Saying Goodbye to Andy

It was the evening before Andy's thirtieth birthday and his friends were assembled to celebrate with him. But this was more than a routine birthday party; Andy was in bed, dying from a mysterious ailment that was identified as "gay cancer." His immune system had shut down and he was too weak to speak. We all gathered to say goodbye.

Growing up in Middle America in the 50's, we talked about some kids who we labeled as "queer." We really were unaware of anything called "homosexuality," but we could sense that some of our schoolmates were somehow different. Some we bullied.

My first real gay friend was Scot. A group of my students at Capital University Law School graduated in 1978. I had worked with them while they were students setting up a program to teach "street law" to high school students and we had been an effective team. When David, Jennifer, and Scot decided to hang out a shingle, I accepted their invitation to serve as "of counsel" to their firm.

At that time, Scot was struggling with coming out to his friends, family, and associates. We provided comfort and support, and I learned the effort needed to be a gay man in the 1970's. Scot was and remains a true friend, whom I respect and honor to this day.

It was through Scot that we met Herb and Andy, and we all became close friends. My wife, Donna, became particularly close to Andy when he disclosed to her that he had never learned to read. She undertook the project and worked with him to master that essential skill. We all grew to love them like family.

Over the years we made many close friends who just happened to be gay or lesbian. To us, they were just people we cared about. The realities of our relationships wiped away any remaining remnant of the idea that LGBT folks were any different than our other friends. We grew increasingly impatient that our LGBT friends were denied the freedoms and respect that we enjoyed.

When I left the bench and started practice in 1995, I hired our niece Staci as a paralegal. When Staci decided to go to law school, I was delighted and hoped she would become my associate one day. However, when her graduation neared, she told me that she did not think that Family Law was the right fit for her. I told her I would release her if, and only if, she helped me identify a classmate of hers who would be interested in joining the firm.

She told me she had a classmate and friend named Kerry McCormick who she thought would be interested and would fit in well. "However," she said, "she is a lesbian. Would that matter?" "Nope," I answered. After meeting Kerry, I asked her to come to work with me. She accepted. Today she is my law partner, and I couldn't imagine a better one.

Andy started to get sick, but no one could identify the illness. He developed a series of symptoms that were slowly recognized as the result of the collapse of his immune system. He was not only the victim of a vicious virus, but of an uncaring government that refused to fund research into this disease that was beginning to ravish the gay community. Andy had AIDS before it had a name.

The night of his birthday party, each of us spent a few moments telling him how we felt about him and how sorry we were that he was so desperately ill. We all loved him and his kind and gentle soul.

The next morning, on his thirtieth birthday, Andy passed away. His family, which had shamed and ostracized him, tried to prevent his gay friends from attending his funeral.

Last week, Indiana passed and its governor signed shameful legislation permitting places of public accommodation to act out of their hatred and refuse to serve LGBT people. I am so sorry, Andy. I promise I will never stop fighting to right this horrible wrong.

Four Dead in Ohio

Certain moments in our lives are underlined in our memory. People my age clearly remember where they were and what they were doing on the day that President Kennedy was killed. September 11, 2001, is similarly etched into our memory. And, at least for me, May 4, 1970, is such an unforgettable date.

It was our last year of law school, and graduation was approaching. Our Spring Quarter classes were almost completed and final exams appeared to be the last hurdle to obtaining our Juris Doctor degrees and our confrontation with the Bar Exam. But events were about to throw a monkey wrench into our anticipated pathways.

The nation was embroiled in conflict over the seemingly unending war in Vietnam. The draft was in full force and nearly 50,000 young American men had already lost their lives in the bloody confrontation. Students on campuses all over the country were protesting the war, the draft, and the failure of Richard Nixon to fulfill his promise, made during his 1968 campaign for President, to end the war.

I was completing my term as Editor-in-Chief of the Ohio State Law Journal that Spring, and I was in my office in the basement of the OSU Law School building on that day in May. About 1:00 that afternoon, one of my classmates burst in and said, "The National Guard killed a bunch of students at Kent State. It was a bloodbath." At first, I didn't believe him. How could this happen? I experienced the same optimistic skepticism I had felt when I was first told that Kennedy had been shot.

But the radio in my office soon confirmed that the shootings had occurred. Four students were killed; others were wounded. The war had come home.

The OSU campus exploded. Students took to the Oval, the great, green space in the center of the campus, in anger. It was impossible to move around the campus as thousands protested and called for the end of the war and the restoration of peace. Classes were disrupted; the Ohio Highway Patrol chased protesters from one part of the campus to another. The mood was ugly. A rock was thrown through a window at the Law School.

Word spread throughout the Law School that a meeting of the students would be held in one of the large classrooms. Mike Schwarzwalder (later to be elected as a member of the Ohio Senate), who was President of the OSU Student Bar Association, asked me, as Editor-in-Chief, to co-chair the meeting. The atmosphere was dominated by fear and anger. The law students voted overwhelmingly that Mike and I should approach the faculty and request that the Law School be closed in the interests of safety, and, for many of us, as a demonstration of our anger over the events at Kent State.

The law faculty was meeting at the same time the law students were assembled. Mike and I went to the faculty meeting room and asked to speak. We reported the wishes and concerns of the law students. We were thanked and then ushered out. We learned that a couple of hours later, representatives of the law faculty met with university officials and the decision was made to shut down the campus.

The Law School was closed for ten days. We ended up taking all our last quarter classes "pass/fail." The Ohio Supreme Court waived its required class hours rule so we could take the Bar Exam. Our lives went on, but for four unarmed Kent State students it all ended on that day in May. I will never forget.