HOW TO READ PRAVDA II

Richard Goldstein eulogizes one of the founders of the gay rights movement today in the Times. The theme of his op-ed is how we need to get better acquainted with gay history, a very worthy cause. But Goldstein, of course, is not a reliable guide. His op-ed today, for example, ignores some obviously vital facts about Harry Hay. Goldstein calls Hay “a Marxist who proudly called himself a sissy.” True enough. But Hay was more than a Marxist; he was a proud Communist, who defended the Soviet Union’s murderous dictatorship till his dying days. As the Times obituary pointed out, Hay maintained his allegiance to Communism, even after the homophobic Communist Party kicked him out. In fact, even recently, he declared that he lamented the demise of the Soviet Union. He was also a supporter of the sexual abuse of children, fervently supporting the vile organization, NAMBLA, and lobbying to make it a part of the gay rights movement. (Both Goldstein and the Times obit have erased this part of Hay’s life as well.) These facts are simply part of the historical record, and should surely be included in any eulogy of the man. But like the Stalinists themselves, Goldstein simply air-brushes these facts from history. Why? Isn’t Goldstein proud of the fact that Hay was a Communist? If he isn’t, why does he euphemize it? If he is, shouldn’t this be a part of his assessment? Again, try the counterfactual: if Hay had been a member of the Nazi Party in the 1930s, and if he had refused to renounce his support of Nazism right up to his death, if he had said recently that he lamented the passing of the Nazi state, wouldn’t this have been the lead sentence of any obituary? And if he’d been a Nazi supporter of child-abuse, would the Times have even dreamed of running an op-ed eulogizing his death and omitting these facts? Of course not. And people wonder why Orwell still matters.