Smith and Roskoff's Pride Event
Malcolm Smith, whose evolution on gay issues seems to have occurred around the time he become the Democratic leader in the state Senate, is hosting a “Salute to Pride” event in City Hall on October 11.
The RSVP contact person: Allen Roskoff.
Roskoff is a gay rights activist who has been on the scene since the 1980s (ask him what he thinks of Ed Koch!) and he takes his politics pretty seriously.
During the 2005 mayor’s race, Roskoff attended a candidates’ forum at NYU featuring Freddy Ferrer. He proceeded to pepper the candidate with questions about a vote Ferrer cast when he was in the City Council, in 1986. Talk about a memory.
But Roskoff isn’t holding anything against Smith, who at one point had some difficulty explaining whether he personally supported gay marriage. At a press conference on the City Hall steps announcing he’d be the new minority leader, Smith simply balked at a question on the subject. Later that same day, he turned up at a Pride Agenda event with state Senator Tom Duane at his side and said he was for it.
Allen's been around in the movement for gay rights a lot longer than since the 1980's, actually. He was part of the original Gay Activists Alliance in the early '70's, and I believe he was there when Morty Manford was thrown down a flight of stairs by some bigoted firefighters at a midtown hotel during a protest during that era. Allen may arguably be infuriating and childish sometimes, but those of us with a sense of historical gratitude have been taking the good along with the bad from him for ages. Like Pepperidge Farm, we remember!
8:47 a.m. Thursday September 27, 20007
For a lot of reasons I have never spoken about the GAA, the Stonewall Riots, the Fire House, the ddays and nights I lived, worked, went to school, and played in Greenwich Village from 1965 until 1971 when I moved elsewhere. I know people talk about this or that person who has gone into politics, and some now deceased like Vito Russo, Craig Rodwell, Arthur Bell, and a great nameless Blonds from New England, Hispanics, mostly Puerto Ricans from neighborhoods we never visited, and we should treasure those memories. BUT ALLEN ROSKOFF? I was in politics in ways that never touched him, although they did his late partner in smears, lies, slander, and muck, Michael Battalia from Greenwich Village and ocassionally their third smear boy, Chelesea Democratic District Leader Tim Gay. What holds these people together in NOT gay rights, BUT GREED AND LAZINESS. THEY WANT TO GET PAID FOR "BEING THERE", and SOMETIMES NOT EVEN THAT.
NO, I NEVER DEALT WITH KOSKOFF, but I watched as I saw him lie to people, backstab behind their facks like that evil Pat Pacifico who worked in Stein's office before sleazing on into a job at thge Board of Standards and Appeals. There is a reason there is an expression, "EVIL QUEEN".