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[Let's ORGANIZE!] [Go to index (most recent addition shown first.] [Mr. Gay Pride: The Blog]
This netsite is of interest to men and adolescent boys who are or think they might be homosexual. This is not a pornographic site by any stretch of the imagination, but it does occasionally speak to matters of sexual activity, albeit in an intellectual rather than prurient manner. If homosexuality offends you, please do not aggravate yourself by going further into this site.
Phone: (973) 416-6151
E-mail: MrGayPride@aol.com
Homosexuals Intransigent! was founded on April 1, 1969 almost three full months before the Stonewall Riots that gave rise to the Gay Liberation Movement as a student organization at the City College of the City University of New York. HI!'s founder, L. Craig Schoonmaker, is the man who first offered the term "Gay Pride" for events surrounding the first annual demonstration commemorating Stonewall, which took the form of a march in New York City in June 1970.
HI! published several issues of a newsletter/magazine, held a couple of dances on campus, and had an outsize influence on the course of the Gay Movement.
We will, over time, be uploading these now rare materials from HI! to give younger homosexuals a vivid sense of what it was like to be gay at that exciting time and to prompt today's gay men and boys to think about issues that have still not been resolved. We will also be adding materials from other organizations coordinated by HI!'s president, Craig Schoonmaker (mainly Homosexuals In Mensa and Homosexuals of High IQ), plus, in time, new materials relating to gay issues from Homosexuals Intransigent! and the Expansionist Party of the United States.
The bulk of the older materials are text documents produced by mimeograph in an era when profusely illustrated presentations were far beyond the reach of organizations of modest means. We cannot, therefore, offer you the visual flash of color illustrations and dancing graphics. Historical texts so adulterated wouldn't be authentic and wouldn't have the right feel for the time in which they were produced. But we suggest that the ideas sparkle enough to warrant the investment of time it takes to read them. We even suggest that they might change the lives of some new readers, as they changed the lives of many of the young men who read them almost three decades ago.
We also hope to reach the widely dispersed former members of all the groups whose materials we upload, and find out what they're up to now.
12/4/05: Unmimeographed Stencils. Homosexuals Intransigent! used to publish a mimeographed newsletter/magazine but was financially forced to discontinue it in 1973. Before that decision was made, however, the editor pretyped many short items to liten the gray text of longer articles that would be typed around them and thereby provide greater visual interest to the publication. Those precut stencils were held since late 1973 in a legal-size file folder, where they lay, unused and forgotten, for decades until our editor (then) and webmaster (now), L. Craig Schoonmaker, found them, saw they were physically crumbling away, and rescued them from obliteration by typing their texts into a webpage for this site. The originals are no more, but the text remains, in electronic format in this piece.
11/11/01: "THE STRAY WORLD: Even Crazier After All These Years", a newly written appeal to gay men to reform the gay world, which is not so much "gay" as straight "str-ay" and which has wandered (strayed) very far from the ideals articulated after the Stonewall Riots of 32 years ago.
3/26/01: Second Anniversary Special Issue, April-May 1971. This historical newsletter, which still has much to say to gay men, ran 38 letter-size pages in the mimeographed original. Contents include "Stranger in Every Land" (about the lack of a distinctive homosexual culture), "Constellation" (a poem and commentary about what John F. Kennedy meant to progressive gay men), and "The Orange Separatist: a parable" that tries to make plain how different gay men are from other people. This issue also contains documentary proof that HI!'s founder coined the term "Gay Pride", plus "Epistolary Intercourse" (our two-way letters column), "Second City" book reviews, some news of the day, and reprints from earlier HI! publications, including flyers used to form the organization in early 1969.
The Mr. Gay Pride site will be added to periodically. If you'd like to be advised when something new is added, please e-mail us.
And earlier:
5/19/99: "Everything Government says about AIDS is false", 1992 flyer that points out absurdities in the HIV theory of AIDS, with a new introduction. This is the first mention of AIDS on this site. We hadn't thought about it before, because AIDS has nothing to do with homosexuality, and none of our friends has ever had AIDS. Read the flyer and its intro to see why.
5/12/99: HI! Magazine No. 4, October 1971. This issue contains two major articles, "Childlessness Wave of the Past" (re gay-lesbian partnership for parenthood and the future of single-sex reproduction) and "Homosexuality and Lesbianism: Parallel But Not the Same"; plus "Kill the Queers" by Don Jackson (concerning dangerous attitudes among psychiatrists and eugenicists); an exchange between Don Jackson and Craig Schoonmaker on various terms ("gay" vs. "homosexual"; "straight"; "gay / homosexual separatism" and "gay / homosexual nationalism"); plus the departments "cc: HI!'s Readers" and "Epistolary Intercourse" (letters from readers, with replies by the editor). The original ran 40 pages, 8 1/2" x 11", mimeographed; this version (including occasional updating notations) runs about 25,000 words.
4/7/99: On my phonetic spelling reform site now appears the first part of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, from start thru "Song of Myself", in two-column Éeze Réeder format (standard spelling on the left, Augméntad Fanétik text on the right as a pronunciation key to all of the words for young readers, students of English as a Second Language, etc.). This phonetic rendering adds a dimension to the reading of the great gay poet, showing the sounds more plainly than traditional spelling does. Gay-sensibility material appears throughout, but especially in "Poets to Come" and "Song of Myself". Transliteration of the "Calamus" section, which is the most homoerotic / homosexually intense part of the book, is not yet finished. Gay men looking for an electronic version of Leaves may find the left column useful. Unlike some versions available on the Internet, this entire chunk can be downloaded in one file, rather than poem-by-poem. The part uploaded so far equates with the first 76 pages of the standard print version. The URL, in case the hyperlink above does not work, is http://www.fanetik.org/leaves1.html.
3/18/99: "Wear ORANGE on Saint Patrick's Day!", an incitement to gay men to fight back against antigay bigotry on the part of the organizing committee of the New York City Saint Patrick's Day Parade, which stridently refuses to permit homosexuals to march. Wearing orange is only part of the program, which might even include creating a counter-march, an Orange Parade, to scare Irish-Americans into recognizing that antigay bigotry at the end of the 20th Century is no more legitimate than anti-Irish bigotry at the end of the 19th.
1/13/99: The first publications from the organization Homosexuals of High IQ to be included on this site (tho not by any means the first issues of that publication) have been added: the May 1978 edition of the H2IQ Newsletter and the July 1978 issue.
The May issue contains letters from readers; several original poems, plus gay poems from Whitman and Shakespeare; an attack on "sex-change" operations; graffiti; the legal definitions of "sodomy" and related terms; the "Media" department (mentions of homosexuality); the department "Canapés for Thought"; and a major exchange on Anita Bryant's antihomosexual crusade (first, gay writer Donald Cameron Scot's story of growing up homosexual but not gay (in the sense of happy) for not being able to accept his homosexuality, then Craig Schoonmaker's reply about accepting his own orientation early on). The July issue contains a response from Donald Cameron Scot and the editor's reply; "Media", and "Canapés for Thought". Schoonmaker's main contributions to both issues are in the early version of his phonetic spelling system, but transliterated alongside the original for current readers. The May issue comprises almost 16,000 words, the July issue some 4,400.
12/8/98: Two pieces, two years apart, that discuss the need of gay men to create organizations for men only: (1) "Male Separatism", an article published in 1978 by a New York City newsmagazine, Gaysweek; and (2) "Time for a 'Lesbian and Gay' Divorce", a 1980 flyer in question-and-answer form.
12/1/98: (a) "GAY HOMOPHOBIA: A Test for Gay Men" (1983), 25 questions designed to explore internalized antihomosexual self-hatreds, with answers and commentary; and (b) "Gay Paranoia" (1981), a discussion of the excessive hostility some militants see and produce around them.
8/17/98: HI! Magazine No. 5, February 1972, featuring "Healthy Hate", "Deviate and Be Free", and "The Faghag-Fag", plus our two-way letters column ("Epistolary Intercourse"), "The Second City" (reviews), and "FYI" (cc's of letters sent to media and public officials). Original was 46 pages; transcription is c. 30,000 words, with four illustrations.
6/24/98: Homosexuals Intransigent! Newsletter, March 1971 (No. 3 in sequence), featuring (1) "Understanding Homosexual Separatism", an explanation of underlying emotions, not a polemic; (2) a semi-serious alternative gay theology (quoted in The Gay Militants by Donn Teal); and (3) an interview with Gerald Walker, author of the book Cruising that was later made into a hugely controversial movie starring Al Pacino.
6/11/98: Homosexual Renaissance No. 2, February 25, 1970, featuring a satirical examination of the abnormality "Heterosexuality in the Male".
5/20/98:
(1) Historical Introduction to HI! and the origin of the term "Gay Pride"
(2) Homosexual Renaissance No. 1, November 12, 1969, which contains as lead article, "I Am Homosexual", which was excerpted by Randy Shilts in his bestseller, Conduct Unbecoming. The name of the organization and its structure are explained; our activities in New York City's mayoral election are detailed; and "Introduction to the Second City" describes the homosexual city within but apart from every great city. This early piece shows the kind of revolutionary thinking that was going on shortly before and after the Stonewall Riots.
(3) Pamphlet handed out at the Gay March on Washington of October 14, 1979 which speaks to gay men's concerns, proposes a program for the next ten years few of whose goals have yet been met, and contains an open letter to Pope John Paul II, "They Are Wrong Who Say That Homosexuality Is Wrong", on the teachings of Jesus applicable to gay men, which shows quickly why Leviticus is a dead letter and the antihomosexual rantings of Saint Paul (born Saul of Tarsus, a vicious enemy of Christianity) are void.