Sunday, May 02, 2010

Larry Kramer: 'We Are Too Passive... Too Invisible... Too Unwilling to Demand Equality'

"I consider Larry Kramer’s perpetual insistence that we not sweep AIDS under the rug to be heroic. Others take an opposite view of a man whose voice has been the constant deafening siren of an ambulance since his days as a founder of both GMHC and ACT UP in the 1980s. In 2007, he said that Ronald Reagan is responsible for more deaths than Adolf Hitler."

Tony Adams writes:
Having read his book Faggots when it was new in 1978, I had decided he was not a great writer.

I changed that sour opinion many years later when I read his Florida based “Mrs. Teffilin,” a short story that is one of the best ever written.

When I told him this, Larry Kramer corrected my pronunciation. “Teh-FILL-in, not TEH-fuh-lin” he schooled this goy.

Larry Kramer continues to work on his 4,000 page history of the strife of homosexuality to be published in two volumes with the title “The American People,” a phrase often used by Ronald Reagan whom he despises.

He has been tackling this mammoth project off and on since 1978 and its destiny has become a contest between death and his publisher.

Kramer who tested positive for HIV in 1988 gives evidence that the publisher may win.

He survived a liver transplant in 2001, and uses his fresh bile to attack the same enemies.

“I don’t like Mr. Obama. He is just another in a long line of presidents who have dumped all over us. He is not honoring his campaign commitments. I really think he hates gay people and we are not dealing with this in an effective way. It’s nice that he wants to protect our right to hospital visitation but it’s no big deal.

“We are too passive and too invisible and too unwilling to demand our equality. This continues to be very painful for me. When I speak about this, people either say ‘He’s right’ or ‘There she goes again’. I’m used to it.”READ MORE