Sunday, June 28, 2009

This Is Rich

Once again, Frank Rich brings it home with a wonderful Op-Ed on the gay rights movement ("40 Years Later, Still Second-Class Americans"):

It’s a press cliche that “gay supporters” are disappointed with Obama, but we should all be. Gay Americans aren’t just another political special interest group. They are Americans who are actively discriminated against by federal laws. If the president is to properly honor the memory of Stonewall, he should get up to speed on what happened there 40 years ago, when courageous kids who had nothing, not even a public acknowledgment of their existence, stood up to make history happen in the least likely of places.

His words are thoughtful and moving. But is it really possible that Rich -- who was knee-deep in the theater community at Harvard and even got invited to lunch as an undergrad by Stephen Sondheim(!) after writing a lengthy essay in the Crimson about the musical "Follies" -- "didn’t know a single person, student or teacher, male or female, in my entire Ivy League university who was openly identified as gay"?

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