The silence in the committee hearing on House Bill 1826—the Illinois Religious Freedom and Civil Unions Act—was as chilling as February in Chicago. And it seemed to last as long.

A previous version of the act, HB1615—dubbed the gay marriage bill—was the first official legislation to be introduced by newly appointed Illinois State Representative Greg Harris. Harris is the successor of his recently retired friend and mentor, Larry McKeon.

The first bill failed miserably though, because, as Harris puts it, “that ‘m’ word just does something to some people.” So, back to the drawing board he went and from the ashes of HB1615 arose legislation that has, even to Harris’ surprise, received an incredible amount of support.

Basically, the bill extends all of the protections and obligations of marriage to same-sex couples in Illinois, but does not require religious institutions to sanction their union. If passed into law, HB1826 would make Illinois the first state in the Midwest and only the fifth in the nation to legally recognize civil unions.

Many believe that its potential impact on decreasing HIV transmission rates among gay men is its most attractive quality. Some HIV activists argue that a step towards societal validation of same sex relationships may encourage healthier social and sexual interaction among gay men.

Death of a partner

At Harris’ request, McKeon had just testified before the Committee on Human Relations (and a room full of lobbyists and spectators) about the trauma he lived through during the loss of his best friend and life partner, Ray Korzinsky. As he took his seat and dabbed at the corners of his eyes with his handkerchief, the onlookers in the room sat mesmerized, as if listening closely to hear if their neighbor had breathed for permission to do the same.

As if losing Ray hadn’t been enough, McKeon’s ordeal was greatly magnified by the degree of homophobia and cultural insensitivity he faced at the hands of the hospital staff—an experience that would make even the strictest conservative cringe.

Ray had been admitted to the hospital 12 weeks earlier. During his stay, he was diagnosed with a type of lymphoma related to Agent Orange, which he was exposed to while serving his country in Vietnam. He had also recently been diagnosed with AIDS, which subsequently is also what led McKeon to the knowledge of his own HIV status.

Since he’d been admitted, Ray’s condition had drastically changed for the worse and no one really expected him to return home. One night, serious difficulty breathing led Ray’s medical team to move him to intensive care. This is where McKeon’s bad dream shifted to nightmare status.

Since he’d been admitted, Ray’s condition had drastically changed for the worse and no one really expected him to return home.

Upon being admitted to the hospital, the couple made sure that a copy of McKeon’s status as power of attorney was placed in Ray’s medical chart. Somehow, the document was misplaced during the transfer to intensive care and because life partners, according to hospital restrictions, are not considered “immediate family,” McKeon was not allowed into Ray’s room.

Frantic, he jumped into a taxi and rushed to their home to retrieve another copy of the document. The driver, who refused to take any money from McKeon for the ride, waited patiently for him and raced him back to the hospital.

McKeon knew, though, that Ray was gone before he reached the room. He can still recall the feeling that came over him as he waited on the elevator. Sure enough, when he approached the nurses’ station, power of attorney documentation in hand, he was informed that in the short time it took him to get home, get the document and get back, Ray had died. In a cold and sterile hospital room, alone among strangers, Ray had died.
McKeon was devastated.

McKeon

Larry McKeon was raised in a nurturing home in a small farming community in Idaho, the youngest of three adopted children. As far back as he can remember, he has always been attracted to men. He’s also always been an “unusually compassionate” person who sincerely enjoyed helping others. It was this “unusual compassion,” he feels, which led him to a career in public service.

Intrigued by life beyond the farm, young McKeon headed off to the West Coast for college. Earning his credentials from the Department of Justice at the University of San Francisco, he decided on law enforcement as his profession of choice within public service.

From there, he journeyed to Los Angeles to attend the police academy and eventually worked his way up through the ranks at the Los Angeles Police Department. There, he was entrusted with numerous high-profile assignments, including chief of security for the Manson family trial and watch commander for the Watts-Littlebrook area—home of the infamous Watts Riots of 1965.

Ironically, though, it was the same compassion that had led McKeon to the Department that drove him away from it. “I became disillusioned with the racism and sexism and homophobia and physical brutality that was just rampant,” he recalls.

He describes his tenure in Watts-Littlebrook as “like being in an all-White occupation army in a community that was 98% low, low-income African American.”

“The level of brutality was unbelievable,” he says softly as if reliving the time. “And much of it, sadly enough, was Black on Black brutality.”

Conscious of the emotional toll that his career choice was taking on him, McKeon shifted his focus back to education. He applied to doctoral programs across the country and happened upon a scholarship and stipend offer from the Social Service Administration and Public Policy program at the University of Chicago that was too good to pass up.

He believed that they would live happily ever after or at least until death did them part.

As he did with everything else in life, McKeon excelled at U. of C. He’d worked his way up to Assistant to the Dean, before accepting an offer to head up the Department of Justice Studies at Chicago’s Roosevelt University.

He left academia for work with a local charity organization, and it was during this time that he met and fell in love with Ray. He believed that they would live happily ever after or at least until death did them part. He had no idea how soon his own prophetic words would come to be fulfilled.

Political Power

Shortly after, and largely in response to, Ray’s death, with knowledge of his own HIV status newly embedded in his mind, McKeon became more intimately involved with community work specific to the LGBT community and people living with HIV.

“You can’t really deal with homophobia until you deal with the inherent sexism within homophobia,” McKeon theorizes. “Homophobia itself has its underpinnings in sexism—gay male stereotypes as being effeminate, limp-wristed people who like to wear pumps and carry a purse and wear lipstick. Until you deal with sexism you really can’t get to the issue of homophobia.”

In 1992, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley appointed McKeon as his liaison to the LGBT community. It was here that McKeon realized what he experienced with losing Ray was not an uncommon occurrence.

LGBT people in the state of Illinois were not only treated unjustly as it related to issues of a domestic nature, but this community lacked the legal protection of basic civil liberties—such as housing, employment, health care, and public accommodation. In 1996, in what he refers to as “a moment of irrational thought,” McKeon decided to take his advocacy and activism to another level and ran for a seat in the Illinois legislature.

He was ill-prepared for the mean-spirited, homophobic campaign that would be launched against him—rooted in allegations of child molestation and conspiracy to commit murder (all of which were later deemed unfounded). Add to that McKeon’s reputation as openly gay and openly HIV-positive and even some of the radicals within the LGBT community doubted that he stood a chance.

But McKeon proved all of his doubters wrong and won the election by a long shot—making him the first (and only) openly gay and openly HIV-positive man to be elected to the Illinois General Assembly.

There he served as Chairman of the Committee on Labor in the House of Representatives. “Can you imagine how interesting it was to have all these carpenters and construction workers coming to the ‘out, HIV-positive gay guy’ with their legislative issues?” laughs McKeon. “It was really an interesting dynamic.”

McKeon was also a key player in helping to successfully move an amendment to the Illinois Human Rights Act which extends basic legal protections against discrimination to gay men, lesbians, and transgender persons. As difficult as it may be for some to believe, this amendment was a grueling 30 years in the making, having its roots in the gay liberation movement of the 1970’s.

HIV

Throughout his tenure, McKeon has also done a considerable amount of work in regards to HIV and AIDS-related issues—being called to discuss his own HIV status on the house floor many times with respect to legislation that pertained to the virus. He can recall countless encounters with colleagues following such speeches, where they would share with him in private their own personal story of a family member or loved one who was living with HIV.

He says that the relief he saw in their faces from finally feeling free enough to share that secret is what led him to believe that there was, in fact, reason to hope for a better tomorrow. For this reason, he says, he was able to keep trudging ahead when times got rough.

And times did get rough—more personally than politically, though, as time went by.

McKeon received an AIDS diagnosis in 2005, due to the onset of an AIDS-defining opportunistic infection. At the same time, he was also diagnosed with anal cancer. With a wonderful career of 43 years in public service behind him, McKeon officially retired from his position as State Representative on World AIDS Day 2006. Coincidentally, he received the Red Ribbon Award at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. on that same day, for his work developing legislation in Illinois around issues pertaining to HIV and AIDS.

“Our progress really speaks to the power of being OUT.”

Harris

While the background of his successor and good friend Greg Harris isn’t nearly as extensive as McKeon’s, his experience and passion are just as impressive. Educated at the School of Journalism at the University of Boulder, Colorado, Harris’ involvement in politics began after he witnessed many of his friends get sick and die from AIDS in the early 1980’s.

“A group of us were working our asses off to help feed our friends who were literally dying off before our eyes,” he remembers. “Society was turning their backs on them…the government was turning their backs on them. We knew that we needed to do something to make sure their voices were heard.”

Politics

He accepted a job as chief of staff for Alderman Mary Anne Smith in Chicago’s 48th Ward, where he served for 14 years. There, he worked closely with McKeon and other local politicians, particularly on behalf of underrepresented populations.

“I spend a lot of time with very organized groups,” he says. “You have the block clubs and the chamber of commerce and the industrial councils, and they have no problem getting their agenda out. But sometimes you have to work a little harder for people who feel that they have been shunted to the side, so that their voice is heard too and that they feel like someone cares. That’s why I do what I do.”

Openly gay and HIV-positive as well, Harris was the natural choice for McKeon’s replacement. He ran uncontested for the office, and hit the ground running with a failed gay marriage bill and, now, the Illinois Religious Freedom and Civil Unions Act—which, after McKeon’s testimony, was passed out of committee and on to the floor of the House (waiting for Harris to call it to a vote at press time).

Harris says that he is currently testing the waters to see where he stands in terms of votes in favor of the bill. He’s also doing everything that he can to make sure that those who may be on the fence are clear on what the bill actually does and does not do. He credits what he calls “the power of being out” with taking the bill so far in so little time.

Out

“If this were five or seven years ago, we wouldn’t be anywhere close to where we are right now with this,” he says, matter-of-factly. “Our progress really speaks to the power of being out. When I approach my colleagues with my little speech about why recognizing same sex relationships was important, most of them…I don’t care if they are from upstate, downstate, White, Black, Hispanic, they say stop…stop…you don’t have to give me the whole speech. They say, ‘I’ve got a brother, a son, a neighbor, a volunteer in my campaign, a daughter, an aunt and uncle, someone who is close to me is gay. I get it!’

“This kind of support lets me know without a doubt that HB1826 is the next logical step in the work that Larry did during his time in office,” Harris proclaims, speaking specifically of the amendment to the Human Rights Bill.
“The time for civil unions is now.”

Photos courtesy of Larry McKeon.