Audio Interview, Tom Ferrarese, September 19, 2013

EVELYN BAILEY: Today is September 19,

and I'm sitting in with Tom Ferrarese, Election

Commissioner for the city of Rochester.

TOM FERRARESE: No, the county.

EVELYN BAILEY: County of Monroe.

Sorry.

TOM FERRARESE: County.

Well, not just the city, but the county too.

EVELYN BAILEY: And I'm here to talk to Tom

about some of his earlier life before he

got into public office.

And then-- I mean not public office,

but politics and involved in the Gay Alliance, and other things.

Were you born in Rochester, Tom?

TOM FERRARESE: Yes, actually, I was born in Rochester in 1950.

EVELYN BAILEY: And whereabouts did you live?

Did you live where you are now?

TOM FERRARESE: Actually, when I was born,

my parents lived on Locust Street,

which is in the Northwest section of the city.

And they ultimately, when I was about four,

moved to Charlotte on Petten Street.

And that's where my parents' house

was until my mom passed away just about three years ago.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right.

Were you-- when did you kind of come into an understanding

or a realization that you were a gay man, or a gay--

TOM FERRARESE: You know, a lot of signals

occurred throughout my life growing up, particularly

in my twenties.

Certainly, the signals were there, but I'm an activist,

and I'm very actively involved with things.

And I think kind of in a way, through my activities--

through my political activity and my activism,

either in community groups, because I'm involved

in community groups, theater groups, and politics--

I kind of just buried the whole concept

of what I was or wasn't in that.

I mean, because I was actually married twice

to two wonderful people.

And actually, one of them is friends--

I'm friends with to this very day.

We're very close.

But I kind of--

I didn't ignore it completely, because I mean,

I touched a lot of people, a lot of people

within the LGBT community.

As a matter of fact, Tim Mains' first bid for City Council,

I wasn't out at that time.

Actually, I just wasn't paying attention to it again

at that time.

But I was--

I helped him to get the designation, actually.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right.

Do you recall from your early time,

were there organizations or resources

available in this community for men such as yourself

or for LGBT people?

TOM FERRARESE: None that I knew of, OK?

To be frank with you, my first exploring that element of me

was in Washington, DC, because I would go down

to Washington for a number of political things

that I was involved in.

And frankly, it was that where I had an opportunity

kind of to go to a first bar, to kind of just go

see what I was feeling in terms of how that all equated.

Matter of fact, I mean, my first book I bought on LGBT issues

was in a Washington bookstore, because I really just

didn't have any sense of anything in Rochester

that I could turn to.

And it's kind of ironic, because like I said, I knew Tim,

and I knew what he did and what have you,

but you know, it's funny.

It can be right in front of you, but you don't see resources

necessarily.

EVELYN BAILEY: If you're not looking

and if you're in denial, then you don't see a lot.

TOM FERRARESE: You don't see a lot.

EVELYN BAILEY: What catapulted you into political activity?

I mean, you were at Chase for many, many years, in banking?

TOM FERRARESE: Twenty-five years with Chase.

Yeah, exactly.

EVELYN BAILEY: Were you involved in politics at that time?

TOM FERRARESE: Yes.

Actually, I got involved in politics

probably in my mid teens.

I was the-- high school, I was involved.

I was head of the Student Council,

I was president of the club.

I did those kind of things in high school.

And actually, ironically, Roger Robach reached out to me

before I even was old enough to vote, asked me to get involved,

and I got involved with him and then involved in the committee

in the Northwest.

EVELYN BAILEY: But at that time, Roger Robach was a Democrat.

TOM FERRARESE: Roger-- Roger Robach.

We're talking about the--

EVELYN BAILEY: The father.

TOM FERRARESE: We're talking about the father.

And we're talking about before he was even

elected to political office.

EVELYN BAILEY: OK.

TOM FERRARESE: We're talking a long time ago.

EVELYN BAILEY: But he was a Democrat.

TOM FERRARESE: Yeah.

Roger was a Democrat.

He did democratic committee.

He had me get involved in the democratic committee.

It was the Old 27th Ward.

We didn't even have LDs like we do today.

It was called the Old 27th Ward, and it

was Charlotte and Lower Maplewood

that was the committee.

And I was actually--

I got involved in that committee.

I turned eighteen and within a short period of time,

I became the youth chair of the 27th Ward.

I was involved with Larry Kirwan's takeover

of the Democratic Party.

So I had all that political activity.

I was involved in the Charlotte Community Association, I was--

EVELYN BAILEY: Who was mayor at the time?

TOM FERRARESE: Oh, I think when I first got involved,

it might have been Steve May who we know today.

EVELYN BAILEY: Well, there's much--

TOM FERRARESE: The Republicans controlled City Council

at the time, so--

EVELYN BAILEY: Who?

TOM FERRARESE: The Republicans controlled

City Council at the time.

EVELYN BAILEY: OK.

There was much-- there's much controversy about Stephen May

and no actual proof--

TOM FERRARESE: Proof or evidence, yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: --or evidence that he was gay.

Was Midge Costanza?

TOM FERRARESE: Midge-- actually, Midge came into City Council.

Midge was involved at the time I first got involved,

but then I moved away to Colorado for five years.

My political involvement out there continued.

Actually, I was Jimmy Carter's representative in the Crystal

River Valley where I lived.

I actually did his whole campaign

in that Crystal River Valley.

Meanwhile, Midge was coming into office here.

I knew her from prior years, coming into office here.

And then she went off to Washington

when Carter took office.

Well, then I came back to Rochester

after actually she had left.

EVELYN BAILEY: And Ryan--

was Ryan mayor then?

TOM FERRARESE: Ryan-- well, yes.

But that was when Council picked the mayor.

He wasn't directly elected.

Because it wasn't until the '80s, 1980s, in fact,

that we had a directly elected county executive

and a directly elected mayor.

EVELYN BAILEY: Now perhaps you can

clarify some other controversy.

It's my understanding that Midge became Vice Mayor on Council,

but that the highest vote getter on Council

usually became mayor.

And rather than appoint a woman or choose a woman to be mayor,

they created a vice mayorship.

Now I have since heard that that whole, what I just said,

was a figment of Midge Costanza's imagination,

that she is the one who created the quote, unquote, "story"

about that.

Do you have any--

TOM FERRARESE: I mean, I can't confirm or deny.

I mean, I can go back and see.

I mean, we can go back and research that period of time

that she came in and see how that all unfolded.

So we could get statistic-- we got data on that.

I mean, as we're talking, I can point over to you.

I have--

EVELYN BAILEY: But was it the person

who got the most votes who was then--

TOM FERRARESE: You know what?

It was kind of like--

because understand.

You had district council seats and you had at-large seats.

There's five at-large seats.

There's four district council seats.

They don't run the same year.

So sometimes, the mayor could be somebody

who was a district council person,

or it could be a person who was at large.

And it wouldn't necessarily be--

I mean, somebody could be in as mayor

and stay in as mayor, even after an election

where somebody else got more votes than anybody else,

but that person wasn't up at that time.

In other words, all the Council members

don't run at the same time, so you can't really

use that as a criteria for selecting mayor.

EVELYN BAILEY: But at that time, Council chose the mayor.

TOM FERRARESE: Oh yeah.

Like I said, until early 1980--

EVELYN BAILEY: 1980s.

TOM FERRARESE: Till the early 1980s, Council chose the mayor.

EVELYN BAILEY: And in that choosing--

I mean, not choosing, but when the mayor became an elected

position, did Ryan run again?

Because he was mayor for--

TOM FERRARESE: Forever.

(Laughs)

Forever.

That's true.

Yeah.

Tom Ryan ran-- was the first person

to run for the openly elected mayor.

And he had served actually as the appointed

mayor prior to that on Council.

EVELYN BAILEY: And what was your involvement at that time?

Were you at the 23rd LD, or were you--

TOM FERRARESE: Oh, no.

I was over on the Northwest side.

I was involved in the Old--

EVELYN BAILEY: 27th.

TOM FERRARESE: Well, 27th--

the 27th Ward had then become--

the 23rd Ward became the 27th--

I mean, understand, you can't compare wards and LDs.

But yeah.

That became the 27th LD before the 27th LD

was shifted more south.

And actually, I was the chair of that committee at the time,

and I became the leader of it probably shortly thereafter.

EVELYN BAILEY: And how long were you in that kind of position?

TOM FERRARESE: Oh--

EVELYN BAILEY: Or have you ever left it?

TOM FERRARESE: Well, yes.

No, I did.

Because when I moved over--

actually, I stayed as leader in the Northwest for a long time,

until about twenty years ago when

I moved over to the Southeast side of the city.

And for even the first eight months

I lived over the Southeast side, I'd

been leader of the Northwest.

And because they were in transition

and leaders usually aren't elected until September,

I moved probably in March, I think, over

to the Southeast side.

They asked me to stay on as leader over there,

because I was still in--

I was still in the assembly district

where I could sit in a seat on the Northeast,

because you have to be in the right assembly district.

And so I stayed as leader over there for eight months

after I left.

Then I became the secretary of the 23rd LD committee

finally at the--

when new leaders were elected in September.

EVELYN BAILEY: Mm-hmm.

Can you recall when the first time

was that any issue regarding the LGBT community

became quote, unquote--

I'll call it a "legislative item," because I'm not--

I'm not familiar with the terminology.

But came to the forefront in order

for action, some legislative action, to be taken?

Was it domestic partnership, or was it housing?

TOM FERRARESE: Well, I think the first thing

that the Council dealt with was in--

I think this was making sure that there

was non discrimination policies in the city.

Contractual arrangements.

I think that's where they began their process, I think.

EVELYN BAILEY: And then affirmative action?

TOM FERRARESE: We had affirmative action,

that kind stuff.

Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: And if I'm not mistaken, there was--

whenever LGBT issues came before City Council,

there were outcries by other groups

that were not supportive?

TOM FERRARESE: Yeah.

I mean, you had the traditionally more conservative

people out there at the time.

I'm trying to remember his name.

Michael--

EVELYN BAILEY: Macaluso?

TOM FERRARESE: Macaluso.

I mean, he was a big--

and you know, but he was also--

Michael was also opposed to any number

of things that kind of suggested that we have a more

progressive society.

He kind of-- he kind of--

he was against everything that led us into that direction.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right.

Your work with Fortunate Families, was that early on?

TOM FERRARESE: Actually, I'm a founding member

of Fortunate Families.

With Casey and Marilyn, I'm on the incorporation papers

to help form Fortunate Families.

Prior to that, CGLFM, which was the Bishop Matthew Clark

had asked a group to be formed, and CGLFM had formed--

Catholic Lesbian and Gay Family Ministries--

within the church.

And Casey and Marilyn worked within that group

for a long time.

I didn't do a lot of work with them, but at the time,

I was involved with the National Association

of Catholic Diocesan and Lesbian Gay Ministries.

Actually, I was the treasurer, and then I

became the president of that national organization.

I was involved with them for about ten, eleven years.

And that was from the late '80s.

And I served on that board and in those positions.

EVELYN BAILEY: And it was Bishop--

it wasn't Bishop Clark.

TOM FERRARESE: Bishop Matthew Clark has been the--

EVELYN BAILEY: Was then the bishop--

TOM FERRARESE: Oh, yeah.

He was the bishop for a long time.

EVELYN BAILEY: OK.

How did you square that with the church?

TOM FERRARESE: To be honest with you,

most people don't understand.

There's one thing that's above everything else in the church,

and that is primacy of conscience.

And primacy of conscience is a very--

it's interesting.

It's a very explicit situation whereby

which you need within your conscience to resolve issues.

And your conscience above everything else in the church

stands.

Even Ratzinger, the Pope Benedict,

even Ratzinger himself wrote extensively on that,

and he even wrote extensively on that, that in fact, that

was above everything else.

The other thing is that it's amazing

the aura that the right, ultra right has created.

But even many biblical scholars will talk about the Bible

in terms of how it's written and what the Bible really

means in various situations.

You know, if you just dig a little bit deeper and you

just-- you realize that you're taking

a church that has been pointed in one direction for so long.

And it's like trying to take a huge steamliner and turn it,

and that is just an incredibly slow process.

Is it frustrating at times?

Have I walked away from it for a couple of years here and there?

Yes, because you just get so frustrated with what

you're dealing with that it just-- it seems impossible.

But certainly, unless we continue

that struggle within the church, we will never change it.

And we are seeing change.

I mean, I sit on the Fortunate Families board today still,

and we're seeing, you know, definitely a lot of movement.

It's funny.

We've looked at the statistical data in terms of people

that support marriage equality.

And if you take a subset after surveying the general public

on who supports marriage equality,

if you take a subset of that of just Catholics,

their percentage of support is actually

higher than the general public.

They actually-- more Catholics support marriage equality

than the percentage of those that support-- every time they

take a survey, if you pull that subset out,

Catholics tend to support marriage equality more

than the public at general.

Which is really interesting.

EVELYN BAILEY: Can you give me a perspective

on what you feel the impact of Fortunate Families

as an organization, as a group has

had on men and women who need the services

of that organization?

TOM FERRARESE: Well, and it's interesting you

ask that question, because Fortunate Families is really

about the parents and brothers and sisters.

It's about the families of LGBT people.

And the objective of Fortunate Families

is to make sure that those people understand and support.

And that's the effect that we have on gay men and lesbians

and even transgender-- folks coming out and having

to deal with those issues.

Fortunate Families is there to support them

with their families in that process.

What's interesting is when we first

started Fortunate Families, we were

dealing with parents who were just absolutely distraught.

How do I reconcile the church against, you know, against--

and I love my-- my love for my son or my daughter

is just absolutely unqualified.

And how do I reconcile that with the teachings of the church?

Well, we were able to step in and pretty much

begin to really change that.

And so we were dealing with a lot of parents or brothers

and sisters or aunts, uncles, whatever

it was who were really--

they needed just-- they really needed support.

And in reality, let's face it.

Most people, by the time they come out,

they've been through a process and been

able to reconcile it themselves.

And then they go, and they come out to their parents,

and they go, well, but you've instantly got to be where I am.

Well, you know, come on.

You had a while to get there.

Give them a while to get there.

But I think we've helped accelerate

that kind of thing by what we were doing and the people we're

reaching out to and parent gatherings, and what have you.

What's interesting is that the parents now

that we're dealing with have changed,

and they're not so much struggling

with their kids coming out as much as they're

wanting to know how they can affect change

within the church.

So the resources we're having to provide

have begun to change in a lot of ways.

Or maybe the presentation of those resources.

Because in a lot of ways, it's just turning around and saying,

OK, well, you know, when you get in an argument like this,

here's the corresponding argument that says,

wait a minute.

That's not necessarily true.

Biblical scholars, scholars within the church

are all saying these kinds of things versus this person

over here's saying this.

But we really-- we're a resource and we provide

those kind of resources.

This year, for example, we've done four parent gatherings

across the country.

We've already done two of them, one in Pleasanton, California,

one in Cincinnati.

We've got a couple more going down.

One in Florida.

And again, we really discovered that there

is a whole new activism within the parents.

The parents are coming to us now activists.

They want to change things.

It really is-- it's really encouraging.

I mean, that's part of how we measure

the change of the church.

EVELYN BAILEY: And it's kind of maybe

not coincidental that the current leader

of the church, Pope Francis, has given a window

to LGBT men and women.

And thereby, also given a window to their parents

and to their friends and allies.

Because previous pope certainly was not

open to even talking about the heart, soul,

and faith of a homosexual.

TOM FERRARESE: Yeah.

I don't know.

It's interesting watching him.

And there's a lot of things, not just this thing that occurred.

But what it appears to be--

and this is where you've got kind of sort

out how he's going to come down on LGBT issues--

but what we know or seem to know about him that is a fact,

and that is that he does not support

oppression or discrimination that is unfounded.

And that kind of then ticks the next step

where he is willing to stand back and talk about issues

that other popes weren't willing to talk about,

because he really believes that that's the only way

to understand.

And it's interesting, because the National Association

of Catholic Diocesan of Lesbian and Gay Ministries,

which is now Catholic-- it's CALGM,

Catholic Association of Lesbian and Gay Ministries I think it

now is called--

their mission statement at one point included--

part of it was to reflect on the lives

of LGBT people and their families,

to understand the Catholic church needs-- that

was part of the step.

Yes, you deal with scripture, but you deal with scripture

in a number of ways.

Yes, you deal with issues in the church,

but this was an important part of it is to reflect on that.

And I think what Francis, Pope Francis is doing at this point

is raising that issue, that we need to look

at things without judgment.

And that's really--

I mean, he hasn't made any proclamations about changing

the church's teaching or everything else,

but he has opened the door, as you said, because he basically

has made it clear that he's going

to be willing to talk about these things,

to try to understand them.

EVELYN BAILEY: Your involvement in Fortunate Families

preceded your involvement in the Gay Alliance.

Or was--

TOM FERRARESE: No, actually-- actually,

my first involvement with the Gay Alliance

initially was before Fortunate Families came into being.

And-- gosh, try to figure out all the years that I--

you know, you begin to calculate back, and I can't--

I can't--

EVELYN BAILEY: You're not that old, Tom.

TOM FERRARESE: Um--

OK, thank you.

(Laughter)

No.

EVELYN BAILEY: Fortunate Families came into existence

in the '80s.

TOM FERRARESE: Yes.

EVELYN BAILEY: And your involvement

at the Gay Alliance--

TOM FERRARESE: Well, they came into existence

in the late '80s.

EVELYN BAILEY: Late '80s.

TOM FERRARESE: Actually, I think we were incorporated in '92.

EVELYN BAILEY: OK.

TOM FERRARESE: It was CGLFM, which I was not involved in,

which existed in the--

I think it was '86, '87.

There was the '88, '89 mass at the church-- was it '88?

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.

TOM FERRARESE: Yeah.

Which I was involved in.

Actually, I was-- that morning, met

with the bishop relative to that before the mass.

And so that kind of all was there.

But I came out in '82, I believe it was,

which was when I was forty-two.

And I immediately got involved in the political caucus out

of the Alliance, which was actively involved in that

to begin with, and eventually was

pulled onto the board of the Gay Alliance.

And I was there when we did the first round of grants

from through ESPA, when that whole thing was first set up.

I was there to help pull that stuff through and get

that money started coming into the Gay Alliance.

EVELYN BAILEY: The youth--

TOM FERRARESE: The youth program.

Yeah.

So I mean, that's where I came in,

and that's kind of the contribution.

My first contribution to the Alliance

was to work through that--

I've always kind of been the funding person.

EVELYN BAILEY: And was Ryan still mayor?

TOM FERRARESE: Ryan was still mayor, yes.

EVELYN BAILEY: OK.

Were you involved in the tax exempt battle with the city?

TOM FERRARESE: I was not involved in that at all.

I kind of--

EVELYN BAILEY: So in the beginning,

because you've been involved in the Alliance two or three

times.

TOM FERRARESE: Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: But in the early '80s,

it would have been the beginning of the AIDS crisis

and the beginning of HPA and the beginning of AIDS Rochester.

Can you give a sense of what the community was struggling

with and like at that point?

TOM FERRARESE: I mean, from my perspective--

and probably my perspective is as much political

as a person just coming out.

But my perspective was trying to get the community--

I don't want to say just government, but the community

to recognize the crisis.

They were struggling themselves to recognize the crisis,

because in a lot of ways, people--

you don't want the bad news.

And that's the big issue.

You know, you try and struggle within the community,

but then it's the bigger thing, the broader community

and government to recognize that this is a major health crisis.

And I think if anything, watching government struggle

with that and being part of the political process,

in terms of that, being an activist myself,

I mean, I actually--

I supported a number of what were considered to be

probably the more radical--

ACT UP, and stuff like that.

I really believed that, you know, what they were doing

was the only way that they were going

to get government to move.

And so I mean, I've always been--

it's interesting.

I'm probably an incredibly social liberal, extreme liberal

socially.

But when you come around to the moneys is when I--

probably my more moderate position comes into play.

So it's kind of funny in that sense.

And that might have been some of the stuff that

pulled me in more and more in terms of that.

Again Tim's running for office was definitely

a stepping off point for me, because I

had been involved from his first bid for City Council.

As I said to you, I was a leader in the Northwest.

And at that time, there was a lot

of political pressure for somebody

who was running opposite him, Josephine Genovese

to get the designation.

And the Northwest committee was considered--

Tim would get no votes up there.

Well, I had a lot of support in the committee,

and was able to get him actually within a few votes of winning

the committee.

Which, for the rest of the city committees, was a win.

So Tim had actually, as far as they were concerned,

even though he hadn't won it, but he

came within two votes of beating Josephine Genovese, which

was huge in the Northwest.

And that kind of--

we had plotted that out.

I mean, we talked about it.

He understood what I was doing.

I was able to-- at the time, Roger was a strong supporter,

Roger Robach was a strong supporter of Josephine,

and had asked me, you know, can't we

get the committee to go for Josephine?

And I said, "Roger, we're going to probably-- we can probably

get the committee to go for it, but Tim's going to get votes."

And he said, "Well, as long as the committee--"

it's funny, because Roger didn't seem to care

that Tim did as well as he did.

And I think Roger understood the politics of that,

which is really interesting.

It always intrigued me and left me a little bit surprised.

But he seemed to accept that.

And when we announced the vote, as far as I'm concerned,

the Mains campaign was absolutely thrilled,

because they had--

that was as close to a victory as they could possibly get.

It certainly was a signal.

And I think that that helped get Tim's campaign-- because we

were the first committee.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right.

TOM FERRARESE: But that's when I got active in politics.

Then I got involved and managed Tim's campaign.

And I actually was managing parts of Tim's campaign

before I came out, because I really

believed in what he was doing.

I believed in the cause.

And I'm certainly sure that's kind

of what pulled me finally over that line that said, well,

wake up.

You know?

Here you are.

And I don't know when the moment was,

but I finally did get to a point where I decided

I had to take some action.

And so my logic was to explore that side of me.

Unfortunately, my poor wife--

I was married at the time.

But I just decided to try to meet more people

and talk to more people within the community.

And so something I hadn't done before, I

started attending Tim's fundraisers

that were LGBT-specific.

And to be honest with you, that's

where I met my husband, Bill.

And I don't know, but he just--

it's that concept of love at first sight.

There was something about him that I'd never felt before.

Never in my life had felt before.

And actually, within four weeks of meeting Bill

I told my wife that I was gay.

I actually had a conversation-- this is how comfortable I

felt in the church.

Father Mol at Sacred Heart, the pastor at Sacred Heart,

I had a conversation with him at the time.

And my wife asked if we could go through one more

Christmas with my family, which I knew meant a lot to her,

and she's a wonderful woman to this day.

I love her immensely.

Certainly it was something I could do.

But at that point, Bill and I had started seeing each other

pretty regularly.

And as soon as Christmas was over with, we closed up house,

and I moved in with Bill, and I've been with him

for now over twenty years.

So that's the irony of it.

The concept is the first person you meet--

Bill wasn't exactly the first gay person I met,

but he certainly was the person that

absolutely stoled my heart.

Absolutely stole it.

I can't-- and to this day, I just--

that's-- you know?

EVELYN BAILEY: Well, your life as I

have observed it has been one of tremendous compassion.

There's no doubt in my mind you and Bill

were meant to be together.

And you have lived your life with integrity,

and also with a sense of what is right needs to happen.

And--

TOM FERRARESE: But that's my political.

I mean, that's my political drive.

I mean, I'll never forget when Pam Barres came to me at one

point and said, "I'm really having trouble

at the polling place, because I'm

in the middle of transition."

And a male name was attached to her voter registration,

and she was in the midst of transition.

So when she went to the polling place,

I guess there was some concern of where

she would be at at that point.

And I mean, this commission board elections, I can do--

and I said, we're going to change your registration.

We're going to use your first initial and your last name,

and that's it.

Then there'll be no perception about your gender

at all at the polling place.

And that changed everything for her.

And those are the kind of things that we

need to look at and figure out how to do.

And I think that that's--

that's absolutely right.

But I've never just limited myself to those kind of issues.

I do-- for example, we're working on a program

to get people who are coming out of jail

or who are not felons registered,

because they don't think they can be.

This is right.

This is the thing we should be doing.

And I think--

I do think that LGBT people, I really

do believe that we understand the struggles that people

sometimes have with government or with issues

around what the community believes versus what is right.

I think we understand those sometimes better

because of the things that we've had to deal with.

I can't say myself that I've personally

been persecuted in any way.

I mean, you know, I know a lot of people have struggles.

I mean, when I came out, my parents were incredible.

I mean, I told my parents, and my father kind of went, "Oh.

Well, things have been strange for, gosh, five or six months."

He goes, "So this was it?"

And I'm going, "Yeah."

"Well, does this mean now that you'll come back

and we can go out for a beer every couple of weeks

like we used to?

Because we kind of let that drop off."

And I said, "Sure."

That was my father's response.

So I have wonderful parents.

I've had a love of my life.

I've been so fortunate.

I've been so fortunate in the things

that I-- so I can't say I've suffered

any of the persecutions that other people have.

But that doesn't mean I don't have the heart for them,

and I don't have the understanding

and the willingness.

I mean, I can get very emotional with a story that

just really breaks my heart.

My reason for getting back into Fortunate Families

has to do with the loss of a young person who

took their life because they had no place to turn.

And it's funny, because I had kind of gotten out

of-- done my training.

Of course, I've forgot it now.

And actually, this was right after I

had finished my second stint with the Gay Alliance.

But a young person took their life.

And it just happened to be two weeks later.

Marilyn called me.

"Can you get back on the board?"

And I'm going, "If you promise me one thing.

We'll really try to figure out a way, through social media

or whatever it is, to begin to let people know

they need us before they need--

before they know they need us, because that's the only way

we can help these kids who have still no place to turn."

And this was only three or four years ago.

And so the issue hasn't gone away.

The issue is as difficult and as pertinent

today as it was twenty years ago.

I mean, people want to say, well, you know,

the gay issue is over with.

It isn't.

It isn't.

There's kids struggling today.

And the fact that we've got to understand this.

EVELYN BAILEY: Over and over again,

the coming out process almost requires

not only pain and fear, but also tremendous risk and sacrifice

to not only the person coming out, but those who are--

surround him.

TOM FERRARESE: Surround them, yes.

EVELYN BAILEY: There has been certainly an increase, not

maybe in this last year, but in previous years in LGBT

suicides for one reason or another

on college campuses across the country.

One is too many.

TOM FERRARESE: Yeah.

Oh.

EVELYN BAILEY: But you see, that's

what has always, always impressed me

about you as a person.

You not only have the political acumen and the intellect,

but you have the heart.

Many people go one way or the other,

and the blend doesn't come together and create

a new way of being, a new way of looking at,

a new way of dealing with voter registration

that can not only improve the Democratic Party

or the political process--

TOM FERRARESE: Everybody.

EVELYN BAILEY: --but gives people the rights they have

and secures those rights.

TOM FERRARESE: Yeah, well, it's tough.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.

So was Tim's campaign where you met Sue Cowell?

TOM FERRARESE: Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Yep.

EVELYN BAILEY: And in maybe one, two sentences, how significant

was Tim running as an openly gay candidate?

How significant was that to gay liberation, to advancing

our political agenda?

TOM FERRARESE: I think it was huge.

I don't think--

I don't think anybody can even begin

to measure the impact it had in the broader sense.

I don't think Tim can.

I don't think that people can find all the elements of it

that were so significant in terms of what it touched.

It just did.

It was huge.

EVELYN BAILEY: And Sue Cowell at the time

was his campaign manager, but she was also

involved in the Gay Alliance, and she was also

involved-- was she in community health at that point?

TOM FERRARESE: I think she was.

It's interesting, because Sue really

has a political background too, because she

was involved in quite a bit of politics

at that time besides that.

You know, it's kind of like--

there are people like Sue-- and I don't think, again--

Sue's another person I don't think the community realizes

the impact she's had on this community

and in the broader community, New York State even.

Sue is one of those people where she doesn't toot her horn as

much as she could, but if you were to really sit

down and look at the things that she's touched

and the waves that she's created and where those waves have

gone, I so respect Sue.

She to me is one of the--

along with Tim is one of the two people

who have just done more than anybody else.

A lot of people have done a lot of things.

I don't want to take away from anybody else at all.

But I don't think--

I don't think can even begin to measure between the two of them

the impact that they've had, not only in Monroe County

or in the Genesee Valley, but in New York State in general.

Both of them have had significant impact

in the things that have happened.

And I just--

I think it's immeasurable.

But I love working with Sue, because Sue is just so--

so easy to work with, and just really to me

right-minded about everything.

EVELYN BAILEY: A couple more questions, and I know you're--

the time.

But in terms of Rochester, what do you

see as the next place or accomplishment

the LGBT community needs to make or needs to have?

TOM FERRARESE: I think there's two things.

And I know the Alliance focuses on the two things

that I think are really important.

And those are not abandoning our youth

because we think things are over.

If anything, we've got to up the ante

there in making sure that the youth have an entry point

and that we're there to help them through that.

I think the new thing that has come