PEOPLE
CALL
US
brand
whores.
They
say
gay
men
are
so
obsessed
with
fashion
that
we
will
blindly
embrace
the
most
ridiculous
trends,
as
long
as
they
have
a
famous
name
attached
to
them.
I
would
love
to
say
they
are
wrong.
It
would
be
great
to
claim
that
our
choice
in
clothes
has
nothing
to
do
with
our
capacity
for
independent
thought.
But
as
I
stroll
through
Dupont
or
Logan,
what
do
I
see?
Ernesto
“Che”
Guevara’s
face
staring
at
me
from
the
chest
of
an
oblivious
gay
man.
I
see
guys
who
surely
have
“Hate
is
Not
a
Family
Value”
bumper
stickers
on
their
cars
walk
around
memorializing
the
beast
who
cried,
in
April
1967,
that
justice
is
“hatred
as
an
element
of
struggle;
unbending
hatred
for
the
enemy,
which
pushes
a
human
being
beyond
his
natural
limitations,
making
him
an
effective,
violent,
selective,
and
cold-blooded
killing
machine.”
Che
was,
indeed,
a
cold-blooded
killing
machine.
He
was
personally
and
directly
responsible
for
hundreds
of
deaths.
But
his
thirst
for
blood
extended
beyond
his
personal
ambition
to
take
the
lives
of
thousands
more.
The
number
of
homosexuals
killed
under
the
reign
of
horror
he
helped
establish
in
Cuba
is
still
unknown
and
will
remain
so
until
the
death
of
his
accomplice,
Fidel
Castro.
But
what
is
known
is
that
the
forced-labor
camps
he
started
in
Cuba
with
the
founding
of
the
Guanahacabibes
camp
were
populated
by
what
they
considered
the
scum
of
society:
gays,
and
later
people
with
AIDS,
as
well
as
Christians
and
Afro-Caribbean
priests.
MY
PERSONAL
LOATHING
of
this
man
goes
beyond
the
certainty
that
he
would
have
ordered
me
enslaved
and
murdered
had
I
lived
under
his
boot.
In
1954,
an
army
of
Guatemalan
exiles
overthrew,
with
the
aid
of
the
United
States,
what
was
set
to
become
Latin
America’s
first
Marxist
government.
Much
controversy
still
surrounds
this
part
of
my
native
country’s
history,
so
I
will
not
dwell
on
it.
Yet
I
cannot
help
but
be
offended
by
what
Guevara,
writing
from
Guatemala,
said
to
his
mother
in
a
letter:
“It
was
all
a
lot
of
fun,
what
with
the
bombs,
speeches,
and
other
distractions
to
break
the
monotony
I
was
living
in.”
My
mother,
11
years
old
at
the
time,
does
not
remember
with
such
fondness
the
hours
she
spent
crouched
in
a
closet,
hearing
bombers
fly
above
her
home.
Those
who
will
accuse
me
of
bias
need
only
read
Che’s
own
words
to
understand
my
indignation:
“Crazy
with
fury,
I
will
stain
my
rifle
red
while
slaughtering
any
enemy
that
falls
in
my
hands!
My
nostrils
dilate
while
savoring
the
acrid
odor
of
gunpowder
and
blood.”
I
am
biased
because
I
shudder
to
think
that
my
sexual
orientation
alone
would
have
landed
me
in
that
brute’s
slaughterhouse.
AMONG
THE
VICTIMS
of
Che’s
legacy
is
gay
Cuban
poet
Reynaldo
Arenas.
In
his
important
book,
“Before
Night
Falls,”
Arenas
remembers
life
in
a
state-run
Cuban
boarding
school,
where
homosexuality
was
punished
by
expulsion.
“The
boys
who
were
caught
in
[homosexual]
acts
had
to
parade
with
their
beds
and
all
their
belongings
towards
the
warehouse,
where
their
classmates
had
to
stone
and
beat
them,”
Arenas
wrote.
“It
was
a
sinister
expulsion,
as
it
came
with
a
file
that
would
follow
that
person
for
the
rest
of
his
life
and
keep
him
from
studying
in
any
state
school,
and
the
state
had
already
begun
to
control
everything.”
“Watching
that
spectacle,
I
felt
ashamed
and
terrified,”
he
added.
“‘A
faggot,
that’s
what
you
are,’
my
classmate’s
voice
echoed,
and
I
understood
that
to
be
a
‘faggot’
in
Cuba
was
one
of
the
worse
calamities
that
could
ever
happen
to
a
human
being.”
Arenas
killed
himself
in
1990
after
a
long
battle
with
AIDS.
He
bid
his
fellow
Cubans
farewell
in
a
letter
urging
them
to
continue
their
fight
for
freedom.
“My
message,”
he
said,
“is
not
a
message
of
defeat,
but
of
fight
and
hope.
Cuba
will
be
free.
I
already
am.”
Gay
men
and
women
have
no
business
joining
the
cult
of
Che.
No
matter
how
trendy
it
is,
no
matter
how
cool
it
looks,
and
no
matter
how
“revolutionary”
it
seems,
to
romanticize
and
revere
the
memory
of
someone
who
would
have
you
murdered
is
foolish,
degrading
and
disrespectful
toward
victims
like
Arenas.
To
honor
Guevara
is
to
continue
his
campaign
to
destroy
human
liberty..
