5 Feet of Fury

Setting Stonewall Straight: My NEW Taki’s column

“JOOOOOOOO!!!!”-yness of the comments unpredictable this week…

But don’t take this bitchy old straight right-winger’s word for it. To their credit, not a few liberal gay men have been trying, for decades, to demythologize the Stonewall “rebellion.”

* In no less than The Advocate, back in 1987, Robert Amsel began a long essay on the topic by recalling opening night at yet another play about the “uprising.” Setting: The Stonewall Inn, New York City. Date and time: 3 a.m., June 28, 1969

When the curtain fell, he said to his friend, “Well, at least they got the time right.”

Amsel quotes the Gay Liberation Front’s John Murphy, who complained as early as 1971 that “the ‘victory’ of Stonewall…was a ‘dubious’ achievement that ‘perpetuated the cycle of ghettos and insularity that has kept the gay world from confronting the straight world.’”

By the way, this short film is exceptional — please take the time to watch.

Yes, it was made by some “uptight born again Christians,” but my knowledge of the era is quite sound, thank you, and it is amazingly accurate.

(Let that be a lesson to all conservative filmmakers tempted to hyperbole, urban legend and outright lies.)

In fact, the movie uses  gay sources to make its point: