Larry Kramer
Larry Kramer
Larry Krameris an American playwright, author, public health advocate, and LGBT rights activist. He began his career rewriting scripts while working for Columbia Pictures, which led him to London where he worked with United Artists. There he wrote the screenplay for the 1969 film Women in Loveand earned an Academy Award nomination for his work. Kramer introduced a controversial and confrontational style in his novel Faggots, which book earned mixed reviews but emphatic denunciations from elements within the gay community...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth25 June 1935
CityBridgeport, CT
CountryUnited States of America
Mr. Do-Nothing Obama will say today, 'Lets think of all the poor dead people' - or 'let's honor all the dead' instead of fighting for the living. He has been really useless in terms of both HIV and gay issues. He is simply not a leader. He may be president, but he is not a leader.
I now realize that I am a gay man before anything else. Other gays may think they're a Jew first, or black, or a banker, but I'm gay.
It’s so wonderful being a gay person. I said that before. I’m going to say it again. I love being gay. And I love gay people. I think we’re better than other people. I really do. I think we’re smarter and more talented and more aware and I do, I do, I totally do. And I think we’re more tuned in to what’s happening, tuned into the moment, tuned into our emotions, and other people’s emotions, and we’re better friends. I really do think all of these things. And I try not to forget them.
We have to think bigger as writers. We have to try and change the world.
Gay life in 1970 was very bleak, compartmentalized. You didn't take it to work. You had to really lead a double life. There were bars, but you sort of snuck in and snuck out. Activism and gay pride simply didn't exist. I don't even think the word 'gay' was in existence.
I do not think the gay population has been all that rabid for gay marriage. Note that I do not use the words 'gay community.' Expunge that expression from your vocabulary. We are not a community.
I think being gay and gay people are the most wonderful things in the world. I wish all of us could have the power and pride to benefit from what is rightfully ours. Why isn't there an enormous building in Washington called the 'National Association of Lesbian and Gay Concerns' to lobby for us?
I think Ed Koch is the person most responsible for allowing AIDS to get out of control. It happened here first, on his watch. If he had done what any moral human being should have done in the beginning, and put out alarms, then a lot fewer people would have gotten sick.
I love being gay. I love gay people. I think we're better than other people. I really do. I think we're smarter and more talented and more aware. I do, I totally do. I really do think all of these things. And I try very hard to remember all this.
You'd think one day we'd learn. You don't get anything unless you fight for it, united and with visible numbers. If ACT UP taught us anything, it taught us that.
We're very pleased to offer this event programming for free on the web.
The story doesn't end any more when you post it, when you put it on the TV.
At the very least we will be able to pick up very quickly what the side effects are. And this is something that standard clinical testing doesn't (offer) for several years.
We are thrilled to start the Rock Center and feel privileged to have it begun by someone like Arthur Rock, whose life and work have been central in creating the Silicon Valley. Our goal, like Arthur's, is nothing less than to transform corporate governance in the United States and abroad. It is imperative to restore public trust in business and to do so in a way that fuels rather than impedes growth. The resources that can be brought to bear at Stanford--in law, business, economics, and engineering--will enable us to tackle problems in new ways. And with the help and participation of the business community itself, the Rock Center can and will become a source for problem solving, new thinking, and great scholarship in this most important of domains.