Thread by @AndersonBooz

1/ A ring that went missing years ago was found by my sweetie this week.

We bought matching ones in Toronto in 1994, when the fight for equality and dignity was being met with hostility and ignorance and fear, much of it fed by the likes of @jkenney.
#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

2/ Peter Evans was one of Canada's first openly documented HIV/AIDS cases - he died in 1984. Peter had been ahead of me at Ridgemont High - he embodied a Tommy Tune Broadway musical style. I didn't know he was gay - I just envied his talent. I watched his public death with a

3/ sense of great loss. Grief and awe.

In 1994, working in Toronto, I lived a few blocks away from the Cawthra Park memorial. Peter's wasn't the only name I knew - the list was growing.

Edmonton sculptor Patrick Morin - home from the hospital to celebrate 33. Emaciated and

4/ tube fed. He died in 1989.

These people died in the middle of a firestorm of hatred directed at them and at all homosexuals.

Seeing the current Alberta government hire some of the people who fomented that hatred and put them in positions of influence...well, this is a great

5/ time for the ring to be found. To wear it again and remember that bigotry and hatred delayed research and treatment; bigotry and hatred denied them the comfort of their chosen partners as they were dying.; bigotry and hatred denied people their jobs and their dwellings.

6/ Knowing the seemingly unchanged purveyors of hate are welcomed by @UCPCaucus brings a lot of memories back.

Fortunately the memories include Peter's stage presence, Patrick's sculptures, Norman's booming voice...

So it matters to me that the haters are being rewarded,

7/ protected by the political machinery directed by a man who boasted of his hateful campaign against same-sex couples' rights.

I'll be wearing the ring again and carrying the memory of wronged acquaintances, in celebration of their too-short lives and in defiance of the haters.