"By nature, I'm an optimistic person. No one believes it, but I am."

July 26, 2013 4:52 AM

Tony Award winner Larry Kramer, author of The Normal Heart, Reports from the Holocaust, screenwriter of Women in Love, and founder of ACT UP and Gay Men's Health Crisis, has gotten married.

Larry Kramer Previously on Metafilter.

posted by roomthreeseventeen (16 comments total)

I read through the first part of the sentence fully expecting it to end with "has died". What a lovely surprise to find "has gotten married" instead! Congratulations to them both. I hope that Larry Kramer makes a full recovery so they can enjoy many more years together.
posted by Cuke at 5:13 AM on July 26, 2013 [6 favorites]

Mazel Tov!!!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:33 AM on July 26, 2013 [2 favorites]

Oh, goodness gracious. What wonderful news. Kramer has been a hero of mine for basically all of my adult gay life. I'm so happy to hear he's gotten married. SCOTUS striking down DOMA has been the best thing, and I've been hearing about a lot of weddings since it happened. This one is just icing on the cake.
posted by hippybear at 5:59 AM on July 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

Cuke: I had a similar experience. I was braced for some sort of bad news and instead, delightful news! Good for them! May they find all manner of wedded bliss for many years to come.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:24 AM on July 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

when i think of radical politics, i think of confirming marriage via the good graces of cartier.
posted by PinkMoose at 6:42 AM on July 26, 2013

Cuke - i was so ready for bad news that when the married part popped into view i burst into tears.

with all of these equality fights i think of those who weren't able to be here to see it, and sometimes i get pretty down. next time i'll remember that larry kramer got married to help brighten my mood again.
posted by nadawi at 7:14 AM on July 26, 2013 [3 favorites]

Larry Kramer is an absolute hero of mine, for a long time. I'm so happy he's able to and has gotten married.
posted by xingcat at 7:43 AM on July 26, 2013

Sorry for the way the post reads! Not intentional. Larry Kramer is one of my BIG BIG heroes, and I was thrilled to meet him finally at the Tony afterparty this year. If he had passed, I would have done a much, much longer and detailed post. This one was just celebratory! :)
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:05 AM on July 26, 2013 [2 favorites]

you're post is lovely! not a thing wrong with it. he's also one of my heroes.
posted by nadawi at 8:25 AM on July 26, 2013

Oh, that's fantastic!

I got to see The Normal Heart in San Francisco recently and am also a fan.

Yay marriage!

Thanks for posting this!
posted by kristi at 9:13 AM on July 26, 2013

Do we have an opposite of "." for good news?
posted by dry white toast at 10:19 AM on July 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'd like to point out that, until DOMA's section 3 was invalidated a few weeks ago, Kramer used to have a habit of berating gays who wanted to marry--myself included. I'll raise a glass that the man can finally relax into his preferred state of optimism on this particular topic now.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 10:39 AM on July 26, 2013

the article actually points that out.

Mr. Kramer had held a skeptical view of state laws permitting gay marriage as long as the federal Defense of Marriage Act was in place; in 2011 he referred to such unions as “feel-good marriages” because they conveyed few tangible benefits, since the federal law restricted hundreds of government benefits to heterosexual marriages. But after the Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 ruling, struck down the Defense of Marriage Act last month, Mr. Kramer decided it was time to marry, Mr. Webster said.

posted by nadawi at 10:49 AM on July 26, 2013

Oh, goodness gracious. What wonderful news. Kramer has been a hero of mine for basically all of my adult gay life.

And a hero of mine for almost all of my adult straight life. The pieces in Reports from the Holocaust are some of the most powerful writing I've ever read, and although it's always been deeply unfashionable and profoundly un-PC, I've always had a very soft spot for Faggots because of how it's informed by that same passion and sense of old testament morality.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 11:55 AM on July 26, 2013 [2 favorites]

Larry Kramer has been a hero/icon of mine ever since I was a wee thing learning how to be gay in the early '90s. Thank goodness for good news.
posted by mykescipark at 12:08 PM on July 26, 2013

I'm in the minority, to be sure, but god forbid anyone tries to be gay on Kramer's lawn without meeting his standards for acceptable behavior and philosophy. So congrats to a guy who somehow managed to end up married despite his claim that gay rights were dead as of November 2, 2004, but it's really hard to take him as an unvarnished hero despite his constant assertions that we should.
posted by sonascope at 5:46 AM on July 27, 2013 [1 favorite]