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Erasure Poems:
Original source before erasure: Michael Swift,
“Gay Revolutionary, Gay Community News, Feb. 15-21, 1987
(reprinted from The Congressional Record, with preface restored):
This essay is an outré, madness, a tragic, cruel fantasy, an eruption of inner rage, on how the oppressed desperately dream of being the oppressor.
We shall sodomize your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of your shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker rooms, in your sports arenas, in your seminaries, in your youth groups, in your movie theater bathrooms, in your army bunkhouses, in your truck stops, in your all male clubs, in your houses of Congress, wherever men are with men together. Your sons shall become our minions and do our bidding. They will be recast in our image. They will come to crave and adore us.
Women, you cry for freedom. You say you are no longer satisfied with men; they make you unhappy. We, connoisseurs of the masculine face, the masculine physique, shall take your men from you then. We will amuse them; we will instruct them; we will embrace them when they weep. Women, you say you wish to live with each other instead of with men. Then go and be with each other. We shall give your men pleasures they have never known because we are foremost men too, and only one man knows how to truly please another man; only one man can understand the depth and feeling, the mind and body of another man.
All laws banning homosexual activity will be revoked. Instead, legislation shall be passed which engenders love between men.
All homosexuals must stand together as brothers; we must be united artistically, philosophically, socially, politically and financially. We will triumph only when we present a common face to the vicious heterosexual enemy.
If you dare to cry faggot, fairy, queer, at us, we will stab you in your cowardly hearts and defile your dead, puny bodies.
We shall write poems of the love between men; we shall stage plays in which man openly caresses man; we shall make films about the love between heroic men which will replace the cheap, superficial, sentimental, insipid, juvenile, heterosexual infatuations presently dominating your cinema screens. We shall sculpt statues of beautiful young men, of bold athletes which will be placed in your parks, your squares, your plazas. The museums of the world will be filled only with paintings of graceful, naked lads.
Our writers and artists will make love between men fashionable and de rigueur, and we will succeed because we are adept at setting styles. We will eliminate heterosexual liaisons through usage of the devices of wit and ridicule, devices which we are skilled in employing.
We will unmask the powerful homosexuals who masquerade as heterosexuals. You will be shocked and frightened when you find that your presidents and their sons, your industrialists, your senators, your mayors, your generals, your athletes, your film stars, your television personalities, your civic leaders, your priests are not the safe, familiar, bourgeois, heterosexual figures you assumed them to be. We are everywhere; we have infiltrated your ranks. Be careful when you speak of homosexuals because we are always among you; we may be sitting across the desk from you; we may be sleeping in the same bed with you.
There will be no compromises. We are not middle-class weaklings. Highly intelligent, we are the natural aristocrats of the human race, and steely-minded aristocrats never settle for less. Those who oppose us will be exiled.
We shall raise vast private armies, as Mishima did, to defeat you. We shall conquer the world because warriors inspired by and banded together by homosexual love and honor are invincible as were the ancient Greek soldiers.
The family unit-spawning ground of lies, betrayals, mediocrity, hypocrisy and violence–will be abolished. The family unit, which only dampens imagination and curbs free will, must be eliminated. Perfect boys will be conceived and grown in the genetic laboratory. They will be bonded together in communal setting, under the control and instruction of homosexual savants.
All churches who condemn us will be closed. Our only gods are handsome young men. We adhere to a cult of beauty, moral and esthetic. All that is ugly and vulgar and banal will be annihilated. Since we are alienated from middle-class heterosexual conventions, we are free to live our lives according to the dictates of the pure imagination. For us too much is not enough.
The exquisite society to emerge will be governed by an elite comprised of gay poets. One of the major requirements for a position of power in the new society of homoeroticism will be indulgence in the Greek passion. Any man contaminated with heterosexual lust will be automatically barred from a position of influence. All males who insist on remaining stupidly heterosexual will be tried in homosexual courts of justice and will become invisible men.
“We shall rewrite history, history filled and debased with your heterosexual lies and distortions. We shall portray the homosexuality of the great leaders and thinkers who have shaped the world. We will demonstrate that homosexuality and intelligence and imagination are inextricably linked, and that homosexuality is a requirement for true nobility, true beauty in a man.
“We shall be victorious because we are fueled with the ferocious bitterness of the oppressed who have been forced to play seemingly bit parts in your dumb, heterosexual shows throughout the ages. We too are capable of firing guns and manning the barricades of the ultimate revolution.
Tremble, hetero swine, when we appear before you without our masks.
1972 GAY RIGHTS PLATFORM IN THE UNITED STATES
(adopted by the National Coalition of GAY Organizations meeting in Chicago, Illinois, February 13, 1972)
Millions of Gay women and men in this country are subject to severe social, economic, and psychological and legal oppression because of their sexual orientation.
We affirm the right of all persons to define and express their own sensibility, emotionality and sexuality, and to choose their own lifestyle, so long as they do not infringe upon the rights of others. We pledge an end to all social, economic and legal oppression of Gay women and men.
We demand the repeal of all laws forbidding voluntary sex acts involving consenting [homosexual] persons in private.
Laws prohibiting loitering for the purpose of soliciting for a homosexual liaison are vague and unconstitutional. Nevertheless they are frequently used as the legal cover for police entrapment of Gay women and men.
We demand the repeal of all laws prohibiting solicitation for a voluntary private sexual liaison.
Prejudice and myth have led to widespread discrimination against Gay women and men.
We demand the enactment of civil rights legislation which will prohibit discrimination because of sexual orientation in employment, housing, public accommodations and public services.
DEMANDS:
FEDERAL:
1. Amend all federal Civil Rights Acts, other legislation and government controls to prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations and public services, because of one’s sexual orientation.
2. Issuance by the President of an executive order prohibiting the military from excluding for reasons of their sexual orientation, persons who of their own volition desire entrance into the Armed Services; and from issuing less-than-fully-honorable discharges for homosexuality; and the upgrading to fully honorable all such discharges previously issues, with retroactive benefits.
3. Issuance by the President of an executive order prohibiting discrimination in the federal civil service because of sexual orientation, in hiring and promoting; and prohibiting discrimination against Gay women and men.
4. Elimination of tax inequities victimizing single persons and same-sex couples.
5. Elimination of bars to the entry, immigration and naturalization of Gay aliens.
6. Federal encouragement and support for sex education courses, prepared and taught by qualified Gay women and men, presenting homosexuality as a valid, healthy preference, lifestyle, and as a viable alternative to heterosexuality.
7. Appropriate executive orders, regulations and legislation banning the compiling, maintenance and dissemination of information on an individual’s sexual preferences, behavior, and social and political activities for dossiers and data banks, and ordering the immediate destruction of such data.
8. Federal funding of aid projects for social and political activities of Gay women’s and men’s organizations designed to alleviate the problems encountered by Gay women and men which are engendered by an oppressive sexist society.
9. Immediate release of all Gay women and men now incarcerated in detention centers, prisons and mental institutions because of sexual offense charges relating to victimless crimes or sexual orientation; and that adequate compensation be made for the physical and mental duress encountered; and that all existing records relating to the incarceration be immediately expunged.
STATE:
1. All federal [regulations?] and program enumerated in Demands 1,4,6,7,8, and 9 above would be implemented at the State level where applicable.
2. Repeal of all state laws prohibiting private sexual acts involving consenting persons; equalization for homosexuals and heterosexuals for the enforcement of all laws.
3. Repeal all state laws prohibiting solicitation for private voluntary sexual liaison; and laws prohibiting prostitution, both male and female.
4. Enactment of legislation prohibiting insurance companies and any other state-regulated enterprises from discriminating because of sexual orientation, in insurance and in bonding or and other prerequisite to employment or control of one’s personal demesne.
5. Enactment of legislation so that child custody, adoption, visitation rights, foster parenthood, and the like shall not be denied because of sexual orientation or marital status.
6. Repeal of all laws prohibiting transvestitism and cross dressing.
7. Repeal of all laws governing the age of sexual consent.8. Repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict the sex or number of persons entering into a marriage unit; and the extension of legal benefits of marriage to all persons who cohabit regardless of sex or numbers.
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NEW PURITAN 