The Village Voice, December 28, 1993 Body Politics THE QUEERS IN THE STREET By Richard Goldstein Throughout the mayoral campaign, a small cadre of gay activists touted Rudy Giuliani. He's be better for the city, they argued, and no worse for gays. Rudy's queer minions were mostly in the movement's neoconservative wing, whose influence is felt less in activism than in clubhouse politics. While the two progressive gay clubs backed Dinkins, the Stonewall Democrats stayed conspicuously neutral. So did that club's Lancelot, Antonio Pagan. Finally, the New York Native, whose endorsements are handled by its chief political correspondent, the realtor and former tobacco flack Leonard Goldstein, who writes under the name of Thomas J. (a/k/a/"Stonewall") Jackson, backed Rudy. In the end, 68 per cent of voters who identified themselves as lesbian or gay chose Dinkins. But after the election, the neocons began to crow. "We have traded in the beautiful mosaic for the traditional melting pot," Goldstein proclaimed. "Let's see how it works." How it works, of course, is patronage; and Goldstein's agenda - like that of Pagan and his confreres at the Stonewall Club - is to replace the current crop of queers in city government with a crew of their own. This reflects the fact that politics, particularly as practiced by men, is war by other means. Which may explain the venom between queer progs and neocons, even though they agree on virtually every issue in gay politics. Where they disagree is on economic ideology and gender parity - which is to say, class and sexual politics. The obligation to deal with sexism on an institutional basis is the essence of what gay men of the right would call "politically correct." Yet not even this rift can explain the red-baiting invective Goldstein and Pagan regularly hurl against their progressive foes. To understand that, you have to consider the low status of neocons within the gay community. Gay activism is still dominated by a connection to progressive politics that goes back a century to the Fabian socialism o Carpenter and Wilde (not to mention the German Socialists, who enacted the first gay rights law). Without excusing homophobia on the left - a tradition that began with Marx himself - the fact is that progressives were the first politicians to embrace gay rights; even the concept of organizing homosexuals could only have occurred to a Communist like the founder of the Mattachine Society, Harry Hay. But success, like money, changes everything, and the gains of the gay movement have made it less costly for conservatives to come out. These folks have begun to make their mark in the Republican party's fragile left wing, as well as the Democratic party's socially conservative center. The gay movement stands to gain much from this bilateralism, though it will surely engender conflict over issues like abortion rights. Still, these conservatives, for the most part, lack the Stonewall Clubbers' bile. They haven't learned to practice scratch-and-sniff politics - in which you set out to destroy your natural allies and dozy up to your enemies for political gain. Unfortunately, from the look of things, the Giuliani administration is preparing to empower the Stonewall set, while ignoring both progressives, who represent the mainstream of gay politics, and the emergent gay conservatives. Which brings us to the all but secret meeting earlier this month between Giuliani and a group of gay service-providers. It was held in the apartment of Jeff Soref, board president of Gay Men's Health Crisis. Though Soref had raised money for Dinkins, he felt it was important to build bridges with the new mayor. But then, Giuliani aide (and now deputy mayor) Fran Reiter arrived with an entourage of gay politicos. "When she said she'd like to bring about 10 people who'd been helpful in the campaign, I said that was fine," explains Soref, adding "I didn't know who she was bringing." Reiter did not return phone calls from the Voice. Excluded from the meeting were prominent gay progs like Assemblymember Deborah Glick and City Councilmember Tom Duane. Also left out were Dick Dadey of the Empire State Pride Agenda, and Ellen Carton and Donald Suggs of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, frequent targets of Goldstein. Pagan, perhaps the most polarizing figure in gay politics, was nowhere to be seen. But present and accounted for was the Republican Log Cabin Club, along with former Koch aide Marvin Bogner and Marty Algaze, former president of - you guessed it - the Stonewall Democrats. Perhaps the most visible emblem of Rudy's new guard was transition teamer Christopher Lynn, who helped found the Stonewall Club in 1986, after Glick defeated him for president of the Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats. Lynn, whose name is frequently mentioned in Goldstein's column, along with the prefix "colorful lawyer," is that paper's attorney, as well as Pagan's. Queers of a feather flock together. Locked in mortal combat with gay progressives, these neocons have formed a hunting party of their own, and now they see the mother of all bears. Lynn is regarded as the frontrunner for human rights commissioner, a prospect Glick dreads because of what she calls his "insensitivity to sexism." When that agency's fate was broached at the Soref soiree, Lynn's eyes reportedly lit up. It may have been the evening's only glow. Several gay machers who were present say Giuliani skirted the major issues, agreeing to fund domestic-partner benefits (though he said he would have demanded givebacks from the municipal unions to cover costs). He did pledge to appear at a gay town meeting, but he wouldn't promise to keep the Human Rights Commission in operation, though it's the only agency that deals with antigay discrimination. Perhaps the most interesting moment was when Ninfa Segarra's name came up. She's no phobe, Rudy insisted; on condom distribution, she's more liberal than he is. That must have sent a chill up many spines, in the room and on the street below, where gay activists (many of them members of ACT UP) were assembled for a protest. As for Glick and Duane, they held a press conference earlier that day on the steps of City Hall, decrying Segarra's appointment as "a telling sign" of Giuliani's intentions. The contrast between this street scene and the gathering chez Soref suggests that the new mayor will assemble a small group of loyalists, fatten them up with access, and use them to drive a wedge into the community. It's not so different from the strategy he's pursuing in regard to other "hostile" minorities - and it may be politics as usual. The question, finally, isn't who represents us, but what they will swallow in exchange for the privilege. In that regard, it's worth considering a recent letter to Giuliani sent by the Reverend Rubin Diaz, the homophobic minister (and Giuliani backer) from the Bronx. Diaz endorses Chris Lynn for chair of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, because he has the ability to "look beyond an individual's race, sex, or sexual preference." That's precisely what the queers in the street fear most.