GAA members performed zaps, public peaceful confrontations with officials to draw media attention. Some of their more visible actions included protests against an anti-gay episode on the popular TV Series Marcus Welby, a zap of Mayor John Lindsay at the Metropolitan Museum & at Radio City Music Hall, a zap against Gov. Nelson Rockefelle, a zap at the Marriage License Bureau demanding marriage rights for gays, a zap against Fidelifacts, which provided anti-gay information to employers, a zap at the NYC Taxi Commission , which required gay cab drivers to get an OK from a psychiatrist before being employed, and a zap at the NY Daily News, which printed an editorial attacking "queers, lezzies, pansies, call them what you will."
The symbol of the Gay Activists Alliance was the lower case Greek letter lambda (λ). The organization exists today as Gay Activists Alliance International.
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I always had a bit of a crush on him. Conductor, pianist, & composer Michael Tilson Thomas is one of the most prominent American conductors of his generation. Perhaps most significantly, he is the first out gay conductor to achieve such prominence.
Tilson Thomas does not discuss his personal life with the public, but his dedication to creating & presenting music that explores the gay experience confirms his importance as a gay conductor.
Tilson Thomas has acknowledged that he is something of a maverick in the music world. Known for his dedication to innovative &inventive composers, he has performed their works in the hope that he might expose his audiences to the wonderful diversity of classical music in the USA.
Tilson Thomas has pushed audiences to rethink the relationship between classical music & homosexuality by celebrating openly gay composers. Although gay people have always been a part of the world of classical music, as performers, composers & audience members, they have often remained invisible. Tilson Thomas has taken bold steps to change this.
In May 2001, Tilson Thomas conducted the premiere of Del Tredici's Gay Life, a series of pieces he commissioned that are based on poems by Allen Ginsberg, Thom Gunn, & Paul Monette. The work both explores the experiences of gay men in America & the challenges that gay men have faced in their struggle to survive the AIDS epidemic.
Several of Tilson Thomas' own compositions have added to the growing classical music repertoire focused on gay subjects. 3 Poems by Walt Whitman, written for baritone & orchestra, & We 2 Boys Together Clinging, for baritone & piano, use Whitman's poetry to explore intimacy between men.
As a prominent American conductor, Tilson Thomas has displayed his mastery of tradition & his sense of musical adventure. His decision to live openly & his support of other gay musicians have enhanced his stature, both professionally & morally.
For this maverick musician, openly gay, showmanship is in his genes. Thomas is a Thomashefsky, the grandson of Boris Thomashefsky, the great Russian immigrant singer & actor who, in the 1920s and '30s, was a superstar in the American Yiddish theatre, & legendary for his philandering.
Thomas: "He was like Elvis in some ways. Women would rush the stage & rip their clothes off. It's kind of scary because very often, when I used to go on tour around the United States, people would come up after the show & say, 'You know, we think, in some way, we're related to you.'"
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