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