Kennedy a gay rights champion

[NickCole]

I don't think it's something that can be researched. I am talking about people's conversations in every day life.

If GRID ever entered "people's conversations in everyday life," it came and went very quickly. GRID was replaced with AIDS in 1982.

Ask others on JUB, or elsewhere, who were around in the early 80s how long GRID was used in people's conversations in everyday life. If at all. Among the people I knew we used GRID for less than a month, not even long enough to be comfortable saying it.

 

[NickCole]

http://www.pr-inside.com/aids-healthcare-foundation-mourns-kennedy-r1454617.htm

Yet another source giving Kennedy credit for way back in the day.

If Kennedy did something, I'd love to give him credit for it. If he did, it would be documented. Other elected official's efforts in 1982 are documented and Kennedy's later leadership alongside Orrin Hatch is well documented, it doesn't make sense that if Kennedy was "a leader" in dealing with AIDS in 1981, what he did specifically is not mentioned anywhere. None of the references linked here list a single specific, just vague "credit" for having been "a leader" in dealing with AIDS back to 1981.

Maybe the kind of people who blindly trust Obama are the same kind of people who blindly trust vague references like that. I am not. I was there and I know if Kennedy had been "a leader" in the fight against AIDS in 1981 I'd remember it and so would the history books, with specifics of what he supposedly did as "a leader" in 1981.

Glad to know now that at least in 1982 you (wish to have us believe you) lived in Massachusetts.

And how do you "know" that? Interesting to see how often what you claim to "know" is really "truthiness."

I never said I lived in MA in 1982. I wrote, "When I read Kennedy was speaking in NY, I figured since Kennedy had been pushing for health care reform he'd be a good one to approach," which indicates I was in NY.

It would be nice if drama queens would stop using JUB to aggrandize themselves. Last I checked, the thread is about Ted Kennedy, not "meetings" certain JUBers may or may not have had with him or what certain JUBers care to remember from a traumatic experience in the early 80s, when some of us were really young or not even yet born.

If you're not interested in hearing about something that happened when you were really young or not yet born, don't read it. Some here are interested and have encouraged me to share my experiences. I enjoyed reading Noah's contribution.

It's revealing that you think it's up to you to direct what others share about their personal experiences.

People connected to a gay rights group AND now an AIDS foundation have released statements regarding this... can they all be liars?

Some blindly believe vague comments that don't jive with documented evidence. I believe what I know and what's supported by evidence. Much has been written about AIDS and Kennedy's leadership is well documented. It begins several years after 1981. If you or anybody else can produce specifics of what Kennedy did as "a leader" on the AIDS front in 1981, let's see it. Absent that, it's just more of those empty words that some Obama supporters are so fond of.

 

[NickCole]

^^^ Wow! Toriko thanks for validating my claim!

Kudos to you!

Neither you nor your cohort has produced a single specific action that Kennedy supposedly took as "a leader" of the AIDS fight in 1981 or 82.

 

[NickCole]

It's pathologically sick that some always have a reason to tear another down because in their opinion so and so should have done more/different/not at all. The thing is even if so and so did something more/different/not at all, that same person would be whining about them still needing to do it a different way. I wonder what some of these people must be like in person.

If you're talking about me, my opinion about Kennedy and his reluctance to be involved in the AIDS crisis early on is complicated. He had just, in 1980, sought out the gay vote and pushed for gay rights to be included in the Democratic Platform. That was exciting and encouraging. A lot was exciting and encouraging for gays in 1980. Then overnight it all changed. Exciting and encouraging turned to sickness and death and being shunned. And most who had stood with us or sought us out, suddenly abandoned us. Our phone calls and letters weren't answered, our pleas for help were ignored. Kennedy was one of them. I was one of many who gave Kennedy a pass because he'd just lost his chance to ever be President and then his wife filed for divorce, which I figured had to be a very difficult time for him. Like some others at the time, I turned to Kennedy and when he didn't respond I looked elsewhere. Some years later, when he and Orrin Hatch teamed up to finally lead major government funding, I applauded what he did. I understand why some who were not in the thick of the mess in 1981 might say Kennedy was there for us from the beginning, because he WAS a leader in securing the first major government funding we'd been fighting for. But he did not do it in 1981 or 82 or 83 or 84 or 85 -- and those were long hard years for us.

But I will not give Kennedy --or anybody else-- credit for something he didn't do. And that's especially the case when it comes to the early years of AIDS because leadership from big names like Kennedy could have meant a very different outcome. We desperately needed money for research and treatment.

As I mentioned about the right wing talk radio hosts, it's pretty easy to point out problems and complain while sitting in an armchair doing nothing. It's a far different matter to put a pound of flesh into the game and get dirty in the process solving the problem.

Well sweetheart, whether or not you believe it, I put more than a pound of flesh into the AIDS crisis and got very dirty in the process of solving that problem. I was by no means alone, a lot of us were up and out of that armchair and fighting hard. We soothed our ailing friends, planned and attended dozens and dozens of memorial services, fought for funding and gave every resource we personally had. By 1991, despite having been a golden boy professionally and earning a lot of money in my 20s, I was virtually broke financially and pretty well broken emotionally. I tell you that not for sympathy, which I don't want, but to try to help you understand that the 1980s were not a time of ease, as you've experienced as a gay man, it was a time of crisis and hardship, and many of us stepped up, as I'm sure you would have if you'd been there.

 

[NickCole]

It seems to be a trend of Democratic candidates and those elected to pander to gays during the election and abandon them after elected/nominated. Too bad so many gay people buy this, sell their political souls to the Dems and never get anything for it.
It really sounds to me that TK used the gay vote to get Dems from Carter. He would of dropped gay rights if he went on to face Reagan or at minimum put it way in the background. He would of had to appear more center to win against Reagan.

Watching on TV Laura Ingram made a good point. With Americans leaning toward the right T Kennedy was just too far left leaning to ever be effective as a legislator. During the 80s he wanted higher taxes and less nukes, during the 90s he was against welfare reform and often went against Clinton and now he pimped the socialist public option. He just wasn't effective at actually getting laws passed. Other than the ryan white act which had bi-partisan support to begin with, what did ted kennedy actually get passed to benefit gay people?
What did he really champ into law for gay people?

Willy, it's just so damned complicated.

Blacks and gays have had support in our struggles from many sources, some have been passionate and principled and some have used us for their own gain, and sometimes it's a mixture of the two. (Women, OTOH, have had to pretty much do it on their own, which I still don't really understand but there it is.) And the Kennedys are smack in the thick of that.

Did JFK call Martin Luther King when he was in jail because Kennedy cared about the civil rights struggle and wanted to help? Or did he do it because it advantaged him in his own campaign for President, helping him secure the black vote? Maybe a combination of the two, or maybe just the latter.

And the same kind of stories can be found in gay liberation and gay rights. But in the end, in my opinion, what matters is results. Maybe that's because I've been disappointed so often when someone who really seemed to care broke their promises, and learned to celebrate victories even when someone like Orrin Hatch does the work to provide it.

The Kennedys have hurt a lot of people, there are many public accounts that show this and countless private ones. Some of the Kennedys have also done good things. As for Ted's contributions to gays, I believe it's slimmer than some gays like to think, but it's substantive. The main things he did was show us respect and legitimacy in 1980, which was very important because it made us feel good, feel included and taken seriously, and helped provide more fuel to what seemed at the time like an unstoppable trajectory to full and equal rights. (Feeling good is something today's genertion of gays grew up with, in spades, but those of us who were adults in 1980 had grown up with shame and denigration and legitimate concern about our prospects -- so Kennedy providing something big and public and national that made us feel good about ourselves was valuable. It was a different time: we weren't narcissists hungry for flattery, we'd been deprived and were gaining strength and we were hungry for nourishment.) And then later in the 80s he led the first major AIDS funding. I don't know if he did more but even if that's all he did, it's solid achievement that mattered and wasn't easy even if it seems so today.

As Ted said of his brother Bobby in his eulogy, I believe Ted "need not be idealized, or enlarged in death behond what he was in life." I believe what he did was substantive and deserves to be honored.

As for gays selling our souls to Dems and never getting anything for it, I agree that although it's not quite as extreme as that, it is true we always have had limited influence over elected officials. We need to fight hard for that influence, and specifically for the rights we want, which gays as a whole tend not to do. But in the early 80s, although many turned away from us when AIDS showed up, we had genuine support and action from elected officials like Ted Weiss in NY, and Phil Burton and Barbara Boxer and Henry Waxman in CA. They weren't big names and didn't have big power, but they didn't turn away, they remained involved with us and took action. The government funding that happened in those early AIDS years was because of Democrats like them.

 

[Apollo]

Laura Fucking Ingram? Thank you for quoting her. It explains alot. Why not also quote Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh? As of this point I can't take any of your posts seriously. Classic...

I stopped taking him seriously once he defended fundamentalist christians who would rather he not identify as a republican and die.

 

[NickCole]

So to you the HRC and AIDS Foundation are led by liars. They are just lying for reasons I'm guessing you have in mind. Care to share why these two special interests are lying about Kennedy's involvement in the early days of HIV?

You continue to falsely represent what I've said.

I never said those two men are lying.

Burden of proof. ...

If Senator Kennedy had been a leader of the AIDS fight in 1981 or 82 there would be some kind of documentation of it, of what he'd done, other than two men saying it for the first time in the past two days in the wake of his death.

Several books and magazine articles have been published about the history of AIDS. Kennedy's leadership is always mentioned beginning in 1986. He is not mentioned as one of the people who stepped up in 1981, 82, 83. Others are mentioned for that time period, Boxer, Weiss, Waxman, etc. It simply is not believable that everybody who's researched and written about it has left out Kennedy's "leadership" role in 81 and 82, included everyone else, and then recognized Kennedy's leadership in 86 onward.

Here's what amfAR has posted, which is a specific list of Kennedy's leadership and achievements regarding AIDS:

Highlights of Senator Kennedy’s Leadership on HIV/AIDS

• 1986: Sen. Kennedy sponsored legislation to establish a network of education and outpatient services for people living with HIV.
• 1987: As the new chairman of the U.S. Senate Health Committee, Se. Kennedy held the first ever congressional hearing on AIDS, which he said he decided to make the committee’s “top priority.”
• 1988: Sen. Kennedy successfully secured funding for the first substantial federal initiative related to AIDS treatment, including expanded home and community care for people living with HIV and AIDS, easier access to experimental drugs, and a new national commission to establish AIDS policy.
• 1990: Sen. Kennedy introduced with Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) the groundbreaking Ryan White CARE (Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency) Act, which provided emergency relief to 13 cities hardest hit by AIDS and also provided assistance to every state to develop effective and cost-efficient AIDS care programs. amfAR recognized both Hatch and Kennedy that year for their efforts to pass the CARE Act.
• 2000: Ryan White CARE Act reauthorized.
• 2003: Kennedy cosponsored an amendment to the FY2003 Budget Resolution that provided additional funding for the global effort to combat AIDS. The amendment increased funding by $200 million in 2002 and $500 million in 2003.
• 2006: Ryan White CARE Act reauthorized.
• 2009: amfAR honored Sen. Kennedy with its Award of Courage for Kennedy’s “forceful advocacy in the Senate for people living with HIV/AIDS.” Kennedy’s son Patrick, a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts, accepted on his father’s behalf at amfAR’s landmark Capitol Hill conference on AIDS.

http://www.amfar.org/community/article.aspx?id=7860&terms=kennedy

It begins in 1986, supporting what I've said all along.

And despite your penchant for "Cite?Link?" you can't link to anything Kennedy did about AIDS in 81 or 82.

This debate is like the others you and I have had. Human nature: people are consistent.

 

[opinterph]

When I read Kennedy was speaking in NY, I figured …

I am curious to know what month and year this event transpired.

 

[Apollo]

why are people debating when he started helping with AIDs research and prevention? just know he did, and he still kept it up throughout his entire career.

this wasn't some election time issue that most politicians go on with

 

[NickCole]

You said Jockboy was making something up---what he said is what those two men, representatives of two authorities who have a positive reputation, had said.

Not quite.

The quotes in the link he included in the OP could be interpreted differently than jockboy87 did. I know when I first read it I interpreted it differently. For example this:

“From early days of AIDS crisis, he was there for us,” recalled Smith. “He was battling for us, taking on a then very powerful Jesse Helms, who wanted to see us in concentration camps. God only knows what would have happened if Senator Kennedy hadn’t been there.”

Smith is loose with his words but I understand where they come from. For example, some people did actually say PWAs should be in concentration camps but Helms didn't use that term, he said, "Somewhere along the line we're going to have to quarantine people with AIDS." That was 1987. "Early days of AIDS crisis" is a vague reference, but Kennedy didn't take on Jesse Helms before then; in fact I don't remember him taking on Helms until 1988 when Helms famously opposed the Hatch-Kennedy legislation, but I could be wrong about that. Now, since this was the first time anybody seriously took on Helms about AIDS and the first time Congress passed major AIDS legislation, what Kennedy did WAS important and definitely deserves mention and appreciation. And maybe some people would charitably characterize 1986 or 88 as "early days of AIDS crisis." I would not. Dozens of my friends were already dead, the first had gone in 1982. And in any event, appropos to jockboy87's rewriting of what he'd read in that article, nobody was still calling AIDS "GRID" in 1986. It was jockboy87's reference to GRID, which placed it in a specific time period of 1982 or MAYBE 83, that made it certainly made up. These few years might seem a quibble but each year was 365 days and nights filled with sickness, death, grief, requests that turned to pleas and begging and finally angry demands for help from elected officials. Nobody of Kennedy's stature was "there for us" in 1981, 82, 83, etc.

Nobody here knows what is referred to in the second quote, the one you linked to. The author's not here to answer questions, and since he can't be pressed to back up HIS claim and it's not verfiable, it's useless as support for jockboy87's. I don't know if he's misinformed or what he has in mind (June 1981?? Please!), and I wouldn't characterize it as lying when I have no reason to believe he's lying. Linking to that quote as support is tantamount to linking to an op-ed column because it's nothing more than a man's conclusion; support would include specifics of what Kennedy did that led to the author's conclusion.

Please, please tell me how "making something up" isn't "lying"? I know euphemisms are a way for you to get around the CoC, but they aren't all that clever when they are transparent.

One isn't necessarily "lying" when one makes something up. This is a case in point. I think Jockboy87 believed he was telling the truth, believed he truthfully rewrote what he believed he read. But when I corrected him he --and naturally you, with your animosity towards me-- attacked me rather than correcting his error. I think he still isn't lying, just unwilling to see the truth.

You've just recently adopted "leadership", btw, because of the AIDS Foundation statement. IIRC, "leadership" wasn't a word used by the OP or his link.

You added the quote and link, and jockboy87 thanked you, without qualification, for "verifying" his claim. So I assumed that meant jockboy87 adopted everything in that quote, including "leadership," to his claim.

Neither was "achievement". You've found yourself in a losing predicament here...

I believe "achievement" was implied in both quotes. I think if the quotes were accurate, if Kennedy had been there for us in 1982, been a "leader and architect of enlightened AIDS policy and funding," that would be a commendable achievement. In fact I think it was a commendable achievement even in 1988. If you believe my use of "achievement" mischaracterizes what appeared in those two quotes or in jockboy87's claim, tell me why.

 

[NickCole]

I am curious to know what month and year this event transpired.

I have no idea!

This was a quarter century ago, and back then (and for many years following) I was going out virtually every night to some event or obligation.

And frankly it's not among my most memorable encounters. Kennedy listened, seemingly intently, to what I told him, smiled with appropriate compassion, gladhanded me, patted my arm with a trembling hand, expressed concern and continued on his way. I'm sure he did that thousands of times over the years. I complained to friends about how I felt brushed off by him (we complained a lot about that in those early days, before we stopped being surprised that nobody cared about 20-somethings dying from a disgusting disease) and moved on. I haven't any idea what month and year it was.

 

[opinterph]

I haven't any idea what month and year it was.

Fair enough. My initial impression was that you correlated the event to 1982, but perhaps it was later than that – when the magnitude of the crisis had become more obvious.

Thanks for responding to my inquiry.

 

[NickCole]

I've now heard from a number of gay rights leaders who were around back then that he did. It's their word against yours really.

No not really.

There's documentation of everything that happens in the House and Senate. The actions of Barbara Boxer, Henry Waxman, Ted Weiss is all documented there and in books that cover AIDS in those early years. Their actions are documented on the Internet as well. Kennedy's name does not appear as a leader back when AIDS was called GRID. Explain why someone as famous and powerful as Ted Kennedy, who had been the first to include gay rights in the Democratic Platform in 1980, is not included in the documentation of who did what regarding AIDS in 1981, 82, 83, but does appear later when he pushed through AIDS legislation. Explain it so it's believable.

It's not my word against theirs, it's verifiable evidence against a gaping nothingness.

If that involves a personal anti-Kennedy agenda, then I can't say that I am all too surprised.

Then you're not paying attention. I've commended Kennedy for the work he did and what he achieved on behalf of AIDS funding. It was monumentally important, and I've said so. I've been specific about it and unqualified in my praise of those accomplishments and the appreciation I believe he earned from gays. That doesn't jive with your suggestion that I have a personal anti-Kennedy agenda.

 

[Apollo]

Because I had made a statement about Kennedy's early support of AIDS that NickCole has reason to believe is not true. I was starting to believe that it wasn't myself, until the contemporary testimony started coming in from gay rights leaders that he had been advocating for a solution to AIDS since the very earliest days.

Oh, well then go on with your bad self.

 

[noah617]

Good Lord Willy why don't you give yourself a day off?

 

[opinterph]

Here is another first hand recollection of Senator Kennedy, extolling his support for the gay community back in the early 80s when most wouldn't touch us with a ten foot pole …

In the early 1980's, as the AIDS epidemic began, nearly every elected official ran from us, scared of the political ramifications of the epidemic. Teddy ran toward us …

In the early 1980's, at my invitation and with the assistance of Bob Shrum, Senator Kennedy spoke at a MECLA Black Tie fundraising dinner in Los Angeles. MECLA was the first LGBT PAC in history. The place was packed and the entire room was in awe that Senator Kennedy would break bread with us when most politicians wouldn't accept our money or return our calls.

[David Mixner]

 

[NickCole]

You have explained the most inconclusive of quotes. How would you then explain this one:

This is the response I've already posted :

Nobody here knows what is referred to in the second quote, the one [Toriko] linked to. The author's not here to answer questions, and since he can't be pressed to back up HIS claim and it's not verfiable, it's useless as support for jockboy87's. I don't know if he's misinformed or what he has in mind (June 1981?? Please!), and I wouldn't characterize it as lying when I have no reason to believe he's lying. Linking to that quote as support is tantamount to linking to an op-ed column because it's nothing more than a man's conclusion; support would include specifics of what Kennedy did that led to the author's conclusion.

What Weinstein implies, that "Kennedy has been a consistent, unwavering leader and architect of enlightened AIDS policy and funding" since June 1981 is utterly absurd. NOBODY in Congress took legislative action regarding AIDS in June 1981, or indeed in all of 1981 so far as I recall or can find documentation of anywhere.

What he implies is not what happened. If Kennedy HAD used his name and power to lead and design enlightened AIDS policy and funding in 1981 the epidemic would have gone VERY differently.

I don't know what Weinstein was saying other than I assume he was trying to give Ted Kennedy the appreciation he'd earned and, like so many others today, embellished it. Like Liz Taylor was in Hollywood, Ted Kennedy was the first important person in Washington who took action to secure major funding, and even if he didn't do it until 1988, him being the first is very meaningful. As frustrated as we were that it took so long, we all were very appreciative that at last someone of Kennedy's stature was leading substantive government funding. But as I said in an earlier post, I agree with what Ted Kennedy said about his brother Bobby in his eulogy, that Kennedy "needn't be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life." I think what he did, what he really did, deserves recognition for what it was, not making up something that is not true.

 

[NickCole]

Your story about getting screwed by Kennedy was convincing enough.

I didn't say I was screwed by Kennedy. If Kennedy had made a specific promise of action in exchange for something from me and I'd come through and he hadn't, then I'd say he screwed me. But it was a brief encounter wherein he expressed concern and said "we'll" do something about it and then didn't. I don't see that as a story about getting screwed, just being brushed off by a politician.

 

[opinterph]

NOBODY in Congress took legislative action regarding AIDS in June 1981, or indeed in all of 1981 so far as I recall or can find documentation of anywhere.

What he implies is not what happened. If Kennedy HAD used his name and power to lead and design enlightened AIDS policy and funding in 1981 the epidemic would have gone VERY differently.

I think in the early years AIDS was considered a “syndrome” – not an epidemic. It was not well understood and had not yet affected a significant number of people. In 1981 only 234 people had died from the illness. There have already been approximately 552 deaths from the swine flu in the US and though the risk associated with swine flu is understood, it is not yet labeled an epidemic.

 

[NickCole]

I think in the early years AIDS was considered a “syndrome” – not an epidemic. It was not well understood and had not yet affected a significant number of people. In 1981 only 234 people had died from the illness. There have already been approximately 552 deaths from the swine flu in the US and though the risk associated with swine flu is understood, it is not yet labeled an epidemic.

You're right.

Thanks for the correction.