Eastern Iowans, Ely documentary director reveal old facets of gay Iowa life in “The Last American Gay Bar”

DES MOINES — Growing up in Dubuque, Gary Moore never heard the word “gay.”

He’d heard slurs. He’d heard “homosexual.” But in a city where the parochial schools were more prominent than the public schools, people like him weren’t talked about in nice ways — if at all.

“You try to educate yourself. You go to the public library and try to find information. There was nothing there,” he said, reliving his upbringing in the 1950s and ‘60s, before the Stonewall riots of 1969.

The most he found was in the “Encyclopedia of Sex,” left out by his parents when he was a teenager, which offered only one small paragraph on a condition still considered a psychiatric diagnosis at that time.

“ (It said) you were mentally ill, and as I remember, it said you were most likely going to commit suicide by the time you were in your middle 30s,” Moore said. “So the only words you really had to explain yourself … were ‘faggot’ and ‘queer.’ ”

So as a young adult, when an acquaintance mentioned a gay bar in Des Moines, he had to ask what a gay bar was.

In 2021, he retired after 30 years bartending at that bar — The Blazing Saddle in the East Village.

The Des Moines institution at the center of “The Last American Gay Bar” documentary series has served generations of LGBTQ Iowans from across the state. Now, the people who found a voice there are documenting their stories about growing up gay in Iowa and how places like The Blazing Saddle are still relevant in Iowa’s changing political landscape.

The birthplace of Iowa Pride

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When Quad Cities native Brian “Beasley” Ohrberg was told about The Blazing Saddle, he asked his co-worker if it was a Western bar.

“No, it’s a leather and Levi’s bar,” the co-worker replied in coded discretion.

When the 24-year-old finally got inside in 1994, he could see what all the fuss was about in the crowded, buzzing community space.

“Everybody was very self-assured,” Ohrberg said. “I’d never seen anybody that open and carefree before when I was in the Quad Cities.”

In 1999, he met his partner there. Ten years later, his partner became his husband after Iowa became the third state to legalize same-sex marriage.

In the decade in between, Ohrberg and husband Greg Chamberlin were able to help transform Pride Inc., Des Moines’ precursor celebration of LGBTQ Pride month, into Capital City Pride. Without The Blazing Saddle, Iowa’s largest annual Pride celebration would not have happened.

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“We fought for the fundraising we needed, and the fundraising was basically (from) bars,” Ohrberg said.

What is the purpose of a gay bar?

The series, which has been picked up by multiple major streaming platforms, isn’t just one about LGBTQ Iowans.

Kristian Day, the Ely native who served as the documentary’s showrunner and director, wanted it to be a story everyone could relate to.

“I didn’t want it to come off as liberal propaganda. I already knew the gay community was going to watch it,” he said. “I wanted to get people who probably weren’t going to watch it to see the stories and see the world for what it is.”

Through six episodes, some of the docuseries’ main subjects are Vietnam veterans, masculine Iowans and personalities far removed from the stereotypes of coastal cities — the self-described “salt of the earth” in America’s Heartland.

“Obviously this is an LGBTQ story, but also a story of men and brothers — probably more so,” Day said. “It was the pink triangle, not rainbow flag back then.”

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In a bar that represents many across middle America, The Blazing Saddle has weathered the same events that shaped the rest of America’s gay community through the ‘80s, ‘90s, and early 2000s. Originally conceived as a series with other large gay bars in states like Nebraska and Texas, Day ultimately decided to focus on Iowa with one guiding thesis: As civil rights become law, is there a loss of identity?

Episodes touch on the impact of the Stonewall riots, the lightning rod moment an activist threw a pie in the face of anti-gay activist Anita Bryant in a 1977 Des Moines press conference, and the fear that gripped the community when public school teacher Ken Eaton was murdered in 1988.

The AIDS epidemic left few untouched. One subject recalls the men who killed themselves after receiving test results that turned out to be false positives. Others remember the underground hospices who took in patients treated as untouchables by other hospice and nursing homes, giving AIDS patients a way to die with dignity.

“ ‘My God, how lucky we were,’ is something I want to continue to hear every generation say,” Ohrberg said. “But in order to do that, they have to know the history of where they came from.”

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Moore, who has been HIV-positive since 1986, fared better than most. His roommate killed himself when late-stage symptoms of AIDS became impossible to hide from his job and family. His dentist was forced to sell his dental practice when he came out as HIV-positive.

Moore’s call from the public health clinic where he was tested simply notified him that he was positive, with no offer of resources or services.

“Nothing else, that was it,” he said. “I started preparing myself to be dead in a year.”

In addition to educating the next generation, he said he found healing through telling his stories in the documentary.

An evolving institution

With the advent of dating apps, major civil rights advances and more mainstream acceptance, the role of the gay bar in modern society is often questioned.

But for many patrons, the qualities that made them a refuge decades ago are the same reasons they remain important today.

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“There’s a lot of core things that are very ‘The Saddle,’ — family, accepting anybody. If you were kicked out of your house, you now had a family at The Saddle,” Ohrberg said. “That part, to me, is always going to be the same.”

While gay patrons can get married, adopt children and file grievances when they face discrimination, many are still rejected for who they are.

“There are still the same kids out there getting the same slap in the face,” Ohrberg said. “They’re not accepted in their own home. That’s what The Saddle is for.”

And as Iowa’s political landscape continues to change, they say the rights their generations fought for are not guaranteed for the next generation.

“It has changed this much in my lifetime,” Moore said, “but it doesn’t mean you can’t go backward.”

In a time of gridlock where the existence of many in the LGBTQ community has been politicized, Day said he hopes the stories offer a new way to find middle ground on the meaning of words like “freedom” and “opportunity.”

“That language being used, we’re saying the same thing on the other side,” Day said. “Why are we fighting? You get down to the basic respect of human rights, and we find that middle ground.”

Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.