Marc Rubin

From our archives:

Date: Sun Mar 18, 2007 9:37 pm
Subject: Marc Rubin

They say that things happen in 3's. It pains me to say that at least in the case of the passing of Stonewall-Era gay activists, this has been the case these weeks. Last month saw the passing of Marc Rubin as well as a very generous anonymous donor who helped fund the early Gay Movement, in addition to pioneer Barbara Gittings.

Marc Rubin was an early activist who was a leader in the Gay Activists' Alliance (GAA) in the 1970s as well as a member of the Lavender Hill Mob. In 1974 he helped found the Gay Teachers Association, and was involved in the early planning for the Institute for the Protection of Lesbian and Gay Youth, the original incarnation of the present Hetrick-Martin Institute. In 1994, Mr. Rubin was one of the primary organizers of the Stonewall 25 celebration and insisted that both the GAA and GLF (Gay Liberation Front) be given special places of honor. This was in response to what he felt was the erasure of the role the GAA and GLF played in the early stages of the movement by gay historians.

To give just a bare bones version of their history and significance, the GLF was the organization that came directly out of the Stonewall Rebellion in 1969. Members of GLF were often divided on which direction to move in, and as a result of their fractured direction, led to the group's disbanding after about 2 years. Despite being so short-lived GLF is important, amongst other reasons, for putting forth the notion that the act of coming out was itself a political one.

GLF members who wanted to focus solely on gay issues broke off to form their own organization, the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA). The GAA were known for their work both politically and socially. They frequently organized ZAPS, which were public confrontations with elected officials regarding various issues relating to the gay and lesbian community. In a short time they managed to get passed several laws protecting gays and lesbians in NYC. The GAA headquarters also became a community center of sorts, organizing fundraisers and dances, which helped fund the GAA.

Unfortunately in an arson that remains unsolved to this day, the headquarters burned down, which along with other factors led to the group's dismantling in 1981. GAA members went on to found the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), and the LGBT Community Center in NYC. Another offspring organization, the Lavender Hill Mob, eventually would go on to join forces with ACT-UP to protest discriminatory practices regarding HIV/AIDS issues.

I'll write more in-depth about the GLF, GAA, Lavender Hill Mob, and HMI in future posts, but for now, to learn more, go to:

Marc Rubin
MarcRubin1
MarcRubin2

GAA
GAA1 (please excuse the top photos!)
GAA2
GAA3
GAA4

GLF
GLF1
GLF2
GLF3
GLF4
GLF5


Lavender Hill Mob
LavenderHillMob1
LavenderHillMob2

LavenderHillMob3

LavenderHillMob4

Hetrick-Martin Institute
HMI1
HMI2

********************************************************


http://gaycitynews.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18055302&BRD=2729&PAG=461&dept_id=568862&rfi=6


Marc Rubin, Early Activist, Teachers' Organizer, Dead at 74
By: PAUL SCHINDLER
03/08/2007
Email to a friend Post a Comment Printer-friendly



GAA activists (l. to r.) Vito Russo, Jim Owles, Marc Rubin, and Pete Fisher get a summons from police for staging a dance at the group�s famed Firehouse headquarters in Soho.

Marc Rubin, a pioneering activist who was a leader in New York's Gay Activist Alliance (GAA) of the early 1970s, helped found the Gay Teachers Association in 1974, and was part of the Lavender Hill Mob, a direct-action precursor to ACT UP, died on February 28 at the age of 74.


Rubin's death was announced by his partner of more than 35 years, author and activist Pete Fisher.


Contemporaries of Rubin recall his "commanding presence" at public demonstrations in Manhattan that were often met with law enforcement hostility and the scorn of passersby.


Recalling Rubin and Fisher as "a legendary couple" in GAA, Joe Kennedy, author of "Summer of '77: Last Hurrah of the Gay Activists Alliance," said, "They were very courageous. Others might be intimidated by hostile crowds. They would go places others would not." Kennedy described the couple attending Fisher's high school reunion in Westchester in the early '70s dressed "in full leather regalia."

Kennedy said that Rubin's size and "booming voice" gave him a memorable role in the many activist debates of the era, but emphasized that he was influential because he was "very persuasive," not domineering.

"He was a natural leader," Kennedy said.


Steve Ashkinazy, a social worker, also knew Rubin during this period and worked with him briefly on the early planning for the Institute for the Protection of Lesbian and Gay Youth, now the Hetrick-Martin Institute. Commenting on Rubin's death, Ashkinazy said he had just days before watched a video of the two of them speaking at a high school during the early 1970s. A public school teacher who worked with delinquent boys, Rubin with Fisher wrote a novel based on his experiences, "Special Teachers/ Special Boys," published by St. Martin's in 1978.

In 1974, Rubin, one of the first out gay teachers in the city's school system, and Merill Friedman placed a notice in the Village Voice to organize the Gay Teachers Association. Roughly 40 people turned out to form the group now known as the Lesbian and Gay Teachers Association. It was from the ranks of that group that Lambda Legal in 1987 drew the plaintiffs for a lawsuit to win domestic partner benefits for lesbian and gay public school teachers. The suit dragged on for six years, and was settled in negotiations with Mayor David Dinkins giving such benefits to all city employees just days before he lost to Rudy Giuliani in 1993.


In a 1999 remembrance published by Gay Today at badpuppy.com on the occasion of Stonewall's 30th anniversary, Rubin recalled the spirit of his activism in the early days, and lamented the "erasure" of GAA from queer history, even in the gay press.


"To distort history is to redefine reality, to bend it towards serving selective and exclusiona y agendas," he wrote. Then contrasting GAA with the group it grew up in reaction to, Rubin wrote, "GLF, Gay Liberation Front, was conceived as being part of the entire Liberation movement, one segment of a worldwide struggle against oppression. It was anarchic and strongly allied to, albeit rather unwelcome in, all leftist movements. The Gay Activists Alliance stood for writing the revolution into law... [T]he organization's single issue focus enabled it direct all of its energies toward working intensively in, on, with, and against 'The Establishment' on issues affecting lesbians and gay men."


He then went on to recall a dozen demonstrations, pickets, sit-ins, and zaps aimed at unfriendly or uncooperative institutions from the City Council to St. Patrick's Cathedral to the Taxi and Limousine Commission (for requiring psychological testing of gay taxi drivers) to "The Dick Cavett Show" (because of the host's "relentless anti-gay spiels"). It was that ethic of on-the-spot activism that Rubin and others, most notably Marty Robinson, brought to the Lavender Hill Mob's AIDS protest activities in the mid-'80s.


"I really adored him," said poet, novelist, and activist Perry Brass in admiration of Rubin's dedicated activism. Seeing Rubin for the first time in several years at an ACT UP meeting in the late '80s, Kennedy recalled him saying, "I will never be as young and energetic as I once was, but I will always be an activist."

Indeed, Rubin was one of the primary organizers of the city's massive Stonewall 25 celebration in 1994, at which he insisted GAA and GLF be given special places of honor.

Two years ago, Rubin, suffering from symptoms that included memory loss, underwent brain surgery, from which he recovered well. Kennedy, however, said that on Pride Sunday last year he received a call from Rubin saying that for the first time ever he was too sick to join the annual celebration and was instead spending the day calling his "old activist comrades."
Plans for a memorial service for Marc Rubin have not yet been completed.



©GayCityNews 2007