In commemoration of October, better known as “Gay Pride Month,” (not to be confused with “Gay Pride” month, which is still also sometimes called June), I wrote an editorial entitled “Kids to Drink Gay Kool Aid in October” (which was published at WorldNetDaily) offering a few interesting facts about the history of the “gay” movement that might not be included in the many public school celebrations of this important holiday season.
After publication it occurred to me that some people might not understand the reference to Kool Aid in my title, so as a public service, and in honor to the many “gays” and “lesbians,” such as Harvey Milk, whose contributions to society are being remembered this month, I’d like to offer this short follow-up letter.
According to Wikipedia: “Drinking the Kool-Aid” is a metaphor commonly used in the United States and Canada that refers to a person or group’s unquestioning belief, argument, or philosophy without critical examination…. The basis of the term is a reference to the November 1978 Rev. Jim Jones Jonestown Massacre, where members of the Peoples Temple were said to have committed suicide by drinking…Kool-Aid…laced with cyanide.”
Thus the reference to Kool Aid in my editorial regarding what some call “gay propaganda” now being served to children in America’s public schools. Far be it from me to suggest that the homosexual teachers and leftist allies of the Gay Lesbian Straight Teachers Network (GLSEN) would manipulate the minds and emotions of the vulnerable children for their own selfish advantage, but there are a few regressive “homophobic” types who do still make such claims.
My purpose, however, is to serve the cause of academic integrity by filling in a few of the historical facts that have been left out (no doubt inadvertently) by homosexual teachers and school officials. One important fact is about Harvey Milk, considered by many to the “Martin Luther King” of the “gay“ movement. Except, where King was concerned with the “content” of a man’s “character,” Milk was more interested in the contents of his gym shorts, including, very probably those of the Rev. Jim Jones.
We probably shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but in speaking of the dead at all we’re back to the Kool Aid metaphor since it only become an icon in American pop culture slang because Jim Jones used it to facilitate the mass suicide/slaughter of 909 of his blindly loyal followers one fateful November day in 1978 in Guyana.
And, interestingly, back home in San Francisco his very good friend Harvey Milk was murdered just a few days later. Indeed, Jones and Milk were so personally and politically close-knit that it was assumed these incidents were connected. Gay historian Michael Bellefountaine writes:
“Because Milk and Moscone were murdered so soon after the Jonestown tragedy, there was immediate speculation that Peoples Temple was somehow involved. Ann Kronenberg, Milk’s hand- picked successor, told Milk biographer Randy Shilts, that when she first heard Milk was murdered, she thought Jim Jones was responsible. Rumors began to circulate (and some persist today) of obscure connections between Jim Jones and Milk’s murderer, Dan White. Vague rumors of a falling out between Milk and Jones also surfaced. …upon closer inspection, it is clear that Harvey Milk was a strong advocate for Peoples Temple and Jim Jones during his political career, including the tumultuous year leading up to the Jonestown tragedy. Milk spoke at the Temple often, wrote personal letters to Jim Jones, contacted other elected officials on the Temple’s behalf, and used space in his weekly column to support the works of the Temple, even after the negative New West article went to press. Milk appeared in the pages of the Peoples Forum, the Temple newspaper, and received over fifty letters of sympathy from the residents of Jonestown when his lover, Jack Lira, killed himself in September 1978. (See: http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/Articles/bellefountaine.htm).
As for Jim Jones and the sexual orientation he shared with Harvey Milk, lets allow one of his former clergy, David Parker Wise, to give us the inside story:
“Not long after the formation of the L.A. church, Jim ran into a serious legal problem. He was arrested in the restroom of a late night movie theater where a lot of gay men hung out. Apparently, he approached an undercover agent with an erect penis in a provocative way. This incident threatened to bring down Peoples Temple, and those who knew about it teamed up to prepare for the possible backlash. While the lawyers worked to get the arrest sealed, Jim became more and more threatened and paranoid, convinced that he would still be exposed. To reduce the fallout, we were told to invite people from a local ‘homosexual church‘, but members of the church did not return after their first visit. Jim still needed some homosexuals. He was determined to make Peoples Temple a more openly homosexual church to stop insiders and outsiders from turning against him in case his own homosexual arrest became public” (See:http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/PersonalReflections/reflwise.htm — Warning: Graphic Content).
So there we are. Another good reason to celebrate Gay Pride Month. Let us indeed honor these two “gay” men whose lives and legacies, so closely intertwined in life and death, have profoundly influenced American society. And let us never forget, whenever we use this now ubiquitous metaphor, that the Kool Aid has always been “gay.”
