The Grey and the Purple
15 July 2008 - 13 תמוז 5768 by Huw
IR Ian Meets +Gene over at The Lead and the conversation (and the sketches) are very good.
Another of Gene’s better moments came when he described how everyone in the gay rights movement, as in all human rights movements, “stand on the shoulders” of those who came before them. Referring to the Stonewall uprising in Greenwich Village in the late 1960s, he said, “I am here because some drag queens got sick and tired of being harassed by the police.”
The evening ended with Sir Ian performing a speech that Shakespeare wrote for a play not his own: The Book of Sir Thomas More. (The theme is the inhumanity of persecuting strangers, and you can read it by clicking on Read More.)
When Gene asked him if he would perform the speech for him as a favor, Sir Ian said, yes, adding, “you’ve practically converted me to Christianity.”
