"There is a religious war going on in this country. It is a cultural war as critical to the kind of nation we shall be as the Cold War itself, for this war is for the soul of America." -- Pat Buchanan
The program opens in New York, 1990. The city's gay community has battled with AIDS for a decade, and with AIDS came a startling increase of anti-gay violence. On a hot summer night in Queens, a young gay man named Julio Rivera is bludgeoned with a hammer and wrench before he is finally stabbed to death with a kitchen knife in a schoolyard. Despite the fact that his three killers openly bragged about the murder to their friends, it took months of organized protest by Riveras friends, his family, and community groups before the murderers were finally brought to justice. As Julio's former lover, Alan Sack, says, "The gay community in Queens reached its limit with Julios death, and said 'No more. No one has to like us, but, by the same token, no one has the right to do us bodily harm or deny us our civil rights."
"Family values" became a hot topic on conservative talk radio and
TV. Hate crimes against lesbians and gay men continued to rise. In
this explosive, homophobic milieu, Marlon Riggs'
Tongues Untied aired nationally on PBS. A ground-breaking
exploration of the experience of being both African-American and gay,
and partially funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the program sparked outrage among
conservatives across the country. Jesse
Helms and the radical right vilified the show, raising the Tongues Untied in a
television ad accusing then-President George Bush of promoting
homosexuality. Throughout the debate, Riggs, who died of AIDS in 1994,
eloquently reminded the public that taxpayer dollars also come from
African-Americans,
gay men, and lesbians.
CULTURE WARS concludes in Oregon where a conservative group called the
Oregon Citizens Alliance mounted a highly organized and well-funded
campaign to pass Ballot Measure 9, an amendment to the states
constitution that would severely limit the rights of gays and lesbians
(and declaring homosexuality to be unnatural and perverse). Claiming
that homosexuals would seduce children and destroy family values, and
calling antidiscrimation legislation special rights, a regional
chapter of Pat Robertsons Christian Coalition, the Oregon Citizens
Alliance (OAC), mobilized a populace seemingly eager to find a
scapegoat for their social and financial worries. Although Ballot
Measure 9 was narrowly defeated, Oregon's gays and lesbians were shaken
by the power of the opposition's hate-filled rhetoric.
If, as Pat Buchannan said, "[this] culture war is critical to the kind
of nation we shall be" each victory, each defeat in the courts, in the
voting booth, in the media is paramount. The conviction of Julio
Rivera's three killers was a temporary victory. Due to legal
technicalities, two of the three are now awaiting retrial later this
year. The American public and Congress continue to debate the future
of public funding for the arts and public broadcasting. The OAC
presented another anti-gay initiative to voters in 1994, this time
losing by a smaller margin. They are predicting victory in '96. As
activist Kathleen Saadat reminds us, "Anything that tells you [that]
you're not a part of the human family is a violent act and that can be
words, or deeds, or legislation. We are in trouble. We have a lot to
do."