A MAGNIFICENT TIME

As Mature Age Gays – MAG – reaches another milestone, its founder Steve Ostrow reflects on the vital role it has played in our community.  

Well, it will be 17 years in September since I founded MAG, the Mature Age Gay Men’s Group. What a trip! And how MAGnificent it has been to have interacted with so many outstanding guys who have helped form a family for all of us survivors of the ’60s and ’70s era of sexual liberation and then the ’80s and ’90s when we were devastated by a microbial monster, just 100 nanometers across, the greatest biological scourge ever to plague a minority.

But here we still are, having lost many of our ilk … not only to AIDS but also to the decrepitation and travails that we all in our time will eventually succumb to.

But isn’t it grand to know that we need not be alone? That there is a place to come to and share and be supported. That there are people who care and indeed cater to us. That there is someone to call on us when we are sick, in trouble or just lonely.

That there are multi-talented wondermen who continue to donate their time and efforts to assure that the efficacy of MAG that has made it one of the largest gay organisation in Australia and indeed in the entire world catering to the needs and concerns of the mature gay and bisexual male, continues to flourish beyond our finite existence.

And yes, there is the inestimable availability of being hugged and solaced and to know that I am you and you are me, and together we are one.

There are many things that I am proud of in my life. I won’t be egotistical in citing them ad infinitum, but along with having been instrumental through the Continental Baths in the changing of the laws against homosexuality in New York City in 1972, which saw us no longer as criminals; and then, when homosexuality was removed from the American Medical Association’s list of pathological disorders in 1974, and we were no longer depraved – along with that… is having founded MAG!

And so I pay tribute to all of those tireless volunteers, all too numerous to mention, who have made it all possible. And then to ACON, under whose umbrella we have been protected and secure all these many years.

So come join us on September 13 at ACON to celebrate MAG’s 17th anniversary.

We start at 6:30 pm socially and then our formal meeting at 7pm, with a lite supper afterwards. No charge and amongst the invited guests that night will be the incredible Justice Michael Kirby, Stevie Clayton CEO of ACON and you – the entire GLBT community!

MAG 17th Anniversary Celebrations, Saturday, September 13, from 6.30pm. ACON, 9 Commonwealth St, Surry Hills. For more info, call Steve on (02) 9206 2072 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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written by Mason Sullivan , September 17, 2008

Just kidding, being gay myself I support you 100% and would so tottaly do you

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written by Mason Sullivan , September 17, 2008

'ags, you like men!

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