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GAY SAN DIEGO Jan. 28-Feb. 10, 2011


COMMUNITY VOICES Gay stamp of approval I’ve kept a secret for years.


Now it’s time for me to come out—as a stamp collector. I’m throwing off my shame.


I’m a nerd and I’m proud! My orientation, philateli- cally speaking, is toward general collecting. I amass all kinds of postage stamps. Other collectors prefer to go the topical route, acquiring stamps on specific subjects, like birds, soccer or Norwegian breakdancing. Just yesterday I had an epiph-


Jim Leff’s painting of a Harvey Milk stamp. (Courtesy Jim Leff)


any. I should develop a topical collection: gay stamps! I’ve never heard of anyone specializing in that before. It’s time, and I’m just the nerd to do it. For one thing, I already own


some of the American stamps that count as gay, lesbian or bisexual. Like the 1991 Cole Porter stamp, which I’m pleased to report I have three of. In 1993 the U.S. Postal Service released an AIDS aware- ness stamp with a red ribbon, and since people still wrote letters back then, I have six of them. I possess one Margaret Mead


and one Tennessee Williams. Both look a touch annoyed. I also have a single Willa Cather from 1973, when I didn’t know she was gay, or that I was gay or anybody else was gay.


I hope historians come to


agreement about Abraham Lin- coln’s gayness, because I’ve got a ton of him.


It’s now clear that I have major holes to fill. I can’t claim to own a decent queer collection without the stamps of George Washington Carver, James Baldwin, Andy Warhol, Josephine Baker, Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben or Walt Whit- man. Appalling gaps. Time to start swapping my straights for gays. In fact, I thought for certain I had the 1940 Whitman stamp. It seems someone’s been pilfering my poofters.


While I do own the American Raymond Burr stamp—it’s actu- ally an homage to his TV show, “Perry Mason”—I don’t possess his Canadian stamp. I need Della to get on that. A person doesn’t have to be gay to belong in my thematic col- lection. It would be a poor queer collection indeed without Judy Garland and Dinah Shore. Thank-


GENERALGAYETY LESLIE ROBINSON


fully, I already possess both the all-time gay icon and the acciden- tal originator of a yearly lesbian bacchanal. Needless to say, the 2009 Dinah Shore stamp doesn’t celebrate the lesbian debauch. The post office might’ve solved its


see Gayety, pg 16


gay-sd.com


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