Transcripts

MARK ZDECHLIK: The governor's task force on gay and lesbian Minnesotans was created earlier this year to assess public attitude toward homosexuals in Minnesota and to hear about specific instances of discrimination against gays and lesbians.

It's all an effort to determine how human services for the gay community could be improved. Pat Tupper testified in Saint Paul. The woman told the task force that after eight years of marriage and one child, her husband announced that he was gay. And the marriage came to an abrupt end.

Tupper said it was difficult. But she and her son now accept her husband's homosexuality. Tupper said the experience led her to strongly believe that the rights of homosexuals should be protected, just as the rights of anyone else are.

PAT TUPPER: I want basic civil rights legislation that will protect gay and lesbian people against discrimination. And it will ensure that those who discriminate against gay and lesbian persons, or transsexuals, or bisexuals will answer under the penalty of law. I want a society where the rights of a minority are not subject to the political and religious bigotry of the majority.

MARK ZDECHLIK: Tupper told the task force that the state should have a domestic partners policy through which committed gay and other unmarried couples could qualify for the same types of benefits as legally married couples do. She also said that gays and lesbians should be allowed to adopt children and that all efforts should be made to defuse homophobia, starting with children.

To date, the task force has held public hearings in Rochester, Albert Lea, Grand Rapids, Duluth, and St. Paul. The chair, Geraldine Sell, says those issues, as well as criticism of the state's sodomy law, have been repeatedly brought up in testimony in both public sessions and private hearings. Sell, who heads the AIDS Task Force in Minneapolis schools, also says several people have called for support services for adolescents who are discovering their sexuality.

GERALDINE SELL: You could put the sentences together. It would be like, if only when I had been in high school, I would have had somebody to talk to, or when I had been in high school, if there had been books in the library, or if there had even been a poster in my school with a phone number on that, I could have called.

I would have known I wasn't alone. And then I wouldn't have turned to alcohol, or I wouldn't have turned to other substances, or I wouldn't have tried to commit suicide. And that came through in every single city.

MARK ZDECHLIK: The cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis have amended their civil rights ordinances to include gays and lesbians in an effort to protect homosexuals from discrimination. St. Paul City Council member Paula Maccabee told the task force that protecting the civil rights of gays and lesbians is a moral rather than political decision.

PAULA MACCABEE: This is the time for the state of Minnesota to say that gays and lesbians are not in Loring Park or in St. Paul. They're in all of our communities, big towns, small towns, or farms. And they deserve simple, basic human rights. If anyone wants to know how to do it, it's really quite easy to do. We know. We've done it.

MARK ZDECHLIK: Many of the gays and lesbians who've testified before the task force went to great lengths to explain the difficulties they encounter as homosexuals trying to fit in to a so-called regular society.

The chair of the task force says stories of low self-esteem, denial, and fear have been common. Don Ward of the Eden Prairie-based Pride Institute, a chemical dependency treatment center for gays and lesbians, told the task force that homosexuals often develop serious health problems, ranging from drug addiction, to anxiety and stress.

DON WARD: Lesbian and gay people are reminded and are treated and are responded to as though they are alien, different. And that difference is devalued negatively. That may be faggot jokes at the water cooler in the office. And it can be being beaten up in the streets of one's hometown.

I can't overemphasize the fact that the negative social value of being lesbian or gay in Minnesota has far-reaching consequences for the health of the lesbian and gay person in this state. And the single biggest way to impact the general health, particularly the chemical health in lesbian and gay people, would be to decriminalize lesbian and gay relationships in Minnesota.

MARK ZDECHLIK: After the second public hearing in the Twin Cities, the task force will hear testimony in six more communities outside of the Metropolitan area. Between the end of October and January, the task force will put together a report with recommendations on how the gay and lesbian communities in Minnesota could be better served.

That report will be presented to the governor. The commissioner of the State Department of Human Rights, Stephen Cooper, also sits on the Task Force on Gay and Lesbian Minnesotans. Cooper expects the group's findings will lead to changes.

STEPHEN COOPER: It's very similar to the governor's Task Force on Prejudice and Violence that was created three or four years ago by the governor. And that task force did an extensive look at the state of prejudice, hate crimes, things of that nature.

And the state as a result of that, about eight or nine different very important pieces of legislation were passed, all of which have led to us being a better, safer state to live in. I think what we're going to get is a comprehensive study that will be presented to the legislature in a factual, informative way. And that leads to good legislation. So I anticipate, yes, legislation will be proposed by this task force. And yes, it'll pass.

MARK ZDECHLIK: Stephen Cooper, Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. This is Mark Zdechlik.