Illustrated Daily; 2186; Gay Activism: The View from the Inside

The Illustrated Daily, managing editor Hal Rhodes. Good evening. The week just passed was National Gay Pride Week, and here in New Mexico, leaders of the Gay Rights Movement congregated in Albuquerque to assess and to celebrate a lifestyle often treated with hostility. The gay rights movement traces its origins to the 1960s, and in the intervening years against sometimes formidable opposition and social ostracism, it has grown in scale and effectiveness. There is nothing new about homosexuality from Socrates to Gertrude Stein, homosexuals have played visible roles in the history of civilization. But in most societies, in most times, in most places, misunderstanding and repression have characterized the lives of those whose sexual preferences differ from the heterosexual majority. Tonight, without embellishment, a conversation with two leaders of the National Gay Rights

Movement, a conversation about the past, the present, and the future of the cause to which they have committed their time and their energies. Lucia Veleska is a former Albuquerque resident who today is headquartered in New York City, where she is the executive director of the National Gay Task Force. Leonard Matlow-Vitch is a former sergeant in the United States Air Force who gained national attention in the early 1970s upon being discharged because of his homosexuality. Today, Mr. Matlow-Vitch is a San Francisco restaurant tour, and he remains active in the National Gay Rights Movement. Both of you, welcome to the Illustrated Daily, it's nice to have you here. It's a pleasure to be here. Why don't we, Lucia, I'd like to start with you, first things first, I always say. What is the National Gay Task Force? Where does it figure into the Gay Rights Movement? Okay, the National Gay Task Force was founded in 1973, and its goal is public education

about homosexuality and to change laws which discriminate against lesbians and gay men. So it's a civil rights advocacy, and we work in the legal area, we have a Washington office, and we serve as a central clearinghouse for the country on gay issues. To what extent is the National Gay Task Force, in addition to advocacy and legal concerns, also a political activist group? Well, we have three program areas. One is civil rights advocacy, and that, as I said, was Washington-centered, and that means lobbying the federal government for to implement non-discriminatory policies to change those policies, which are anti-gay right now. For example, we are still discriminated against in the military, and Lenny will go into detail on that, I'm sure, still in immigration, still in other intelligence areas.

The civil service now, we have protection in the civil service, and the civil service reform act. But we are in the political arena and that we do a lot of public education in terms of what the gay community is about, what we expect public officials to do for us as a community. The kinds of things we need, which we're not asking for any special privileges, but simply basic protection in public accommodations on the job and in housing. Can we talk about the process of developing an ideology, a kind of credo, or philosophy for the gay rights movement, according to some authorities on the subject, internal divisions within the gay community, between gay men and gay women, between lesbians and lesbians, gay men and gay men.

In a way, as an impediment to an effective, common philosophy or ideology for a gay rights movement, to what extent is that from your experience the case? Well, I think it's less and less the case. I think women and men in the gay community are working better together today than ever before. But the communities are somewhat segregated, and I think women and men are different. And we have different interests and needs, all lesbians, for example, have also to contend with. In addition to any discrimination they might run into as gays, they have also to contend with a lot of women in this society. So there are many lesbians who are active in the feminist movement if they happen to be social change or politically oriented. And also, there are many lesbians very active in just the broad-based political arena. Lots of lesbians run for public office, and at this point they're afraid to run out of

the closet. All right. I wanted to ask you about that, the subject of the philosophy and purpose of the gay rights movement, is the objective, as you see it, to secure the tolerance of society for homosexuals, or is it to secure society's approval for homosexuality? Total acceptance is my goal in life, and I'm working very, very hard towards that. And back to your earlier question with Lucia, I think our diversity as a people is one of our biggest assets that we are a very diverse group of people that we're not a monolith with one goal. Did you explain that? Well, you were talking about, well, a lot of people think, the gay movement, I don't know my own mother when she's talking, she says, why do you people, well, we're not you people, we're a diverse group of people. And this is what gives us our strength. But what we as a people must remember, that the left of our movement and the right of our movement, we must not attack each other and criticize each other. We must put all our directions forward in changing society, in educating society.

I say that basically, the oppression of gay people in America today, of lesbians in America today, is probably most important. Firstly, our faults, because many of us don't come out of the closets. We don't change the stereotypes. We don't tell people that we're good people, that we're moral people, that we've helped contribute this country to make it a better place. For example, it's interesting, and you have to think about this. We have an open gay community now, which, as Lenny says, is extremely diverse. And it's hard to please all elements of that community and gain their support. So that's an ongoing battle. But the vast majority of lesbians and gay men in this country are married and living in the suburbs with two-point-two children. Is that really true? Absolutely. How do you document that? Absolutely. Well, in the first place, you have to look at that little scientific evidence that we have, and that basically, most of it has come out of the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University. But it was Kinsey who first discovered, we are talking about, in a huge percentage of

the population, conservative estimates hang around 10%. Those estimates are not going down, as more information is in. They're going up. So we're talking about 22 million Americans. Now you don't find 22 million Americans in San Francisco, on Castro Street, in New York, a city on Christopher Street. We are throughout the society, but until those few, the tip of the iceberg that that tiny number of us are able to create a margin of safety for others, it's hard to talk people into acknowledging their identities. And for good reason, because they do risk losing jobs at this point. But what we always maintain is life gets so much better when you can live it honestly, that I have never heard anyone who has told their story of coming out who hasn't been stronger, better, and happier for it afterwards. But the problem is the closet. I know, most of what I was living in closet, I was always living my life for people who

I didn't even know, if I was driving down the street and I'd be passing by a gay bar. I was so paranoid, I wouldn't even look in the direction of the bar because I was afraid that someone walking down the street saw me looking towards the bar, someone I didn't know, someone I'd never see again, they would think that I was gay, and I'm living my life for people who I didn't know and didn't care about. Do I understand that you take exception to the gay rights movement? No, there is a gay rights movement. I don't take exception to that term, but it's a very diverse movement. It's not a model with movement. Can I talk about the language of the gay rights movement? For example, the term sexual preference figures prominently into the idiom. Does that not, in and of itself, presuppose choice as concerns, predispositions and matters in sexual life? I use sexual orientation and we use sexual orientation most often, the literature of the task

force. We do use sexual preference and if you look at beyond, it does imply choice, but you and I and you have a choice as to what we are going to say to the world about ourselves, what we're going to wear and what we're going to say, how much honesty we're going to carry forth with and to that extent, it is a choice. Lenny doesn't have to be out of the closet. He didn't have to say when he was in the Air Force, I am a homosexual. He could have survived. There is. There is. Is the question of how one identifies their sexuality rather than the origins of one sexuality? For those people who push preference, yes, I never had a preference. I just didn't. I have been gay from the age of four. I didn't know that I was gay. That's a real preference. He preferred and was attracted to men from the age of four. From the age of four.

Clearly, in conversing about this matter, the role, the larger role of society in this relationship to homosexuals is a major concern, and could we talk about society's perspectives on gays today? For instance, it's been said that films are the mirror image of society. And films today seem to have discovered gay subject matter, personal, best, good, good picture. Could you, sir? Well, let me ask you, what I want to ask you here is, are we dealing here with what might be called gay progress? Or is it, as some have argued, more exploitation on the part of cinema today? I think it's all those things. What does that mean then? Well, I think it's exploitation and it's progress. See, they told us they could never. We've been asking for years. Why can't we see gay characters in a dramatic film? They said it won't go over at the box office.

Now it has gone over. Someone took a chance. The producers of making love basically took an enormous chance of, although we'd add a little bit of, they had a little bit of reading on the market from Alakazha phones and other films, but basically they took an enormous chance and it paid off. So now that there's a market, now they know they can sell the film, they will go after and I think it's good for us, it's tremendous, of course, because it is so important for especially young lesbians and young gay men to see a representation of themselves in a positive form on the movie screen. And in fact, the producers of that show got hundreds of thousands of letters saying, I applauded them and saying, you haven't changed my life because I will act differently now that I could go into a movie house. On the other hand, you have a North Carolina, the gay community there ran private showings of that film when it came out because they were afraid. So repressive as that atmosphere, to go to the public showings. But you were saying about movies being a mirror of society.

I agree with that to an extent, I think basically for most gay people up until now it's been a distorted mirror of society. The same as the birth of a nation, truly we can't say that represents the way black people were in those days, happy, go lucky individuals. And I think up until the National, especially the National Gay Task Force came around, the gays were portrayed in movies as the very stereotypical type gays and with the pressure that the task force and the lobbying and the education the task force has done, the true picture of lesbians and gays are now coming out. Well, what does it mean? You've both used the expression coming out of the closet, Lucia. It means acknowledging, it has different meanings and different contexts in that. That's why I thought I heard it between the lines there. That means acknowledging your gay identity, sometimes to yourself, sometimes to a loved one, your family or your employer or your employees or what have you. That means acknowledging and there's generally, it means publicly in one fashion or another.

All right, you've lived this, you've lived this life and you've made these decisions. What is coming out of the closet? Exactly what Lucia said. To me it was, I had many different coming outs. The first coming out was to admit to myself that, in fact, I was a gay person, the second yourself. To yourself. You start with yourself. I was a Sullivan until I was 30 years of age. I never even put my arms around another person other than family until I was 30. That was the first coming out was the acceptance in my own mind that I was gay. The second was meeting other gay people and the third coming out for me was a public declaration of who I am and what I am. Are each of those three steps necessary conditions to satisfy the coming out of the closet that you would have happened? Well, yeah, in the long run, in the long run. But right now I think it's just important first that you acknowledge it to yourself is

of course an enormous step for some people. But the other thing is that people have to do it in their own time. Until I had this job, I thought I was out. I really did. I thought I was militantly and outrageously out of the closet. Now I find myself in every new situation. I am in coming out once again. What do you mean? I do a lot of traveling and people, the person next to me says, what do you do for a living and so I come out and I go through that. Who am I dealing with and what are their preconceived notions of what a homosexual is? So it's been an amazing educational experience for me to have to do it again and again and again and again and again because I am always in a new context. And you probably find that experience yourself, don't you? Well, there's something I really want to pick up on at Lucius said when she said it's an individual choice coming out and that's very, very important. No one, nobody has a right with few exceptions to bring another person out of the closet.

It can be a very traumatic thing, an extremely traumatic. And everyone has to do it at their own time and their own speed. It's the duty of people like Lucius and myself to make it easier for people to kind of have a closet. And it isn't. And given the traumatic nature of what you described is the coming out of the closet and given society's general animosity as concerns gays, would the interest of your movement necessarily be well served if everyone were to follow your example? Absolutely. Absolutely. No question. Alright, let me ask you this. You mentioned the situation in North Carolina where gay people wanting to see the film making love had to see it somehow, private screening because there were gangs of kids waiting with basically the bats outside the movie theater. Alright.

There's something called the moral majority, which plays a large role in America and politics today. You've heard of that. Aren't you going to immoral minority or talking about that? Well, I'll let everybody advertise themselves. They call themselves the moral majority. To the extent, it's almost a dialectical question, to the extent the kind of coming out of the closet you would have happen, were to take place, were it not almost inevitably caused one of the greatest social confrontations in the history of the Republic? No, I don't think so. I don't think so because what people are assuming is that we are a community like other minorities where we have something that holds us together in terms of religion, philosophy, political aspiration. If we all came out, they'd find 10% who were giving money to Jerry Falwell, are gay people believe it or not? Some of the most... How do you document this kind of thing? Well, we, I mean, Terry Dolan documented part of it and his interview...

His interview. And Terry Dolan was... He had a... He was packing. Is he still had a... I heard he was fired. I don't know. Right? No. Terry, what is your call in the pack? Yeah. It's the conservative political action committee. All are conservative. All right. And by the way, they have used anti-gay literature to raise thousands of dollars. Why then would gays contribute to their funds? Why did the good Jew invite the Gestapo over and serve them ham? I mean... Yes. See, so for... I mean, that's a dramatic example, but my point is that if everybody knew who was gay and was not gay or lesbian around them, you would see there are members of everybody's family just about. There are not only relatives, but neighbors, but Dennis, but the firemen who's working in the community, but the mayor, the city consulment, it would sap the poison from their message because you would have an example of an enormous contribution that lesbians and gay men have

made to society over the world, and they have connections. Well, I mean... I mean, that's not a big secret. I mean, the history... Oh, this is a big secret. The history of civilization is close with the contributions of the Socrates and the Michelangelo's and the Gertrude Stein's and the actual... The children in school don't learn that Socrates was a homosexual. Children don't learn. That is not a... They say Socrates was a philosopher, you know what I'm saying? And... It's a major of Socrates, his homosexuality or his other contribution. I think it's his other contributions, but I think it's not an important that he was homosexual. But the very same thing happened in the black community, and in history books, we could talk about Dr. Charles Drew, who is the individual who founded Blood Plasma. And if all the history books, it never says Dr. Drew also happened to be a black person, every black child reading a book would read Dr. Charles Drew and assume that that person is white and never having a positive role model as a black child growing up in America

that blacks have contributed to make the world a better place. So that's why it's important to know that Walt Whitman was gay. That Socrates Alexander the Great, Oscar Wilde. All right. All right. You both have mentioned the family, the role of the family in the life of the gay person. There was a time when upon discovering that one of their children or brothers or sisters was gay, that was for all intents and purposes, the end of all practical family relationships. To what extent is the gay rights movement successful at mitigating this historic process? Well, there's an organization called Parents and Friends of Gays, and they are just pulling together nationally. They have chapters in most of the major cities. And this is a group for family members and friends of lesbians and gay men to go and

find other people who have discovered they have a son, a daughter, sister or brother who is gay, and to help them with their response to it. If their response is negative, which it sometimes is, and extremely negative, it helps them to hear another parent who's gone through the same experience. That organization is doing more to help that situation that you're bringing up than any other. Very significant. Right here in Albuquerque, I was at the Metropolitan Community Church, this two Sundays ago now. And I saw a very touching scene where a mother, father and their son came to church together. And Metropolitan was a church that, generally, the needs to the gay community, a Christian church. And I thought it was very warm and very touching. And afterwards I talked them, the son laughed, he said, it's my mother and father that brought me into this church. It's my mother and father that are helping me come out of the closet. Right here in Albuquerque, and there's a chapter here. To what extent can the gay rights movement take credit for that kind of breakthrough?

Do you know? Do you have any way to read that out? A tremendous credit. Oh, yeah. People didn't know, didn't have any place to go before. The Metropolitan Community Church, that's a national church, am I right? Yes. It's an international church. International church. I think they have seven chapters in Uganda, seven. And it is predominantly gay. I would say so, yes. Why was it necessary for gays to, in effect, form their own online religion would not let gays come in? And lesbians come in. Oh, it's random. Not let them come out. Oh, yeah. Is that still the case? Well, it's getting a lot better. And there are usually gay organizations within the major churches, like Dignity in the Catholic Church, is a Catholic-A organization that works very closely with church officials. And it's usually welcomed in individual parishes, depending upon the parish and how open the whoever is heading the parishes.

But its integrity comes out of the Episcopalian Church and... There's even affirmation with the Mormon Church, although the church elders will not recognize them, will not even talk to them. There's still are gay Mormons who have formed their own organization to try and educate the Mormon Church about gay people. I was reading something. I think it might have been something that you read, Lucia, which argues that one of the problems gays face in forming effective coalitions within them, within themselves is the differential treatment. The gay women receive vis-a-vis gay men that gay women have to deal with problems that gay men don't have to deal with. And vice versa, am I at? Well, but could you elaborate on that? Am I quoting you right? Oh, sure. I have said that. I think gay men don't face the kinds of discrimination that women in general face in the outside world. For example, the gay movement is not a movement that is fighting for economic reform.

I mean, that is not the beachhead for us at all. We are not as a total community discriminated against economically, except that we risk our jobs if our homosexual identities are known. So in that sense, we do have an economic mission, and that's protection on the job. But we're not asking for better paying jobs. We already have them. Which is not in touch for women generally. That's a total community. But for women in the gay community, no, we don't get. We often are kept out of well-paying jobs. Is that a problem in inducing gay women into the gay movement, as opposed to the women's movement? I'd say women's interests, lesbians' interests are hooked up to different kinds. I mean, supposing we're talking about a black lesbian, she may very well find her interests are best served working within the black community for a black woman, if I were a woman. I honestly think that I would not be involved in a lesbian movement. I'd be involved in a woman's movement because I feel I'd be discriminated.

As a woman, is my first obstacle to overcome? And then my next obstacle to be that is 11 years old. Does that now say that there are problems in the ideology of the gay movement that you cannot... But isn't in the ideology in the gay movement, what we're at, we're... I guess what I keep coming back to is I read as a student of political philosophy, I keep thinking back to the great revolutionaries who are always argued that every successful movement has at the very heart of a compelling ideology which draws the group together gives them a common vision, keeps them going. There is a common denominator in the lesbian and the gay movement and the common denominator is oppression and that's what will bring us together and that's the ideology of everyone say that we will overcome. But basically we're in business to put the gay movement out of business. But you deal with an oppression very often abstract and difficult to nail down, aren't you? No, it's not abstract to know. It's not abstract to know that you cannot say who you are and what you are publicly without fear of reprisal and severe reprisal.

You can... You have gangs of kids traveling this country, violence has reached against the case, has reached an epidemic proportion, said it's not just against women, it's against women too. And what do the law enforcement officials do about those situations? Are they generally... In general, they are guilty of not responding at all. Is that your impression as well? Generally yes. There are some departments that have worked very closely with gay organizations within a community and they are much better in San Francisco. The police work closely with the San Francisco lesbian and gay community, same. But that's because there's political power in places like San Francisco and New York. Well, I literally might not necessarily be true in Muscogee. That's right. But then next to gay people's fault in Muscogee, for not organizing, you know, what is the old argument that a lot of the gay people in San Francisco are from Muscogee? They could not. That's true. And that part of the political power in places like that. But ten years ago, the people in San Francisco couldn't survive there either. But what they did, they organized, and you keep talking about this movement, that our movement basically has been only been around for ten years.

Yes, that's very young. And for the accomplishments that we have accomplished in ten years, as diverse a group of people as we are, the history books, a hundred years from now, are going to look back with the amazement that we accomplish what we have accomplished in ten years. My director should look back in amazement very shortly if I don't conclude this conversation. He tells me our time is up. Lucid Valeska, Leonard Matlevich, thank you for coming to the Ulster in Data. I've enjoyed this conversation enormously. Thank you very much. And thank you. Free that's it for tonight. Please join us tomorrow for a behind the scenes look at the Democratic and Republican strategies which are operating in this 1982 general election year. And the meantime, thanks for joining us. I'm Hal Rose. Good night. Thank you.