How Far We Haven't Come?

What follows below is the text, word-for-word, of a record review I wrote in 1992 after seeing Patrick Buchanan's attack on human rights at the 1992 Republican National Convention. While Buchanan's speech is credited with costing the elder Bush his re-election in 1992, it is an unfortunate barometer of how far we HAVEN'T come in 12 years, as it is just this rhetoric that gave Bush the younger his "second" victory. As always, I welcome comments and feedback.

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Various Artists
Red Hot +Dance
Columbia Records

By Kenneth J. Altman

In the wake of last week’s Republican Convention, which Molly Ivins referred to as not a political convention, but, rather, “a violation of human rights and Amnesty International should be called in,” I can’t help thinking how precious an album like RH+D is. Precious, because if some people had their way, this record and everything it stands for would be outlawed. Think about it. While our friends, loved ones, brothers and sisters we’ll never meet but we know almost intimately nonetheless lie dying in hospital beds all over the world, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and that mother of all scumbags, Patrick Buchanan, are given permission by the President of the United States to espouse their blind, ignorant, evil hatred for us on national television—and attempt to tell us what is and isn’t moral. Buchanan, the man who would be fuhrer, the man who vowed to close down the National Endowment for the Arts and fumigate the building if he were elected President, would cringe at the mere mention of this—a charity record for people with AIDS, meant to raise money to educate the uneducated, assist the living, and allow the dying to do so with dignity and integrity.

I mean, Columbia Records, how dare you?! How dare you assemble a ‘bop till you drop’ collection of top-notch dance music from artists such as George Michael, Madonna, Sabrina Johnston, Seal, Sly & the Family Stone, etc., and donate all royalties and net profits to The Red Hot + Blue Company, which distributes money to a variety of AIDS organizations? (Four million dollars and counting.) And, really, have you no shame? Printing liner notes which ask questions such as “What would you rather be? a) Embarrassed by raising the issue of condoms? or b) Dead?” Don’t you understand, Columbia Records, that advocating the use of condoms can lead to tragic consequences, such as allowing the younger generation the chance to grow old and someday replace Buchanan’s “Christian” hate-filled lies with non-judgmental love, not to mention depriving Marilyn Quayle of her apparent G-d-given right to force her 13-year-old daughter to carry an unwanted child to term, even if she’d been raped? Moreover, how dare you include in those liner notes simple facts about AIDS, about how it is and isn’t transmitted, and to dare suggest in those liner notes that “we can still have fun in the age of AIDS. We just have to be smart about it.”

I’ll tell you how they dare, Buchanan. It’s how we dare, too, and it’s how many of us are still alive, because we dared. We dared to tell the truth about who we are and who we aren’t. We dared to tell the truth about AIDS and we dared to organize fundraisers, benefits, Bingo nights, marches, parades, dances, etc. We fed our friends when they were too weak to pick up a fork, we changed their diapers when they could no longer walk ten steps to the toilet, and we held our friends’ hands as they died, while people like you sucked up to the likes of Ronald Reagan and George Bush and tried your damndest to sweep us under a rug. Well, guess what, Buchanan, Robertson, Falwell, Bush, Quayle, and, yeah, you too, Arnold Schwarzenegger, sitting there in that Astrodome audience looking so smug and self-righteous, don’t think we didn’t see you sitting there while these messengers of hate delivered their ‘purification of the race’ rhetoric? Guess what we’re gonna do now? We’re all going to buy a copy of RH+D and when we’re done listening to it we’re gonna dance our butts down to the voting booths on November 3. And then we’ll show you what family values are, we’ll show you the immorality of discrimination based on sexual orientation or medical condition, we’ll show you the truth about G-d’s love and acceptance, for once and for all. And don’t you dare try to stop us, because the truth will set us free. And, Buchanan, when it’s all over we’ll find you a real job, where you won’t be able to do any more harm, like maybe at your local record store. We’ll need someone to keep stocking this sure-fire superstar-packed mega-hit on the shelves so people can buy it and give hope that this plague will someday be a distant memory, much like your most recent public speaking engagement.

Kenneth J. Altman is a free-lance writer living in San Francisco.
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For a complete transcript of Patrick Buchanan's speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention, go to http://www.buchanan.org/pa-92-0817-rnc.html