Green Thursday, radio program, July 11, 1974
- (Music playing)
- BRUCE JEWELL: Hello.
- I'm Bruce Jewell.
- And this is Green Thursday for July 11.
- Got with me, of course, Bob Crystal.
- BOB CRYSTAL: Who mucked the introduction.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Oh.
- Never.
- And you just heard Kraftwerk with "Heimatklaenge."
- I don't know what that means.
- Klaenge sounds like something--
- BOB CRYSTAL: It's a noise.
- BRUCE JEWELL: --banging away.
- But anyhow.
- This evening, we're going to have the continuation
- of the Intro 475 hearings.
- And we'll discuss what we're going to hear
- a little bit later on that.
- And I think, having just come back from gay pride week, Bob,
- you wanted to say some things about media reaction
- to gay pride week, which I think we might as well start out
- by saying drew, according to police estimates,
- 43,000 people.
- BOB CRYSTAL: Yes, it was the largest of all the marches.
- Larger than the first two combined.
- If you remember, if you were listening to me two weeks ago
- when I was getting ready to go down to the march,
- I asked everyone who was in Rochester who was not
- going to the march to watch the media
- and see just exactly how discriminated
- against gay people are.
- I didn't think we were that badly discriminated against.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Yeah, there wasn't a note in either
- of the Rochester newspapers.
- This march, at 43,000 people, was half the size
- of the major civil rights march--
- rather the major anti-war marches in Washington DC.
- Therefore, it represented a pretty large--
- it drew people from all over the country.
- BOB CRYSTAL: Yes.
- I was talking to one man down in New York,
- and he said that a march of 43,000 people
- was larger than most of the marches this country
- has seen except for Martin Luther King's
- famous march and the anti-war May Day marches.
- And I thought that what would happen
- was we would get a page four in the B section of the Times
- Union on an off day, such as maybe Monday or Tuesday.
- I was surprised to find that the march wasn't even put
- on the wire services.
- So we have gone from being "use at your own discretion"
- material to "well, you could use it if we put it on,
- but we're not going to put it on" material.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well, I noticed there's
- weekly, almost daily, coverage of the Houston murder cases,
- but no coverage of this other case.
- And I think the point, again, to make
- is that media in this country, the country of 200
- million people, covering the area that we cover,
- makes or breaks issues.
- They exist or don't exist according to what
- the media chooses to cover.
- That is, if there are 10,000, 100,000 people,
- 200,000 people starving in some remote country,
- it doesn't exist for Americans unless it's
- covered in the media.
- And the emphasis the media puts on it
- has a great deal of influence on how we react to it.
- BOB CRYSTAL: As much as I claim to be a pessimist,
- I've always been very much of an idealist.
- And I thought that everyone claiming
- that Big Brother is watching you,
- and especially the part in the novel about Big Brother
- rewriting history was a bunch of bullshit.
- And you might be able to tell that I'm a little bit upset.
- I think that Big Brother is not only watching,
- but Big Brother is deciding who's going to do what.
- And the question of whether the gay liberation movement
- is valid or not does not rest with the gay people
- and never has.
- I'm beginning to worry that it rests with--
- BRUCE JEWELL: I don't know if I'd go quite so far as that.
- I think local action is very important.
- And gay groups can make themselves felt within various
- at the level of the cities and the states and the counties.
- I think, on another level, there's
- something rather important going on.
- I don't usually discuss American national politics,
- but it's pretty clear that the country has
- to make major changes, which are much more devastating in terms
- of the way they're likely to affect people's lives
- than the gay civil rights movement is ever going to be.
- And yet, we don't seem to be able to show
- any flexibility as a nation in regards to this issue.
- It makes me a little bit pessimistic
- how we're going to confront issues of much greater import
- to the nation as a whole.
- BOB CRYSTAL: Gay liberation movement
- has been fighting what has been called the discrimination
- of ignorance.
- And that is, if we don't see you, you're not there.
- That is important both to the gay people who
- are being told to come out and asked to come out because they
- can hide, but also because of the fact
- that, even when one does come out, one is hidden and ignored.
- And I think that Rochester is in a much better situation
- than the nation as a whole because we
- have been developing-- slowly, of course,
- but we have been developing a communication with the media.
- The fact that this radio program is
- the first on a commercial radio station
- is an example of the fact that we're moving a lot better
- than the nation as a whole.
- BRUCE JEWELL: OK.
- Now, let's see.
- I guess we better get on with the interview, which is going
- to be pretty long, I think.
- BOB CRYSTAL: OK.
- The next record is Michael Cohen, "Pray to Your God."
- (Music playing)
- Bobby, since you've gone away, I haven't
- had no peaceful day in my time.
- And no one was as good for me.
- You walked on waters endlessly.
- You made rhymes.
- Go off to Cape Cod.
- Pray to your god.
- Stick in the needle till you find the vein.
- Scratch the 8-ball.
- Climb a grass wall.
- You find me here just the same.
- You know, I thought we'd make the best of friends.
- I thought the means would meet the ends.
- Was I wrong?
- 'Cause now I've got my axe to grind.
- You left me by some empty shrine.
- Babe, you just weren't strong.
- Yeah, go off to Cape Cod.
- Pray to your god.
- Stick in the needle till you find the vein.
- Baby, go scratch your 8-ball.
- Climb your grass wall.
- You're gonna find me here just the same.
- Yeah, I'm the same for you, baby.
- You say you wanna be promiscuous,
- but that'll be just hit and miss.
- You'll crumble.
- And baby, I can't let you fall to the bars, the baths,
- the trucks and all.
- The meat rack tumble.
- Yeah, go off to Cape Cod.
- Oh, pray to your god.
- You can't stick in the needle, oh, till you find the vein.
- Scratch your 8-ball.
- Climb your grass wall.
- You'll find me here just the same.
- Bobby, since you've gone away, I just
- ain't had no peaceful day in my time.
- And no one was as good for me.
- You walked on waters endlessly.
- You made your rhymes.
- BRUCE JEWELL: The new home of the Metropolitan Community
- Church in Los Angeles that cost MCC
- $300,000 has been put under tight security following
- an attempt by someone to burn it down.
- A man described as over 6-feet tall and well-groomed
- was seen attempting to escape from the church
- after setting three small blazes, which were put out
- without any significant damage.
- After smashing the front door window with a two-by-four
- and finding several MCC members standing outside.
- The arsonist reversed his tracks and succeeded
- in escaping through the side door in the building's
- small chapel that serves as a synagogue for MCC's
- affiliated Jewish congregation.
- MCC in various cities has long been the target of arsonists.
- This time, MCC officials expect that the arson attempt
- may be connected with the bar protest organized Friday night,
- June 21, by Reverend Troy Perry and Reverend Robert Sirico.
- The two-hour picket outside the Paradise Ballroom,
- protesting alleged discrimination
- against black and women, "crippled their business"
- to put it in Reverend Sirico's words.
- And this may have brought about the attempted arson attempt.
- BOB CRYSTAL: The biennial convention
- of the American Nurses Association
- in San Francisco on June 11 denied appeals
- to set up an official gay task force within its ranks.
- But the response of individual participants
- to workshops and hospitality suites
- sponsored by gays within their midst was overwhelming.
- The task force status was denied to the Philadelphia Center Gay
- Nurses Alliance because homosexuality does not
- meet the requirements of being either racial or ethnic
- in nature, ANA leadership informed the gay leadership.
- But the setback was at least partially compensated
- when workshops, set up by gay nurses,
- drew double and triple the capacity planned.
- A second session of one workshop was
- scheduled after 600 persons tried to attend
- a session aiming at 200.
- Though faced with a news blackout
- in the official convention newsletter,
- the gay nurses, led by Philadelphia's Carolyn Innes
- and David Waldron, somehow got their message
- across to thousands of convention participants.
- The GNA information booth distributed 2,500 brochures
- and virtually exhausted its sale of books and pamphlets.
- The gay nurses are urging the hospital administrators
- and nurses create an atmosphere where
- gay people are accepted as staff members and as patients.
- A workshop audio-visual presentation illustrated some
- of the problems--
- the mocking of gay medical staff,
- less-than-adequate care of gay patients,
- and the difficulty of gay patients
- have relating openly with gay friends
- and lovers in the hospital.
- BRUCE JEWELL: The Washington State Department
- of Social and Health Services has dropped a section banning
- gay foster homes from its proposed revision
- of foster home guidelines.
- The action came after months of protest
- by gays and other minority groups.
- The section deleted applied to foster parents candidates
- with severe problems in their sexual identity.
- Gays were automatically placed in that category.
- However, wording was retained which
- will prohibit approval of foster homes
- in which parents are not free of chronic conflict
- both within and without the family group.
- According to Mary Morrison, head of the Action Childcare
- Coalition, the ACC, a leader in the struggle
- to liberalize the regulations, the paragraph which
- was retained may also be construed
- as being discriminatory against gays.
- Despite the state government's deletion
- of some offensive passages, the changes did not, on the whole,
- meet the Action Childcare Coalition's demands,
- and ACC leaders said they plan to continue
- pressing for a total rewriting of the regulations.
- BOB CRYSTAL: Soviet film director Sergei Parajanov,
- arrested in December on charges of homosexuality,
- has been sentenced to a prison labor camp for six years,
- according to reports reaching the west from Kiev
- in the Ukraine.
- Parajanov's most celebrated film was
- Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, which
- won a scope of international awards in 1965 and 1966
- and was released in the United States four years later.
- That's a score of international awards.
- Two subsequent films won critical acclaim in the west
- but were banned in the Soviet Union.
- Parajanov was tried in Kiev on both the homosexuality charge
- and a second count of incitement to suicide.
- He reportedly attempted to kill himself while in jail.
- The filmmaker's arrest by Soviet Secret Police, the KGB,
- on December 17 prompted a number of protest demonstrations
- when the news was released by Agence France-Press in January
- of this year.
- Among the protests, which flared in Copenhagen,
- New York, and San Francisco, gay activists
- played a prominent part.
- Advocate, 142.
- (Music playing)
- Come on.
- I went down to the local bar to have a drink or two.
- As I was marching toward the jukebox, my eyes fell on you.
- The bartender said you're disengaged.
- And I saw you trying to look my way.
- I said, now wait.
- Wait!
- Stop a minute.
- I said, now don't.
- Don't!
- Don't go no farther.
- I said, now wait.
- Wait!
- Stop a minute.
- 'Cause I really, really, really got to have you.
- I always see you walking in the street.
- Always looking so nice and neat.
- Always got you on my mind.
- I know we're gonna have a good time.
- Bartender said you're disengaged.
- And I saw you trying to look my way.
- I said, wait.
- Wait!
- Stop a minute.
- I said, don't.
- Don't!
- Go no farther.
- I said, now wait.
- Wait!
- Stop a minute.
- 'Cause I really, really, really got to have you.
- Oh, yeah!
- I said, now, wait Wait!
- Stop a minute.
- I said, now don't.
- Don't!
- Go no farther.
- I said, now wait.
- Wait!
- Stop a minute.
- I said, now don't.
- Don't!
- Go no farther.
- Oh, yeah!
- I said, wait.
- Stop a minute.
- I said, now don't.
- Don't!
- Go no farther.
- I said, wait.
- Stop a minute.
- I said, now don't.
- Don't!
- Go no farther.
- Take it home.
- Wait.
- Stop a minute.
- I said, don't go no farther, baby.
- I said, wait.
- Stop a minute.
- I said, don't, don't go no farther.
- You're looking all right, babe.
- Looking all right.
- Let me buy you a drink.
- Everything's all right.
- I said, now wait.
- Don't go no farther.
- BOB CRYSTAL: That was J. Geils Band, "Wait."
- BRUCE JEWELL: The interview we're going to hear now--
- or rather a recording of a session
- involving Intro 475, the first civil rights amendment
- to be proposed in New York City last year.
- It features a housewife, I believe, from Brooklyn.
- This woman is not a vicious woman.
- She's definitely against gay rights,
- but that doesn't make a person vicious.
- And she certainly isn't vicious.
- She's not a killer.
- She doesn't want to hurt anybody.
- I think, as you listen, you'll find, though,
- that she is very much a victim of ignorance.
- She half sees the issues.
- She doesn't quite understand them.
- But emotionally, purely emotionally,
- she's against them.
- Unfortunately, people such as this fall victim to needless
- fears, as she has done.
- And I think this interview, or this recording,
- illustrates just the danger of ignorance and the kind of fear
- that ignorance can breed.
- All right.
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: Sylvia Spray.
- These are cases of discrimination.
- People will testify.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: I'm not a scheduled speaker,
- and this is the first time in my life
- I speak in front of more than six, ten to twelve people.
- And the ten, twelve people at any time are my relatives.
- But I've been sitting here for hours,
- and I realized more and more that, in our society today,
- mothers and fathers have forgot they don't count.
- Everyone talks-- psychologists, or people
- of all homosexual directions are-- where are the mothers?
- Where are the fathers, for crying out loud?
- Where are the mothers and fathers of these people?
- Either they left them or--
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: Mrs. Spray.
- Mrs. Spray.
- You're not--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: I am excited.
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: You're not making a speech
- to the audience.
- You're addressing your remarks to this committee.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Sorry.
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: Now please do so.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: I'm sorry.
- I'm not a speaker, and I am carried away
- or I wouldn't be here.
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: You're not going to convince the audience.
- You're trying to convince this council
- on a matter of legislation.
- So please keep your remarks confined to us.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: We've been hearing here
- about moral values, legal values.
- A parent doesn't look at the life of her child
- by these values.
- The way she looks at the child is
- how can I raise my child best in this world to be happy?
- And what can I do in this world to see that my child shall have
- an atmosphere which will be in the direction of making
- my child as happy as I, a parent, want her to be.
- Now, I have a daughter.
- I would not want-- and I speak for many parents.
- I think I speak, perhaps, for every mother in this world.
- I would not want my daughter to grow up in such direction
- that she will never know the embrace of a child
- around her arms.
- I would not want my son never to know that.
- And by taking this direction called this sexual orientation,
- these people will never know that joy.
- And we parents do not want our children
- deprived of that greatest joy in this life.
- Now, if we're going--
- more and more-- now, if a fellow is a murderer
- and he hides it-- if people murder and they hide it,
- society is safe because they have to hide it.
- But if the murderer comes out and says,
- "I'm a murderer, so what?" then we're lost.
- The world will be peopled by murderers, and what can we do?
- If a person steals but hides it, we're safe because also,
- as long as he hides it, he doesn't come out and say,
- "I'm a thief, so what?"
- And we mothers and fathers feel, if a homosexual teaches
- in our schools, alright.
- If he works, alright.
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: Mrs. Spray.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: But as long as he--
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: Mrs. Spray.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: --has to feel--
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: Will you--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: --he has to hide it, society is safe.
- But when he no longer has to hide it-- when he says,
- "I'm a homosexual, so what?
- I want to be around your children.
- I want to be everywhere So what?"
- Then not only are we not, our children are not safe.
- No one is here to speak for the children.
- Parents are the only ones who can speak for children,
- and who will speak for children.
- So in that vein, I say, as long as the homosexuals
- have to hide the fact-- as long as society
- has left the alternative of being with them or not
- being with them, we can hope for a society
- where children will grow up to have full, happy lives.
- But when the homosexuals could surround the children wherever
- they are in any numbers, then we cannot make the wholesome,
- happy, proper society.
- And we mothers and fa--
- I think if there's one mother or fath-- even
- a lesbian mother, if she's honest, would say,
- I don't want that type of life for my child.
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: Mrs. Spray, one minute.
- Mrs. Spray, one minute.
- Would you go right next to the microphone?
- Remain where you are.
- Would you answer a question of Councilman Burden's?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: If I am able to, yes.
- CARTER BURDEN: Mrs. Spray, you said at the end
- that, as long as people have the alternative
- to be with the people they wanted
- to be with, heterosexual or homosexual,
- then we'll be safe--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: I mean children.
- I'm not talking-- I can be--
- CARTER BURDEN: Right.
- Well, you talk about--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: I'm talking about the children who
- must be guided.
- So you can't give them a choice.
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: Mrs. Spray, talk into the microphone.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: The parents have to make
- that choice for the children.
- CARTER BURDEN: You did say-- right,
- but you did say as long as you're
- provided with that alternative.
- As long as the parents are provided with that alternative,
- right?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Yes.
- CARTER BURDEN: Isn't that inconsistent, then,
- with saying it's better if people hide the fact
- that they're homosexual?
- I mean, how do you then know whether you're with homosexuals
- or heterosexuals?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Well, as long as they have to hide it.
- I made that statement.
- I feel that they can't look like one.
- They can't talk like one.
- So they can't influence our children.
- But what they seem to be fighting for,
- is gather, is the right to say, "I'm a homosexual.
- I'll do what I want.
- I'll be where I want.
- I'll be with your children.
- I openly proclaim it, and it must be accepted."
- And this is the same as for a murderer to say--
- well, I don't want to put it in the same category,
- but it gives them the same freedom.
- A murderer might say, "I want to be a murderer,
- and I want the free--" we can't condone everything
- in the name of civil liberties and in the name of-- we have
- to have some restrictions, not for the sake of the adults;
- for the sake of the child.
- CARTER BURDEN: What individual rights do
- you feel should be protected?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: I think that an overt homosexual who looks it,
- acts it--
- I think the Board of Education should have a right
- to say, we can't hire you because your influence,
- because you look like this and act like this
- is harmful to the children.
- On the other hand, a homosexual who doesn't look it--
- I'm not an unkind person.
- I wouldn't want to take the position no.
- He's in a classroom with children.
- You don't know what he's going to say.
- In our society, no ruling, no law, nothing is perfect,
- and I don't look for perfection.
- I say give that type of homosexual
- the benefit of the doubt.
- But not the one--the overt one.
- CARTER BURDEN: Then the keys, as far as you're concerned,
- or whether an individual looks or acts
- like a homosexual, not really--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: I think you'll have to leave it to the--
- CARTER BURDEN: --the fact that he is or isn't?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: --judgement of those people in the board--
- and the Board of Education would have
- to make the judgment as to whether there's
- any danger of this by his record,
- this homosexual seducing or promoting this idea.
- CARTER BURDEN: But you would--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: We'll have to leave that
- to those people who can make these judgments,
- and not a law that says you've got to hire them.
- CARTER BURDEN: You would say, then,
- though that if an individual who did not
- look or act like a homosexual--
- I want to find out what your definition
- of looking and acting is--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: We might take a chance on that--
- CARTER BURDEN: --and who does not have--
- AUDIENCE: (Commotion)
- CARTER BURDEN: --a demonstrated record of child molesting,
- then you would not object to he or she teaching in schools.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: I only say that because I can't find
- in my heart to exclude him.
- But if I wanted to be real pushy about the thing, I would say,
- if it raises any chance of influencing
- the children that he's around, I would say exclude him
- because I think the rights of our children,
- the lives of our children should come before gay liberation.
- CARTER BURDEN: I think you mentioned, you have a daughter,
- do you?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Yes, I have a daughter.
- CARTER BURDEN: Is she in school now?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: No, I have a married daughter.
- CARTER BURDEN: A married daughter.
- When she was in school, were you aware
- of what the private lives were of her teachers?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: This is no longer private.
- This is not what this whole--
- the whole thrust is it shouldn't be private.
- They don't want to be hypocrites then.
- CARTER BURDEN: You're worried about--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: They want to openly be (unintelligible)--
- CARTER BURDEN: You're about children being influenced,
- right?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Beg pardon?
- CARTER BURDEN: You're worried about children
- being influenced, right?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Very much worried.
- CARTER BURDEN: Alright.
- Do you know--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Well, by children--
- children are part of the society,
- I would say, by society being affected.
- Children are very much a big part of society.
- The most important part, I would say.
- CARTER BURDEN: Would you agree that there
- are other things that you would not want your children
- or other children to be influenced by--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Well, we're not discussing other things now.
- We're discussing this now.
- CARTER BURDEN: What I'm getting at is that there, presumably,
- is a possibility of all kinds of influences existing--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Yes, and I will fight when those cases come up,
- if I can, and I'm fighting when this comes up.
- CARTER BURDEN: Well.
- You said in the beginning that you
- really only wanted your children or our children to be happy.
- Is that correct?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Right.
- This is the greatest moral right.
- I don't know how-- you people say you don't know how to judge
- a moral--
- CARTER BURDEN: Do you feel that there are different--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: But it's our children's happiness
- should decide morality.
- CARTER BURDEN: Do you feel that the same thing makes everybody
- happy or that people are made happy by different things?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: No, but when, overwhelmingly, it
- makes most people happy.
- Nature itself-- look at dogs as children, cats as children,
- any life that the direction of which
- is aimed against having children,
- how can you condone it?
- CARTER BURDEN: What-- (sigh).
- If you had a child who was homosexual
- and that child said to you that that, indeed,
- is what made them happy, would you
- say you have no right to be happy in that way?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Oh, I would say I have no right to interfere.
- But as long as I can fight against this possibility--
- as long as any parent can fight against this possibility,
- they should.
- CARTER BURDEN: Aren't you really saying
- that people have a right to be happy
- as long as it's happy in the way that you deem appropriate?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Well, we parents should be the one to decide --
- yes, because we are the only ones who really know--
- CARTER BURDEN: You're supposed to decide
- what makes your children happy?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: --what is happiness for our children.
- CARTER BURDEN: You decide what's happiness to your children?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Our children-- they can't talk to themselves.
- Who's going to talk to them?
- CARTER BURDEN: By what stage do they begin to talk and think
- for themselves?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Well, I would say--
- I'm not a-- I would say, from my knowledge of children-- not as
- an official knowledge.
- It's a mother's knowledge.
- I would say, well, they could talk to themselves
- by the time, when it comes to sexual matters--
- when it comes to sexual matters?
- CARTER BURDEN: Well, I think-- no, we're on a more--
- I think we're on a more general question, frankly.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: This is what we're discussing.
- Don't lead me astray.
- I'm having enough trouble with what we're here for.
- CARTER BURDEN: No, we're talking about the--
- AUDIENCE: (Laughter)
- CARTER BURDEN: Go ahead.
- I'm sorry.
- No, you said your only concern is what makes a person happy.
- Don't you think that maybe one of the real reasons
- for the so-called generation gap is the fact
- that a lot of parents think that they
- know what makes their children happy in a lot of ways?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: No, the generation gap
- is because we've been told there's an-- parents haven't
- argued against it.
- We've been told there's a generation gap.
- We've been told it.
- And what parent is here today?
- I'm here alone, concerned.
- The mothers are busy working.
- They're busy fighting for women's lib,
- but no one is fighting for the children.
- No one is saying anything for the children.
- CARTER BURDEN: Maybe they're fighting in different ways
- for their children.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: I can't see it.
- Not one is here today.
- I'm the only parent here today.
- CARTER BURDEN: Maybe they're fighting
- for what their children want.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: This is the-- it was in the newspapers,
- and I found out about it, and not
- a parent is even here today.
- How are we fighting for our children?
- I feel very much alone.
- I'm talking for every parent, I assure you.
- Go all over the city.
- Ask any parent what they would want for their children.
- CARTER BURDEN: Well, there are about seven or eight parents
- sitting up here.
- And I'm a parent.
- And you're not speaking for me, frankly.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Well, you're not a mother.
- AUDIENCE: (Laughter)
- COUNCILMAN: Mrs. Spray.
- Mrs. Spray, how do you know?
- CARTER BURDEN: You know, men have had a rough time here
- today and so forth.
- Are you saying now that fathers are not
- supposed to be parents, either?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Oh, don't give me this equality stuff.
- A woman is not a man.
- A man is not a woman.
- A father is not a mother.
- A mother-- I'm sick of it.
- It denies everything that we know
- instinctively is right in life and correct in life.
- All this talk, rhetoric, rhetoric, rhetoric, rhetoric,
- rhetoric covering up the real facts.
- And we've lost all sign of what the facts are.
- I don't even know the (unintelligible).
- CARTER BURDEN: Mrs. Spray.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: It should be something else.
- But I'm not a rhetoric person.
- I'm just moved and I'm saying as a mother and especially
- because there isn't another mother here today.
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: Mrs. Spray--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: I'm very touched by all this.
- And they should be here in droves.
- CARTER BURDEN: Mrs. Spray, there is a mother sitting right next
- to me.
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: Mrs. Spray--
- CARTER BURDEN: And another one sitting next to her.
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: Mrs. Spray, would you
- respond to a question from Councilman Clingan?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: If I can.
- If I can, I will answer it.
- AUDIENCE: (Laughter)
- ELDON CLINGAN: Mrs. Spray, one of the things
- that those of us who are parents know is that children grow up.
- Don't you-- don't you think that we
- ought to try to make a kind of world in which all
- of our children who do grow up have a chance
- to live healthy and happy and useful lives without,
- in the case of those who, for whatever reason
- it happens that they become homosexual,
- but who become homosexual, but have
- a world in which they, too, can find ways of being useful
- and ways of being happy?
- What do you think?
- Or do you think that there are some children who
- have to grow up and who have to grow up
- into a world in which all of their lives
- they're going to be held back from getting jobs that they
- would otherwise qualify for?
- Kept out of apartments they would otherwise
- be able to live in?
- Do you think that's a kind of a world in which you'd
- want children to grow up?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Well, I also think that I
- wouldn't want my children--
- no-- what any mother, I think, and perhaps most fathers,
- want their children to grow up where these minorities hold
- ways of life mothers and fathers do not want, do not like,
- would be in a position to indicate
- the ways of the children of these parents.
- In other words, I wouldn't want this minority group
- to grow big and big and big so that it
- is really powerful in the way of influencing the direction
- of our children's lives.
- ELDON CLINGAN: Were you here when Mr. Rubin testified?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: No.
- Mr. Rubin?
- I've been here for hours.
- ELDON CLINGAN: Mr. Rubin was the school teacher who testified.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Yes.
- ELDON CLINGAN: Did you hear Mr. Rubin's testimony?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Yes, but he testified
- as one of those homosexuals who looks
- like a man, who talks like a man,
- and in class, acts like a man.
- ELDON CLINGAN: I'm told he is a man.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: And he's a very intelligent man.
- Intelligent enough to know how he should--
- but not every homosexual is that intelligent, is
- that manly-looking, et cetera.
- You get a homosexual who's not intelligent and doesn't realize
- the role of parents and child, doesn't realize what
- the mother might want for the child, but only knows
- morally, who are they to say?
- Who is this one to say?
- Who's the mother to say?
- She's only a Queens housewife, like one of them said.
- Middle-class housewife.
- I'm a middle-class housewife, but I'm a mother.
- They're very prejudiced.
- They're prejudiced against me as a middle-class housewife.
- ELDON CLINGAN: Did you hear any testimony from--
- did you hear any testimony today from homosexuals
- who came before us who indicated that they felt
- that their responsibility as teachers
- would be to carry on a missionary campaign
- to make other people homosexuals?
- Was that the tenor of the testimony you heard?
- Or was--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: It's not a missionary--
- CARTER BURDEN: Or was it really quite the opposite?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: One is not necessarily a missionary
- by getting out and saying this and that.
- You can have much more forceful missionaries who
- conduct their lives in certain ways,
- and if there are enough children around to see this way,
- this is being a missionary.
- ELDON CLINGAN: Well, now, do you think a man--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Everyone is a missionary to children
- by the way they lead their lives.
- The children see how-- and you have to be careful
- what the children see.
- ELDON CLINGAN: Now, you've indicated
- that you think Mr. Rubin is probably the kind of man
- that you would allow to teach if you had your way about it
- in the school system.
- Yet--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: I would feel better, frankly,
- if a man of Mr. Rubin's age--
- say he's in his 30s, 40s-- could occasionally
- say to the children, "My son today said to me,"
- or "My daughter today--".
- It must be very artificial for children who are brought up
- with mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers,
- never to hear a teacher to talk about it.
- ELDON CLINGAN: Didn't you ever have a--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: The daughter--
- ELDON CLINGAN: --a woman teach you, when you were growing up,
- who was single--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: What?
- ELDON CLINGAN: Didn't you ever have
- a woman teacher when you were growing up who was single
- and who couldn't talk about her children?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: I am sixty-four years of age,
- so I went to school when teachers
- weren't even married, when they were old maids and things.
- And I felt the deprivation.
- I used to sit there and think, does she have a little girl?
- Like then the teacher would be forty, fifty years old.
- And I know somehow she can't have a little girl anymore.
- Young as I was, maybe seven, I knew that.
- Imagine, she never had a little girl.
- Why?
- Why?
- And I would long to go up to her and ask her why.
- And today, in this society, perhaps, a child
- should go up and get an answer.
- But we parents must be very concerned with what
- that answer's going to be.
- ELDON CLINGAN: Thank you, Mrs. Spray.
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: Councilman-- wait one minute, Mrs. Spray.
- You're not finished yet.
- Councilman Manton would like to ask you a question.
- THOMAS MANTON: This is true there are many hearings here,
- and we never hear from the people in Queens
- or the housewives because usually they
- don't know about it because they don't follow these things.
- But partisans of whatever point of view
- who are organized usually show up for the hearings.
- And I think it's to your credit that you
- were able to sit here and take a few hours of your time
- and come without a prepared text and discuss your gut
- reaction to this legislation because that's
- what I was trying to articulate before, that there's
- a certain instinctive feeling that people have,
- right or wrong, for what they consider
- to be a standard or a norm or a normality.
- And I think that you, perhaps not articulating it as well
- as a professional speaker might have,
- have said that you think that there
- are certain areas or a certain conduct which,
- while it ought not to be looked upon with disdain,
- does not reach the level of something that ought to be
- protected as a civil right.
- For example, if I'm an alcoholic and yet I'm
- able to function in my job every day, as many alcoholics do--
- we think of alcoholics in the myth of the guy
- that's on the Bowery, but there are many American
- middle-management alcoholics who function every day--
- should they come forward next week and add to the litany
- that we have here before us of sexual orientation, alcoholism,
- gambling, or whatever other so-called aberration.
- Maybe that's not the proper word, but deviation, let's say,
- from what the average people in the country or the society
- at large consider normal--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Please don't say people, say parents.
- Please just parents because they are fighting for what's
- best for their children.
- People are not necessarily--
- THOMAS MANTON: In other words, what you're
- saying is that you have a feeling, as a parent--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Yes.
- THOMAS MANTON: --for what you think--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Not-- I'm sure if you ask any parents
- in the world almost, with few exceptions,
- they would say we don't want certain things--
- THOMAS MANTON: No, you say you have
- a feeling of what you think is right or wrong without benefit,
- perhaps, of philosophy or theology or sociology,
- that you, as a mature woman, as a parent,
- instinctively have a feeling, and that's
- the position you're trying to articulate here.
- On the other hand, I think you're being fair.
- You're saying that you didn't come here
- to condemn homosexuality.
- Rather, you came here with a positive feeling
- for your children, or for children.
- Am I right?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Right.
- THOMAS MANTON: Thank you.
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: Wait, Mrs. Spray.
- Mrs. Spray.
- THOMAS MANTON: You got one more question.
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: Just one minute.
- Councilman Burden would like to ask you one final question.
- CARTER BURDEN: Two more, actually.
- How would you feel about a married male heterosexual
- teacher with children who came in the classroom
- and said, "This is what my mistress told me today,"
- or, "This is what my girlfriend told me today"?
- Not just one--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: I don't see what relevance this has.
- To what--
- CARTER BURDEN: Well, you said you thought
- it would be healthier if a teacher could come in
- and say, this is what my son said to me today, right?
- You said earlier in reply to Councilman Clingan's question
- that it would be healthier, in your opinion, if a teacher can
- say in the classroom, "Well, this is what my son said
- to me today," or, "This is what my boy did today,"
- or something like that.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: No, I didn't say anything about my son to me.
- I didn't make any such statement.
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: That does not--
- CARTER BURDEN: Well.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: That I can recall.
- CARTER BURDEN: What I'm, I suppose,
- getting at is an individual's own private moral,
- immoral life, whatever you want to call it,
- that you feel to inject that into a classroom situation is
- basically bad for children, if that's--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: No, I'd say it's not bad
- as long as it stays private.
- But when it's no longer private, then it's
- very harmful because the individual
- who wants the right to go anywhere and work, at even--
- as a-- and no longer--
- I-- the gist-- the thrust of everything
- by the group that wants this seems to be
- that we're tired of lying.
- We're tired of hiding this.
- It should be accepted.
- It's right.
- This is harmful because then it's
- no longer the private life.
- It's a very open thing.
- What's so private about that?
- CARTER BURDEN: What-- and I think this is an important
- point, because I think there's an assumption that if you pass
- this legislation then you're going to have individuals
- in the classroom who are going to start to--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: This is a thrust towards a forced legislation
- to force people not to be able to say,
- I consider the presence of this person harmful to the children
- because he is a homosexual.
- They will no longer be allowed to say that.
- In fact, they might even be forced to hire him.
- CARTER BURDEN: Well, the assumption behind that, then,
- is that the presence of a homosexual is harmful, right?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Beg pardon?
- CARTER BURDEN: You're concerned about that
- because you believe that that is an accurate point of view.
- Is that correct?
- You believe that the ability of the Board of Education
- to discriminate against homosexuals
- is justified because a homosexual would
- be a corrupting influence in the schools.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: (Sigh) You put me down.
- As I said before, I'd like to be a little soft.
- I would say, perhaps, not all homosexuals.
- But in that instance, where the one who has the right
- to judge these things in the Board of Education
- is given that right, will decide that,
- because of the homosexuality of this person,
- he would be harmful, he should have a right to say no,
- I consider you that type of homosexual that will
- be harmful to the children.
- CARTER BURDEN: And what kind of homosexual
- would be harmful to the children?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: One that is not hiding it.
- AUDIENCE: (Laughter)
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: An obvious one?
- You mean an obvious homosexual?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Yes.
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: An obvious homosexual?
- CARTER BURDEN: Well, I'd like to try your chicken soup sometime.
- That's all there is.
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: In other words, Mrs. Spray, what you're saying
- is that you would object to a obvious homosexual teaching
- children in the school.
- And if this bill were passed, you
- wouldn't have a right, under the circumstances, to object--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Nor would anybody.
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: --to that type of homosexual.
- That's the substance of your remark--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Yes.
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: --as I understand it.
- Is that correct?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Right.
- CARTER BURDEN: Yeah, but what--
- I mean, you would have every basis
- to object if, in fact, he were injecting
- the wrong kind of point of view into his teaching curriculum.
- I mean, if he were preaching an established religion,
- you would have a grounds for objecting to him.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Well, I--
- CARTER BURDEN: Or indeed, if he were an incompetent teacher,
- you would have the grounds for objecting to him.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: I feel that no area of life, morals
- or otherwise, is their perfection.
- Therefore, I'd say, if a homosexual isn't overtly one,
- well, let's take a chance.
- Let's give him-- he's alone with the children.
- Nobody knows-- we know he's a homosexual.
- What he says to those children, we don't know.
- But well, nothing-- we'll take a risk--
- CARTER BURDEN: So that's completely
- inconsistent with your point of view about if it's hidden,
- it's alright.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: I think if we could be rigid--
- you can't be rigid about everything.
- But if it were possible to be rigid about anything
- without being somewhat cruel, I would say the danger
- to the children is too great because this individual was
- all alone with the children and we don't know
- what his influence might be.
- We know he's a--
- if we don't know, well-- but when
- we know it, for a parent knowingly to say yes to this
- is not right.
- But how far can we go in demanding anything?
- I'm willing to compromise.
- Let it at least not be an overt homosexual.
- Let them not have the right to say, I'm a homosexual.
- I'm wanted.
- I'm here, and what are you going to do about it?
- And I'm with the children.
- And I'm where I want to be.
- I would also say that, in any restaurant where families come
- to any great extent, many children,
- it's not the thing to have a lot of them around.
- CARTER BURDEN: Why?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Because.
- CARTER BURDEN: You must have little confidence
- in your children to think that they're going--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Apparently--
- CARTER BURDEN: --to be influenced by a--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: --sometime in a child's life,
- it would seem to me, he has to make
- the choice of which direction his sexual life will take.
- He has to make that choice.
- And for the greatest happiness of the child,
- I think any parent would say the choice should
- be that one in which he will have children.
- We who have children know the joy of it.
- You're going to say there are who aren't happy
- and all those arguments, but these people, most of them
- will never know that joy.
- I don't want that for my child.
- And I don't want those influences around him
- what might want him to make a choice which
- would lead to such a thing.
- CARTER BURDEN: Well, if you're excluding the alternative,
- there's not much of a choice.
- But secondly, aren't you then assuming
- that a homosexual life is so compellingly appealing
- that you're afraid of how attractive
- that choice would be?
- I mean, is that the way you feel about it?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: It seems that--
- well, I speak only from a parent's point of view.
- I'm only a high school graduate, and that's night high school,
- so I don't have great knowledge.
- But what we parents who live with children could sometimes
- feel and know things, if you'd only listen to us.
- It's become the thing now not to listen to parents.
- And yet you don't know what morals is.
- You don't know what this is.
- You don't know-- don't know--
- from us, you might get a little information
- that would help you decide these moral matters.
- What was your question again?
- When I get carried away, I forget the question.
- CARTER BURDEN: I was just saying that you're assuming there
- that somebody else is going to be infinitely more persuasive,
- or at least that that particular lifestyle is so much more
- compellingly attractive to every youngster
- that they can't help but make that decision.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: Well, one of the things a parent has to do
- is learn something about sex and sex deviation.
- And I've read and read and read.
- And I have a son-in-law who's going to be a doctor.
- And I asked his opinion.
- And from what I could gather, it would
- seem that a human being can express
- his sexuality in many ways.
- Possible for every individual to--
- but which is the way society wants?
- Which is the way which will lead to greatest happiness?
- Therefore, we must suggest the direction.
- We must point the direction.
- We parents must insist on a direction.
- CARTER BURDEN: Well, you're always
- going to be able to do that, right?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: And that direction, that's what
- would lead to the greatest happiness for our children.
- A happiness which will include youngsters
- in their lives, which will include family.
- A family life is completely out in this sexual direction.
- And where in all of living creatures
- do you find even a consideration of leaving this out?
- I mean--
- CARTER BURDEN: You feel it's most
- important for your children--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: In that sense, I consider it
- a great abnormality.
- CARTER BURDEN: You feel that it's
- important for your children to be able to make a choice,
- right?
- SYLVIA SPRAY: No, I have to guide them toward the choice.
- This is a role of a mother.
- I have to guide them towards the choice they're going to make.
- A child has to be guided.
- CARTER BURDEN: Mrs. Spray, I think
- you're about as inconsistent as mothers tend to be.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: And society has to help
- the parents guide the child in those directions
- that the parents want.
- Not that a lawyer wants and this group wants
- and women's lib wants, but the direction the parents want.
- Society has to help us.
- And it's not helping us.
- It's forgetting that we exist, we parents.
- And it's making our children forget that we exist.
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: Mrs. Spray, you're going to be, I think,
- the longest speaker before this council because Councilman
- Greitzer wants to ask you a question now.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: If I can.
- I'm sure somewhere someone's going to ask something,
- and I'll just say, sorry.
- CAROL GREITZER: I don't think I'm
- going to ask you a question.
- I wanted to say something because you
- seemed to be concerned that you were
- the only mother in the room.
- I have a child in the eighth grade
- and I wanted to say something about school because I have had
- lots of problems with teachers.
- And I say that I've been more critical of more than, say,
- fifty percent of the teachers that my child has had.
- They have been incompetent or mean or uninspiring or boring.
- And for all of these reasons, I have been very angry
- at a lot of these teachers and the system.
- And I believe that, on occasion, one or two
- have been homosexual.
- But I have had no problems with them on that score.
- And it certainly has never entered
- into the learning situation or any other aspect of schooling.
- I mean, I consider that the other things having
- to do with pedagogical subjects are really the things
- that parents ought to be concerned about, mainly,
- in terms of--
- SYLVIA SPRAY: You speak of one or two.
- But the thrust of this bill--
- CAROL GREITZER: Well, I only have one child.
- SYLVIA SPRAY: --is to not make it one or two.
- To make it six, eight, ten, fifteen, half the school,
- three-quarters of the school, a large portion of the school.
- You speak of one or two, fine.
- We have no perfection in this society.
- One or two, what can we do?
- Three or four, what can we do? ten or twelve, what can we do?
- But twenty, forty, sixty, hundreds, half the school,
- three-quarters the school--
- HEAD COUNCILMAN: Mrs. Spray, thank you very much.
- You've been most helpful to the members of this committee
- in your dissertation before us.
- Thank you very much.
- (Applause)
- BRUCE JEWELL: That was a segment of the Intro 475 hearings held
- in New York City last year.
- And it was recorded by WBAI in New York City.
- I have been requested to say hello to the Auburn
- Queens from Sandra.
- So hello.
- BOB CRYSTAL: That's the only kind of requests we do.
- Usually we choose the music for these programs beforehand.
- So just because that's a request that we've done,
- don't expect us to be able to run out and get a record
- and play it for you.
- However, if there are any queens in Attica
- or anywhere else that somebody wants us to say hello to,
- we'd be very glad to.
- We know that quite a few people in Auburn Prison
- listen to this program.
- So this is a very logical request.
- We have a few announcements.
- The Transvestites and Transsexuals Unite,
- a new group in Rochester, is being
- organized with the help of the Gay Alliance of the Genesee
- Valley.
- For information and membership organizational meeting
- information, call 244-8640 and leave a message for Ken.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Is this open to both heterosexual and
- homosexual transvestites and transsexuals?
- BOB CRYSTAL: I believe so.
- Ken just told me that it was transvestites and transsexuals.
- Obviously, if it's for transsexuals,
- it's for before and after.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I guess that's everybody.
- OK.
- BOB CRYSTAL: Also, there is a meeting this Sunday of the Gay
- Alliance, and that will be at 7:30 at 713 Monroe Avenue,
- over the co-op.
- And I don't know what the meeting topic is,
- but it's sure to be interesting.
- The Gay Alliance also offers counseling.
- And you can call the same number, 244-8640,
- either to talk with a peer counselor
- or to arrange an appointment.
- BRUCE JEWELL: You're sure those programs are
- sure to be interesting?
- We must go to different meetings.
- BOB CRYSTAL: I'm going to be at it.
- I'm going to make sure that it's interesting.
- And if it isn't, I will answer to everyone.
- BRUCE JEWELL: OK.
- BOB CRYSTAL: I'm responsible for the interest.
- BRUCE JEWELL: OK.
- I think that's about it for this evening.
- Next week we will have--
- we're going to interrupt the series on Intro 475
- in order to bring you our live recordings of the gay pride
- week march.
- BOB CRYSTAL: I'd like to congratulate WCMF.
- They are going to be the only radio station to carry a news
- story that was very important.
- BRUCE JEWELL: OK.
- And so until then--
- that's not next week.
- That's the week after next.
- Coming up now is Robbie Basho, "The Grail and the Lotus."
- (Music playing)