Doug Ireland on 'Smash the Church, Smash the State'

Doug Ireland reviews Smash the Church, Smash the State! - The Early Years of the Gay Liberation edited by Tommi Avicolli Mecca (City Lights Publisher, 2009, 303p) in the current issue of Gay City News (A Truly Queer History). It is a "collection of articles, largely first-person reminiscences of the earliest and most radical wave of gay liberation struggles, the bulk of them specifically written for this volume." It includes "manifestos and documents of that early period and biographical sketches of important movement figures." "Avicolli Mecca has not abandoned the anarchic radicalism of those early days. He writes in his introduction, 'In many ways, the new millennium gay movement is the antithesis of the early '70s gay liberation. It cavorts with politicians who may be good on gay issues, but not on concerns affecting other disenfranchised communities. It is in bed with the Democratic Party establishment that gave carte blanche to George Bush to wage two illegal and immoral wats in the Middle East. It courts corporate support for its gala events, even its pride parades, which used to be protest marches and celebrations of the Stonewall Riots. Now those marches seem more of a market than a movement.'"