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'Awful Middle-Class Queens'
Clockwise, from left: Getty Images (2); AP Photo; Getty Images
That’s what out-of-the-closet actor Rupert Everett called other gay men who want to get married and adopt children. Kevin Sessums talks to Larry Kramer, founding member of ACT-UP Peter Staley, and comedienne Kate Clinton about how they feel about that.
Rupert Everett has perfect timing in his portrayal of Charles Condomine in the current Broadway revival of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit. But his own timing was a bit off last week when I interviewed him for The Daily Beast. Just as the dapper Brit was dismissing the whole idea of gay marriage, America—at least the parts of it that contain the states of Iowa and Vermont—was about to be swept with what is becoming its weekly dose of social change. It made Everett’s limpid opinions rather quaint.
“Gay politics? What gay politics? I don’t see any gay politics. I see a few lazy, torpid, unimaginative—certainly passionless—‘organizations’ that maintain they fight for us when what they do is relatively useless.”
“Marriage and babies?” he thundered at me over his grilled artichokes while we were eating a pre-theatre dinner. “Please. I want to be illegal. I want to live outside the mainstream. These awful middle-class queens—which is what the gay movement has become—are so tiresome. It’s all Abercrombie & Fitch and strollers. Everybody has the right to do what they want to do, but still...”
He paused—artfully peeled an artichoke—then pounced once more. “And I think this surrogacy thing is crap. It is utterly hideous. I think it’s egocentric and vain. These endless IVF treatments people go through. I mean, if you are meant to have babies, then great. But this whole idea of two gay guys filling a cocktail shaker with their sperm and impregnating some grim lesbian and then it gets cut out is just really weird. If I did have the impulse to be a parent, I would adopt—or foster. But this whole thing of forcing the idea of parenthood and marriage on us gay men is so bogus.”
Dear Rupert, I wanted to warn him, you better be careful or your nickname in certain younger gay circles may become Auntie Diluvian. Everett is about to turn 50, but age is not the barometer for political passion. Peter Staley, approaching 50 himself, was one of the founding members of ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) back in the 1980s and led a demonstration that shut down the New York Stock Exchange. He went on to found TAG (Treatment Action Guerillas, which morphed into Treatment Action Group) as well as the Web site AIDSmeds.com. He even spearheaded building the gigantic condom that he and fellow activist wrapped around Jesse Helms' house in 1991, in an homage to a Greenpeace action. In a recent blog entry on AIDSmeds.com, he finally revealed that it was David Geffen who funded that bit of guerilla theatre.
“I couldn’t have given a shit about gay marriage,” Staley, an old boyfriend, tells me. “But it was our opponents who made this an issue. Our national gay organizations sure didn’t want to get involved in it. It all started on the local level in Massachusetts with a few couples insisting to be treated equally—and I don’t think any of them were wearing Abercrombie & Fitch. It was 20 years ago when Andrew Sullivan wrote the first cover story on gay marriage for The New Republic. But it was only after the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that the right-wing became so enraged. My own blood started to boil when they started questioning my worthiness as a person. Their whole argument is that I am less than they are. What did they expect? Of course, we were going to fight back. We’ve won this in a generational sense.”
“Gay marriage will be the norm one day. Look at Nate Silver’s statistics on his 538 Web site. I’m quite impressed too with how our victory was won in Vermont. It was all very Obama-esque. The win there repudiated the ACT UP model. It was all about grassroots organizing. But just because I’ve called their tactics Obama-esque doesn’t mean I think we should be patient with Obama himself. If he doesn’t come out for gay marriage by the campaign in 2012, then we should be demonstrating full-force at all his rallies.”
Yet isn’t this all a kind of gay-rights Stockholm syndrome played out in political terms?
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Kevin Sessums is the author of the New York Times bestseller Mississippi Sissy, a memoir of his childhood. He was executive editor of Andy Warhol's Interview magazine and a contributing editor of Vanity Fair and Allure. He is a contributing editor of Parade. His new memoir, I Left It on Mountain will be published by St. Martins Press.
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Kevin Sessums is the author of the New York Times bestseller Mississippi Sissy, a memoir of his childhood. He was executive editor of Andy Warhol's Interview magazine and a contributing editor of Vanity Fair and Allure. He is a contributing editor of Parade. His new memoir, I Left It on Mountain will be published by St. Martins Press.
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Kevin Sessums is the author of the New York Times bestseller Mississippi Sissy, a memoir of his childhood. He was executive editor of Andy Warhol's Interview magazine and a contributing editor of Vanity Fair and Allure. He is a contributing editor of Parade. His new memoir, I Left It on Mountain will be published by St. Martins Press.
smdunne
"I've always felt our one goal should be to make every left-handed, single, senior African-American woman healthy, happy, and safe. And that alone would mean that a lot of systems were in place."
What?
surfer12
Lighten up, Kevin Sessums: Rupert Everett was just having a few laughs, making a couple of acid points for effect, and just trying to get us think about why the gay movement has become so boringly conventional.
finderj
On the isue of gay marriage....
I am absolutely in favor of legal adults, of legally sound mind, being treated equally under the law in all civil contract. including marriage.
If anybody wants to assume the legally binding responsibilities of marriage, let 'em.
tomalhe
When is the last time Rupert Everett's opinion mattered on anything? Perhaps he was influential in any manner of gay realm when he was promoting My Best Friend's Wedding in 1997, but seriously, go back to quality work like Shrek 4.
nickguest11
First, let's be clear, their is nothing middle class about Mr. Staley or Mr. Kramer they both have money, Mr Staley is of the manor born. Mr. Kramer's brother helped sent him up for life. I think the Brits just like to take the piss out of people. I admire Rupert for his vinegary honesty and the balls to say what he thinks. I think Mr. Sussum is unfair and bitchy in his characterization. Don't judge, let the reader do it, first rule of good journalism.I agree with Rupert to a point, I would however like to be legal. The sexual outlaw thing is fun in bed, but in reality it's nice to have a tax break. We as a species have bred ourselves into an octo-mom frenzy and if we continue to do so we won't have a planet for any of us.
Dreamer4Ever
As my dad says, "they want to get married, let 'em get married: it should be as hard for them to get a divorce as it is for everyone else."
When all are equal in the eyes of allimony, child custody and property laws, that, my friends, will be a great day for America.
JamesAnthonyc
First off; the seriousness in which one should take Rupert Everett's completely irrelevant babble should amount to about the seriousness in which anal bleaching kit you decide to use weekly. This article is boring and OVERLY pretentious. As if written by some crazed rupert everett fan... Rupert Everett is NOT a player in my gay rights, in fact his life compares nothing to mine and although MAYBE a 'middle class gay' (which i'm sure he refers to everyone but himself as. ass.) I certainly don't see this freak fighting for my causes, a few noble ones I might add. Anyway. Irrelevant article if there ever was one.
Banjo1
Repeat the arguments now against group marriage or wedlock between species. Or are there anymore?
Beagledog
I just like hearing from another gay-faggot-queen-whatever with a strong opinion that isn't so damn overly warm and fuzzy. That doesn't mean I don't care that others (than me) want to get married and have kids, but we all don't want that it's nice that Everett will just say what the f*** he feels.
Aranxa
From the headline I thought this was a story about where I grew up.
TheMarshal
"Auntie Diluvian" priceless!!
marriage for gays?
why? haven't they suffered enough?
Bertilak
Clearly the people interviewed by this article don't have much knowledge or respect for the difference between what religion and culture calls "marriage" and the valuable and desirable legal protections offered to marriage under civil law, a.k.a. "civil marriage." Lots of people who say they support "civil unions" think that they support the legal protections of marriage without the name, but in fact only "marriage" as defined by civil law--separate from any cultural or religious concern--can provide those protections. If that were clearer then a lot of people of every sort and condition would be a lot happier.
rivercityvibe
Am I the only person who finds Kevin Sessums' writing irritatingly prissy and mannered?
idiotking
I'm a bit more concerned Kevin, at the relatively worshipful stance you have towards groups that priortize HIV-treatment over prevention. It's because of them that barebacking has re-entered the mainstream, and infection rates are skyrocketing among younger guys who have lost any sense of how serious it is. After all, they might say, "why should I worry about getting HIV? If I do, I'll just go on aidsmeds.com or something and take a pill that some gay billionaire helped subsidize!"
There's a lot of money in making HIV look like something that's not a big deal, or can/will be "cured" (it won't -- basic immunology. You'll cure the common cold before you'll eliminate a retrovirus)... but what we need is a strong prevention and safe sex message.
As for Rupert, why do you care? He's just saying he doesn't dig the whole married-with-children scene. That's fine... I can't stand showtunes and the musical theater crowd, and have more than a bit of fun at their expense... but that doesn't mean I don't want anyone to be allowed to enjoy them! Show me where exactly Rupert said that marriage and kids isn't an issue -- he's just saying its not an issue HE cares about.
TheMarshal
Is Auntie Duluvian just playing a mean ol' theatre queen here? I think he's channeling Coward. He shoots from the lip without thought. Sometimes he misses the mark. So what?
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