As a gay man who over the course of a decade lined out over half the names in my address book because my friends were dying of AIDS while the federal government sat apathetic, with Dole actively obstructing funding, I find it rather offensive that people would wish to emphasize his positive qualities.
My friends are dead and they aren’t coming back. Dole is one of the reasons why.
As a gay man who had to commit a felony to receive a security clearance, and who risked felony punishment simply for being in the military, while Dole fought to keep that status quo in place, I find it offensive that people would wish to emphasize his positive qualities.
The attitude you are expressing right now is the attitude I was talking about when I say that nobody cares about us. You’re openly worrying that things Dole did that were absolutely horrible, absolutely devastating to real human beings like me, might paint him in a bad light. I want them to paint Dole in a bad light. I want people to understand that some of the things that he did were genuinely horrible. The only way to negate that is to either bury the memory of the genuinely horrible things he did to us, or to act as if they’re not really all that important because we LGBTQ really don’t matter much.
