Let’s Correct G.T.S.’s LGBT Revisionist History

Volume One, Issue 25, March 9 - 15, 2007

Talking point

By Tim Gay

Rev. K. Dennis Winslow’s Feb. 9 Talking Point alleged that he is correcting ”many misrepresentations” in my article on the relevance of General Theological Seminary. I’d like to set the record straight, as it were, on those LGBT issues.

Rev. Winslow stated that in the 1990s, G.T.S. was the first seminary in the U.S. to allow housing for same-sex couples.

The real story: In 1993, the City’s Human Rights Commission was brought in to conduct an investigation when G.T.S. served eviction papers on Dierdre Good, a tenured professor, and her female lover. Professor Good herself filed the complaint against G.T.S. (check out the July 25, 1993, New York Times article by Ronald Sullivan).

The Human Rights Commission would not have had a mandate to investigate this blatant act of housing discrimination if it hadn’t been for grassroots housing activists working in Chelsea—a decade earlier.

In 1983, then-Democratic District Leader Tom Duane, the Chelsea Coalition for Housing, and the lesbian and gay community organized to protect same-sex survivors in rent-controlled and rent-stabilized apartments. Why? First, housing is a right, regardless of sexual orientation. Second, we were seeing a number of gay men being thrown out of their apartments when their lovers who held the leases died of AIDS—and yes, we had a lot of AIDS cases back in 1983.

The movement that began back then led to the City Council passing the 1986 landmark amendment to the city’s human rights law, adding sexual orientation in job and housing protection.

That’s why we were appalled with our namesake neighbor a decade later. Of course, we stood united in support of Professor Good. Although the Seminary argued that it was not under the City’s housing regulations, they eventually did the right thing.

Rev. Winslow also declares that “many now middle-age AIDS activists recall the meetings that were held in The Close” and that Queer Nation also may have met there.

Since the Reverend didn’t take my word from my experience back then, I checked with some other “middle-age” colleagues.

Jay Blotcher, one of the original ACT-UPers, can’t recall any involvement with G.T.S.. “Nor do I recall any ‘Close’ encounters,” he said by email.

Gabriel Rotello was editor of Outweek back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, and later became the openly gay columnist for Newsday, covering every LGBT story from ACT-UP to the Tonys. Rotello told me, “I’ve never been in the Seminary.”

Ron Goldberg, a founder of ACT-UP and Queer Nation, was one of the mob of 500 PWAs who stormed the International AIDS Conference in 1989. In an email, Goldberg noted: ”I’m pretty certain that ACT-UP as an organization did not meet ‘on The Close’ or anywhere around a seminary of any sort, outside of a memorial service.

“Besides, it appears to be a public space. Did you have to get permission to meet there? Did you need to reserve a spot ‘on The Close?’ Did the seminary offer food, drink or any particular benefit to the group? If not, you could just as honestly claim that ACT-UP met in Central Park, Jones Beach and the old Automat near Grand Central, all of which I do recall and can back up with actual dates.”

Andrew Miller, another original member of Queer Nation and a journalist from that dark era, wasn’t so kind in his email:

“For the record: G.T.S.’s relevance—and its history with the gay community—are just red herrings. The real issue, as you say, is real estate, as it almost always is in New York City. Why allow the seminary to engage in this holier-than-thou drama by participating?

“Either the tower is wrong for the neighborhood or it isn’t. If it is, then it’s wrong even if the seminary operated a thousand soup kitchens and wiped the ass of every AIDS patient from Chelsea to East New York.”

However, on a positive note, I was happy to hear at the forum on Feb. 7 that for the past three years, the Seminary has been housing 12 homeless men and has taken on the Hudson Guild’s clothing program.