Perspective: Yes, Kurt Cobain was a grunge icon. He was also a gay rights hero.
By Aaron Hamburger Aaron Hamburger is the author of the novel"Nirvana Is Here." April 2 at 6:00 AM In September 1991, I was a nervous freshman at the University of Michigan, sitting on a friend’s dorm room floor, when a guy ran in from down the hall, saying, “You’ve got to hear this.” He fed a cassette tape into the stereo, and I heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana for the first time. It’s hard to capture how radical that song and that moment felt.
Though Cobain might not be the first name you think of when it comes to gay rights, his band was never shy about its politics, especially where LGBTQ issues were concerned. In 1992, Nirvana played a “No on #9” benefit concert and issued a public statement opposing Measure 9, a statewide anti-gay citizen ballot initiative in Oregon that would have required “all governments” in the state to treat homosexuality as “abnormal, wrong, unnatural and perverse.
When “Smells Like Teen Spirit” came out, I was conservative in terms of both my politics and my lifestyle. I grew up in a family of Republicans who believed in tax cuts and traditional family structures. Just before going off to college, I attended a school assembly, during which we were warned to resist the dangers of the “P.C.” movement. I remember pledging to myself that I would follow this advice.
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