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