Transcripts

CONNIE GOLDMAN: The group that gathered to talk about gay people and the law, the church, political action, and changing community attitudes included other than gay persons expressing their particular needs. The organization is primarily a gay rights group, not a gay group.

ALLAN SPEAR: My name is Allan Spear. And I'm the state senator from this district. And I'm one of the three co-chair people of the Minnesota committee for gay rights. And the Minnesota committee for gay rights is a new group. This event this weekend, this conference, is our first major activity. And what we're attempting to do is to create a broad-based movement for gay rights in Minnesota.

There have been some very effective gay rights groups in the state up to now. What we would like to do is to broaden the base behind gay rights in the state. We'd like to bring gay rights into the mainstream of the human rights movement, where, as I say, a new and broad-based organization, including both gay and non-gay people, men and women. We want to include as many people as possible who are committed to our basic goal, which is to achieve full equality for gay people in life in Minnesota.

We're particularly interested in trying to create changes in the law, changes in public attitude. We want to educate. We want to politicize. We want to work through all possible channels in order to create some meaningful change in the state and to create a better life in Minnesota for gay people. I'd like to introduce you to the two visitors that we have here today.

On my left is Phyllis Lyon from San Francisco. She is the author of a book titled Lesbian/Woman. And she is the director of the National Sex Forum. On my right is Dr. Howard Brown from New York. He is the chairman of the National Gay Task Force and he's former health commissioner of the city of New York under Mayor Lindsay.

SPEAKER 1: What is happening, I think, is really tremendously significant. And that is, across the country, gays are uniting, are going to stand up and say, we are going to be free. We're going to live our lives as free people with full rights and without any shame.

ALLAN SPEAR: Our major goals will be to, first of all, on the state level, have gay people included in the state human rights law. As you know, the city of Minneapolis has recently become among the first cities in the country to pass an ordinance which gives legal protection to gay people in areas such as employment, housing, public accommodations, and public service. We would like to see that extended on the state level.

We think that the state ought to act in the same way that the city council of Minneapolis has. There was, as you know, a bill in the 1973 legislative session that failed. I certainly hope that next year, when we go back to the legislature, we're going to make another effort. And hopefully, we'll be successful this time. We also hope to repeal the laws which are now on the books, which provide criminal penalties for sexual acts among consenting adults. These are archaic laws. Their repeal is long overdue.

And that's another major goal that we have in mind. We plan to be an ongoing membership organization that will be essentially dedicated to the civil rights and the full human rights of all gay people. In many ways, we see ourselves as a very traditional kind of civil rights organization that will be in the business of protecting the rights of gay people, just as other civil rights organizations have been in the business of protecting the rights of Blacks and Indians and Chicanos and other oppressed minorities.

SPEAKER 2: You said you could organize task force after this. How are you going to accomplish your task? What do you hope to do?

ALLAN SPEAR: Well, one thing will be lobbying. Another thing will be working for the election of candidates who are supportive of gay rights. Another thing will be to work through the schools and the educational institutions to try to make certain that the curricula of these institutions have positive attitudes toward gay people. Another thing would be to make certain that the media does not use negative stereotypes and portrays positive images of gay people.

And these are some of the things that we hope to do through lobbying, through talking with people, through pressuring, through using all of the traditional tools of human rights and civil rights organizations.

SPEAKER 1: I want to add to that, that you should recognize that gays have a lot of potential power at the polls since we have 10% of the population. And all of us have relatives and friends and so forth. We can pull quite a few votes. Now, a lot of gays are afraid to come out publicly, at least in many parts of the country.

But the polling booth is a very secure closet for gays. They can remain very closeted and vote the right way. And if we can get our voting power going across the country, I think we're going to be able to really have clout in securing our rights.

SPEAKER 3: Yeah, that's certainly something that has proven to be a fact. In San Francisco, for instance, where we do have a very powerful voting block.

ALLAN SPEAR: And I might just add to that, that we're not just talking about gay political power. We're talking about the political power of all people who are committed to the principles of gay rights. This is a gay rights organization and not exclusively a gay organization. And we want to include within it sensitive people, regardless of their sexual orientation, who want to see gay people treated decently in this society.

And we expect that there are going to be people who are not gay, who are also going to be sensitive to the kinds of political issues that we want to raise. And we hope that they, too, are going to take the attitudes of public officials on gay issues into account when they go into the polling places.

SPEAKER 1: Part of the problem is, at least as I see it in other parts of the country, we are unknown. 95% of gays are unknown. So most people don't really know that we're their neighbors, their doctors, their lawyers, their carpenters, and their children. And if they did, I'm sure that they would vote for such legislation. So part of our job right now is just to become visible and let the world know who we are.

CONNIE GOLDMAN: The directions of a new human rights group, the Minnesota committee for gay rights. I'm Connie Goldman.