Subject: Rotello - final column
From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 16 Jul 1995 12:14:49 -0400

New York Newsday - Sunday, July 16, 1995 
RINGING BELL FOR GAY RIGHTS 
by Gabriel Rotello
	New York - Last week, hurrying through sweltering Herald Square in the late
afternoon, I was startled when the old statuary group at the square's north
end suddenly sprang to life. Pulleys pulled and gears meshed and, amid a
flurry of startled pigeons, two bronze workmen struck a huge bell, which
tolled the hour. I've lived in New York twenty years, many of them near that
square, but I had never seen those statues move. In fact, I had no idea the
old contraption even worked. Intrigued, I stopped and read the engraving.
	The figures had originally stood atop the New York Herald building, after
which Herald Square is named. The New York Herald was one of the greatest
newspapers of its day, and when it died the statues were moved down to the
square, to remind Gotham of what it had irreplaceably lost. Now, decades
later, a different and indifferent city clambered by, oblivious to the frozen
workmen tolling the Herald's forgotten bell. Their clanging startled the
pigeons and me and no one else. I hurried on.
	Perhaps to be forgotten is the fate of all newspapers that die. Perhaps that
is the fate of this one. But for many lesbian and gay people, New York
Newsday has earned a living place in our history. Because New York Newsday,
in its effort to keep the faith with the people of the city it served, was
the first and (so far) only New York daily to hire a gay person to write a
regular op-ed column about issues pertaining to homosexuals. In so doing, it
made a mark that will live, if not in bronze, certainly in hearts and minds.
	The gay struggle is the civil rights story of this era. No major newspaper
can avoid the issue by ignoring it. Not to present lesbian and gay voices on
a regular basis is as much a statement as to present them. That's what I
argued when I wrote to the editors of this paper suggesting they institute a
weekly op-ed column by a gay journalist. To my astonishment, they responded
immediately and positively and the rest, as they say, is history. 
	Although New York Newsday ran my column for two and a half years, it never
explicitly endorsed my opinions. It never offered to. I never asked it to.
And in fact, its editors went out of their way to present opinions opposite
my own. In all cases, they seemed to be saying: This is our city, in its full
diversity. We'll present it. You deal with it.
	After decades of invisibility, gay people gladly dealt with it. But for me,
the thrill of writing such a column was sometimes also an education in
disappointment. When I began, I naively hoped I might become the public voice
of my gay and lesbian generation. I quickly learned that such a thing can
never be. There is no such thing as a representative "gay column," anymore
than there is a representative "black column" or "woman's column." There are
simply human voices in the great cacophony of life. It is certainly good
journalism for newspapers to take note of history and demography when they
present such voices, but those voices do not, and cannot, represent anybody
but themselves.
	That lesson hit home when I realized that, no matter how hard I tried, I
could not possibly speak for lesbians, who forms worlds, and deserve voices,
of their own. It hit home hardest when I took on controversial positions
within the gay world, especially the issue of unsafe sex in commercial sex
establishments. My stand made me very unpopular among people I admire and
consider friends. I had to decide which is more important. To call it like I
see it. Or to remain silent and keep those friendships. 
	I called it the way I saw it. I don't think I was wrong. I know I lost a lot
of friends. 
	Now, having lost them, I will wake up tomorrow without the public voice to
win them back. But although I mourn this paper, I will not mourn that voice,
because I know this much: Other voices will follow, and when they do I will
have the satisfaction of knowing - as those who made this newspaper great
will have the satisfaction of knowing - that those other voices follow us. 
	The world, to quote "Angels in America," spins only forward. We rise. Most
lesbians and gay men would not recognize the names of the editors who willed
and coaxed this column into existence, but thanks in large part ot them, we
have good reason to take faith in this:
	We are not alone. There will be ups and downs, progress and setbacks.
Throughout it all: We rise. 

(Gabriel's column, which appeared in New York Newsday every Thursday, ceases
with today's final edition of the paper. His email address is [email-masked])