Americana: The Gay Goons

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When Anita Bryant's forces won in Dade County, Fla., downcast gays publicly fretted that violence would soon be coming. Violence seems to be coming, all right, but not from straights. Last month some 100 gay activists converged on a Manhattan bar where an ax was suspended from the wall with a wooden plaque beneath it labeled FAIRY SWATTER. The gays demanded that the plaque be axed—or else. It was. The next target was Attorney Adam Walinsky, a former aide to Robert Kennedy. Walinsky had written an article questioning a special law to protect homosexuals. About 50 gays, some wielding baseball bats, hired a bus in Manhattan and headed for Walinsky's home in Scarsdale. When they arrived at 11 p.m., they cut the telephone lines to the house, pelted it with eggs, set off firecrackers, and chanted through bullhorns: "Walinsky, you liar/ We'll set your house on fire." They kept at it for an hour, while the police watched uneasily. Asks Walinsky: "Why do people who claim to want human rights go around like a bunch of Storm Troopers trying to intimidate others from expressing their views?"