Gay Vet Shamed Indiana From the Grave

[DonViejo]

Katie Zavadski

Nick Crews, who wrote a letter to the Indy Star editor about his state’s “religious freedom” law, says his Vietnam vet brother would see the paper’s “Fix This” editorial as validation.

Nick Crews went to Plainfield, Indiana’s, Maple Hill cemetery at dawn Tuesday. There, he read—through tears—the Indianapolis Star’s editorial on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to his brother.

“For me, it was a point of validation,” the 56-year-old told The Daily Beast. The Star had at times been quite conservative, and for this Indiana native, the editorial was a sign of a fundamental shift. Headlined “Fix This Now,” it affirmed the humanity and equality of his late brother after the state adopted a law many interpret as allowing open discrimination against gays and lesbians under the guise of religious freedom. Crews was so moved, he even wrote a letter to the editor about it.

Charlie Crews would have been 70 this year. But the shy, quiet Vietnam War veteran died of AIDS in 1985, long after he’d left his home state for San Francisco and, later, New Orleans. He had joined the Navy after dropping out of community college and served on river detail in Vietnam—just like in the movie Apocalypse Now, Nick says. Charlie struggled with alcohol addiction after coming home and then enlisted in the Coast Guard, which ultimately took him to San Francisco. There he came out during the era of Harvey Milk and the White Night Riots. On his deathbed in Louisiana, he told his brother about marching for the assassinated city supervisor: “You know, there’s only one time in my life when I was in the right place at the right time doing the right thing.”

In New Orleans, Charlie Crews was one of the first young gay men diagnosed with a mysterious new disease. Nick took a leave from school to take care of him, mediating between his brother and conservative family members, some of whom couldn’t bring themselves to face the reality of the circumstances around his death. “I never really got over it,” Nick Crews said of losing his brother.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/02/gay-vet-shamed-indiana-from-the-grave.html