The Gay Metropolis (65 page)

“When homosexual conduct is made criminal by the law of the state, that declaration in and of itself is an invitation to subject homosexual persons to discrimination both in the public and in the private spheres.

“The right the petitioners seek in this case has been accepted as an integral part of human freedom in many other countries. There has been no showing that in this country the governmental interest in circumscribing personal choice is somehow more legitimate or urgent.

“The fact that the governing majority in a state has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice; neither history nor tradition could save a law prohibiting miscegenation from constitutional attack. Second, individual decisions by married persons, concerning the intimacies of their physical relationship, even when not intended to produce offspring, are a form of liberty' protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Moreover, this protection extends to intimate choices by unmarried as well as married persons.

“The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government. It is a promise of the Constitution that there is a realm of personal liberty that the government may not enter. The Texas statute furthers no legitimate state interest that can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual.

“Had those who drew and ratified the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment known the components of liberty in its manifold possibilities, they might have been more specific. They did not presume to have this insight. They knew times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress. As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom.”

With this extraordinary opinion, Justice Kennedy had transformed the status of gay people forever. And he had done so in the wisest way possible: he had broadened the definition of liberty in America for everyone.

—New York City, May 2007

Whatever is good or useful about this volume is the product of the generosity of countless collaborators. My largest debt is to the extraordinary men and women who invited me into their homes and shared so much of their lives for the benefit of others. I made wonderful new friends, especially among my older subjects. Sandy Kern gave me inspiration when I needed it most. Arthur Laurents became my confidant and muse throughout the second half of this project. Paul Cadmus is the wisest and warmest ninety-two-year-old anyone has ever met.

Scores of friends provided hundreds of leads which shaped my investigation. No one was more generous than Ashton Hawkins, who led me to amazing sources and always provided excellent advice. Arlene Kochman introduced me to some of the most illustrious members of SAGE, the great private social service agency for older lesbians and gay men in New York City. George Trescher made a special contribution when he reminded me to consider the importance of the murder committed by Wayne Lonergan in 1943.

Bob Kaiser, Hannah Jopling, Cathy Kaiser, Andy Tobias, Lucy Howard, David Dunlap, Frank Clines, David Bartolomi, Andrew Morse, Henry Bloomstein, Thorn Stoelker, Tema and Mark Silk, Ros Kaiser, Sarah and Bob Hyams, Rebecca and Tamara Kaiser, Dudley Greeley, Renata Adler, Steve Marcus, Martha Ritter, Roy Finamore, François Fortin, Andrew Jacobs, Didier Malaquin, Barbara Epstein, Marcia Chambers, Gloria Emerson, Steve Kay, Michael Lerner, Linda Healey, Tony Lukas, Mary Murphy, John Moore, Philip Gefter, Peter Kaplan, Lesley Stahl, Steve Rattner, Maureen White, Shelley Wanger, David Auchincloss,
Ginger Crosby, Paula Kaiser, Blair Clark, Kirk Semple, Sarah Burke, John Flannery, Zarrina and Antony Kurtz, Christiane Audibert, Hope Kostmayer, Edward Flanagan, Michael Butler, Ellie Gelman, Maralee Schwartz, Elsie Bernice Washington, David White, Steve Friedman, Judy Hottensen, Cohn Dickerman, Caleb Cram, Eddie Borges, Nick and Heyden Rostow, Jane Berentson, Bruce Knecht, Mary de Bourbon, Will Lung, Sharon and Charles Stouter, Alice McGillion and Martin Arnold all provided crucial support.

David Kaiser, David Garrow, John Herman, Gail Gregg, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., Carl Chiappa, Mark Polizzotti, Roy Aarons, James Stewart and Judy Knipe read early versions of different portions of the manuscript, and each of them made valuable suggestions and corrections. David Kaiser also sets the standard for historical precision that I aspire to. Stephanie Lane and Nancy Lunney read nearly all of the book as it was being written, and they were unstinting with their advice and their enthusiasm.

When I was halfway through this project, I realized that my most important inspiration had been
Before Stonewall,
the first great television documentary about gay people in America, created by John Scagliotti, Greta Schiller and Robert Rosenberg. All historians interested in this subject owe a special debt to Michael Denneny because he has edited so many of the best books about gay life in America, induding
And the Band Played On,
Randy Shilts's landmark volume on the AIDS epidemic.

The other books I found most useful were
Coming Out Under Fire,
Alan Bérubé's superb history of gays in the military during World War II;
Making History,
Eric Marcus's excellent oral history of gay activism since the war;
Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality
by John Boswell;
Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities
by John D'Emilio;
City Poet
by Brad Gooch;
Liberty and Sexuality
by David J. Garrow;
Straight News
by Edward Alwood;
Being Homosexual
and
Becoming Gay
by Richard A. Isay;
Reports from the Holocaust
by Larry Kramer;
The Politics of Homosexuality
by Toby Marotta;
The Gay Militants
by Donn Teal;
Gay New York
by George Chauncey;
Sondheim & Co.
by Craig Zadan;
Perfect Enemies
by Chris Bull and John Gallagher;
The Long Road to Freedom,
edited by Mark Thompson; and all the books written or edited by Martin Duberman, especially
Stonewall.
Michael Cunningham's
A Home at the End of the World
remains
the
luminescent novel about New York life in the 1980s.

Kathy Robbins is much more than the best agent anyone ever imagined; she is also a fine editor, a great conceptualizer and a magnificent friend. All of her colleagues at the Robbins Office—especially Tifanny Richards and David Halpern—provided a powerful support system. Bill Clegg is my critic and collaborator in several important departments.

Dawn Seferian is an amazing editor, the kind who always manages to bolster an author's confidence. Jayne Yaffe's meticulous copyediting improved many different sections of the manuscript. Robert Overholtzer produced an elegant design.

Murray Kempton was the dean of modern American iconoclasts; that made him a role model for all serious journalists. My favorite moment with him occurred during a magical dinner a couple of years ago in Barbara Epstein's apartment. Suddenly Murray leapt up from the table, darted to the bookcase and pulled down a volume of Auden; then he declaimed the couplet that became the opening epigraph for this book.

Because he believed the subject was important, Richard Slusarcyk volunteered four years ago to be my partner on this project. He contributed thousands of hours of research and made many important discoveries, including the
Journal-American's
remarkable treatise on gay life during the Lonergan affair. This book could not have been written without him.

Elizabeth Lunney joined me at a decisive moment to bring order out of chaos; she also offered many pithy and thoughtful suggestions. Raymond Geller enabled me to finally understand Judy Garland's importance. Linda Amster performed her usual roles as brilliant investigative reporter and wonderful friend. Anny Miller, Shields Remine and Duncan Arp transcribed hundreds of hours of interviews and offered constant encouragement.

Rob Boynton, a splendid colleague who defies categories, ended a four-year trauma by suggesting the perfect title for this book. For more than a decade, Ed Koch has been a devoted friend. I have tried (and probably failed) to insulate my judgments of his mayoralty from the effects of that friendship.

Media and Zoë Brecher, Sam Shapiro, Ben and Alex Goldberger, Adam Hirsh, Charles and Peter Gelman, Juliet, Catherine and Arabella Kurtz, Nick Everett, Stephen Adler, Jonathan Erickson, Tito Bianchi, Ben Wheeler, Katie and Jeremiah Lane, David Crossland, Vanessa Vadim, Marc Stouter, Victoria Pringle, David Leonhardt, Jonathan Mallow, Will Bleakley, Abraham, Ezra and Isaac Silk, Zoë Cooprider, Mark and Ghita Levenstein, Tess and Ethan Hyams, Dana GreeleyArtz, Delari, Tara, Margo and Garth Johnston, Jennifer Lunney, Theodore and Celia Rostow, Kate McNamara, and Arthur and Annie Sulzberger offer evidence every day that the twenty-first century will be more enlightened than the present one.

Michael and Laura Fisher Kaiser, Judy Barnett, Sal Matera, Ann Jensen, Steve and Nancy Shapiro, Eric Gelman, John Brecher, Dorothy Gaiter, Bill Carey, Eleanor Randolph, Peter Pringle, Janet Suzman, Rich Meislin, Hendrik Uyttendaele, Jean Vallely, Steve Weisman, Paul Goldberger, Susan Solomon, Merry Mclnerney, Michael Finnegan, Michael Anderson, and Judy Knipe
nurtured the author through countless crises. Rick Whitaker helped me make many new discoveries about the gay metropolis.

I cannot even suggest how deeply my life was affected by all the men I loved who have already perished. Their deaths sometimes make me feel guilty to be alive; but my memories of their incredible accomplishments—especially Tom Stoddard's accomplishments—infused me with a sense of urgency to record our history as accurately as I could.

My parents shared all of their virtues, especially their flair for storytelling and their loathing for all forms of prejudice. Since the moment I first told them “I'm gay” they have traveled their own magnificent journey, from shock to discomfort to total support. For thirty-six years, our closest friends, Katie and Arthur Hustead, have been essential to all Kaisers.

Nephews and nieces play an especially large role in the life of an uncle with no children of his own. Emily Kaiser made a superb contribution to this volume when she discovered Christopher Isherwood's critique of
The City and the Pillar
among Gore Vidal's papers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Emily, Charlotte, Daniel and Thomas Kaiser give me more happiness than they can possibly imagine.

After nearly two decades, Joe Stouter remains my indispensable collaborator: the person without whom nothing important is possible.

—New York City, May 1997

EPIGRAPH

ix “Joseph, Mary, pray for those”: W. H. Auden, “For the Time Being, a Christmas Oratorio, “
Collected Poems,
283.

INTRODUCTION

xi “When you were starting out”:
James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket
(documentary).

“If I had the power”: Joseph Epstein,
Harper's
, September 1970.

xii “I think especially”: “The Architecture of Community” 24th Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, delivered in Washington, D.C., by Vincent Scully, May 15, 1995.

“We know our son”: Author's interview with Richard Isay, July 7, 1996.

“Anglican over-soul” … “who knows me.” Peter J. Gomes in Robert S.

Boynton, “God and Harvard,”
The New Yorker,
November 11, 1996.

xiii “never contemplated a form”: Peter J. Gomes,
The Good Book,
102.

“Origin: a king's insistence”: Author's personal archive.

xiv “almost everything about homosexuality”: Author's interview with Richard Isay.

“Homosexuality is assuredly”: Sigmund Freud, reprinted in Ronald Bayer,
Homosexuality and American Psychiatry,
27.

xv “the official party apparatus”:
Hidden from History,
ed. Martin Duberman et al., 374.

“Hitler said afterwards”: William L Shirer,
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,
220–25.

xvi “a magic by-word”: Donald Webster Gory,
The Homosexual in America,
107–108.

I: THE FORTIES

3 “On any person who desires”: E. B. White,
Here Is New York,
1.

“I think the trick is”:
James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket
(documentary).

“We kids would stand” … “out of my head and heart”: Author's interview with Sandy Kern, June 29, 1993.

5 “In my world” … “very into
not
being gay”: Author's interview with Otis Bigelow, April 28, 1994.

7 The other man sharing:
New York Times,
January 10, 1989, and ibid.

“the silver and china queens”: Author's interview with Arthur Laurents, June 14, 1995.

Bigelow, Merrick and Barr selected: Author's interview with Otis Bigelow, April 28, 1994.

8 “It was a little bit”: Author's interview with Murray Gitlin, February 26, 1993.

“It was like being under”: Author's interview with Franklin Macfie, May 12, 1993.

“The city smelled totally different”: Author's interview with Jack Dowling, May 5, 1993.

“I had a tuxedo” … “I had to face”: Author's interview with Otis Bigelow, April 28, 1994.

11 “George was family to me”: Author's interview with Philip Johnson, May 5, 1995.

While still a student at:
New York Times,
August 19, 1926, and March 5, 1974.