Audio Interview, Ronald Gold, June 23, 1973
- BRUCE JEWELL: Mr. Gold, you're with the News
- and Media Relations Committee of the Gay Activists
- Alliance in New York City.
- Could you tell me what the function of that committee
- is within GAA?
- RONALD GOLD: Yes.
- It's to publicize what the Gay Activists Alliance is doing
- and to publicize the aims and attitudes of the gay liberation
- movement and to respond to what the media does carry
- about gay issues and gay people by protesting where unnecessary
- and praising where possible.
- BRUCE JEWELL: What do you think the relationship
- between the gay movement and the media is?
- RONALD GOLD: Poor at the moment.
- We are just emerging from a period
- where the media didn't acknowledge we existed at all.
- They are now beginning to do so.
- I think that there is not any kind of media
- in the country that doesn't take the gay liberation
- movement seriously as a movement and doesn't recognize it
- as a social force.
- I don't think, however, that its aims, goals, and attitudes
- are really understood by the media at all.
- And I also don't think that they recognize
- how many of the people that they're writing for, indeed,
- the people who are writing articles for them
- or reporting for them, are gay.
- The only way to remedy that is for more gay people
- to be out in the open.
- And the only way for more gay people to come out in the open
- is for them to understand, to see
- by example through the media that people are doing it,
- that people are getting away with it, that people are
- enjoying themselves by being out and being free and following
- that example.
- When they do that, then the media will acknowledge them
- and acknowledge all of us as a substantial segment
- of the community, news of which must be
- reported fairly and accurately.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I've talked to gay people who
- are aware that there is a gay movement,
- but are often not aware of any of the issues involved,
- in particular, the civil rights issues in the gay movement.
- Now, this is the clearest indication to me
- that media coverage has not been very extensive
- and, for that matter, that our own publications, and so on,
- have not been distributed as well as they might have been.
- How do you think we might go about solving these problems?
- That is, publicizing our own movement
- through our own various media departments
- and approaching, on the other hand,
- the public media to publicize our work?
- RONALD GOLD: Well, I really don't
- believe that gay (pause) movement, literature,
- or anything like that is any way to really reach
- the community at large.
- And by that, I mean the gay community at large.
- I think that these organs are useful,
- so that those of us in the movement
- have a place to speak to each other
- and to get our ideas across to each other.
- But, that's all these things reach.
- And I'm concerned much more with reaching
- the rest of the gay people, whose heads, I think,
- would benefit by knowing what the gay movement is
- and becoming part of it, or even if they're not part of it.
- In any case, understanding where it's at and living it
- in their own lives.
- So that the only way we can really reach
- them is through what they are reading and viewing,
- which is what everybody else is reading,
- viewing: the major newspapers and magazines and radio
- and television stations.
- And how do we go about doing--
- you know, reaching them through that?
- Well, I guess the main thing is to have events.
- We must have actions.
- In New York, I think we have been
- successful by having some understanding of how
- the media work, but, primarily, because we've had things
- that they can report.
- You cannot just go up to the editor of your local newspaper
- or radio or TV station and say to them,
- how about doing this wonderful story on gay liberation.
- They're just not interested.
- They have to have some kind of focus for that.
- Some kind of civil rights-- some kind of civil rights issue
- or some kind of event that's somehow newsworthy.
- And it'd have to be I guess people
- who are doing the political end of things
- in the gay movement, who understand what the media are
- going to find attractive and what
- they're going to find boring.
- Because-- well, I believe, of course,
- that while the civil rights laws and the sodomy repeal laws
- are extremely important and I wouldn't
- deny that they ought to be done and quickly, I
- think much more important is the whole kind
- of revolution in thinking that needs to take place
- among gay people and among the community at large in relation
- to matters sexual and matters concerning how human beings may
- differ from each other and still all be human.
- I don't know where we--
- I've lost the question somewhere.
- What was the question at that point?
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well, now I believe, with you,
- that it's essential that we communicate.
- But it becomes a matter of what we communicate as well.
- What type of communications do you
- think are valuable in, for one thing, informing
- straight people and for another, informing
- and-- if you want to put it this way-- inspiring gay people
- to come out and live their lives in a more open and, perhaps,
- less paranoid manner?
- RONALD GOLD: Well, the real information we have to get out
- is that we're all there, that we're all different,
- that we're all around, that we're everybody's
- is Aunt Tilly and Uncle Harry, and we're
- everybody's fellow schoolmate, and everybody's fellow worker.
- It's just that they don't see us right now.
- I mean, that's the most important thing.
- And how we do that is by trying to get ourselves,
- as individuals, before the public in some way or another.
- Now, you can do that by fighting for us on a civil rights basis.
- You can do that by trying to have these local laws passed,
- and demonstrating, and so forth.
- What is valuable to get across?
- Well, at this particular moment, I
- think one really very valuable thing to get across
- to the community is fear.
- Now, most gay people think that--
- or many gay people find that kind of scary.
- Because every time a militant action
- takes place on the part of gay people,
- the establishment's knee jerk reaction to that is to say,
- you're hurting your own cause.
- We really thought you were great folks
- and you wore clean suits and dainty underpants.
- But the trouble is now, you see, you're
- all dirty-looking creatures with beards and you holler at us
- and you beat us up and you really
- are sort of nasty and vulgar.
- And we were really going to vote for your rights.
- But now, we're not going to do it.
- And the horrible thing is that a lot of gay people believe that.
- They read the daily paper.
- And the daily paper says that Mayor X or Governor X has
- this wonderful thing to say.
- And they say, "Oh, isn't that terrible
- what the gay liberation movement is doing to our cause."
- Well, I don't care what they're saying to themselves
- at that particular moment, because I think
- that even they are beginning to say
- to themselves in their heart of hearts,
- isn't it wonderful that they are afraid of us, for a change?
- Isn't it wonderful that all of these freaky people,
- they may not be my freaky people,
- because I'm, after all, a Vice President at General Electric
- and not a radical militant, but isn't it nice
- that these radical militants at least are not
- the usual stereotype of what a gay person is, that somebody
- is going to have to challenge the old notions of what
- gay people are just by looking furthermore-- you know,
- I'm a middle class soul.
- I mean, I have the heart of a flaming radical.
- But in point of fact, I'm middle class.
- I have never been anything else.
- I don't see how I could be anything else.
- I'm not a violent person.
- I look like your nice Jewish uncle, which in point of fact,
- I am.
- So I think people have to see me and have
- to see all the rest of us.
- And that will come forward.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well, Mr. Gold, it may be true that--
- I think it probably is true-- that if people perhaps
- fear a punch in the nose next time they tell a fag joke,
- that there will be some change in attitudes.
- But it's also true that a number of the states,
- where favorable legislation has been
- passed on behalf of gay people, there has been no gay movement.
- No publicity, no highly organized group,
- such as GAA or the Gay Community Center in Los Angeles or SIR
- in San Francisco.
- As a matter of fact, both New York and California,
- which have the most active groups,
- have not really made great progress as yet
- in the legislative area.
- How do you explain this?
- RONALD GOLD: Well, for one thing,
- the positive legislation you're talking about in all cases
- has been repealed sodomy laws in those few states in which it
- was repealed.
- And the reason for that is very simple.
- The model penal code, as outlined
- by all of these various groups that have set it up
- and the Bar Association approves it, and so on,
- does not include a sodomy law.
- And most of these states, which have
- begun rethinking their penal statutes,
- have simply begun to adopt the model penal
- code fairly whole hog.
- And that wasn't in it.
- And nobody made a fuss about it.
- And they just went ahead and passed it.
- So other states are more cantankerous and sophisticated.
- And everybody fights over each mouthful of the penal code.
- And so it isn't so easy to get it done.
- But another question that raises is whether or not
- really that legal protection is the most important thing,
- or is it the changing attitudes?
- I would submit that in a climate where the sodomy law is
- repealed, and nobody knows that it's been repealed,
- it really doesn't do the gay liberation
- movement all that much good.
- In a climate like New York, (coughs)
- where we've had a civil rights-- where
- we don't have a sodomy law, but we've had marches in Albany,
- you know, over the last couple of years and a lot of publicity
- around it.
- Where we don't have civil rights protections and a bill
- failed three times, and horrendously so.
- I mean I'm terribly upset about it and I wish the damn bill had
- passed, because it's a good bill and would enable a lot
- of people to come out who now can't.
- But I really think that the publicity surrounding
- these defeats was more important to us
- than an easy victory would have been.
- And that's why, once again, I really
- think that for me these issues are simply
- public relations tools to get the word across about
- gay liberation, because I don't think gay liberation
- is legal change really.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Many people, not many, but some people regard--
- would regard what you're saying as propaganda.
- I remember on the Jack Paar Show,
- he mentioned that the New York Times,
- it contained a number of stories about gay liberation.
- And he referred to it as propaganda.
- Do you think we are, in fact, involved and engaged
- in propaganda?
- And if so, is there an alternative?
- Or do you think propaganda is a necessary adjunct
- to a social change movements such as ours?
- RONALD GOLD: I never understood why anybody
- was upset about propaganda.
- Propaganda is simply trying to get your point across
- as loud as you can.
- And we have a good point.
- Now, propaganda is bad only when the point that it tries to make
- is wrong or when it uses deceitful ways of selling
- something that aren't really directly
- concerned with its goals.
- But we don't do that.
- We tell the truth.
- And we're going to win with the truth,
- and if we holler loud and propagandize,
- I hope, as much as we can.
- BRUCE JEWELL: The newspapers, at least in Rochester as well
- as radio obviously in Rochester, have
- begun to cover the gay liberation movement.
- The area that we seem to be weakest in,
- in terms of information coverage, is the magazines.
- I remember a year ago, I believe it
- was, Life magazine did some coverage on the gay lib
- movement.
- They seem to have had a genius for choosing
- perhaps the oddest segments of the gay lib movement
- and concluded the article with a article
- on whether gayness was, in fact, sick or not.
- Now, what is the-- what is your feeling about magazines,
- like Newsweek, Time, US News, and World Report,
- which are read by a great many people
- and which are influential?
- RONALD GOLD: Well, the news magazines I think
- do cover gay liberation to some extent,
- not as much as they ought to certainly.
- But I've noticed articles in Time and Newsweek
- on a fairly regular basis.
- Not all of them have been articles that we liked.
- But they are about-- they have been about the changing
- attitudes toward homosexuality.
- And sometimes, the attitude of the magazine
- was not one we wanted them to take.
- But at least, they were acknowledging
- that things were happening.
- So I don't think that's so bad.
- As far as the other kinds of magazines are concerned,
- what really now is something that I'd like us to get
- into-- though, I don't think we have the people at the moment
- to do it, but perhaps other groups could--
- is simply to check out the various different magazines
- with a whole list of different possible ideas for stories.
- Now, if these people have staff writers--
- if they're magazines with staff writers,
- then one could suggest ideas and hope that the magazine assigns
- a staff writer or an outside person of their choosing
- to do the story.
- Otherwise, I really think that there is a remarkable opening
- in a lot of magazines that people are not
- aware of the fact, that if they are writers,
- the thing for them to do is to contact these magazines
- and try to sell stories.
- And I wouldn't advise just writing something--
- unless you're one of these people who just compulsively
- writes--
- and hoping to sell it.
- I think the best thing would be to say, look,
- I have this fascinating idea for you,
- and would you buy the piece?
- And if you're not a known person,
- the chances are they won't give you an advance on it
- and won't tell you whether they'll
- take it until they see it.
- But at least, you'll have some sort of commitment
- that they will take it seriously.
- And then if it's any good, you might get it in.
- And even if it doesn't get in, if you think it's any good,
- then you can send it to someplace else.
- That's what we ought to be doing there.
- There's really a tremendous amount of room.
- It's just that I don't think enough gay people know
- that they ought to be writing these pieces.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Of late, the churches, as well as
- the American Psychiatric Association, have been making--
- I think, considering the time involved--
- gigantic strides towards changing their attitudes
- towards gayness.
- These two organizations, the church
- and the psychiatric organizations,
- have been previously major antagonists
- towards homosexual people.
- Now that they're changing their attitudes,
- it seems to me very important that this type of information
- be broadcast far and wide.
- How do you suggest we go about this?
- RONALD GOLD: Well, I think we have
- to involve the members of those professions who
- are on our side.
- And incidentally, I think what we
- failed to realize in the past, while lumping
- all of these people together among our oppressors,
- is that there were always a substantial number of people
- on our side in these professions.
- It was only that the people who hollered the loudest
- were the bigots.
- And the people that the media wanted to hear were the bigots.
- But we can and we will--
- I mean, for instance, Judd Marmor
- over the past several years, who is the Vice
- President of the American Psychiatric Association,
- you know, come around to being really quite
- strongly on our side within the profession.
- And he's a very articulate and very forthright and good
- person.
- He has been willing--
- we have called him, we have used him.
- When we were complaining about ABC's Marcus Welby show, which
- was so offensive to gay people, letters
- were written by not only the Dr. Marmor
- but by Dr. Green in Los Angeles, by Dr. Evelyn Hooker,
- by Dr. George Weinberg, various people protesting this.
- I think that in the future they will not
- have such a show on the television networks,
- I think not only because of pressure from us
- but also from the weight of the testimony
- of these distinguished people.
- More recently, in relation to the psychiatric thing,
- the idea is, force them to do things and then
- force them to speak up when they've done them.
- We went to the--
- I went and Frank Kameny went to the American Psychiatric
- Association convention in Hawaii this past spring.
- And we expected that very interesting things
- would occur there.
- I'm sure that a lot of good did happen within profession there,
- whether or not it was reported by the media.
- But nobody would have known it.
- Now, I took the trouble before I went out
- there to make sure that the New York Times, that the Associated
- Press, that the United Press, that Time and Newsweek,
- and that all these organs that might be interested in it
- were interested in it, you know, it took some time,
- so that it did get covered by the wire services.
- It did get more than a full page in Newsweek.
- And as a result of the Newsweek article,
- 60 minutes picked it up on CBS.
- And we worked very closely with them.
- They're going to do a segment on it soon.
- And more recently here in New York,
- we've had discussions with the people in NBC here
- and sold them the idea that, that was an important story.
- We've been dealing-- you know, as things develop,
- we are not going to let them get buried.
- I just learned recently, for example,
- that two years ago, the Group for the Advancement
- of Psychiatry, a very prestigious group
- within the whole field of psychiatry,
- took a very-- a strong position that homosexuality was not
- an illness.
- And indeed before that-- and I didn't know that,
- that the National Institute of Mental Health
- had done something-- the American Psychological
- Association took a strong step recently
- by changing its whole way of classifying research,
- so that homosexuality was not considered
- as an illness in that context.
- Yet, none of these things were publicized.
- And it really didn't do us any good.
- Well, I'm hopeful that I can keep tabs
- enough on some of these things that are happening
- and sell them.
- I'm also hopeful that other groups around the country
- will join me in that.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Television is probably
- the most important communications media
- in the United States today.
- And yet, it is clearly the one in which
- the gay movement has made the least progress
- in presenting our case.
- How do you think we can approach television more effectively?
- And what types of coverage or events
- do you think we should try to get onto television?
- RONALD GOLD: Well, as far as what you get on television,
- you know, you can sell them the stories,
- but they usually like to have something that
- has a picture attached to it.
- You know, the whole question is, when
- they don't want to cover something,
- you know, they'll find an awful lot of ways not to cover it.
- Either you don't have anything that's
- really an exciting, hot shot, immediate, news event,
- so therefore, they won't cover it,
- because that's really something they don't do,
- even though they do for other groups or in other issues.
- Then if you do something, then they call that a media event.
- And they don't want to cover media events,
- because that's set up for the media.
- So they got you coming and going.
- The only thing to do is, you know, try to reach them.
- Do things that they can't ignore,
- reach their consciences by pointing out to them ways
- in which they have offended gay people
- and hope that you're dealing with some reasonable people.
- Sometimes, you can.
- Now, I want to point out that there
- are two things in relation to television.
- One is the news things.
- And all of the things that I said previously
- about newspapers really apply more or less to television.
- But then there's a whole area of the dramatic shows, which
- are perhaps more important, because more people watch
- them and digest them.
- And there, it's been pretty bad news.
- I would say there have been maybe two or three
- different things that I would call positive in the last year
- or so in the TV dramatic shows.
- Most of them have been perfectly awful.
- You know, they think they're being
- wonderful and daring and liberal by just even mentioning
- that homosexuals exist.
- We think that if they mentioned you exist and then depict you
- with horns and a tail, that that doesn't help you all that much.
- Well, we have had meetings--
- that is, GAA in New York has had meetings--
- with the vice presidents of all the three networks
- and have outlined to them some of the things that we don't
- like at all about these dramatic shows
- and also about comedy shows and things like that.
- I think they've absorbed it.
- And I think they've learned their lesson.
- The problem now remains, what on earth
- can we give them to substitute for these awful, stereotypical
- stuff?
- We want to be continued to be mentioned
- and to be there on (pause) network dramatic shows.
- But, you know, there are too many problems still.
- Still, gay rights and gay dignities
- are controversial questions.
- So that if they have a show in which some person is depicted
- as a good person, then somebody in their higher echelons
- of the network is going to look at that script
- or look at that show and say, "Now wait a minute there,
- you've got all these people out in Iowa
- and you got all these psychiatrists
- and you've got all these church people."
- Or at least, that's what they think they have.
- And these people are going to say, "Well, you
- can't say that a homosexual is a good person.
- You've got to get something in there to counteract that."
- So what they may be doing at the moment--
- (pause in recording)
- --period.
- We don't know what they're coming up with next season.
- But my feeling is that they are laying low.
- And it's up to us now to find ways
- to get them to do things and do positive things.
- I'm not too clear in my head about it.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Mr. Gold, what plans
- does GAA have in the coming year for media presentation?
- Any documentaries on the way?
- Are any newspapers planning any special series?
- Is the radio doing any special coverage?
- RONALD GOLD: Well, as far--
- I mean, locally here in New York,
- the plans are often dependent on what
- we're going to do as a whole organization,
- as a political organization.
- There are (pause) you know, there's
- no way of telling what your thrust is going to be.
- Certainly, we're going to pursue the whole area of psychiatry
- and the changing attitudes of that profession.
- We're going to pursue the changing
- attitudes of the church and try to get those things across.
- We're going to pursue the growing
- complexity and diversity of openly gay people.
- We're going to try to get business people who are openly
- gay to write about it in the Wall Street
- Journal and other places.
- But, you know, it's a constant job.
- You know, we had meetings with the New York Times.
- We will probably have to have additional meetings,
- because they've gone back to doing more or less what
- they did in the first place.
- And at least, we have kind of a liaison
- now with some of the people there
- and a continuing dialogue.
- We do get more coverage than we used to.
- But we have many reasons to complain.
- So we push there.
- In New York, the Times is essential.
- The news is read by more people than anybody.
- But we have had little or nothing in the news.
- And what we have had has been mostly hideous and offensive,
- including editorial offensiveness.
- But we have reason to believe there's a new editor there
- that we can approach him, sit down and try to talk,
- and maybe do a little more there.
- I am hopeful that some kind of--
- what I'm going to try to do is try
- to set up some sort of a network on a national basis
- with other groups, so that when we
- have reason to complain about stuff
- that is being put forward on a national basis in television
- or national magazines, and so forth,
- that it can come from various sources at once.
- Not only can we say what we're doing
- and get other people to try to join us,
- but the reverse can take place, that people
- in any town or any area can let all the other groups know
- what they're doing and try to coordinate something.
- And I think that a kind of national pressure like that
- is much more effective than what we can do here in New York,
- even though New York is the center of the communications
- business.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Thank you very much, Mr. Gold.
- It's been an interesting interview.