Green Thursday, radio program, February 6, 1975
- BOB CRYSTAL: Bruce, it's time for the program.
- Give me the quarter.
- This is Green Thursday for February 6, 1975.
- [SOUND OF QUARTER SPINNING AND FALLING]
- [MUSIC - ROBBIE BASHO, "THE GRAIL AND THE LOTUS"]
- That was Robbie Basho, "The Grail and the Lotus."
- Tonight, we have the first of a series of interviews
- and recordings that Bruce made while he
- was in Scotland Edinburgh, Scotland at the International
- Congress on Gay Rights.
- Tonight also we have some music, news, announcements.
- And, Bruce, along with his tapes.
- BRUCE JEWEL: First I'd like to read a Sidney Harris editorial
- column from the local paper.
- Title of the column is Bigots Kick a Man into the Mud
- and then Point to Him as Dirty.
- At a college symposium I took part in recently,
- one of the students submitted this question: "How is it
- that in this great age of knowledge of science
- and education, so much prejudice still exists
- in all parts of the world?"
- At least part of the answer to this difficult question
- may be found in the nature of social interaction
- and the way people respond to their environment.
- Prejudice is what the behavioral scientists call
- a self-reinforcing schedule.
- Simply put, this means that any group discriminated
- against long enough will eventually
- react in such a way that seems to justify the discrimination.
- A group that is made to feel different
- will behave differently.
- And this behavior reinforces the original prejudice.
- Centuries of religious persecution, for instance,
- have given the Jewish people a defensive quality
- that is the inevitable result of super sensitivity.
- It sadly amuses me when they are called abrasive.
- For who wouldn't be abrasive after having been
- rubbed the wrong way for hundreds and hundreds of years.
- Discrimination brings out certain undesirable traits
- in people and then we point to these traits
- as evidence of their native difference.
- With an equally bitter history, the blacks
- have suffered in the same way, enslaved and kicked
- into the mud, and then pointed to as an example of dirtiness.
- It as much as though we poured a pint of liquor
- down a man's gullet and then locked him up for drunkenness.
- It is not only religious or racial pressure
- that shapes behavior.
- Sometimes it is sexual.
- For instance homosexuals behave differently in a country such
- as France than in the U.S. In France they comport themselves
- prettily much like anyone else--
- and that's a misnomer --and are hard to detect
- because nobody cares much one way
- or the other about deviation.
- In the US, the male homosexual is
- identified with a flaming faggot because our frontier
- mores have made us contemptuous toward him.
- This contempt and hostility produces an overreaction
- on his part, so that he tends to flaunt his difference
- with a desperate gaiety.
- He wants to be treated just like everyone else.
- But if we won't permit that, he will then
- exaggerate his difference in defiance,
- thus completing the circle and justifying
- our contemptuous treatment.
- We are old enough and knowledgeable enough
- to understand all this.
- There is no mystery about the way people
- behave when you treat them badly.
- We can all see it in our own families and friends.
- But we fail to apply this knowledge to the larger world
- and thus remain captives of prejudices
- that corrupt us as much as they injure their objects.
- That's by Sidney Harris.
- Next we'll hear Focus Medium Two.
- [MUSIC PLAYING]
- BOB CRYSTAL: And now the news for Green Thursday.
- BRUCE JEWEL: The reform minded and Democratic controlled
- 94th Congress, which convened on January 14,
- is in a position to enact wide ranging civil rights
- legislation which would dramatically
- affect the lives of gay people throughout the country.
- The first day of the new session, a bill entitled
- The Civil Rights Amendment of 1975
- was introduced to the House of Representatives
- by five congressional sponsors.
- The bill, HR 166, contains provisions prohibiting
- discrimination against gay people in employment
- opportunity and in housing sales, rentals, and financing.
- It further prohibits discrimination
- in the areas of public accommodations, facilities
- and education, as well as in federally funded programs
- and in education programs receiving
- federal financial assistance.
- In sum, the bill would extend the major civil rights
- legislation passed during the 1960s
- to include individuals without regard to,
- quote, "affectional or sexual preference," unquote.
- Marilyn Haft, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union
- National Project on Sexual Privacy,
- welcomed the introduction of the bill.
- Haft said, quote, "It would be of tremendous worth
- in all those situations where a lawyer now has
- nothing to lean on," unquote.
- Continuing, she said, "As things stand now,
- cases involving gay people can only
- be argued on the basis of violation of equal protection
- under the law.
- The passage of this bill would give us
- a basis, something to stand on," unquote.
- Bruce Vellar, Director of the National Gay Task Force,
- pointed out that by balancing the words
- sexual and affectional, the bill's language
- takes the emphasis off sex and, quote,
- "says that gays are caring, loving people," unquote.
- But Haft cautioned that the bill deals only
- with sexual orientation, not sexual conduct.
- And the bill does not directly supersede
- existing sodomy statutes.
- A drive to gather congressional support for the bill
- has been spearheaded by the National Gay Task Force
- and the initial sponsors are Representatives Bella S. Abzug,
- Democrat of New York, John Burton, Democrat of California,
- Edward T. Koch, Democrat of New York,
- Paul N. McCloskey, Republican of California,
- and Robert Nix, Democrat of Pennsylvania.
- BOB CRYSTAL: "Homosexuals and other unmarried persons
- have the same legal right to engage in consensual sodomy
- as married persons," a Suffolk County District Court judge
- has ruled.
- While this decision by Judge Joanna I. LaCaruba
- is not binding upon any other judge in the state,
- civil liberties lawyers and homosexual advocates
- contend that they are encouraged by her opinion.
- The case involved two separate arrests of male adults
- for engaging in oral sex.
- The arrests were under the State Penal
- Law 130.08, which forbids, quote,
- "deviant sexual intercourse," unquote, defined
- in the law as, quote, "between persons
- not married to each other."
- In practice, prosecutors and defense lawyers agree,
- this law is used almost entirely against homosexuals.
- The recent challenge was handled by Alan J. Azzara of the Nassau
- ACLU, representing a client who had
- been arrested in a wooded area.
- In his brief Mr. Azzara argued that Section 130.08, quote,
- "violated the fundamental right to privacy
- and also discriminates arbitrarily
- between married and non-married persons,
- and arbitrarily and capriciously defines
- as deviate certain sexual acts which
- are commonly practiced in contemporary society," unquote.
- In her opinion, dated January 20, 1975,
- Judge LaCaruba ruled Section 130.08 to be unconstitutional.
- She said, quote, "We can find no rational distinction
- between married people and unmarried
- who engage in sodomy."
- She added that if acts of sodomy,
- quote, "so outrage society or have serious moral and health
- consequences, they should be forbidden for all people."
- New York Times.
- BRUCE JEWEL: In Washington, DC, Federal Communications
- Commissioners were recently appraised of gay people's
- feelings about the media by Jim Zeiss,
- who is spokesperson for the District of Columbia Gay
- Activist Alliance Gay Media Project.
- Quote, "There are few positive moments
- in the broadcasting year that provide
- any true picture of our lives.
- And those few moments are confined
- to the least popular listening and viewing hours of the day,"
- unquote, Zeiss charged at a January 8 FCC public forum.
- This situation he said, quote, "contributes
- to a continual and pervasive destruction
- of the positive self image of over 10% of the population,"
- unquote.
- And also, quote, "contributes in a real way
- to the ongoing denial of our rights
- and various political struggles throughout the country,"
- unquote.
- William B. Ray who heads the Federal Communications
- Commission's Compliance and Complaints Division
- advised gays to, quote, "make their views known
- to the broadcast licensees," unquote.
- He noted that the FCC has received similar complaints,
- quote, "from many other groups, from Latinos,
- from blacks, Italian Americans, all of these groups," unquote.
- Ray said he felt there would be a little chance
- to invoke the Fairness Doctrine, which in part requires
- broadcasters in their overall program to provide opportunity
- for airing of opposing viewpoints
- on controversial issues of public importance.
- Zeiss noted after the hearing that although the Commissioner
- declined to go on record stating that gay people are
- a segment of the population whose needs should be addressed
- by the media, Ray's comments were helpful in implicitly
- putting gay people on roughly the same basis as blacks
- and Italian Americans.
- BOB CRYSTAL: Dr. Howard J. Brown,
- New York City's first Health Services Administrator
- and a founder of the National Gay Task Force died Saturday,
- February 1st.
- He was 50 years old.
- In October, 1973, Dr. Brown made page one news
- when he announced publicly that he
- was a homosexual in an endeavor to end
- the prejudices that homosexuals face in obtaining jobs.
- In the same month, he helped found the National Gay Task
- Force, becoming a board chairman.
- When Dr. Brown announced that he was a homosexual,
- he expressed the hope that others in high positions
- would follow him, but he declined
- to name physicians or city officials who were homosexuals.
- They are still terrified, he said.
- Of his speaking to groups for the National Gay Task Force
- he said, "It still astounds them to have a doctor stand up
- and say he is a homosexual.
- I only wish I could have done it much earlier."
- Dr. Brown had known he was suffering from a fatal form
- of heart disease.
- New York Times.
- [MUSIC PLAYING]
- BOB CRYSTAL: That was John Fahey, "In Memoriam."
- Tonight we have Bruce with a tape of some his interviews
- in Scotland.
- This is an auspicious and momentous program,
- I believe, for our second anniversary
- of the Green Thursday program.
- Green Thursday started two years ago this coming St. Valentine's
- Day.
- It's a milestone.
- I think we're the longest running,
- back for our third year by demand type sort of thing.
- And Bruce was the instigator or (Jewel laughs)
- inspiration or whatever.
- BRUCE JEWEL: The agitator.
- BOB CRYSTAL: Agitator.
- Founding. (Laughs)
- BRUCE JEWEL: Yeah.
- I saw an advertisement for a gay radio program
- in San Francisco Bay Area.
- And they advertised that they'd been on a whole year
- and they had a whole commune to put the thing together,
- which I thought was (laughs).
- BOB CRYSTAL: You and I form a commune.
- BRUCE JEWEL: Perhaps so.
- The interview that we're going to hear
- is from the First International Law Session at the Edinburgh
- International Gay Conference.
- The speech you're going to first hear
- was given by Franklin Kameny and the date was December 19, 1974.
- FRANKLIN KAMENY: We have a subject here,
- which is a very complex one, the laws vary from one country
- to another.
- The manner of enforcement of similar laws
- varies from one country to another.
- Furthermore, the entire approach,
- cultural and in terms of a whole legal structure and framework,
- differs from one country to another.
- You have countries in which there
- is a formal, written constitution, bills of rights,
- which implies one way of getting at things.
- Others in which you don't have any concept of civil liberties
- at all.
- Some countries in which you are innocent until proven guilty
- and others in which you are guilty until proven innocent.
- There are intertwined cultural approaches to the law itself,
- to homosexuality, which make it almost impossible to present
- a coherent overview in a short period of time.
- Therefore, as I found it necessary to do
- in the paper I wrote where I was limited to 1500 words
- and ended up running over 2,000, I
- will be forced, with some regret,
- at an international conference, to deal in major degree
- with law in the United States, but with references
- to other countries.
- But I hope that this can pave the way at least for a more
- extended discussion of problems elsewhere, to provide
- the start for systematic bases the discussion,
- and to show some instances both where progress has been made
- and clearly where it needs to be made.
- Now, the first area is the one in which
- gay people, unfortunately and regrettably, but certainly
- with full justification, have come traditionally
- to consider the law, and that is law as foe.
- Unfortunately, the law has set Itself up in most countries
- where it's relevant to us as an adversary.
- The proper role of government, of course,
- the only proper role of government and law
- is to assist and protect the citizenry,
- not to fight them and persecute them.
- Unfortunately, gays, along with other minority groups
- have found this not to be true.
- And central to those laws or that approach
- to law in most places, are the sodomy laws.
- Now, these again, vary from country to country.
- In Britain, the laws are, as I understand them, certainly
- in pre-Wolfenden Britain, apply specifically
- to homosexual sexual acts and further only to males.
- So as I understand, there was some comment I saw in gay news
- not long ago, that women in Britain
- objected to the involvement of the movement
- here with legal questions which they said did not concern them.
- On the other hand, this is not true in all countries.
- In the United States the laws don't, with one
- or two occasional, recent exceptions,
- the laws do not single out homosexuals at all
- and don't even mention homosexuality.
- They prohibit particular sexual acts, often described
- with explicitly anatomical between any two people,
- including heterosexually married couples.
- But they apply to male-male couples, female-female couples,
- male-female couples, anyone.
- However, and this is what is really important,
- I think, these laws are thought of,
- regardless of what their verbiage may be,
- in terms solely by most people of homosexuality.
- And therefore they create an aura of criminality
- around homosexuality, which is intensely destructive,
- both in terms of our own self-image and self-esteem,
- and, of course, in terms of our relationships with others.
- And these laws are often used as a pseudo justification
- for other forms of persecution.
- Again employers who say, "Well, we
- don't want to hire criminals.
- You get the laws changed, and then we'll
- reconsider hiring you."
- That sort of thing.
- When we get the laws changed, they'll find something else.
- So, these laws do need to be approached.
- In the United States for example,
- again, these laws are very, very rarely enforced.
- On the other hand, one of the only recent cases
- of enforcement of sodomy laws in the United States,
- was in regard to two women in the state of Michigan.
- So they do apply across the board
- and are intensely damaging.
- Now they provide the basis, the underlying basis
- however, for a whole superficial structure of law and concept,
- the so called solicitation laws.
- I guess the term here in Britain is importuning,
- which are based at least in part on the assumption
- that if an act is criminal, a solicitation or a proposal
- to commit the act is criminal.
- And that's the basis, of course, for a large number of arrests.
- In the United States, we've been trying
- to create test cases to strike down
- these laws within our own constitutional framework
- or approach.
- And in order to set up such a test case,
- about a year ago, I wrote letters to our three top law
- enforcement authorities in the District
- of Columbia, the chief of police, the United States
- Attorney, and the Corporation Counsel,
- soliciting, importuning, urging, inviting each of them
- to engage with me in an act or acts of sodomy of his choice
- and role of his choice in some indisputably private place
- in the District of Columbia.
- And said, Try it, you'll like it."
- And then pointed out that as long as sodomy
- is technically illegal in District,
- that the delivery of my letter consummated a crime
- and demanded to be arrested so that I could created a test
- case.
- I set the thing up very carefully when
- I had no speaking engagements and the paddy wagon drove
- round, I wouldn't be [INAUDIBLE]..
- Well, the Corporation Counsel is very uptight
- and he never answered.
- The United States Attorney resigned the next month.
- I like to think I was responsible,
- but realistically I suspect I had nothing to do with it.
- Our chief of police, who, though he's been,
- he's resigned since on other grounds, had a sense of humor.
- And he wrote back, that he couldn't
- accept my invitation because his wife would never stand for it.
- I find it rather interesting that a chief of police
- responded to a criminal invitation
- to commit a criminal act, not with an objection to doing it
- because it was a criminal act, but on that grounds
- of a conflict of interest.
- (Laughter)
- Which tells us something about the status
- of these idiotic laws.
- In any case, these laws have, in recent years,
- have been falling like the autumn leaves.
- In the United States, they've been repealed in, well,
- over the last about 13 years, but particularly
- in the last five, in eight states
- and repeal actions are up in quite a number of others.
- And some they'll succeed and some they won't.
- But I expect that the next year, we'll see that eight, well,
- perhaps not double, but at least increase
- by 50% anyhow, possibly significantly more than that.
- We have some test cases going which
- may take care of all the states once and for all and forever.
- We're waiting with bated breath for a decision
- from a federal court in Virginia at the moment on a case
- that we carefully set up.
- One of the plaintiffs is here today, as a matter of fact,
- a volunteer plaintiff in a civil suit.
- In other countries again, these laws
- have also been repealed so that they apply now
- to relatively few countries.
- I think the only major country among those
- that we usually call major are those two self-righteous,
- self-advertised, self-proclaimed vanguards and examples
- of all human progress and enlightenment, Russia
- and the United States, which makes the question beautifully
- nonpolitical.
- And a few minor countries, Cuba, Union
- of South Africa, Scotland, Northern Ireland,
- and a couple of others.
- Now, however, the repeals aren't all uniform.
- They vary in a number of factors.
- One of the burning questions is that of age of consent.
- And this varies enormously.
- In Britain there is a Wolfenden reform
- made it 21, whereas heterosexual relations, is, I believe, 16.
- This again varies.
- Now in the United States, some of the states where
- it's been repealed make it 18.
- The general run of the mill usually is 16.
- In Hawaii it's 14.
- In Delaware, it's 12 if there's not
- more than four years difference between the people
- and 16 for everybody.
- In Illinois it's 17.
- But an affirmative defense is if the younger person down to 15
- claimed to be 17 and looked it.
- So it's been seriously proposed in the District of Columbia
- to make it 12 and so this varies.
- I think probably realistically, as a starter, what
- we have a right to ask for and are likely
- get is at the least, uniformity for heterosexuality
- and homosexuality.
- And for men and women as the phrasing of the law
- may go if it makes distinctions in those directions.
- And that's been the general trend.
- Then after that, you can go in along with everybody
- and ask to have it lowered for everyone.
- Now leaving for the moment, well,
- not for the moment, leaving, at least
- for my formal presentation, the question of law as foe,
- we come to another area.
- Years back, when some of us got into the gay movement
- back in the early '60s, when in the United States,
- the whole question of civil rights, at that time
- civil rights for blacks, was very much in the air,
- we used to sit back once in a while and dream
- of some far distant, utopian future when we might have
- civil rights laws for gays.
- And we used to imagine some day when
- perhaps if we played our parts just right and luck was with us
- and we lived long enough and we didn't really expect to,
- we might very well see civil rights laws,
- affirmative protection for gays, that
- is law in its proper function of protecting us
- and the law and government in their proper function
- of protecting and assisting the citizenry.
- And suddenly, within the past almost three years,
- we have had them.
- The first such law was passed in the small city of East Lansing,
- Michigan in March, I guess it was, February or March,
- almost three years ago.
- And since then, these laws have been passed in some 14, 13
- or 14 other cities.
- So far only at the municipal level,
- although efforts are being made to pass them at the state
- level in a number of places.
- And I suspect some will pass and some won't initially.
- These laws vary enormously and no two are alike.
- In fact, the two organizations that have profited most
- from the passage of such laws in the most immediate sense
- are the Xerox Company and the Post Office.
- Because every few weeks, I get a request
- as other people do from someone who
- says, "We want to introduce a human rights law to our city
- council.
- We have no models to go by.
- Send us copies of all the other laws."
- So I go out and spend a fortune on xeroxing
- and another fortune on postage and mail them all off.
- And six months later, out rolls another human rights law.
- Hopefully.
- They don't always.
- Where these laws are complete, and they are not all complete,
- where they are complete, they prohibit discrimination
- on the basis of homosexuality.
- Sometimes just that.
- Some of them, as the law in Washington,
- cover a large number of other groups
- as well, in any employment, public or private,
- this with sometimes civil penalties,
- sometimes criminal penalties for the offending employer,
- sometimes both.
- Any discriminations in rentals, housing, real estate
- transactions, discrimination in the use
- of public accommodation, in short, either we
- dance everywhere or no one dances everywhere.
- In licensure, accreditation, ranging from cab drivers'
- licenses and so on, on up to admission
- to the bar and admission to practice medicine,
- in credit and insurance and so on.
- These laws, of course, the fact of the matter,
- the law on the books doesn't mean
- that your problems are solved.
- And they may not be at two different levels.
- First, of course, as in, I believe,
- Toronto, if I have my facts correct,
- you simply have an uncooperative municipal structure.
- The law is there, and they refuse to do anything about it.
- In other cities, this is not so.
- I'll come to yours (unintelligible) that.
- Secondly, of course, as you find in any context
- of this kind, anything that human ingenuity can devise,
- human ingenuity can evade.
- And so the whole battle escalates
- to one level higher or lower, if you wish,
- of sophistication, subtlety, and nuance.
- But it means, that while we have to work a little bit harder,
- the opposition has to work harder also
- and sometimes they find it not worth it.
- Now in Washington, where I come from, Washintgon, D.C.,
- we have one of the best of these laws, to be a bit chauvinistic.
- And it's being actively implemented.
- As a couple of examples, these posters
- are going up all over the city.
- I'll put them up somewhere.
- Put out by a human rights office stating,
- it is unlawful for any person to practice discrimination
- in employment in the District of Columbia
- on the basis of race, origin, national origin, sex, age,
- marital status, sexual orientation,
- and a number of other areas.
- Similarly, it is unlawful for any person
- to practice discrimination in the rental or sale of housing
- accommodations and commercial space in the District
- of Columbia on the basis of similar groupings,
- including sexual orientation.
- And these apply, the employment ones,
- to employment agencies, labor unions and so on.
- And these are being very actively implemented.
- In the area of public accommodations,
- for example, which our law also covers.
- About a month ago, two of our people
- reported they had gone into a straight establishment
- near them where they lived one evening.
- There was dancing.
- So they got up and chose to dance.
- They were asked by the management to leave.
- Well, a couple of years ago, our only recourse
- would have been a (unintelligible) of some sort
- or do nothing.
- Here we have the law.
- So, a simple call on the Human Rights Office.
- We set the thing up with them.
- They sent out an observer.
- About a dozen of us got together.
- The observer went in first and sat quietly at the bar.
- We went in by ones and twos and threes.
- At a signal, started dancing.
- We got thrown out.
- The proprietor was told what the law was.
- He refused to obey the law.
- The observer was quietly listening
- to the whole exchange, which had been planned in advance.
- Complaints have been filed.
- That proprietor will either allow us to dance
- or he will have a padlock put on his door within the next month.
- That's the end of it.
- So, and it's taken care of.
- So that I think that can make a laws of that kind
- make very considerable difference.
- Now, one of the important things with respect
- to those kinds of laws, is, of course, the impact
- that they're going to have on own community.
- When laws of that kind become widespread,
- first of all, and then secondly, when their impact has sunk in
- on people, below the mere intellectual level, just
- as a simple fact that you know it
- will protect their employment.
- When it's sunk down to a gut level,
- so you feel not just know, that you know,
- my employer can't fire me if he finds out
- I'm gay because he'll go to jail.
- That's when people are going to start coming out en masse.
- And then all the ground rules will change completely.
- We'll have a whole new ball game and much for better.
- AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you.
- Can I ask why don't you
- FRANKLIN KAMENY: (Unintelligible)
- Now there are quite a number of other areas
- that time hasn't permitted me to cover as you just noticed.
- Immigration laws, for example, it's
- questionable whether a conference of this sort
- could even be held in the United States or Canada
- because I don't think most people here who are not
- citizens of either country would be allowed
- in if they're known as gays.
- Problems with gay organizations.
- There are a number of countries, Mexico, some others, Spain,
- where gay organizations are illegal.
- Problems with the civil service.
- Problems with the Armed Services,
- which we are fighting vigorously, certainly
- in the United States.
- We're surprisingly, or perhaps not surprisingly well
- surprisingly statistically I've gotten somewhere
- over 50% of my cases that I've handled on the Armed Services
- in the last few years from women.
- (Unintelligible) Questions of transvestism and drag
- on which the laws vary.
- In provincial cities like New York, it's still illegal.
- In more advanced cities, like Washington,
- it's perfectly legal.
- Questions of gay marriage, which are being pushed vigorously.
- One area of tremendous ferment in the law
- are, in obviously the United States,
- are two quite distinct but obviously related
- the four quite distinct, but obviously related
- areas are child adoption, foster child placement, custody
- of children by previously married gays,
- and visitation rights by previously married gays.
- And the number of cases in those is going up
- with very great rapidity.
- It's an area of obvious ferment.
- It's not an area, of course, where there's a tendency
- to involve ourselves all in all, while taking the law
- in general, sometimes to the exclusion of other things.
- Resolution of all the legal questions
- is not going to be the resolution of all our problems,
- obviously.
- The complete game is not entirely (unintelligible)
- naturally.
- It's societal attitudes.
- But there's also a strong tendency,
- as was found in other contexts and other minorities,
- to find that once you have the law with you,
- there is a very strong pressure for attitudes in due course
- to conform themselves to the reality of the laws with which
- they are imposed, which are imposed upon them.
- The blacks found this in the South,
- where changes in attitude followed
- upon changes in the law did not precede
- as some people argue they must.
- So it is a vitally important area
- and one which I think is fundamental to all
- the things we're trying to do.
- I've been hastened to finish my talk.
- So, I'm finished.
- (Applause)
- BRUCE JEWEL: That was Franklin Kameny at the International Gay
- Conference on December 19, 1974, discussing the current status
- of international law with an emphasis on American law.
- Let's see, Bob, you have a couple of announcements for us.
- BOB CRYSTAL: Yes.
- The Gay Brotherhood is sponsoring a coffeehouse
- this coming Sunday at 7:30 PM.
- It will be held at 713 Monroe Avenue.
- Everyone in the community is invited.
- And there will be various entertainment.
- That's at 713 Monroe Avenue this Sunday evening.
- The Gay Task Force, which is a task oriented gay work group,
- is going to start on the final labors on local human rights
- legislation.
- The meeting is 7:30 PM tonight.
- That's Thursday the 6th, and the meeting
- is tentatively scheduled for 713 Monroe Avenue.
- That's upstairs from the Genesee Co-op.
- Call before you go to make sure that it's still
- scheduled for there.
- It will either be held in the lounge
- or in the Gay Brotherhood office.
- I'd also like to announce that the Empty Closet is on the news
- stands.
- If you didn't get your copy or if you
- don't have a subscription, you can find one in the bookstores
- and in various distribution boxes.
- I've been asked to announce that the Gay
- Brotherhood of Rochester welcomes new members.
- There will be orientation meetings
- scheduled for the future at which anyone can attend.
- The requirements for a voting member is $3.50 and attendance
- at three out of five consecutive meetings.
- After that, you get your card so that you can be a card carrying
- member, just like in the union.
- And if you want to contribute more,
- no one is going to tell you not to.
- People who don't want to be voting members but do want
- to contribute money to the Gay liberation movement can
- contribute anywhere over $3.50 and become a contributing
- or a supporting member.
- Checks can be mailed to 713 Monroe Avenue, the Gay
- Brotherhood of Rochester, also can
- be mailed to the Gay Alliance for support of the lobbying
- consultant.
- They should be labeled as such.
- BRUCE JEWEL: OK.
- We're going to go directly to the next interview, or rather
- a speech, which was made at the International Conference
- that same day Franklin Kameny spoke.
- It is the Spanish delegate whose name I am purposely deleting.
- And he is speaking about the social conditions in Spain
- and in particular the social conditions
- that gay people must deal with.
- Unfortunately his speech is a little difficult to hear,
- but it's a very important speech.
- And so I hope you listen closely.
- RADIO HOST: This is Green Thursday on WCMF in Rochester.
- UNNAMED SPANISH DELEGATE: Before I go into detail about
- the position of gays in Spain vis-à-vis the law,
- I should like to give you a quick picture of the historical
- and political situation of the Spanish people in general.
- As in order to understand fully the position
- of one section of society, it is essential to know
- what is happening in society as a whole.
- For example, in Holland and other countries,
- there is tolerance to our gays, it
- is because the historical process,
- both political and cultural, has made it possible.
- The existence of lawful gay associations
- can only be understandable in relation
- to a given political strategy.
- In Spain, after the 1936 - 1939 Civil War,
- there was a dictatorship of the Church and Army
- determined to copy the pattern that
- existed in Germany and Italy, namely
- to give undying support to the interests of the big land
- owners and the growing class of financiers.
- The church would supply the ideological tenets,
- while the army would provide the force and (unintelligible)
- the middle class, the human element.
- Thus started a particularly severe period of depression
- which lasted until the year the early 1950s.
- In the (unintelligible) this long period
- can be summed up in the words of a member of the National
- Council: "The only reasoning I know of is fists and firearms."
- The beginning of the Cold War marked the change
- in Spain's fortunes.
- The United States, sowing Franco's anti-Communist regime,
- an excellent ally in Spain's economic isolation
- which had followed the defeat of the Nazi and fascist
- dictatorships, was relieved.
- As a result, there was rapid economic growth
- and a big increase in the cost of living
- which provoked the 1959 labor troubles, such as the miners
- strike in Asturias (unintelligible) put down
- by the government.
- But there was no change in the ideological setup
- of the country.
- No dissenting voice succeeded in breaching the repressive laws
- of the system.
- The Spanish bourgeoisie found a possible way out
- of the crisis in tourism.
- In order to attract foreign tourists to our then recently
- discovered holiday spots, Falangist symbols
- such as the outstretched arm were banished
- and words, if they were reminiscent of those partly
- responsible for the Second World War,
- were deleted from official jargon.
- But in reality, everything remained just as before.
- Social and political repression went on
- under cover of the slogan, "Spain is different."
- Thus, we see that today the political machinery
- of the Spanish regime which continues faithful to expansion
- as guardian of the bourgeoisie and tourists
- is up against ever-growing difficulties, accentuated
- by the general recession that defeats
- the whole capitalist world.
- In face of this situation, and following the assassination
- of the president of the government Señor Carrero
- Blanco, an apparent process of liberalization was initiated
- with the ostensible object of securing wider popular support
- for the regime and entering its continuance after the defeat
- of General Franco.
- However, this state this stage, known as the apertura,
- or opening up, comes up against the resistance of the regime's
- most conservative elements, as well as
- the skepticism of the Spanish people, who
- realize that behind all the fine words,
- there still lies an repressive machine which (unintelligible).
- This is evident from the government's attitude
- towards the counter-labor conflicts, which
- are every day more frequent.
- To conclude this survey of the Spanish political scene today,
- we can say that the system is a dictatorship in which
- the dominant class imposes its own ideas with respect
- to marriage, the family, love, and sex, adjusted
- to the rigor of an ecclesiastical and petty
- outlook, which even the Church itself has begun to abandon.
- The establishment tries to hide its true nature
- and (unintelligible) for commercial consumption, which
- has no effect whatever on the harshness
- of an official morality born of oppression and exploitation.
- The Spanish people are therefore submerged
- in a condition of neuroses and sexual frustration which
- is difficult to change after lasting for 35 years.
- Turning now to the legal aspect of gays in Spain,
- have been prosecuted like those in other European countries.
- Ever since the rise to power of the Christians in the Imperial
- Rome, they were treated as sinners and criminals.
- Nevertheless, from the (unintelligible) first penal
- code in Spain in 1822, all reference to gays
- disappeared from Spanish penal laws,
- except for the military ones.
- And this attitude was maintained in later reforms of the code
- in 1848, 1860, and 1870.
- It was not until 1928 during the dictatorship of