This is not a popular question, but I feel the need to ask it out loud. 30 years ago, when Act Up taught me how crucial it was for homosexuals to get the same civil rights I enjoy, in the face of a deadly pandemic, did they envision a future in which gays would become the new conservatives? The capitalists. The owners. The bankers and politicians. The same boys club that keeps women from getting birth control? The same club that doesn't blink when unarmed black teenagers are gunned down by police? What I'm asking is, do we all want to be this affluent New York couple? To be wealthy conservatives? Or am I reading too much in a Tiffany ad?
Every civil rights movement in the USA has begun from an edgy place. Secretive women's afternoon meetings. The pews of black baptist churches. Or a loud protest outside a gay bar in New York. The goal of every civil rights movement is to obtain equal rights for all, so anyone can be anything they want to be. But when I see capitalists embrace a group that was only recently kept out of the mainstream, I have to wonder, is that what we were fighting for? Did corporations embrace gays only when they realized how much disposable income they have?
And gay friends, do I even have a right to bring this up? Is this topic off-limits for straights?