Rick Bebout, Deliberation On New York Gay Marriage Bill Likely Delayed Till Fall, Where Is The Leader Of The Gay Community, Deep Throat

Sad and significant news that I have been delinquent in posting: Rick Bebout died on June 10th. He was 59. Bebout, an American expatriate who came to Toronto when he was nineteen, was one of the more influential gay and lesbian figures in Canada, who in many ways helped define the then nascent community into a cultural and political force, leading the conversation from police brutality and harassment directed at the gay community to the legalization of gay marriage in Canada (his theory, that sex, that it the actual act, should never been employed to create policy still resonates), mostly form his work published in the late, lamented Body Politic, a “gay liberation” journal.

Bebout was a wonderful writer – expansive and passionate, prone to ruminations that while rambling, were ultimately rewarding. Like Jane Jacobs, another American expat, Bebout was consumed with Toronto, with what the city had been and, more importantly, what the city could be. A book he edited, Open Gate: Toronto Union Station, in fact birthed the city’s modern idea and understanding of historic preservation and the idea of heritage buildings – that work, in fact, helping in large part to stay the destruction of Union Station, one of the most magnificent architectural works not only in the city, but in the country. Bebout had been living with HIV for many years, and died from complications of a stroke he suffered on June 4th. A memorial service has been planned at a later date.

Surprising news late Sunday, from New York Governor David A. Paterson, who, after weeks of silence, announced that he was calling the State Senate to a special session this week, but that a gay marriage bill would not be among legislation up for consideration, the Governor insisting that “time sensitive” bills, financial in nature, were more urgent and needed to be addressed by the Senate that has been stalled by political deal making and maneuvering.

Max Munchnick, he of Will and Grace, wrote an opinions piece for The Huffington Post last week, bemoaning the obvious absence of one leader for the gay community, a “Martin Luther Queen” to quote Munchnick. Oddly – at least to me – he suggested that role belong to Barack Obama, whom, Munchnick suggested, has all but abdicated. DailyKos offers a rebuttal of sorts, rightly pointing out that the idea that the President of the United States – or any other elected official – should act as advocate is left of ludicrous. I think the more important question and the one that unfortunately is never asked, is what exactly is the gay community? Does it even exist? Is it merely an idea, a never realized conceit? Community to me implies a kind of oneness, a center, and I am not certain that can nor ever has been possible, given the simple complexity of what it means to be gay.

FBI files released to the Associated Press this week reveal a sexual prudent hysteria at work in American in the early nineteen seventies, the documents detailing a degree of involvement by a government agency aiming to interrupt what it saw as the moral collapse of society based on a sexual depravity that was the landmark film Deep Throat, a film the bureau fought hard to censure with any means possible, ironic since in 1972 the Richard Nixon led Republican Party was at work on corrupting the constitution and the war in Vietnam was at its height.