Other views of Tom Harkin.

• Author: Mirken, Bruce
• Position: Letters to the Editor - Letter to the editor

Tom Harkin, a profile in courage? Perhaps in some parallel universe ("The Harkin Difference," Editor's Note, Matthew Rothschild, March issue).

Harkin ran for the 1992 Democratic Presidential nomination, and I covered a December 1991 campaign appearance as a freelance reporter for several LGBT newspapers around the country. The event, sponsored by a local Democratic club, was in West Hollywood, the heart of Los Angeles's gay community, at a coffeehouse that had been the organizing hub for months of street protests after California's then-governor Pete Wilson vetoed LGBT civil rights legislation.

Harkin pitched himself as a proud liberal, but his twenty-five-minute remarks included not a word about LGBT civil rights or the AIDS epidemic, which was reaching its awful worst at the time.

He attempted to leave without answering questions, but as the unhappy crowd shouted inquiries at him, he stopped to say he supported AIDS funding and national health care--and tried to leave again.

He was surrounded by a gaggle of reporters, mostly from the queer press, and we peppered him with questions about LGBT civil rights legislation pending in Congress and why he wasn't a sponsor. He offered the lame response that no Presidential candidate was a sponsor. Finally, as attempts to get him to take a clear stand persisted, he said to us in obvious exasperation, "Do you want to just feel good about yourself, or win and then make a change?"

Our lives were literally at stake, and he was begging us to please not make him say those scary words in public while he was running for President.

One hell of a profile in courage.

Bruce Mirken

San Francisco, California

Your Editor's Note about Tom Harkin was spot on. He...