Metro Weekly

Larry Kramer continues fiery rants about gay life, uncaring youth, AIDS and online hook-ups

”There are these issues now. It’s just that you don’t think of them as galvanizing, mainly because they’re not so life and death. I cite marriage…. I’m 76, and my partner is 64. I’ll obviously die before he does, and the way the laws are written… [it] all goes to taxes because we’re not legally federally married and that’s not fair, that’s just not fair…. Anything that keeps us from being unequal should be galvanizing. I want what [heterosexuals] have…. These [state] marriage we have don’t amount to anything. They’re feel-good marriages….

”I think there’s still an awful lot of meaningless sex going on…. I never said don’t have sex, but what’s so hard about using rubbers? … I don’t have much sympathy for people who seroconvert now, who know about AIDS…. Your cock is a lethal instrument. It can murder people….

”I joined Daddyhunt or Manhunt and all those things, and posted my pictures, and filled out my questionnaire. And I got absolutely no response from anyone and it led me to wonder: What do older men do?”

Larry Kramer, 76, speaking with Thomas Rogers, a 27-year-old writer for Salon.com. The controversial author, playwright, and ACT-UP founder seems dismayed with the loss of a cohesive and visible gay identity among today’s younger generation. He also relays an historical perspective on the use of sex and drugs to maintain certain facets of gay subculture in the 1970s and today. Kramer goes on to say that the fight for gay marriage needs to go to the U.S. Supreme Court, and if the case is lost, ”just come back again.” (Salon.com)

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