Celebration, Coming out, Coming to terms with the past, Fighting Back, Freeing yourself of it, Queer, SCOTUS, Sexuality, The future, The Gay Revolution, Transgender
Last night, Rachel Maddow interviewed Elizabeth Warren. Warren endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Presidency and, toward the end of her comments, spoke of Clinton’s character and what she has shown through the long primary fight. (counter 8:00) She won because she’s a...
by Dwight Cathcart | Jun 7, 2016 | Coming to terms with the past, Courage, Generational Divide, The future
It is 10:43 in the evening. C and I spent the day doing errands—the hardware store for screws for hooks in the utility closet in the back stairs—and chores, principally laundry. It is a warm evening, all the windows are open, and the neighborhood is quiet. After I...
by Dwight Cathcart | Feb 29, 2016 | Fighting Back, SCOTUS, The future
Bruce Hay, a faculty member in the Law School at Harvard, has written an essay on Antonin Scalia, published on Salon. See here. He speaks of being a “naive young fool,” when he first took a job as one of Scalia’s law clerks. He concludes this way: He [Scalia] died as...
by Dwight Cathcart | Feb 25, 2016 | Barack Obama, Coming to terms with the past, Federal Court Cases, SCOTUS, The future
At first, writers found good things to say of Antonin Scalia. From the day of his death (February 13, 2016), TV commentators took the he-celebrated-the-rule-of-law-despite-his-conservatism route when writing obituaries or appreciations of him. They said he was...
by Dwight Cathcart | Dec 30, 2015 | AIDS, Coming to terms with the past, Compulsion of time, Courage, eBooks, Fighting Back, Gay literature, Generational Divide, Race Point Light, Sexuality, Stonewall Riots, The future
This excerpt is from late in Race Point Light. The narrator is Fair Shaw. He is just arriving at the Boatslip, a hotel on the water in Provincetown that hosts a tea dance every afternoon during the summer. It is June, 2004. Shaw is with his partner, Chris, and their...
by Dwight Cathcart | Dec 20, 2015 | Coming out, Compulsion of time, Courage, Fighting Back, Gay kid, Generational Divide, language, The future
In the last day or two, I have been buying kids clothes, gifts for grandchildren, and this has caused me to think about kids coming out. Many people think that most kids are going to grow up to be straight, and they continue to think that until the boy or girl tells...
by Dwight Cathcart | Oct 25, 2015 | Barack Obama, Books, Coming to terms with the past, DOMA/DADT, Don't Tell Me to Wait, The future, The Gay Revolution
Two books on LGBTQ subjects have been published in the last few weeks that respond to an LGBTQ need to study ourselves and our past. Lillian Faderman’s The Gay Revolution, September 2015, covers the period between 1945 and May 2012, and Kerry Eleveld’s Don’t Tell me...
by Dwight Cathcart | Mar 16, 2015 | Celebration, Coming to terms with the past, Fighting Back, Freedom, The future
“A new survey out this week shows that support for marriage equality is at 59% with just 33% opposed. This means that marriage equality is slightly more popular than the Pope.” Matt Baume, American Foundation for Equal Rights. The link is to a video, with Matt Baume...
by Dwight Cathcart | Jan 1, 2015 | Marriage cases, The future
So, this is the end of it.The best year ever for gay people (except for 1969 the year they rioted at the Stonewall, or 1996 the year they discovered protease inhibitors and HIV cocktails, and some others, like 1912 the year Marcel Proust first submitted In Search of...
by Dwight Cathcart | Oct 29, 2014 | The future
On May 8, 2012, Barack Obama became the first sitting US president to affirm his support of marriage equality. After that time, the Department of Justice announced it would no longer defend the DOMA before the Supreme Court, and, in 2013, the Supreme Court overturned...