EDITOR’S NOTE: Edward Irving “Ed” Koch died on February 1, 2013. The politician, political commentator, and reality TV judge served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977, and, in three terms from 1978 to 1989, as Mayor of New York City.

I remember the first time I met Ed Koch. It was during his first campaign for Mayor of New York City. He came to a Democratic club in Queens. I was a member, even though I wasn’t old enough to vote.

I remember Koch being nervous. He fiddled with a button on his worn, rumpled gray jacket. He looked shabby. He lost that election. But then came the “make-over” in 1977, via Bess Myerson, a former Miss America. Suddenly, Congressman Koch was looking dapper in Pierre Cardin suits and Bess on his arm. This turned out to be a winning combination. It was assumed—at least on Koch’s part—that the reason for his victory was his “beard,” Bess.

At first, when asked why he was still a bachelor at his age, Koch would answer that he had always wanted to get married in the mayoral residence, Gracie Mansion, feeding speculation that he and Bess would eventually tie the knot while he was mayor.

However, as his career pro-gressed and Myerson pursued her own political ambitions and ultimate romantic tragedy, it became clear that voters didn’t care whether Koch was gay or not. It seemed that, in his mind, the fact that they didn’t care also meant that it didn’t matter. Mr. Koch lived with that assumption to the end of his life, refusing to answer questions about his sexual preference, insisting to the bitter end that the press had no right to ask and he had no obligation to talk about it.

In 1986, Mayor Koch signed an LGBT equal rights ordinance. However, his own policy of closing down gay bathhouses while keeping hetero-sex clubs open violated that very ordinance. Eventually, he was forced to close down all such clubs in an effort to stem the tide of the AIDS epidemic. It turned out to be Koch’s only (reluctant) contribution to the fight against AIDS. His tacit support of Ronald Reagan, the man who said that AIDS was God’s punishment of gays, was well noted. For the most part, Ed Koch sat on his hands while our friends died, one by one.

Larry Kramer is reported to have said, “[Koch] was an active participant in helping us to die, in murdering us. Call it what you will, that is what Edward Koch was, a murderer of his very own people.”

The few who knew Koch well would speak in hushed tones of a long-term relationship with his chauffeur. But Koch would go to the movies, to the museum, to the theatre—alone. What kind of a relationship could it have been with this secret lover who couldn’t be seen in public?

He would often go to gay-related events, such as gay film festivals—alone. We all saw him at these events, but we pretended not to see. We were expected to do our parts in the complicity of silence. Koch’s great shame of being a gay man was like a pile of shit he had stepped in, and needed to wipe off on the rest of us.

George Dauphin, a New York City native, is the Creative Director for Guy Magazine and the Florida Agenda.