Openly Gay Emile Griffith
CIVIL RIGHTS ONCE DENIED TO BLACKS & WOMEN
San Francisco, CA– Having been born in a gay bastion, San Francisco, I was first exposed to Gay people when we lived on 22nd & Castro many decades ago. My father was aghast that two Gay men lived in the same building. After doing some work for them, his stance began to waver. When he found out that a childhood friend of his who was seriously ill in the hospital was Gay, my father, once super homophobic, made a 180-degree turn.
CIVIL RIGHTS SHOULD BE CLEARLY ILLUSTRATED
Black people are supposed (or alleged) to have equal rights, no longer do they have to ride in the back of the bus, women can vote, Gay fighters are permitted to box, Blacks can marry Whites, so why should we ban Gay people, somewhere between 15 & 25 % of the populace, deny them a right to the pursuit of happiness? Is it really any of our business what people do in their personal or domestic lives?
EMILE GRIFFITH IS “NOW” OPENLY GAY!
A self co-authored 2008 book, “Nine, Ten, And Out! The Two Worlds of Emile Griffith” explain his now being openly Gay, after decades of living in the closet. Griffith was a two-division world champion and 1964 “Ring Magazine Fighter of The Year.” Now being something of a Constitutional student, at one time I was a bit homophobic with the reason being that as a kid we had a perverted Cub Scout leader who abused young boys in my Pack.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PEDOPHILES & BEING GAY
Then I learned the very significant difference between pedophilia and being Gay. Last year, the Catholic Church had almost 1,000 cases of Priests molesting boys. Makes you wonder if that would be the case if Priests had Civil Rights, were they allowed to either marry, be it heterosexual or homosexual, would the numbers be that high?
LEARNED GAY PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE THAT DESERVE GAY MARRIAGE & CIVIL RIGHTS!
I started working for my uncle Palamento Fernandez at the San Francisco Barber College, and I became friends with two students who were Gay and I didn’t know it. Because of the stigma then attached to same-sex cohabitation they never let on and left school at different times, rarely even having lunch together.
SAW THEM HOLD HANDS AT GRADUATION PARTY
I was 13 and stunned when first learning their “thing” was more than just friendship, this at a Barber College graduation party. Now some 37 years later, they are still together living as one! When I was in the San Francisco Police Dept., I worked with Don Hicks, who was Gay.
FOUNDING FAHERS SAID “ALL MEN (PEOPLE) ARE CREATED EQUAL”
Of all the great people that I worked the streets with, Don was the best cop and human being. Now SFPD Commander Greg Corrales, then a Lieutenant, put us together knowing that I was not homophobic. Jokingly, I used to say that two Gay guys mean two more chicks for me! As it turns out, it was Don that rescued me when I fell 30+ feet through a roof to a concrete floor. The moral of this story is that the “pursuit of happiness” and Civil Rights, well they trump anybody’s opinion!
Pedro Fernandez