Steve Paikin is the best TV host in Canada, if not the best I’ve ever seen. I’ve been on his show. A guest will always be treated intelligently and fairly. I’m a big fan.
But, in February, Paikin foolishly +1ed a Twit by out gay cabinet minister Glen Murray:
Sad to hear of the passing of Ed Koch. One of the all time best mayors. He was almost more NY than NY itself. A great man!
I wrote Steve immediately to tell him he would never tolerate this kind of duplicity on his own show. We then spent a week or two debating whether or not Ed Koch was gay. He was! That’s why it is intolerable that another gay politician would whitewash his record.
There’s an avalanche of evidence, but you need not go any farther than Kirby Dick’s Outrage, at ≈27:40:
KOCH (file footage): Fuuuck you!
LARRY KRAMER: San Francisco AIDS organization was getting money from their mayor – in huge amounts. We weren’t getting anything! And it pissed me off more and more and more because we all knew he was gay. […]
DAVID ROTHENBERG: When Ed’s third or fourth term was coming up, I was asked then by press people to – to acknowledge that Richard Nathan was Ed’s former lover. And so I stonewalled the press during that primary race because I didn’t want to be the voice that outed a candidate.
Title: For 25 years, David Rothenberg chose to remain silent… until now.
ROTHENBERG: In about ’74 or ’75, when he was in Congress, Ed Koch was planning to run for mayor. And he started having Sunday-night potluck suppers at his apartment in the Village. And one night, Richard and I were at Ed’s house, and as we were departing, Ed said “Oh, Richard, stay.” And Richard said “No, Ed. I have to go. I’ll call you later.”
So as we were walking across Washington Square Park, I said “What was that all about? You and the Congressman?” And he said-said “We’re having a relationship.” And I said, “You mean like a relationship?” and he said “Yeah.” And I said, you know, “Why? You’re a nice-looking young man. He’s an older, not-terribly-attractive man.” And he said “It’s a real aphrodisiac when you get a call from Congress saying ‘I’m coming in. Let’s have dinner Friday night.’ ”
The day Ed Koch was inaugurated, there was a private party. And we watched Ed come in with Bess, clutching their pinkies. And Richard said “I’m out of here. It’s been made clear to me that I have to leave town. Or at least not be in the picture.” And he said “So I’ve decided to move to California.”
FREDERICK HERTZ, trustee for Richard Nathan: About a year or two after I got to know Dick, he said he had something he wanted me to know: Over the course of a couple of years, he had been lovers with Ed Koch, and after they broke up Ed had made it impossible for him to work in New York. No instance of homophobia hurt him more than the treatment by the man he was in love with.
KRAMER: I was at a fundraising event in Los Angeles in ’81. A man came up to me and he said “I’m Dick Nathan.” Then he proceeded to tell me about his affair with Ed Koch and what a pig he was and that he was prepared, finally, to come and announce publicly that Ed Koch was gay, which was what we needed. So he came to New York. And, uh, oh, boy, it was – you know, we were beside ourselves. And Dick Nathan came and he said “I’m sorry, I can’t do it.”
HERTZ: Dick was worried about his safety. And Dick did feel that, if he went public, he would suffer.
RODGER MacFARLANE: Dick was threatened – physically threatened, and financially – and he came and he was terrified, in the middle of the night, leaving the city.
Title: Richard Nathan died of complications from AIDS in 1996.
Paikin is acting like somebody isn’t gay unless and until the right heterosexuals agree he is. That’s called the closet, and I won’t stand for it. We’ve been through this before.
Homework assignment
Watch How to Survive a Plague and get back to me on the need to repeat the lie that Ed Koch wasn’t gay and to extol his virtues.