LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth

CAMP Out

Lots of people, most recently gay conservative (oy, an oxymoron) Andrew Sullivan, have been speculating about the death of gay culture.

I say, not so fast.

Yes, it's true as Sullivan reports about Provincetown "No one bats an eye if two men walk down the street holding hands, or if a lesbian couple pecks each other on the cheek, or if a drag queen dressed as Cher careens down the main strip on a motor scooter..." It could be Rehoboth.

So too, like in Rehoboth, does Sullivan report that the "real-estate boom has made Provincetown far more expensive than it ever was, slowly excluding poorer and younger visitors and residents.... Beautiful, renovated houses are slowly outnumbering beach shacks.... The number of children of gay couples has soared.... Bar life is not nearly as central to socializing as it once was. Men and women gather on the beach, drink coffee on the front porch of a store, or meet at the Film Festival." It could certainly be Rehoboth.

It's also true that our separate and formerly underground gay culture did develop, in most part, to combat, mask and soothe the twentieth century attacks against us.

That being said, the vicious attack part may not be so evident anymore in Provincetown or Rehoboth, but how about Oklahoma? I saw a lunatic Oklahoma County Commissioner candidate on TV showing off his official campaign mailing piecea homophobic comic book showing gays as pedophiles (spelled wrong in the piece by the way) and Satan affiliated with his opponent's campaign. The candidate defended his despicable homophobia with the calm righteousness of a defender of tax policy.

Also this week I heard about the latest Bush administration boondoggle. They have instructed the tabulators for the 2010 census to take the forms of couples who self-identify as being in gay marriages and change them to read "unmarried partners." That includes legal gay marriages from California and Massachusetts. I don't know about you, but I will not be erased.

But it was last week, at the Blue Moon, when I realized that our gay culture will be everlasting. I was there, a lone lesbian in a sea of guys (further cementing my odd reputation as an honorary gay man) to see comic actor Leslie Jordan do his hilarious and also amazingly poignant one man show.

I knew that folks of my generation related to Jordan's tales of surviving youth as an effeminate young man and transitioning from suffocating shame to celebratory pridebut I was surprised that so many younger men in the crowd laughed so easily and applauded so enthusiastically with recognition.

Jordan himself, noting his work with The Trevor Project in L.A., referred to our continuing need to have safe places for teens and young adults who are being attacked, shunned or in despair because society has told them to be ashamed of themselves.

Heck, it's not just young people. All over the country, even here in Sussex County, some gay men and women expect less of their lives and less of themselves because they have been instilled with shame and internal homophobia.

As long as youngsters are still being ostracized because they are presumed gay, and as long as teens are attacked, physically or emotionally for being gay, and as long as jobs and lives are at stake unless gays remain closeted, there will be a need for gay culturea safe family, a safe place to be and a special culture of our own.

This is why CAMP Rehoboth is so important to our community. Sure, some of us, in our, ahem, maturity are less inclined to stay up into the wee hours dancing at Love. We may not need the library of GLBT books, or spend quite as much time as we did in the courtyard, but whether we know if or not, we still need it. Whether people who have NEVER participated in a CAMP event know it or not, they benefit from CAMP's existence, too.

CAMP is the reason we can be comfortable in this town and its vigilance is the reason Rehoboth will continue to welcome all kinds of families. CAMP's police sensitivity training helps our summer officers be more comfortable interacting with our community; CAMP's support of the women's golf league has helped more than one golfer tell me joining the league made her feel part of the community; CAMP's advocacy for GLBT citizens is the reason local and state governments respect us as a constituency; the welcoming atmosphere created by CAMP has helped a variety of religious organizations, non-profits and clubs open their doors to the gay community. Oh, and CAMP's successful publication has gays and non-gays alike advertising and reading.

Speaking of diversity, Christopher Peterson's Eyecons at the Atlantic Sands has an audience also made up of gays and non-gays. But everyone is enjoying our culture, our icons, our stereotypes and our jokes on our terms.

This weekend, at the Convention Center Follies will celebrate our culture. We will be poking fun at headlines that affect us, incidents that make us mad, politicians who hate us and more. And it's our culture to satirize.

We will not be erased and we will not erase our gay culture. Count on it.

Fay Jacobs is the author of As I Lay Fryinga Rehoboth Beach Memoir and Fried & TrueTales from Rehoboth Beach. Contact her at www.fayjacobs.com.

LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 18, No. 10 July 25, 2008