In 1942, the deadliest nightclub fire in US history took place at The Coconut Grove in Boston Massachusetts, killing nearly 500 people. The severally overcrowded former speakeasy lacked even the most basic safety precautions; when the fire broke out and quickly spread, most of the patrons were either lost in the black smoke or crushed during the ensuing panic; there were so many dead bodies piled up at the club’s main entrance: a single revolving door which quickly jammed during the onrush - that firefighters could not gain immediate access to the building; after the disaster, several states enacted laws for public establishments banning flammable decorations, and inward-swinging exit doors, as well as requiring exit signs to be visible at all times - even during a power outage. Later, the lingering memory of the carnage was so traumatic that business licensing authorities ruled that no establishment could use “The Coconut Grove” as a name. The area at which The Coconut Grove once stood went through a series of urban redevelopments with a city street now dissecting were most of the club once stood.
It’s interesting that a contemporaneous report described The Coconut Grove as a “Gay Boston Night Club…” Although the word “gay” in this sense had nothing to do with the modern meaning of “gay” - its still an interesting parallel between the tragic deaths of those innocents who were lulled into a false sense of complacency while partying in the middle of a death trap and those thousands of gay men who got lured into the homosexual lifestyle - thinking what could possibly go wrong. Only, in both cases, something did go horribly wrong - and, for those who survived to watch the bodies being carried out: it was incomprehensible, for the dead were mainly comprised of the young and the beautiful: at The Coconut Grove it was countless wartime servicemen, their dates, and even movie star Buck Jones; in the AIDS crisis - it always seemed to strike the most promising and the most glamorous. For those who remembered, “The Coconut Grove” would always mean death; a similar cultural phenomena of collective grief and terror surrounds the mere mention of certain words: for instance “holocaust,” came to mean something quite different after World War II; before 2001, few would have reason to mourn after hearing the date September 11th; and following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, no one wanted to name their baby girl after one of the nation’s worst natural disasters. Because, these words have taken on a charge which will always be present; for this reason - even flight numbers, which are usually just a series of letters and numbers, are often taken out of use after a crash or a serious airline incident.
For some of us, there is a palpable sadness and even revulsion when we hear the word “gay,” because it represents who we once were: that fooled little boy who thought he would be happy as a “gay” man; who thought that love was simply about being held in another man’s arms; who then had to stand by and watch as everyone around him literally fell into the grave. For many years afterwards, “gay” becomes a trauma trigger leading to a PTSD meltdown. For, “gay” too is forever splattered with death:
Although far fewer are currently dying of AIDS, in the gay community – the virus is everywhere. “In 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released startling new data that showed HIV was still plaguing the gay community. While new HIV infections had remained steady in the general public between 2008 and 2010, infections had risen by an incredible 22 percent in young gay men. Gay men represented two-thirds of new infections. And nearly 6,000 gay men were dying of AIDS every year...According to the CDC, if HIV continues to spread at its current rates, more than half of college-aged gay men will have HIV by the age of 50.” In comparison, the estimated number of deaths in the US among gay men with AIDS rose steadily in the 1980s and early 90s, and then leveled at approximately 25,000 deaths in 1994; in 1992, AIDS became the number one cause of death for U.S. men ages 25 to 44. Since the epidemic began, an estimated 311,087 gay men with an AIDS diagnosis have died in the US.
Despite this, time and the healing power of prayer can calm all things: after over 15 years, I can at least now utter the word - though sparingly; I never call myself “gay” or anyone else for that matter. I only use it during outreach to the “gay” community; in the form of my two web-sites: www.jesuslovesgaymen.com and www.jesuslovesgaywomen.com. I do this because, in the homosexual world, I am dealing directly with a group of human beings that are in a communal state of euphoric denial; its sort of The Coconut Grove gone berserk - since no one tries to flee as the burning building falls about them; as Britney Spears poetically sang: “…keep on dancing till the world ends.” But, I get why they do this - after a friend’s death, a very young victim of AIDS, on my walk home from the funeral, I popped into one of the local Castro porn-shops for a quickie in the backroom; my friend was dead in the ground, but, at that moment, I desperately needed to feel alive. It’s my continuing sense that nearly everyone in the gay community realizes that the experiment isn’t working, but its always easier to find solace in sex and the comfort of camaraderie within the walls of “gay” self-acceptance that to truly face the hell we find ourselves. For others, who have lost so much, either dear loved ones or perhaps almost themselves: today, the complete folly of that, and everything attached to “gay,” is wholly apparent and all the more tragic because the harm was unintentional, the gross debauchery a result of a gay male populace suddenly heady with newfound freedoms and sexual confidence; this embrace of all-soothing gayness usually following quickly upon a childhood filled with pain, loneliness, and disillusionment. In a sense, the modern “gay” movement has always been a march towards ultimate death - sort of disastrously predestined in the fires and chaos of Stonewall.
In the post-AIDS era, “gay” has taken on a strange double-meaning; the incredible thrust of gay liberation and the continuing grasp for social and cultural relevance and acceptance, most perfectly realized in the successful push for gay marriage, created the longest group inebriation in the history of the world; it’s a parade that won’t end; and, like the ever changing style of Madonna, it’s a product that keeps getting repackaged and resold to the next era of disaffected boys and girls. Yet, beyond the facade, its failing: “gay” reminds me of the character of Ayesha, or “She-who-must-be-obeyed,” from the H. Rider Haggard novel “She;” a seemingly beautiful woman who is actually a wrinkled old hag who can only offer the kiss of death to those she tempts. Therefore, when someone takes on the “gay” label, unconsciously or not, they are taking on that historical horror-show of deception and death. When a “gay” Christian intentionally does it, its even more disconcerting because they should understand the power of a single word.* To say “I am gay,” in the very least - perpetuates the lie and the illusion, putting a fresh face on a tired deception; moreover, it disrespects the dead who oftentimes breathed their last in ignorance. It’s like rebuilding “The Coconut Grove” on the exact site of the fire and then tactlessly calling it “The Coconut Grove.” You can’t do it, as nothing will ever grow there; its decimated ground; as the Roman general Scipio plowed over and sowed the city of Carthage with salt after defeating it in the Third Punic War, “gay” no longer remains the fertile soil that a generation of men from the 1970s and 80s planted their hopes and dreams in - only to find everything withered and dead within a few seasons. The illusion is gone. The party is over.
* “Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, Nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God. And such some of you were; but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of our God.” (1 Cor 6: 9-11)