San Francisco Shouldn’t Homeport Iowa or Feinstein

Today the SF Board of Supervisors engaged in an offensive display of prejudice, stupidity and a lack of respect for history, both of the military and of the gay community.

"The San Francisco Board of Supervisors today voted 3-8 against a resolution urging the San Francisco Congressional Delegation to support the permanent berthing of the USS Iowa as a museum at the Port of San Francisco."

I'm sorry, but I will not ever visit a place where the US military is not welcome. 

San Francisco has gotten so insular and cut off from reality that it has gotten loonier than Colorado Springs did after its takeover by the theocrats.

Look, I'm a gay man. The military and I have obvious deep disagreements. But the fact is that it's not the pacifists, or even the gay activists, who have provided freedom for Americans, and yes, even Gay Americans. It was those that were willing to die to protect it.  That means they get my respect. (Of course, I still reserve the right to bitch). Hell, I might even have had relatives serve on the Iowa, like my great Uncle Cliffy, a Marine in WWII.

Men died on the Iowa in so I could sit here at my computer and slur the Government,   without fear of a knock at the door in the night. To treat our military, or even a symbol of it so shabbily is shameful.  It also displays a disgusting lack of knowledge about both the military and of gay history, of which the Iowa is a part of.

On April 19th, 1989, 47 men died on the USS Iowa when a turret exploded.  That was tragedy enough, but what followed was much worse, and a pure example of cover-up and prejudice.  It's a shameful episode in the Navy's history. In order to cover its butt, the Navy did the following:

"In May 1989, "unnamed sources" within the Naval Investigative Services (NIS) leaked to NBC correspondent Fred Francis claims that there was evidence of a murder/ suicide involving a "homosexual relationship" between Gunner's Mate Clayton Hartwig (who was killed in the blast) and Gunner's Mate Kendall Truitt (who survived). In June, Francis reported that Navy investigators were "convinced" that Hartwig was a "troubled homosexual" who was suicidal because other sailors had rejected his advances. In both cases the national media picked up the story, with attribution to NBC. In October 1989, the Navy claimed that the blast was "most probably" intentionally caused by Hartwig."

Later however, the Navy was forced to admit it had made the whole story up.

"But that was false, as Thompson discovered. Hartwig was not gay, nor was his friend who died with him in the blast. They had not had a love affair, pleasant or tormented......The sailor's false statement was later retracted, a fact that the Navy also covered up in its zeal to pin blame for the affair on Hartwig. Naval officials even went so far as to conceal the retraction from FBI agents who worked at the agency's behavioral studies unit and who produced a "psychological autopsy" buttressing the detectives' theory. The Navy's coverup also included the suppression of evidence showing that Hartwig couldn't possibly have caused the explosion."

So why did the Navy go to all this trouble?

"Blaming the victim deflected attention from the Navy's own culpability. That culpability included bad maintenance of the 16-inch guns, unsafe working conditions, poor ship leadership and the use of half-century-old gunpowder...."The environment was one notch above hell," Thompson writes. "It was hot, grimy, nasty, hazardous and cramped. The Iowa turret decks were slippery, coated with hydraulic fluid and oil. A tumbling shell could pulverize a man. One misstep in the gun house and a sailor could plunge into the pit, where he might be crushed to death by moving machinery or by an elevating or traversing weapon. Friction and static electricity were constant sources of anxiety. A spark could trigger an explosion."

So this incident, and this ship, both a part of Navy history, and a part of our gay history, is not welcome in San Francisco. Besides the slap at the military, its a slap at the gay community as well. If we don't make sure that our own history is remembered, both the good and the bad, its going to disappear.

The ship was to become a museum, like the Midway in San Diego, visited by hundreds of thousands of people each year.  As such it could have included among its displays the real facts about the Iowa accident.  It could have made sure that those men falsely slurred by the Navy could have an honest remembrance.  It could even have served to provide facts about the history of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.  The Midway in San Diego has even plays host to fundraising events for local and national gay organizations, such as the Service Members Legal Defense Network, that helps those that run afoul of DADT.

And what about paying some respect to the hundreds of thousands of active and retired gay and lesbian military personnel?  Those that both live in SF and visit it every year?  Don't you think they would have appreciated being able to visit a place that acknowledged and honored their own personal history and sacrifices? We could of done this, and more, on the Iowa. There were good men and women who served on that ship, straight, gay, whatever. Their service on that ship deserved more respect than a boot in the pants by the city of San Francisco.

Now it's just a wasted opportunity due to the childish temper tantrums of a group of over-the-hill yet still immature ex-hippies.  There is no real difference between these Supervisors and their prejudice and that of people like Lou Sheldon, its just a matter of degree, and whom it's directed at.  It is exactly the same, and it is just as petty.

We need an new version of ACT UP to go and demonstrate against these idiots.  Until then, they don't ever get another cent from me.  Shame, Shame, Shame, San Francisco!