http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=7095
by Paul Hogarth
Jul. 02‚ 2009
For the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, local activist
and Beyond Chron writer Tommi Avicolli-Mecca has written Smash the
Church, Smash the State: The Early Years of Gay Liberation. In a
collection of 48 essays by 35 writers, Avicolli-Mecca documents the
LGBT movement's radical past and how it changed in the 60's from
timid requests for basic tolerance, to demanding a full-scale
revolution of American society. Although at times repetitive, the
book illustrates the vision of this movement's pioneers who
believed that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people could
never achieve full civil rights without upending capitalism, breaking
down the walls of religion and challenging the basic gender hierarchy
that has dominated Judeo-Christian mores. It is a manifesto of sorts,
and Avicolli-Mecca starts in the preface by lamenting the queer
community's current obsession with gays in the military and gay
marriage. But in its strongest moments, Smash the Church, Smash the
State provides insight about the early gay movement where even
seasoned activists will learn something new.
Everyone in the San Francisco activist scene today knows Tommi
Avicolli-Mecca or as many call him, "Tommi the Commie." At Beyond
Chron, we are privileged to have him as a columnist (we jokingly call
him our "religion editor") as he balances op-ed writing with a
full-time job counselling tenants at the Housing Rights Committee.
Tommi is an eloquent voice against gentrification in the Castro, and
in 2006 many progressives urged him to run against Supervisor Bevan
Dufty. But as Tommi told me at the time, he is more of a "smash the
church, smash the state" kind of guy making the book title appropriate.
It's often said that white people didn't listen to Martin Luther
King, until Malcolm X came around and scared them. One can read Smash
the Church, Smash the State and conclude that the Gay Liberation
Front failed (a "socialist revolution" never came), but taking a
broader perspective led me to the opposite conclusion. The book
repeatedly mentions how on July 4, 1968 a group of well-dressed and
well-behaved "homophiles" (the word "gay" was considered too bold)
marched outside Philadelphia's Independence Hall to demand rights
but no one cared. It wasn't until June 1969, when angry queers in
Greenwich Village rioted with the police that mainstream America
started to take note.
Avicolli-Mecca's book is a collection of first-person essays by
veterans of the radical gay movement, much of which revolves around
ultra-left groups who spend too much time debating about how to
transform society. I was really struck at how short-lived so many of
these organizations were. As Tom Ammiano writes, "Bay Area Gay
Liberation only lasted for one year too many sectarians ruin the
stew but what a year it was! We took to the streets. We picketed.
It was exhilarating and effective." Forty years ago, many of these
groups provided a "family" for the gay men and women who were kicked
out of the house. The goal was not to be accepted as "normal," but to
overthrow normal institutions like capitalism and the Church which,
to put it mildly, is far easier said than done.
One thing the book could have used more was the connection of queers
with communities of color, as the media too often presumes all gay
people are white. Susan Stryker's take on the Compton Cafeteria Riots
and earlier transgender uprisings in the 60's brings this into
perspective: "many of the queer people who patronized Dewey's were
themselves people of color. They were not 'borrowing' a tactic
developed by another movement." The anthology's final essay by Merle
Woo (Stonewall Was a Riot Now We Need a Revolution) also gives
insight, but analysis by more voices would have been helpful.
We've all heard stories about how Sixties groups like Students for a
Democratic Society (SDS) had their sexist tendencies (women were
mostly asked to just serve coffee, which helped prompt the feminist
movement), but Smash the Church, Smash the State also describes how
gays tackled homophobia in the anti-war movement. Several essays deal
with confronting the Black Panthers' use of the word "faggot," and a
long letter by Huey Newton that directly confronted that tension
and called on the Black Panthers to make common cause with "the
homosexuals" was enlightening. Queer socialists also struggled how
to address Communist Cuba which viewed homosexuality as the result
of "decadent capitalism," and ostracized its queer population as
being undesirable.
On the other hand, there are many essays in the book from lesbian
activists who felt the men in the Gay Liberation Front did not
treat them as equals. Many women created their separate
organizations, some focusing on female empowerment while others
choosing to take a "separatist" tack that many now acknowledge as
unrealistic. There are many insightful opinions about how the queer
rights movement was meant to undo the gender power structure in our
society, but that lesbians continued to struggle with this dynamic.
The book's final chapter ("40 Years After Stonewall") questions what
has become of the queer rights movement with the common consensus
that it has become materialistic and mainstream, seeking to join
institutions like marriage and the military that early activists
abhorred. Tommi writes the book's preface with an almost fatalistic
account, as he looks back nostalgically to a time when queer
liberation was about transforming society and overthrowing
capitalism. But those who bemoan that transition can find solace in
Don Kilhefner's essay that reminds us "political winds can change
very quickly," or Doug Ireland's analysis that the change mimicked
our country's 40-year rightward drift.
There are many who now say the American era of conservatism is over
and we are now seeing a progressive transformation. As the queer
community elaborates where it is going, Smash the Church, Smash the
State should not be viewed as a mere historical anthology but as a
critical examination of where to go from here …
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