Gay Activism and Aids in Charlotte, 1970-1992
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“HOW COULD LOVE BE WRONG?” GAY ACTIVISM AND AIDS IN CHARLOTTE, 1970-1992 by Christina Anne Wright A thesis submitted to the faculty of The University of North Carolina at Charlotte in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History Charlotte 2017 Approved by: ______________________________ Dr. Cheryl Hicks ______________________________ Dr. David Goldfield ______________________________ Dr. Kent Brintnall ©2017 Christina Anne Wright ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT CHRISTINA ANNE WRIGHT. “How could love be wrong?” Gay activism and AIDS in Charlotte, 1970-1992. (Under the direction of DR. CHERYL HICKS) Sustained gay activism in Charlotte, North Carolina, only emerged in response to the HIV AIDS epidemic. Community building among Charlotte’s closeted gays and lesbians began in the 1970s with the emergence of safe spaces, particularly gay bars. However, before the mid 1980s, activism was intermittent, largely inward facing, and suffered from over-reliance on a few leaders. As the reality of AIDS gripped the community after 1985, two imperatives created by the epidemic gave rise to sustained gay and lesbian activism. First, the critical need to provide care for people suffering from AIDS galvanized the gay community into action and led to the creation of the Metrolina AIDS Project (MAP). MAP became the first outward looking and visible gay organization in Charlotte, and, critically, it enjoyed a degree of civic legitimacy. However, this civic legitimacy did not extend to the second imperative, the more contentious terrain of AIDS education. In this arena Charlotte’s gay activists came into conflict with the Religious Right and the county government, which forced activists to become more politically organized. By the early 1990s, it became clear that further progress would require partnerships with straight allies, but because these allies were motivated largely by sympathy for AIDS there was limited progress on the broader gay rights agenda. The timing of gay activism and the necessity for straight alliances shows that Charlotte’s experience as a mid-size Southern city differed from larger metropolitan iii areas and progressive university/capital cities that have been the focus of previous historiography. iv DEDICATION To Betty and Laura, whose love of history inspired my own. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Academic endeavor requires two major ingredients—the development of appropriate skills and access to materials critical for inquiry. I am most grateful for the extensive support that I have enjoyed for both, without which this thesis would not have been possible. Throughout the process Dr. Cheryl Hicks provided me with constant encouragement; she challenged me to extend my goals to truly engage with the historiography on my topic and her perceptive questions helped refine my analysis. Dr. David Goldfield and Dr. Kent Brintnall also gave me invaluable and insightful feedback as I was writing the thesis; Dr. Brintall in particular encouraged me to consider the important role that religion played in this history and pushed me to clarify the relationship between community and activists. I am also grateful for the encouragement and support of all the history professors at UNC Charlotte who shaped my experience as a graduate student, and in particular to Dr. Peter Thorsheim and Dr. Mark Wilson for their early support as my topic evolved. Finally, Dr. Lashonda Mimms opened the door to Charlotte’s LGBTQ history for me by generously sharing her dissertation and her insights at the outset of my research. This project would not have been possible without the historic documents and narratives that were generously provided by the local LGBTQ community and archived by the UNC Charlotte J. Murrey Atkins Library’s Special Collections and University Archives. In particular I am indebted to Joshua Burford whose tireless endeavors have resulted in the robust and growing collections of LGBTQ history relating to Charlotte that are held at the J. Murrey Atkins Library. I am also grateful to my colleagues in Special Collections for their support throughout this project. Archivists Dawn Schmitz vi and Nikki Thomas have helped me both in terms of their collections expertise and personal encouragement. I also want to recognize archivist Christopher Geissler for agreeing to supervise my internship working with processing LGBTQ collections in 2014, which set me off on my research path. Finally, I am indebted to local documents librarian Marilyn Schuster for her meticulous efforts to capture the history of Charlotte’s government bodies. As I was wading through records for the Mecklenburg AIDS Prevention Advisory Committee I was not completely surprised to see that Marilyn Schuster was listed as a guest in the meeting minutes. Oral history interviews have been critical to my developing understanding of the topic of LGBTQ activism in Charlotte, and I am deeply indebted to all the interviewees for their time and their commitment to preserving their personal recollections of local LGBTQ history. In particular Dr. Bob Barret assisted me in compiling a pool of interviewees critical to my research and also helped me to make contact with these individuals. Following my initial interviews, the Charlotte Queer Oral History Project was launched with the goal of increasing the capacity of the community to document its own history from a wide range of perspectives. I am indebted to all members of the project for their time and passion in pursuing this endeavor, including David Barnes, Joshua Burford, Malu Fairley, Ann Hooper, Lynnsy Logue, Anthony Stamey, and Tom Warshauer—whose interview is the source of the quote used in the title. On a more personal note, I am deeply indebted to and grateful for the support of my partner, John Smail, who has patiently listened to my theorizing, challenged me to focus on and clarify my argument, and been a tireless and thoughtful proofreader. I vii should also acknowledge that he did almost all of the cooking in our household for the duration of my studies. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES xi INTRODUCTION 1 Overview 5 Historiography 8 Notes on Usage and Sources 14 Thesis Structure 17 CHAPTER 1: THE GAY EXPERIENCE IN CHARLOTTE, 1970-1985 19 The Gay and Lesbian Experience in Charlotte in the 1970s and Early 1980s 23 Straight Attitudes 38 CHAPTER 2: GAY CULTURE AND ACTIVISM IN CHARLOTTE, 1970-1985 50 Gay Activism 54 AIDS—The National Context 77 Conclusion 84 CHAPTER 3: ACTIVISM AND AIDS, 1985-1990 – CARE 85 The Incidence of AIDS in Charlotte 89 The Medical Community and AIDS in Charlotte 97 The Gay Community and AIDS in Charlotte 104 CHAPTER 4: ACTIVISM AND AIDS, 1985-1990 – EDUCATION AND PREVENTION 128 Conservative Christian Opposition to Homosexuality 133 AIDS Education and Prevention 144 Gay Activism: First Tuesday 156 ix CHAPTER 5: STRAIGHT ALLIES, COLLABORATIONS AND COMPROMISES, 1986 – 1992 164 Straight Allies: Community and Care 169 Straight Allies: Government and Administration 187 Gay / Straight Alliance: Limits and Tensions 195 CONCLUSION: 217 BIBLIOGRAPHY: 221 x LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1: Darrell Sifford’s use of Imagery, Headlines, and Quotes 42 FIGURE 2: Cases and Deaths from AIDS, 1983-1989: Mecklenburg County 95 FIGURE 3: AIDS Cases and Deaths, 1983-1996: Charlotte Urban Region 96 FIGURE 4: AIDS Cases, 1983-1996: Major North Carolina Urban Regions 110 xi INTRODUCTION In 1996, Charlotte became embroiled in a spectacle that vaulted the city into the national news. The Charlotte Repertory Theatre had the distinction of being one of only six regional theatres selected by playwright Tony Kushner to perform his play, Angels in America, a two-part opus about the effects of AIDS on American society, politics, and religion, that had won a Pulitzer prize in 1993. Previous productions that included homosexual and AIDS themes had been well received among the city’s theatre goers, and producer Keith Martin saw the play as “worthwhile theatre” that would “build future productions and audiences.” However, Martin might have suspected that the performance would create controversy since Kushner had chosen Charlotte partly because of the conservative political and religious climate in the city.1 Days before the play opened at the North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, Rev. Joseph Chambers, leader of the right-wing group Concerned Charlotteans, called on the city government to stop the performance. He accused Kushner of being “a sick man with a homosexual agenda” and described the play as showing “complete disregard for the morals of the majority of the Charlotte community.”2 The production went ahead only with a last minute judicial injunction, and it ran to full houses amidst vocal street demonstrations both for and against. Chambers’ protest, however, started a 1 Andrea Cooper, “Angels in Our Town,” Charlotte Magazine, Sept. 30, 1995. http://www.charlottemagazine.com/Charlotte-Magazine/September-1995/Angels-in-Our-Town/ (accessed Nov. 10, 2016). 2 Tony Brown and Jim Morrill, “Nude Scene Keeping Lawyers Busy,” Charlotte Observer, Mar. 20, 1996, (accessed Nov. 10, 2016). public debate about how taxpayer dollars should be spent.3 As liberal sensibilities and support for the arts rubbed up against socially and religiously conservative sensitivities there ensued a brouhaha that encompassed the city government, the gay and lesbian community, business and religious leaders, and perhaps most of Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s citizens, at least as spectators. A year later, the conflict over Angels resulted in a resolution by the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners to defund the county’s Arts and Science Council in the name of “a wholesome family agenda.”4 The charge was led by County Commissioner Hoyle Martin, who asserted that the Angels production represented an “aggressive homosexual agenda that seeks to undermine the values of a traditional American family” and that the gay community believes it has a “right to recruit children for experimenting sexually with anyone, including homosexual adults.”5 Martin was not alone in his outlook on homosexuality.