Gerry Studds led a remarkable life, one well worthy of a memoir. That he decided not to write one was characteristic of the man. Articulate, witty, and enormously smart, he captivated audiences large and small; he was, in short, charismatic. But his persona was never about him, an almost eerie quality in a politician. Principles motivated Gerry Studds. He didn’t care about fame.
This was perhaps the main reason for his continued success in the U.S. House of Representatives after becoming, in 1983, the first member of it to announce that he was gay. Studds won a solid reelection following that historic event, astounding the ma
ny pundits who had predicted defeat, including a number of hand-wringers at the “progressive” Boston Globe, which had called for his resignation. Massachusetts voters knew something the pundits apparently did not: Studds was trustworthy. For although his views often tracked well to the left of the mainstream, he presented them with genuine respect for the public, an attitude more often professed than practiced among politicians. Studds’ constituents saw this and returned the favor. They liked him. More important, they respected him. They saw him for what he was: a public servant in the finest sense.
I witnessed this first-hand as Gerry’s driver in the early 1980’s. He devoted many of his weekends to “town meetings” in his district, which included the South Shore, the Cape, and the Islands. The meetings were held in churches, libraries, various public facilities. Newspaper notices invited all to attend. Only rarely did they attract more than thirty or so attendees; these were not campaign events. It was everyday democracy, an elected official making himself accessible to voters at the most basic level. Gerry had a keen sense of his responsibilities and the stamina to uphold it, with equal generosity listening—really listening—to a wide spectrum of voters, from the Yankee dowager in wealthy Chatham to the Portuguese fisherman in impoverished New Bedford. His intelligence and thoughtfulness impressed them all, but what really set him apart was his dignity. In the wake of Gerry’s death a number of observers have commented on his reserve, his dislike of the glad-handing, backslapping aspects of running for office. That is true as far as it goes, but it obscures the key fact that Gerry’s brand of dignity included a great deal of charm, and moreover was rooted in his aversion to fakery. If he seemed “reserved,” it wasn’t because he was aloof or had something to hide. On the contrary, it came from his refusal to pretend to be what he was not, a quality people found refreshing. Even when they disagreed with Gerry on policy points, they left his town meetings with admiration for him, and feeling better about themselves.
It is true that Gerry outed himself under pressure in 1983, in the midst of a congressional page “scandal.” To my knowledge a full account of that event has yet to be written. One important fact that received no attention in the Mark Foley-inflected media coverage of Gerry’s death: his indiscretion with a male page had occurred ten years before the uproar, in 1973. Why the delay in bringing charges? Another congressman, a conservative Republican, happened to be in hot water about his relations with a female page. The House Ethics Committee evidently felt a need to make that scandal bipartisan, and so dredged up Gerry’s old affair. The whole thing was fixed to contain political fallout during the first Reagan administration, which was busily ignoring AIDS but mindful of the distractive powers of targeting a gay Democrat. It made no difference that the former page at age 27 held a press conference at which he declared that his relationship with Gerry had been consensual and loving. The Republicans were out to get liberals, and they thought they had an easy target in Gerry Studds. They could not have been more mistaken.
Gerry took the floor of the House and declared, “It is not a simple task for any of us to meet adequately the obligations of either public or private life, let alone both. But these challenges are made substantially more complex when one is, as am I, both an elected official and gay.” I later complimented Gerry for having pronounced the word “gay” with particular emphasis. He replied, “I wanted to make sure that people heard it.” People heard it across the nation and in his district, which reelected him to a total of six more terms. This set the stage for a new era in American politics. Gerry Studds led the way.
One final point deserves particular mention. As the AIDS catastrophe unfolded through the mid-1980’s with the White House criminally unresponsive, Gerry literally started yelling, something he’d never done before. He joined the health subcommittee on AIDS, fought for funding, and in 1990 played a decisive role in the passage of the Ryan White CARE Act. When Surgeon General Koop issued his report on prevention in 1987, Gerry had it inserted into the Congressional Record and used his mailing privileges to send a copy to every household in his district. That raised eyebrows, of course; dread enshrouded the disease, making it an unwelcome presence in the mailboxes of many. Gerry could not have cared less. Federal inaction was abetting death.
