JACK NICHOLS, GAY PIONEER: AN INTERVIEW

by Ernest Barteldes

ack Nichols is a living character out of history books, a gay pioneer, author of groundbreaking gay liberation works, senior editor of GayToday, former co-editor of GAY (America’s first gay weekly) frequently quoted activist-strategist, and the initiator, in 1965, of the first gay civil rights movement picket at the White House. He was interviewed by Mike Wallace on CBS at a time when people were still talking about gays in embarrassed whispers.

If same-sex affection is now more widely-accepted after its long-lived status as a taboo, it is because self-affirming people like Jack Nichols were agitating in the decade before Stonewall, admiring of Dr. Martin Luther King's strategies and eager to use them on behalf of millions of closeted, persecuted gay and lesbians.

This "straight" writer is a big admirer of Mr. Nichols, who has been for me an inspiration and an influence.

In this interview, Jack talks about his days in New York and the reasons why, after a decade, he left for sunny Florida where he lives today. He talks about his views on gay life in 2001 and tells about the fierce campaign he’s recently been waging against Dubya, who, he believes as many of us do, "stole the election."

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Ernest Barteldes: Gay life in the U.S. has gone from radical to mainstream and has now reached a point where some are actually missing the underground activism in which you participated. How do you feel about that?

Jack Nichols: What now seems to have been radical strategy in the mid-1960s was, in fact, simply solid American civil rights strategy. In 1965, during the first lesbian and gay movement picketing demonstrations, we insisted upon strict picketing dress codes--suits and ties, dresses and heels. We were representing millions of closeted, ordinary gay people and, among other concerns, we demanded equal employment rights. We dressed, therefore, to look employable by the standards of the day, rather than indulging our personal tastes in attire. While picketing in that timeframe might seem radical by today’s standards, it was from the Black civil rights movement led by Dr. King that we copied our earliest gay and lesbian activist strategies.

The gay movement had timid members in those days who were extremely conservative.

They opposed picketing, convinced it would cause us trouble. They weren’t even sure that we should take a stand against the psychiatrists who, before the mid-1970s, taught that homosexuality was a disease or a neurosis. What we learned from the Black movement was that we must go over the heads of those conservative masses for whom we spoke and reach people in power--in the government, the courts, the American Psychiatric Associations. Gay movement conservatives in those days foolishly called for more research, more social service outlets to help people in trouble. Fine, but we who were militants or so-called radicals, pointed out that the research of those times was hopelessly faulty and that we could minister to endless lines of gay men and women suffering the results of prejudice, but that unless we changed the viewpoints of those in power, the lines of our disenfranchised community would continue to be lengthy.

Because there are so many neo-conservatives, gay and straight, running around loose today--even in Manhattan--I continue to consider myself a radical by comparison. Walt Whitman, America’s greatest poet, expressed precisely how I feel in "Song of the Open Road" when he said: "From any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary. \My call is the call of battle. I nourish active rebellion."

By battle, of course, I don’t mean violence. I do mean direct confrontations, however. My latest strategy--which may sound a bit radical to some--is meant to counter the U.S. Supreme Court’s lowering of the wall of separation between church and state. The GOP’s Gang of Six have ruled--overturning the federal appeals court in Manhattan--that zealous religious groups may use taxpayer-funded public school classrooms to proselytize after school hours. This is not to my liking. I’m with Thomas Jefferson who said of priests and ministers that he would use all of his powers as president to oppose their schemes.

I’m recommending to those who abhor this Supreme Court ruling that they form a national daisy chain of Thomas Paine Bible Study groups and get them going after hours in their local public schools. Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense, the pamphlet that inspired the American Revolution. What few people know is that he also wrote The Age of Reason, a magnificent book that is highly critical of the Bible. Our school-age children ought to know about what Thomas Paine, our little-known Founding Father, thought and his Age of Reason makes an excellent study text to use in those after-hours Thomas Paine Bible Study groups.

Ernest Barteldes: It is interesting that you mention psychologists. Recently, there was a study that came out that said that homosexuals could be "cured", which enraged most gays around the world, once the option of being gay has, for a long time, not been considered a "disease"?

Jack Nichols: Its sad the media should be giving current space to a dumbo non-issue that was buried in the early 1970s by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association. Before that time shrinks had said homosexuality was a pathology. Faced with convincing arguments that proved otherwise, they collectively changed their viewpoint. Now they say that these Ex-Gay groups can, in fact, cause naïve people to lose self-esteem and to develop mental problems.

Dr. Robert Spitzer of Columbia University--who did that snake-oil study you mentioned--cozies up to religious fanatics. He’s appearing on James Dobson’s Christian Right radio program, Focus on the Family. No truly dispassionate scientist would accept speaking engagements from silly fanatics and zealots. A great portion of Spitzer’s anti-gay study’s subjects were just such religious enthusiasts. Would the mainstream press have allowed such a "scientist" to turn African-Americans into whites? Or to turn Jews into obedient fundamentalist Christians?

Ernest Barteldes: You have written quite a number of books. Could you tell us a little about them? What are you working on now? When can we expect publication?

Jack Nichols: In GayToday, the Internet news magazine I edit, I’ve been doing extensive coverage of the "Bush Stole the Election" movement: www.gaytoday.badpuppy.com/coup.htm I honestly believe that ordinary Americans, like ordinary Germans in the 1930s, have now become victims of a fascist coup. The Gang of Five on the U.S. Supreme Court and Mr. George W. Bush’s brother Jeb, aided and abetted by Katherine Harris, conspired to turn over undeserved power to the GOP.

I’ve been following the amazing exploits of the Oral Majority, led by my old buddy, Bob Kunst. He’s recently flown five "Bush Stole the Election" banner planes over the Superbowl, the Kentucky Derby, the Oscars, the Daytona 500 and the Air and Sea Show in South Florida. He’s also conducted over 130 anti-Bush demonstrations since the November 7 election. He was one of those who testified before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission hearings on the Florida election fiasco. The story of this anti-fascist movement is fascinating and Kunst now has a good agent eager to see that it gets published. We haven’t got a publication date as yet.

Ernest Barteldes: Many media personalities are publicly "out" these days. However, many, such as R.E.M's Michael Stripe are reluctant about talking about their sexuality, arguing, as Stripe did, that that is a "very private matter". What are your views on the matter?

Jack Nichols: Mr. Stripe, if he’s gay, and I know nothing about his life, is indeed welcome to keep his feelings to himself. If it turns out that someone sues him for palimony, or some such, I won’t feel very sorry for him, however. I much prefer public people who see their sexuality as a positive expression as opposed to a matter they must hide. If Mr. Stripe turns out to be gay, he’ll also turn out to be, in my opinion, a boring anti-sexual reactionary concerned with the profit-effects on his public image should he reveal his truest feelings. The truth doesn’t seem to have hurt Elton John’s pocketbook very much, or Mellisa Etheridge’s, or K.D. Lang’s.

Ernest Barteldes: TV and movies have serious gay characters these days, differently from how it was 20 years ago. Some, however, argue that "We're not really seeing gay life". Do you agree? And why should TV be real, anyway?

Jack Nichols: I have to laugh at anybody’s use of the word "real." Drag stars I’ve known have used the word pejoratively or sarcastically, as when they’d critique someone by saying, "You are just so real." No matter whether one is gay or straight, whatever it is that constitutes a person’s "reality" will be different, often markedly. The reason for this is simply that people vary. Every story, I should hope, will be unique. I, for one, certainly don’t want to watch dramas about folks who are carbons of each other.

Ernest Barteldes: The old "gay stereotype" is dead and gone on media and TV. How do you see the success of shows such as Queer as Folk and Will & Grace, and other gay characters in series such as Dawson's Creek?

Jack Nichols: I’ve enjoyed Queer as Folk much more than I’d expected I would. I feel as if I’ve known every one of its very ordinary characters, not very intelligent bar flies, mind you, but at home in Pittsburgh, nevertheless. I know Will and Grace has been very popular, but its format is too much the conventional sitcom for my stringent tastes. I keep waiting for the canned laughter. I’m thankful that Dawson’s Creek has treated a major network’s audience to a passionate male/male kiss. I believe strongly in human see, human do. What really excites me are the top notch gay and lesbian films that are currently being made.

Ernest Barteldes: We have never met, but we've been corresponding for almost two years. How has the experience of editing GayToday been?

Jack Nichols: In 1996 I was tapped in Florida to assume the editor’s duties, never expecting that in the old South I’d be at the right place in the right time. Its been a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Between 1969-1973, in Manhattan, I’d co-edited with Lige Clarke America’s first gay weekly newspaper, GAY, which we both named. I didn’t name GayToday, however, and so it seems nigh mystical that I should be back in the saddle some 30+ years later. Lige, with whom I’d lived for many years, was gunned down at a mysterious roadblock in 1975. He taught me most of the things that have since made life enjoyable for me.

Ernest Barteldes: You used to be a New Yorker and left...

Jack Nichols:. I lived in the Big Apple between 1967 and 1978. Wonderful years. I was at ground zero in the hippie sexual revolution as the first managing editor of SCREW--while it was still an avant garde publication. I’ve always respected Manhattan because I appreciate its citizens’ directness.

Ernest Barteldes: What took you away ?

Jack Nichols: Because two influences--my love, Lige Clarke and Walt Whitman’s "Song of the Open Road" encouraged me to travel. My home-town was Washington, D.C. Today I like living on the ocean and swimming in my apartment’s pool every morning. It keeps me full of energy. Since leaving New York, I’ve lived in Miami, Tampa, Atlanta, San Francisco, and Cocoa Beach.

Ernest Barteldes: It's funny that you mention visiting New York then coming back to live. The same thing happened to me two years ago, when I visited New York and decided that this was the place I wanted to be. How did you feel leaving New York?

Jack Nichols: I’d long before put Walt Whitman’s "Song of the Open Road"

to memory and so I felt at ease simply doing what that great poem had suggested.

Whitman said:

Ernest Barteldes: Was it a hard decision or did you feel that you had had enough of this city for a lifetime?

Jack Nichols: Frankly, while I loved New York’s opportunities and offerings in the arts, I began, after a decade, to long to spend time at locales where there was less cement and more nature. I longed to breathe fresh air.

Ernest Barteldes: What took you to Florida?

Jack Nichols: The next great love of my life, Logan Carter, was a Floridian. He was an entertainer whose late 70s gigs in Florida paid better than in New York at the time. We moved first to Cocoa Beach, then Miami. Next we went to Atlanta and then to San Francisco. I’d always planned to live on a Florida beach after tiring of the big cities. Today, I start each morning with laps in the pool. Often, at night, I go swimming too. I breathe fresh ocean air here in Florida, the sort of air that George W. Bush seems eager to eliminate.