What a horrific week! There was the National Religious Liberties Conference held in Des Moines. That’s where Pastor Kevin Swanson gave that rousing “kill the gays” speech. Republican presidential hopefuls Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, and Bobby Jindal attended. They claimed they didn’t know about the pastor’s extreme homophobic views. They lied. That’s why they were there. Meanwhile, they haven’t distanced themselves from his clarion to exterminate LGBT people. Neither did any of their GOP colleagues days later at the debate in our fair city. The gay Log Cabin Republicans did, however, attack Hillary Clinton for her allegedly insufficient record of LGBT support. Then, there was the Mormon Church spouting their own insanity, attacking LGBT apostates and their children. And all of this transpired in the shadow of the tragedies of Sinai, Beirut and Paris where terrorists mowed down victims precisely for their apostasy. Apparently, no one noticed the hypocrisy and bothered to send even a soul-searching tweet about the sick irony of decrying radical Islamists for killing apostates while endorsing it for good Christians.
But, the same evening Paris was in the throes of its attack, I attended the Gay Athletic Milwaukee Metro Association’s (GAMMA) Annual Meeting. GAMMA is one of Milwaukee’s oldest LGBT organizations. Founded 37 years ago, it provided a social, recreational and cultural outlet for a lonely group of Milwaukeeans who may not have had much of a gay life otherwise. Many were closeted. Some were married and struggling with their identities as, to use the euphemism du jour, apostates. One told me his story of being outed back in the late 1960s while a University of Wisconsin student somewhere in the countryside. His dorm mates told the dean and he was promptly expelled. His parents had him institutionalized and insisted he be lobotomized but, mercifully, the doctors refused. He made it to Milwaukee and a somewhat more accepting environment. There are happier stories among the members. One couple recently celebrated their 56th anniversary; another, their 64th.
Listening to the GAMMA president’s address that night I realized just how significant this organization was to its members back in those dark days. Perhaps less consciously, it continues to be today. Members (between 100 and 150 over the years) have come and gone but as many as half that number participate in any given activity. There’s an upcoming event at the Skylight Music Theatre on Thursday, Dec. 3 called Be OUT at Skylight. Now out and about, GAMMA members have attended the event since its inception a few seasons ago. Then there’s the upcoming annual holiday party, hiking, monthly sheepshead nights (it’s Wisconsin after all), a cooking group and lots more.
Perhaps without even being aware of it, they have formed a club that is much more a part of their physical and mental well-being than they may realize. Perhaps today it is still, like it was for those members in its first years, a means to escape that mad, mad, mad, mad world and be able to rely on the kindness of friends and strangers to negotiate the outside.
