Video Interview, Pat Collins and Judy Lawrence, June 6, 2012
- PAT COLLINS: Sure.
- JUDY LAWRENCE: OK.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Are you rolling?
- CREW: I'm rolling.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, first thing we're--
- PAT COLLINS: Now are you going to ask questions
- go back and forth with us?
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I think I'm going to start
- with you primarily first.
- PAT COLLINS: OK, that's good.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: And then I'll move to you.
- And then we'll do a couple little duet things.
- PAT COLLINS: That's more about how the sequence was anyway.
- JUDY LAWRENCE: Yeah.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So for our microphone check,
- first I need Pat, give me the correct spelling
- of your first and last name.
- PAT COLLINS: P-A-T. C-O-L-L-I-N-S.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
- Judy?
- JUDY LAWRENCE: J-U-D-Y. L-A-W-R-E-N-C-E.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So Pat, let's first talk
- about coming to Rochester.
- PAT COLLINS: Well-- oh, sorry.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Talk to me about some
- of the things that happened to you just
- before you came to Rochester.
- Particularly, you know, you had some issues
- with the Girl Scouts and some discrimination
- that you were facing.
- So kind of set it up for me as you
- were arriving into Rochester.
- What were you coming from?
- PAT COLLINS: I was coming from West Virginia.
- And I thought I was the only lesbian in the state of West
- Virginia for a long time.
- Found out differently.
- And it wasn't the Girl Scouts that
- was discriminating against me.
- It turns out that half of the staff
- were gay, as I later found out.
- But it was my parents.
- They were a problem.
- But I did have a bar that I could go to,
- I found out about going to San Francisco.
- And walked into a women's bar there
- and they told me about this one.
- But it's one of those you had a knock on the door
- and wait until they opened the door and say the secret message
- and then you could come in.
- But it was when I went to the YWCA in York, Pennsylvania.
- And the executive director there--
- I was the program director and the camp director.
- And the executive director told me, "Now, whatever you do,
- I do not want you to hire any lesbians for camp."
- But they had already passed a ruling nationally
- that you may not discriminate.
- But she says, "I don't care what national says."
- And I said "Well, how will I know if they're gay or not?"
- And she says, "Well, I don't know.
- I just don't want them there."
- And I said, "OK."
- Well, at the end of camp she found out
- I was gay and made me leave for two days, a leave of absence.
- And I had already found the job in Rochester, thank god.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, I'm going to pull you back a little bit now.
- I want to start at that point.
- Start it out with something, you know,
- before I came to Rochester, I was working for the YWCA.
- And then tell me the story about you just told.
- PAT COLLINS: OK.
- While I was in York, Pennsylvania I
- worked for the YWCA.
- I had just finished my masters in recreation administration.
- And I had worked hard for that, I was thrilled.
- But I was also their camp director.
- And the executive director, when I was hiring staff,
- told me not to hire any lesbians.
- And I told her "Well, how will I know if they're lesbian?"
- And she says, "Well, I don't know, but just don't hire any."
- But the national YWCA had just passed a ruling that you cannot
- discriminate against gays.
- So anyway, we had a good summer.
- And then the second summer was when I was director.
- And at the very end of the summer
- she found out that I was gay.
- I think one of the counselors or somebody must have told her.
- I did not tell the counselors, but somebody guessed
- or something.
- And she and the president came out and said, "Well, you know,
- we want you to leave camp for two days
- and you come back for the closing camp fire."
- And she says, "You know, you know what we're talking about."
- And I was just crushed.
- I had been working my butt off.
- I had done good programming, good camp season.
- And you know, I couldn't take that kind of thing.
- I'm a parent pleaser, a people pleaser.
- And it was really quite dreadful.
- You know, it still sticks in my mind today.
- I should have sued them because I could have, I guess.
- But I was too damaged by that time to do that.
- So anyway luckily, I'd gone to American Camping Association,
- met Anne--
- JUDY LAWRENCE: Hedard?
- PAT COLLINS: No, no, no.
- A gal that was there and she was in Rochester
- and said that that job was open as a full-time camp director.
- And that was my goal was to be a full-time camp director.
- Camp had been my rescue.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, let's take a back
- to getting the job in Rochester just
- so we don't have the remembering of the name stumbling there.
- So yeah, talk to me about going to the Camp Association meeting
- conference and finding out about the job in Rochester.
- PAT COLLINS: OK.
- I went to the American Camping Association National
- Conference.
- And there I met a gal named Anne who
- was from Rochester, New York.
- And she told me there was this job opening.
- And she also told me she was gay and I was gay,
- so it was marvelous.
- I thought, this is a perfect.
- Applied for it and got it.
- And so I was thrilled.
- I gave it all I had.
- We had wonderful camp sessions, lots
- of new, innovative programming.
- Hired a lot of good staff.
- I had met a gal in York at the camp and she became my partner.
- She moved up to Rochester to change schools after two years
- to go to Brockport.
- But the board of directors, one of the board members from the Y
- here came out to see me at the beginning at camp
- and said, "You tell that program director to move out
- of your cabin or I will tell the executive director here
- you're gay, and I'll make sure you never get a job
- at any Y across the nation."
- And she was gay herself.
- She had been a friend to me before this.
- And the program director and camp director
- had always stayed in that little cabin together.
- I wasn't doing anything new.
- The fact that she was my partner, so what?
- We were not going to be having wild sex at camp.
- So I just-- again, you know, my heart just sank.
- I just, I froze right there.
- And so I had my partner move out.
- And I didn't tell her why.
- And I basically put my career ahead of her.
- I told her I would tell her at the end of camp.
- At the end of camp, she no longer wanted to be with me.
- So I lost someone I really nurtured a relationship with
- to have something special with.
- That was hurtful.
- But anyway, when I came to Rochester
- there was the Lesbian Resource Center.
- And I was thrilled, because there was nothing
- like that in West Virginia, nothing like that
- in York, Pennsylvania.
- And it was like the size of a relatively large closet.
- But Patti Evans was there, and these other two couple.
- And it was just super to have that.
- And then I found out about the Gay Brotherhood,
- this was, of course, over at Monroe Co-op.
- So we didn't have any meeting space.
- So I asked the Gay Brotherhood if we could have a lesbian
- meeting once a week there.
- And they said yes, thank goodness.
- So we marched up past the garbage dumpsters
- and up the back stairs, but that was OK.
- At least we were there.
- It was a nice space, we started a library.
- And then I thought the two should join.
- You know, why don't we get together?
- And other people were working on making that happen.
- And we did.
- So the GAGV was formed.
- And I was thrilled about that.
- I became a speaker for the agency, a peer counselor.
- I lead the Lesbian Resource Center programs
- and having different discussions.
- Mary Lou Wells helped get the library together.
- She was the social worker who trained the peer counselors
- so we would know what we were doing.
- And it was just wonderful.
- I was there as soon as I finished
- work and the end of the day, went home, ate my TV dinner,
- let out the dog, and off I went to GAGV
- and volunteered until at least nine or ten.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Step back a little bit here.
- Again, you discovering the Lesbian Resource Center.
- And what was it about that that you immediately
- recognized that this is really an important place?
- PAT COLLINS: It was a source of pride.
- It was the first time I had seen lesbians come together
- to say we're important.
- We want to provide services for one another,
- if nothing else but a little library.
- It was the first time I'd been around anything that
- said gay pride is important.
- And I mean, that was just it was food for my soul.
- It just brought glory to my veins.
- It was marvelous.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, talk to me about your first meeting
- with Patti Evans.
- PAT COLLINS: Oh.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: What was she like?
- What was so really great about working with her?
- PAT COLLINS: Oh, she was very warm, very friendly.
- Pretty gal.
- Very welcoming to me, willing to you
- know, answer any questions I had.
- She knew a lot.
- And she had the type of work where she could be out.
- And so she could be out for the community
- and speak for the community, which was awesome.
- Because everybody else, for the most part, was in the closet.
- Not everybody, but so many of us.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I need you to set it up for me.
- What I probably should have told you
- is that in the final documentary,
- they're not going to hear my questions.
- PAT COLLINS: OK.
- JUDY LAWRENCE: OK.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So when you answer something,
- we'll start out with Patti Evans, take that again.
- You should start it out with something like,
- when I first met Patti Evans.
- PAT COLLINS: Oh, gotcha.
- JUDY LAWRENCE: OK.
- PAT COLLINS: I gotcha.
- I didn't realize that.
- Alright.
- Well, when I first met Patti Evans,
- she was at the Lesbian Resource Center.
- And pretty gal, very friendly, very welcoming.
- Told me all about what was in the gay community.
- Where the Riverview bar was, about the Empty Closet.
- I was thrilled to see a gay newspaper.
- I'm a little kid from West Virginia, and look at this.
- There's a paper, there's the Lesbian Resource Center,
- the Gay Brotherhood, and eventually GAGV.
- It was just, you know, I became just devoted to the cause.
- And it gave me a place to help rebuild my pride,
- because my parents had not disowned me,
- but pretty much, when I came out to them.
- Dad was a Methodist minister.
- My mother's dad was a Methodist minister.
- And all my uncles and aunts either
- married or were ministers.
- So it was, you know, it was not OK.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So let's go back and talk to me
- about the coming together of the women and men, which eventually
- became the Gay Alliance.
- Talk to me again about the process of that.
- You know, what were the things that
- were being talked about in bringing these two
- genders together?
- PAT COLLINS: When I came to the Lesbian Resource Center,
- it was so small.
- And we started using the Gay Brotherhood's space
- once a week.
- It really seemed like we should join efforts for gay pride,
- to mix with one another.
- I think for a while, women and men were standoffish back then.
- And I didn't want to see that.
- We needed to come together to bring our power together,
- all of our resources together so we could make a bigger impact
- and reach more gays out in the community that needed help.
- And so I started talking about that.
- And more and more people thought that was a good idea.
- And I think the RIT group or University
- of Rochester gay group came in and was interested.
- And before we knew it, we did have
- a group of eight gay groups in town
- that thought we ought to come together, and so we did.
- And I was thrilled with that.
- And that's what let all these other services
- to the gay community come forward.
- The Speakers Bureau, the peer counseling, the meetings,
- the library.
- It was wonderful.
- And it really enhanced bringing all our talents together.
- It really enhanced the gay community tremendously.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Let me just follow up on that a little bit.
- Talk to me about the passion that you had about working
- with this organization.
- What was it that prompted you to make a decision that this
- is something I'm going to be really committed to?
- PAT COLLINS: I became really committed to GAGV
- because it was my life's blood.
- It made me feel better about being gay and a lesbian.
- It made me feel, you know, I had friends that I hadn't even--
- I didn't know anybody in Rochester, but all of a sudden,
- I had all these group of friends.
- I served on the board of directors first time around.
- And I just, you know, was thrilled to be a part of that.
- My self-esteem was just rising up.
- I felt so much more pride.
- And it was just extremely meaningful to me.
- I needed that.
- I needed that help.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Now, what did you
- think you were doing not only for yourself,
- but for the community?
- PAT COLLINS: I felt we were bringing a major source
- of pride to the community.
- We were bringing awareness to the straight community
- that we were there, and we're not going away.
- And that we had something to offer.
- Through educational programs we helped change minds
- and helped people understand who we were
- and that we were great folks, good folks.
- On one of the speaker engagements
- that we went to out in Brockport, Judy and I,
- they wanted to ask us, well, what's it like being gay?
- Well, we get up in the morning, we brush our teeth
- and we go to work and work and come home.
- And we have hobbies and fun things to do.
- We ride our bikes.
- And then some of us, but not all of us,
- go help with the Gay Alliance offerings.
- And you know, they were just amazed
- that it wasn't totally weird and that we did not go running out
- to dance every night and sleep with everybody in town,
- you know.
- That was not our goal.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: It's interesting that you know,
- as you were trying to bring the men
- and the women together at the Gay Alliance, gay men
- and lesbians have not always had the most congenial
- relationship.
- I don't know if it's animosity or just
- the lack of understanding of the differences
- of our genders or what.
- Can you talk to me a little be about getting over
- some of that challenge?
- How did you bring men and women together
- when there was such this animosity between the two
- groups?
- PAT COLLINS: Yeah.
- When I first came to the Lesbian Resource Center,
- the lesbians were, many of them were separatists.
- And that meant they didn't want to be around gay men either.
- The gay men felt rejected, I think, by the lesbians.
- But they also were very into themselves and their activities
- that they didn't want to have anything to do with lesbians.
- Or they were running around with what do you call it?
- Gay hags?
- Which were more their preference.
- JUDY LAWRENCE: Fag hags.
- PAT COLLINS: Fag hags, that's right.
- The women, straight women who preferred
- to hang out with gay men.
- But I didn't feel any animosity towards gay men.
- I had only known one gay man in Charleston, West Virginia
- or the guys at the bar.
- But you know, I didn't get to know them well.
- But I didn't feel any of that animosity at all,
- and I didn't understand why we wouldn't come together
- and pool resources so that we could be stronger.
- And so I just talked to people individually,
- the gay men, the gay women.
- And we pulled in--
- well, when I first got to Rochester
- at the women's Lesbian Research Center there was Patti.
- And then there was this major diesel dyke and her major fem.
- And the diesel dyke really scared a lot of the lesbians
- away.
- So you know, in time, I helped turn that around
- so that we had more women that weren't diesel dykes coming.
- I mean, nothing against them, but we
- need to not scare people, especially our own people.
- JUDY LAWRENCE: I'm not sure you want to say that.
- PAT COLLINS: No, I'm not sure.
- But anyway, because I didn't have any prejudice ahead
- of time and because I was a unifier,
- I've always been a unifier person, and it just made sense.
- So I started talking one on one.
- And eventually, we got together.
- Got to know Tim Mains.
- He was working on the newspaper.
- I was just so impressed with what he was doing.
- He'd be out there slaving away doing it all by himself when
- others couldn't come and help.
- I would go over and help a little,
- that wasn't my strength.
- People, see, and talking to people was my strength.
- So I think, you know, helping, talking one on one.
- Letting them get to know me and know I wasn't scary,
- and knowing I really cared about them and about the movement,
- you know.
- Let's get a movement going here for ourselves.
- That I think I did some good there,
- helped move us closer together.
- You know, I liked the guys.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Judy, I'm going to get to you in a second.
- JUDY LAWRENCE: That's OK.
- Take your time.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I want to talk about the CETA grant.
- You helped John-- as I understand it,
- you helped John write that.
- Did you?
- PAT COLLINS: Yeah.
- John--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Tell me the story about CETA grant--
- PAT COLLINS: OK.
- Sure.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: --from the beginning and working
- with John.
- PAT COLLINS: Well, we had the Gay Alliance going now.
- And it had been going well for a few years.
- And we decided let's go for a CETA grant
- and get somebody down here so when
- people need to come there'll be somebody here on staff.
- So we wanted to get a part time executive director.
- And so that seemed--
- John Noble suggested it.
- That seemed the best thing to do.
- So John and I worked on it.
- He did most of the work.
- And then we helped facilitate it.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Define for me first what is the CETA grant?
- What was it?
- What was it that you were actually applying for?
- PAT COLLINS: We were applying for income for a staff
- member for the Gay Alliance.
- And got the money and were able to hire someone.
- And we had someone there to answer phones,
- to talk to people when they came in.
- All the time, you know, as long as during those hours.
- Which meant a lot.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So then take me through the process
- of actually getting the money.
- Because even though you were approved,
- there was a little bit of controversy there.
- PAT COLLINS: Oh yeah, once we got that approval,
- there was a lot of controversy in the community when
- they found out about it.
- And a lot of people did not want us to have it.
- There was a whole big hoopla.
- But you know, we had the check.
- It was signed, sealed, and delivered.
- And so they weren't able to take that away from us,
- and that was a thrill.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Can you talk a little bit more
- about the community chest not wanting to administer the money
- and then eventually Bill Johnson coming in there with the Urban
- League?
- PAT COLLINS: The Urban League was--
- I mean, the United Way was what we expected
- to help administer the grant.
- That was a logical place to go.
- And they didn't want to do it.
- Major resistance.
- And so I was amazed, because they
- would administer so many grants to so many minority
- organizations.
- And so we were really stuck.
- We weren't sure what we were going to do,
- and we talked to Urban League.
- And Bill Johnson, the executive director at that time,
- helped make that happen.
- And so he administered it.
- God bless his heart.
- That made all the difference.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Talk to me just a little bit about John Noble.
- What was he like?
- What was it like working with?
- PAT COLLINS: Oh, I enjoyed John a lot.
- A fun guy, a hard worker, very knowledgeable,
- a great asset to GAGV.
- And we got along great.
- The whole board got along well.
- We didn't have fights or anything.
- We just worked and worked until we could come up
- with the best thing for GAGV.
- And all of us were extremely dedicated.
- I really enjoyed John.
- And when I went into financial planning,
- he referred me to all of his brothers.
- And so they all are my clients.
- And John is just a great guy.
- I'm very happy that he has a partner.
- They've been together for years now.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Let's talk about some of the fun stuff,
- the social life for gays and lesbians in Rochester.
- You know, what was it like back then?
- You know, what were some of you favorite places
- that you were going out?
- Where did you meet gay people?
- PAT COLLINS: Well, I tell you, at GAGV, we
- worked so hard for gay advocacy that we almost never had
- time to be lesbians and gays.
- You know, we didn't have time to have sex or meet up
- with anybody we were working so hard.
- But that's not totally true.
- But we all felt like it sometimes.
- But when we finished our meetings at nine or ten
- at night, we'd all go to our separate bars.
- The men would go to theirs and I'd go over to the Riverview.
- Well, you walk in the Riverview and it was like Cheers.
- It was just, you know, you knew folks.
- It was very enjoyable.
- A small but nice little bar.
- The owner was very gracious to all of us.
- You'd get a drink and play some pool.
- And I love to dance, so we danced.
- You know, we would just get a chance
- to talk further about social things about each other instead
- of just gay advocacy stuff.
- And that was a really nice thing to get to do.
- And if you were lucky, sometimes you'd go home with somebody.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Judy, let's move on to you.
- In the 1970s you separated from the husband,
- you got a couple kids.
- And you're starting to embark on this coming out process.
- Tell me about that process of coming out.
- And more importantly, talk to me about what was available to you
- information wise and resource wise.
- JUDY LAWRENCE: Sure.
- When I began to come out, my children, I was divorced.
- My children were preschoolers.
- They were taking up the bulk of my time, of course.
- But I was going to graduate school,
- back in graduate school.
- And a young student at U of R told me about the Lesbian
- Resource Center.
- And she didn't have a car, I did.
- And so I gave her a ride over and we'd started
- coming to the weekly meetings.
- And the library there was invaluable.
- To be able to read positive kinds of books,
- although there weren't that many positive books back
- then, but at least to read occasionally something that
- was positive and to talk to other women
- about what was happening in our lives.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: That's fine.
- At the same time, there was also a women's movement,
- a feminist movement going on, but they were not
- too keen on allying themselves with the lesbian
- movement at all.
- JUDY LAWRENCE: No.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Can you talk to me a little bit
- about that environment?
- JUDY LAWRENCE: Sure.
- Yes, the gay rights movement and the women's movement
- developed simultaneously.
- And there was a lot of crossover from one to the other,
- although no one wanted to acknowledge that.
- The women's movement was afraid of being labeled.
- Back then, the insult for men who
- were wanting to get at women who were too uppity, too
- outspoken, too self-assured, too assertive,
- was to call them a lesbian.
- And so the label was very threatening
- to the feminist movement.
- Lesbian movement, on the other hand,
- often wanted to go a little farther
- than the feminist movement wanted to go, you know,
- in terms of advocacy.
- So there was friction between the two of them.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: How did you feel about that personally?
- JUDY LAWRENCE: Well, as a lesbian
- I considered myself a lesbian feminist.
- And that worked well until we added the descriptor that I
- was a lesbian feminist mother.
- And the feminist mothers weren't too
- sure about a lesbian mother.
- And the lesbian mothers weren't too
- sure about a feminist mother.
- And the lesbian mothers weren't too
- sure about a lesbian mother.
- Back then lesbians were--
- separatism defined the movement, I think to a large extent.
- So it really was a significant contribution
- that Pat was able to talk the men and women into talking
- with each other.
- Because the women, in particular,
- I think, were through with men for the time.
- And I was raising a son.
- And I was told by some lesbians that I was
- babysitting for the patriarchy.
- And that it was bad enough I was raising my daughter,
- but that I should give my son back to his father
- and not raise another boy to the world.
- So I was kind of caught in the cross currents between the two.
- I don't want to omit the fact that there
- were many lesbians in the community who were very
- supportive of me as a parent.
- And in fact, for some time we organized
- a lesbian mothers group that would meet with our children
- to let the children know that there were other children being
- raised by a mom or two moms without a dad in the picture.
- But it was a turbulent time personally and societally.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I want to stick with your mothering
- a little bit here.
- Talk to me about the incident, there
- was an incident I remember from my notes
- about having to go to your son's school
- because the health teacher was teaching misinformation.
- JUDY LAWRENCE: Yes.
- On a whole, our school district where
- we were raising the children I think
- dealt relatively well with our being two mothers.
- And Pat was welcomed at parent teacher conferences and so on.
- But one time in junior high our son came home
- and he was moaning and groaning about the health teacher.
- And I said, well what exactly don't you like?
- Well, it turned out he was making some anti-gay slurs.
- He was talking about how if you touch a gay person
- you can get AIDS.
- Some very negative information.
- So I made an appointment with the principal.
- I went in.
- I have to admit I didn't upfront say I'm a lesbian, because I
- was too intimidated.
- But it was pretty clear, I think, from our conversation.
- And at the end of the conversation
- the principal said, this will not happen again.
- If it happens, let me know.
- But I will stop it right where it is.
- So I was very pleased with that.
- I think not all school districts and school
- personnel would have been so supportive back
- in the late seventies, early eighties.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, you being busy going to school
- and raising your kids, you did still
- have some time to work with some of the Speakers Bureaus.
- Is that correct?
- JUDY LAWRENCE: Yes, yes.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Talk to me about that.
- Talk to me about the Speakers Bureaus.
- And what was it like being part of that?
- JUDY LAWRENCE: It was, to some extent,
- being part of the Speakers Bureau was exhilarating.
- It let me put out in front who I was
- and what I was in a proud way.
- And whenever you speak positively
- about who you are as a gay or lesbian person,
- it reinforces your pride.
- And so it was a good experience to that extent.
- We'd go around and talk to college classes, occasionally
- a church group, something like that.
- Usually the panel was made up of two men and two women.
- And as one of the two women, I was designated
- as the lesbian mother.
- And so people would ask me what life
- was like as a lesbian mother.
- And I'd tell them that I was woken up at 5:00 a.m.
- and changed diapers and got breakfast done for the kids
- and turned on the TV.
- And they'd say, "But what's it like as a lesbian mother?"
- I said, "There's no difference.
- A lesbian mother is a mother.
- And my sexual orientation does not affect my parenting."
- KEVIN INDOVINO: You two have been together for a while.
- PAT COLLINS: Thirty-five years.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Thirty-five years.
- JUDY LAWRENCE: Yep.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Active in the community,
- supportive in the community.
- JUDY LAWRENCE: Oh gosh, yes.
- PAT COLLINS: Very much so.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Whoever wants to go first, tell me what are you
- most proud of.
- JUDY LAWRENCE: I'm most proud of the family
- that I helped nurture and create.
- Pat came on the scene when the children were still
- preschoolers.
- And they very much consider her their other mother,
- other parent.
- And in fact, when our daughter was married,
- her biological father was at the ceremony.
- And Laura had Pat and I walk her down the aisle.
- So creating the kind of family bonds.
- I had a successful career.
- I feel good about that.
- I did a lot of community service work,
- both within the gay and lesbian community and the broader
- community.
- But to me, creating that strong, vital, loving family unit
- is the thing I'm most proud of.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Pat?
- PAT COLLINS: I'm very proud of what we've done as parents.
- Our children have grown up to be wonderful human beings,
- loving and caring and thoughtful of others
- and supportive of the handicapped
- and the gays and lesbians and other minorities.
- We did that because we sent them to the Y downtown
- during the summer for camp to experience
- being around more blacks.
- We really took them to camp when we were in senior citizen camp
- to help be little runners.
- And so they were right there in with us on all our service
- work that we did.
- And we were very active with the Unitarian Universalist church.
- That was the one place where the kids
- could know that it was OK for them to be out
- and for us to be out.
- But other places we told them that people aren't open-minded,
- so we can't.
- So I sat down and told them this long story
- about who's open-minded and who is close-minded.
- And then they really got it.
- And so we--
- JUDY LAWRENCE: They were still preschoolers.
- PAT COLLINS: Yep.
- And so we went off to get ice cream.
- We marched down the street.
- "We are open minded, we are open minded."
- So it was wonderful.
- I have a wonderful family.
- I have a glorious, wonderful, beautiful, loving wife
- that I'm just so thrilled.
- And next comes my contribution to the Gay Alliance,
- because it helped me so much.
- I got more out of it than anything I gave.
- But I did give a lot, and I loved it.
- I just loved it.
- And when I didn't understand that all gays didn't
- like each other and weren't going along,
- it was just like, what?
- What?
- We're a minority, we've got to hang together.
- No infighting.
- It's not allowed.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So when you look at where we are today,
- what are the challenges that we still have to face?
- PAT COLLINS: Well, we've got to get the national laws saying
- that marriage is just between a man and woman revoked.
- That's got to go.
- And then we really have to have a president strong enough
- to say then we have to recognize gay marriage
- in this country, period.
- Look at all the other countries all around the world
- that have passed that.
- We're the only one that hasn't done that.
- It's just unreal, unreal.
- So I do think one of the biggest problems
- is that until women are considered absolutely
- equal with men, then the straight men that
- get hung up about gay men will never go away.
- Because they see a man being like a woman if they're gay.
- And that's not OK in their mind.
- So we got a long way to go that direction.
- And religiously, a lot more education
- has to be done in that area.
- A lot more.
- I'm working in that area.
- I'm a minister with the United Church of Christ,
- and at Chautauqua institution for the last fourteen years.
- I've been there serving as the metropolitan community chaplain
- and leader of the gay and lesbian group
- and run two lesbian conferences, gay and lesbian conferences.
- And that's been very good.
- So again, we've spread around who we are
- and that we're OK folks.
- And just get to know us and love us.
- So I've done a lot there too.
- We've got a lot of support that we didn't have before.
- JUDY LAWRENCE: I think--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Judy, we have just a little time
- left here, but yeah, biggest challenges or your advice
- to the future generation.
- JUDY LAWRENCE: Well, not a challenge, well yes,
- a challenge.
- I think the biggest thing that we can all do
- is be as out as we can.
- When you sit face to face with another real person
- and they talk about their life and their issues, their pains,
- their challenges, it's very hard to give them a label
- and write them off as "one of them."
- Not everyone even today even can be totally out, particularly
- around jobs or families.
- But if we could each be as out as we could.
- Come out to everyone whose reaction is not
- going to threaten our well-being either financially
- or emotionally, then we can move into the next stage
- where we're not going to be having
- to talk about the differences and the similarities.
- We just will all be people.
- But I think we're a ways away from that.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, thank you.
- PAT COLLINS: Oh.
- JUDY LAWRENCE: No, thank you.
- PAT COLLINS: Thank you.
- This was a pleasure.
- JUDY LAWRENCE: You are very good at what you do.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Thank you.
- PAT COLLINS: Oh, you're excellent.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, you were asking me if I'm--