Get Used to It: Ep. 102, "Backlash?"

(bright upbeat music) - Hi, welcome "Get Used to It". I'm Sheila Kuehl, your hostess or your host, take your pick. And this is a show as I hope you know, that discusses issues of interest to and for and about the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community and everybody else. 'Cause we do seem to be in the middle of the griddle these days, you can't hardly open a newspaper without reading about us. That could be a good thing, it could be a bad thing. And people's opinions about us may fluctuate as well and that's what this show is about. There have been a number of polls that have been done recently, especially after the Lawrence Case, the United States Supreme Court case that dealt with sodomy asking people, how do they feel about the gay lesbian community, about relationships, consensual relationships and of course about marriage. I have three wonderful guests with me today that I want to introduce first before I talk to you about this poll data. First is Lorri Jean, who is the CEO of the Los Angeles Gay Lesbian Center. Just recently returned to LA from being executive director of the National Gay Lesbian Task Force. Welcome back, Lorri. - Thanks Sheila. - Really glad to have you back. My second guest Marshall Wong who is the hate crimes coordinator for the county of LA Human Relations Commission. Welcome Marshall. - Thank you. - And my third guest is Robin Podolsky, whom we've seen on this show a couple times before. A journalist, a political analyst for Los Angeles Weekly and various other publications. And I'm proud to say in her spare time, my press deputy. Welcome Robin. - Thanks boss. - Okay, that's enough of that. Well, let me set the stage a little bit for you about this polling data that we've seen in just last month, which if you're watching this show is a rerun, would've been July, 2003. First of all, we have to say every poll is pretty much of a snapshot of American opinion. Some photographic snapshots are better than others at representing their subject matter and some portray what they're trying to get at more accurately than others, but there are some that we trust by their names and I think that's what's made this interesting in the most recent data. In two USA CNN Gallup polls that were conducted one week apart in July, about half of the correspondence said, they thought that relations between consenting homosexual adults should be legal. Slightly smaller percentages, 45% said they should not be legal. So although a majority or a plurality in July chose the legal options by a few points, the findings were actually reported differently in the press. They were considered noteworthy because just a few months before July in May, two Gallup polls asked the same question. And in those earlier polls, about 60% responded that they thought these relations should be legal. Now this is not marriage, this is just consenting sexual relations. 60% said they should be legal. About 36% said, no, they didn't think they should be legal. So the interesting question is, have we suddenly lost favor in America? And if so, for what reasons? I think it's important to know though that the July results, which are supposed to be so much lower are roughly the same as they've been since 1999. So the question is, was the May a blip upward was the July a blip downward? How do we feel about polls? And that was just about consensual sexual relations. Then they ask questions about gay marriage. Gay marriage, which gets a very different response. A CBS New York Times poll conducted around the same time as the July Gallup poll found that 54% of the respondents were against gay marriage. And that percentage has been as high as 60% and those fluctuate as well. In May 2003 though, a Gallup poll respondents about same sex marriage and civil unions were split evenly on legally recognizing civil unions, 49 for, 49 against. So it varies whether it's May or June or July. Sometimes as high as 60% against, sometimes as low as 49% against or for. So our question really for our guests today is what the heck does all this mean? Wanna start with you, Lorri, if I may, you've certainly been as we would say on the ground with organizations, ED at the center, ED at the task force, back as the CEO of the center, what do you think all of this means? - Well, I think there's cause for concern, not because I think the polling numbers are all that significant. You look a year ago and the numbers were a lot lower than they are now. And if you go back over 10 years, they've gone up and down pretty consistently at different times but with a consistent trajectory on our behalf. But what is really worrisome about it is that this data is now being used as ammunition by anti-gay conservatives to try to whip people up into a frenzy. Our role as movement leaders and as activists is to be very watchful, to be prepared to deal with the tactics they are gonna now implement to try to push us back into the closet to try to actually legislate permanent second class status for us. And we've seen the Pope has come out against same sex marriage. Our president has come out and spoken against it- - [Sheila] The American Pope? - Right, the American Pope, that's right. And I think it's very worrisome. The separation of church and state was a bedrock principle, the founding of this democracy and I think it's in danger and we've got to be prepared to fight this kind of rhetoric. And I think that in reality, all of the publicity that's happened around the Lawrence case, the Canadian decision to legalize same sex marriage, the impending decision by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts to legalize same sex marriage, everybody believes it's gonna come down on our behalf. Bravo and it's gay and lesbian TV shows, the "Queer Eye For The Straight Guy" and all that. It's been all gay all the time. And I think that that visibility has fueled some resentment and a lot of the pundits talking after Lawrence that that would mean same sex marriage. I think it scared people a little bit. People like to be liberal, like to be tolerant but sometimes when they a little scared that we're making too much progress too fast, they get a call by upholster and they say, no. - Well, I thought it was interesting that knowing that the one kind, it's almost like, remember, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"? Where you had civil rights laws had passed. You had voting rights, you have rights in the workplace for equality, for people of color. The one place that there was still this consternation had to do with marriage, essentially. And it seems to me that the same sort of visceral reaction, you have a difference in the polls about should they be allowed to have consensual relationships? Should they be discriminated against at work? Should it be safe at school? All of that seems to get pretty much of more than a majority of Americans in favor. The one question is marriage. So what does Scalia do in the dissent, in the sodomy case? He says, I don't care what this case is about, I wanna talk about gay marriage. And I thought it was very interesting because he tied that case which had nothing at all in the world to do with marriage or domestic partnerships or civil unions or anything. He specifically tied it to gay marriage and I think that's part of what you were saying. - Right and there was no accident to that. I mean, I think he did that on purpose to help lend fuel to this fearer against the threat to the institution of marriage that the right wing is always talking about. By the same token, he opens up a door like that and we wanna step through it because absolutely it's right, that our agenda includes the right to marry, the freedom to marry on the same basis as our straight brothers and sisters enjoy in this society. So he's just was the first sort of throwing down the gauntlet in this way. And now we've gotta be prepared to respond to what's gonna happen. And if Massachusetts comes down, it's gonna be a major, major backlash and it's going to necessitate that our movement organizations put aside some of their turf battles, put aside some of their history of not working well together and work well together to battle us 'cause it's gonna take all of us unified to fight that properly. - Well, I may just be an optimist which I've always been my whole life but it didn't look to me like this recent poll data was a sudden downward trend. I don't think we've seen much of a trend. I don't know people, all the people I work with and they sit around the dinner table with their families, they're not suddenly coming to me and going, I think you guys are pushing a little too hard now. I mean, we've had here in California, we've had legislation, other states have had legislation or executive orders trying to protect us. We've certainly been working against hate crimes. I haven't noticed a real change in attitude that the polls seem to be picking up, have you? - You know, no I haven't. And I think that that's an important comment to make because in reality, society is coming around in this country and all over the world. So much more in favor of fair and equal treatment for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. And I think that we're seeing all throughout society that people are supportive of our rights. And the reason that they are is that so many people have come outta the closet, are talking with their families and their friends at the dinner table about these important issues. And the more they know us, the more they're going to support us. And we have to remember particularly sitting here in the home of the entertainment industry, it's the whole movie that's important, not the single frame. And this is just a few frames in an entire movie that is increasingly about us and that we're winning. - Well, certainly when you said kind of like all gay all the time, I don't think it's simply driven by the entertainment factor. And I know that's not what you meant. Yes, it is kind of cool suddenly, it's almost like we've busted loose and we can do some of this and you wanna present to people kind of what our virtues are and what our failings are and gee, we're just regular people. But the other thing that's been interesting to me in the religious community, we're not talking just in the Anglican Church. We have been the center of deep discussions, real soul wrenching, kind of wrangling about this issue. And that story I think has also resonated one way or another with people. Do you think it's impacted the way people feel about our community in any way? - I think it's been a double edged sword. Mostly I think it's to our benefit. You have an openly gay Bishop approved by the Episcopal Church and that can only help us. On the other hand, it scares other people for whom religion and marriage and some of these institutions have so much more weight for them. And also you have to look at these right wing extremists for whom anti-gay direct mail is their number one revenue source. Jerry Falwell is right on top of this 'cause he's gonna make millions sending mailers to his constituency and scaring them about gay marriage. But by and large, I think all of that debate, all of that visibility only helps us. The more people know about us, the more people see that we are pretty much like everybody else in many respects, the more they feel that we should not be discriminated against. - Well, Marshall looking from your vantage point at the Human Relations Commission and especially the issues of hate crimes, do you see the same kind of fluctuations? I mean, I'm not sure there's a relationship really but I know that I read in the papers, sometimes hate crimes are up, sometimes they're down, something happens like for instance, September 11th. And of course we're now having hate crimes against Arab Americans, et cetera. What do you see from your vantage point? - Well, first of all, I'll be speaking on behalf of myself as an individual not the commission but I think that there are some very important parallels. You mentioned that after September 11th here in LA County, there were 188 hate crimes against persons who were perceived to be Arab or Muslim in a very short period of time. An appalling spike that we had never seen before. And many of us were concerned that with the impending war on Iraq, that we were going to see a replay of that form of violence. We did not and we were pleased that what we saw instead were only sporadic scattered kinds of incidents of backlash. Similarly, back in '92 when there were anti-gay rights initiatives in both Colorado and Oregon, there was a huge rise in the number of hate crimes. But interestingly enough, during the anti-gay marriage amendment Prop 22 a couple of years ago, we saw out no similar kind of increase. And I think part of it is the entire tone and tenor of the public conversation. I remember being rather taken aback during the Prop 22 campaign and seeing a TV commercial in favor of the proposition that featured two women talking and one of them commented well, I even have a gay brother but even he thinks this is too much. So it was sort of couched in this reasonable kind of compassionate lingo which probably was partly responsible for it not turning ugly and inciting people into committing hateful acts. In terms of hate crime targeting the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community, we haven't seen dramatic rises and falls over the last few years with these public debates. And we really try to not focus on a fluctuation from one year to the next and immediately label it a trend. The last year that we have data for 2001, we do know that with the exception of the spike of hate crimes against people of middle Eastern background, that sexual orientation based hate crime was the only category to go up 9% and sexual orientation hate crime that year remained the most likely of any category to be of a violent nature. And that's been something which has been true over a period of time which shows that some of the emotion that's associated with homophobic crimes are perhaps more extreme, more intense and possibly because they go to some of the core values and beliefs that are embedded in religion or in other kinds of long held beliefs that people feel threatened by. And you know, for example, I think this entire debate over whether or not the anti-sodomy ruling is propelling us into a debate today as to whether or not America is ready for same-sex marriages. I mean, part of that is because even though there's a decline nationally in the number of people who attend church, 86% of people who do marry still do it in a religious ceremony. They may be non-church goers otherwise but there's still something about that institution which people are very protective of. It's just layered with so much meaning and I think that that might be, not the ruling, but it was the immediate opportunist kind of manipulation by the religious right and by some politicians that would link it to an explosive issue. - Well let me tease that out a little bit though. First of all, the people who perpetrate hate crimes, do you really find that anti-gay hate crimes are perpetrated by people saying I'm a soldier of God I'm gonna beat you up? Or, I mean, my impression always was that these were mostly guys who were- - [Marshall] Young guys. - Threatened themselves about this sexuality stuff? I mean, I don't know if it was about their religious belief. I know it's underscored in society by saying they're bad, you can beat them up. They're less than human, you can beat them up. That's the way we always work. We dehumanize and then we can hurt something. But it seemed to me the threat is much more around sexuality and when you talk about deep held values, I'm thinking about deep held something else. - Well, it's interesting that you should say that because I think it's important in a period of time where we may see a little blip on the screen and an increase in intolerant sentiment. Intolerant sentiment does not necessarily lead to acts of violence and behaviors that which would be discriminatory. So I think that we need to make sure that we don't see a direct line between the two and you're right. The overwhelming majority of those who commit homophobic hate crimes are not what we call mission offenders. They're not persons who are members of or associated with hate groups. Only a very, very small number. The typical scenario would be bored, young males, frequently alcohol is involved who pile into their cars and deliberately go into a neighborhood where there are highly visible lesbian and gay owned businesses, bars, nightclubs, and decide to harass people. And sometimes they intend for it to escalate more. Sometimes it sort of spontaneously escalates. The other kinds of characteristics of hate crime offenders would be of all things, neighbors. Persons who all of a sudden notice that there is a lesbian couple who has moved into their apartment building and they're uncomfortable with it being that close to them. And so, that would be another example. And then interestingly enough, a fair number of the hate crimes committed against lesbians which is actually probably less than 10% of homophobic hate crimes that are reported. But a good number of the anti lesbian crimes are committed by people they know. Family members, ex-boyfriends. So those are some of the characteristics of those who wind up becoming perpetrators. - So sort of blaming it on something that they saw in the news that day- - [Marshall] Less likely. - You know, a Bishop is confirmed, they're not gonna go into their cars and go beat somebody up because such a thing happened or the Supreme Court came out with a decision. You don't see a response like that? - I think many of the people who are perpetrators of hate crime don't follow the news. They're not that aware about what the Supreme Court is debating but if there is a campaign and constant messages from the religious right, from their pulpits, I think it creates a poisonous atmosphere where you would see more people likely to actually act. So I think that those are the kinds of things that we have to and there can be a relationship between the two but not necessarily so. So we have to sort of take a look at the overall environment to see how at risk our community might be at this moment for greater levels of attack outside of the ballot box. - Well, it's that atmosphere that I wanna talk to you about Robin. I mean, that's atmosphere is sort of, I think the media it's either created or lives within a larger atmosphere and I'm not sure what polling data really measures but there's always this feeling that people get their information from the news, from television, on the internet, more and more these days, I guess and form their opinions based on that. How do you see this subject we're talking about today? - Well, every story has a spin, even in the most so called objective reporting. And the way the people interpret poll data has an awful lot to do with how this story gets shaped. I mean, I think that as soon as one pundit starts to say, we're in the midst of a backlash, I'm afraid some of us get lazy and it's not even necessarily malicious but there starts to be this game of telephone among all the media outlets and suddenly, there's discussion of a backlash, whether really reasoned information indicates that there's one or not. It seems to me that one might have spun this story very differently with as much legitimacy one might have said what an extraordinary social transformation we've witnessed. 30, 35 years, about half of Americans find gay marriage to be not unreasonable and it's become part of a discussion that people in full possession of their faculties, people of Goodwill have to debate and even the president is forced to be very, very careful when he comes out in opposition. So that's an amazing thing. And as you pointed out, it's now become to the majority of Americans really deeply wrong to discriminate. It's become wrong to be visibly intolerant. And in the course of my life, this represents an absolute molecular shift from the way that things used to be. And we didn't do this as a movement all by ourselves. I think there started to be a change in the 50s led by the Black Civil Rights Movement. And then there was feminism and my whole generation came into adulthood with some various serious questions about what we'd been told about foreign policy, with the result that we felt obliged to take nothing for granted and call everything into question and people were starting to continue this discussion about what does it mean to be a nation that was supposed to be founded on liberty. Which brings me to this question of how do we look at the Supreme Court decision with regard to sodomy law? Because again, one might look at this as an historic decision with regard to the absolute autonomy of the individual with regard to the dispensation of her person. And that's not anti-religious by the way, I happen to be a very religious person. I think the infinite one has a prior claim on my person but the state doesn't. So there's nothing anti-religious about it. In fact, it's saying that what the founders believed is that a country founded on a notion of personal liberty and even the notion of pursuit of happiness isn't about license. It's about a link to moral good because the more liberty, the more responsibility, the more active citizenship, the more we become an active polity and talk with one another. And one might have looked at this sodomy law decision that way, right? Our own world class newspaper, the Los Angeles Times of which we have every reason as a city to be very proud, made a very serious mistake. And it was a mistake I believe. At about the same time that the Supreme Court issued its decision with regard to sodomy law, they also issued a decision striking down a California law which had retroactively invalidated the statute of limitations with regard to child molestation. And apparently, there have been a long debate about what story to lead with, it's very important in California, the second decision. So what you had was a double head, same type, two clauses separated only by a semicolon. And I honestly don't remember the exact words but the impression one got is Supreme Court strikes down sodomy law, child molesters run free, right? And in fact- - [Sheila] That's not far from what it was, Robin. - No, it's not far from what it was and the layout made things worse. You see a color photo of the two men who had precipitated the warrants decision embracing one another, immediately to the right of that, the first column in a story about child molesters, immediately to the right of that, the first column in a story about the Lawrence decision. Bad, bad, bad planning. Somebody had to approve that layout. Now, I don't know that this is malicious, I suspect it wasn't but I suspect it results from a lack of internal consciousness about LGBT issues. And this was right on the heels of LA Times intratigens with regard to Guan Aroho, a transgender woman who had been murdered and to whom they consistently referred by her male name, her male gender in contradistinction to the way that she had lived and a contradistinction to the reason for which she had been murdered. And this precipitated a lot of work on the part of the Gay Lesbian Alliance against defamation who's done leading work with regard to media and a new group in LA called the So-called Homosexual Agenda Los Angeles or SHAL, SHAL, you know? So what it actually did was bring activists back out into the fray who had been reasonably trusting. So I think ultimately this is gonna be a win for us. You know, so this to me answers the question of whether or not we become too visible. I don't think we have. I think we still need to go back to ask that age old question, do mainstream media outlets get it? Do they get us? Do they get the range and diversity of our communities? You know 'cause this is one of the largest, most cosmopolitan cities in the world. So when you talk about the gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender population, you're talking about people of color. You're talking about immigrants. You're talking about the very rich and the very poor and everyone in between and populations who are affected by every major story. So I've really got nothing against frothy TV shows like "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and "Boy Meets Boy", although I really hope that he doesn't get disappointed by one of the closet straight guys in the end. That would make me sad. And I think for what they mean to us is kind of a wash. I mean, on one hand, the audience is seeing the sort of gay people whom they expect to see. On the other hand, they're seeing cultural markers that some of us choose to identify ourselves to one another and maybe that's not such a bad thing. Maybe it's giving young people something to hang their identity hat on for a little while. I hope they don't get trapped in that but it's a good thing. And if they see us being all silly and loving and romantic, that doesn't make us different from most of the population on reality TV shows. - [Sheila] That's right. - 'Cause when you get down to this issue of gay marriage, it may be shocking for some people when they think of it in those terms. But if they think of it in terms that they understand from their own lives, people fall in love and they wanna get married. That actually makes us much more explicable. And again, I don't think that makes us necessarily incompatible with people who identify very deeply with their religion. I mean- - Well, interestingly enough, of course the, I mean two things, many things are interesting. And I wanna open up the discussion out of kind of all of it but many of us want to solomnize our relationships through a religious blessing. And indeed one of the other questions to the Anglican Church or to the Episcopal Church in the United States was should you have a standard blessing? And that was a big kind of discussion too. And I know that the reformed rabbis came up with an approval for blessing such unions and you see it in every church really but the Catholic Church. So we want this blessing as well. The other thing I thought was interesting is that I saw a poll quite a while ago asking people if they understood or at least teasing the information out about whether they understood that there was a difference between being married in a church or by a religious authority and the so-called civil aspect of marriage. And they really didn't get it. They didn't get that you were not married in the eyes of the state just because you'd been married in a church. You have to get a license, you have to have it signed. Now the preacher can do it, can sign the license but so can I as an elected official. So can a judge. And you don't have to go to a church but if you do, it's not enough. So that was sort of that confusion as well between those two things. But the question that came up for me while you were talking among others and I'd be interested in your views is should we somehow tone down what we're doing because people may be offended and therefore they're not gonna like us as much. I mean, this seemed to be part of the spin of this, gee, we're dropping in the polls, it's a backlash. The backlash is because we gay got too many rights, we're too visible, we're too being discussed all the time. What do you think? - Oh, we definitely should not tone down. I mean, the backlash is the front lines in many respects. And what if we've learned anything in 30 plus years of our contemporary movement is that we don't ever help ourselves when we tone down. We have to be out there about who we are, we have to be vocal and visible and proud and as I've been arguing around the country for several years now, totally unapologetic about our demand for full and complete equality and that we will accept nothing less. - And a United States Supreme Court isn't exactly toning up if that's the opposite of toning down. - Yeah, that's right. - It's like there's a case that justices were very strong in that case in repudiating Hardwick and you know, what they had said before and said, there's just no excuse for this kind of abuse. And, you know? - I agree with Lorri and I think that we have to take a few steps back and look at the larger changes that are occurring. And we have to draw strength from the Civil Rights Movement, the women's movement, previous ones which were considered at one point crazy. Something that would never, ever be accepted in this country or become part of our national mythology and shared history as being legitimate movements that made this country better, okay? And we have to more and more try to all align our demands with those other parallel movements as well. I mean, I think it's wonderful for example, that you have an invitation to gain lesbian organizations to actively participate in the march on Washington. You know, that's a step forward in aligning these various civil rights movements. Similarly, I think that when we do an annual walk against hate in west Hollywood, that we should make sure that the guest list and the speaker list will include people who represent other civil rights movements that are not marching in sync enough yet. I think we can only benefit from that. - Right, well, and we can't forget history. From the very beginning of our movement, people have been telling us that we needed to quiet it down that it wasn't the right time, that we were asking for too much too soon. And if we had listened to the people who had told us those things, we'd never be where we are today. - That's right and we need to look at what it is that we're being vocal about. We're being vocal about right to live our lives, to do what everyone else wants to do. Now, I think that, I mean, to earn a living, to marry our spouses if we choose to, not marry our spouses if we choose, to go to school, walk across campus at night, not to be afraid. To walk into the mall with our children, not to have them harassed. At the same time, I know that in the queer wing of the movement that I've been associated with a lot of my life, there's this fear that will assimilate. I don't think we have that to worry about at this point. I don't think we have to worry about because as long as we have the kind of active hateful opposition that we do, that Pat Robertsons, the people who are frankly, trying to use those scapegoats to further a very divisive right wing agenda. We have to fight to get our true selves out there in front of the world. So I think that it does require more visibility and not less. At the same time, we don't want that identity to be reactive. We don't want it to always be about being defensive. You know, no, we're not this bad thing and we're not that bad thing. So it's still not too late for some queer pride I think that we're also some very good things. - But people's acceptance, people who are not gay and lesbian, people's acceptance of us, their familiarity with us and their comfort, it does affect. I mean, I think that's the main difference between the Hardwick decision and the Lawrence decision to tell you the truth. There has been a movement and the movement is not just marches. The movement is coming out at the Thanksgiving dinner table or other visible family entities. And not in a way that is really necessarily confrontive. I mean, it can be very painful but millions of people doing that has made a difference in people reevaluating any negative feelings, exploring those negative feelings like, gee, I'm not sure why I have them, you know what I mean? - Right, well, I mean, look at your own experience. It wasn't so long ago that you were the very first openly gay person in the California legislature and you were suddenly foisted into an environment where right wingers and others were suddenly dealing with an open lesbian as a colleague. Fast forward, how many years? Eight, 10, however many it's been now? - [Sheila] Nine. - Nine, all right. And we, we that's the Royal, we, you, and you're now gay and lesbian caucus in the California legislature has succeeded in passing some of the most landmark legislation that advances the rights of GLBT people that exists in this country. That didn't just happen because society was moving, although that was very important. It also happened because even in that microcosm, you were changing people's minds simply by being open and not- - But without the center, without the movement, I would've never won. I mean, people would've, they would've said, oh, I think we hate them so I'm not gonna vote for her. Whereas there had been a decade or more, more, way more of a movement that sort of opened that. And also in the law itself about workplace harassment or discrimination, the distaste of coworkers is not an excuse for firing someone. In other words, it's not the person's problem who's being harassed, the law says, it's the problem of the harasser and they've got to stop. And I think that's been a complete 180 in society about it. So the attitudes of people don't count in the law as an excuse to fire somebody but I really think they do count in terms of how things evolve. And that I think is why we were worried about this poll data. - I think also that in the march for full equality, there will be detours, there will be setbacks, but what movement hasn't faced that? And I think that one of the things that probably is making a lot of elected officials who have been considered allies very nervous right now is that they're gonna be asked to do more. We're gonna be asking them to take even more courageous stands than they have in the past. And a lot of them aren't gonna like that but that's part of the process too. - Well, I think I look at all the democratic candidates, announced candidates for president and I haven't seen a lot of hesitation in terms of supporting us. I mean, there's a question of how much to support us, how far will you go? But if everybody says, I'll go all the way up to marriage and then the whole discussion is about whether or not they can do that, that's amazing compared to what it used to be like. - Well, as Robin said, even George W. Bush himself was very weasley worded when he came out with this statement about the definition of marriage. And that is because the right wing Republicans among others have learned that you can just come out and be totally vitriolic and hateful or you're gonna face a backlash. - [Sheila] Unless you've got a radio show like this. - Well, that's right and then everybody listens to you. - Right. What were you gonna say, Robin? - Well, we're a permanent factor now. We're a permanent factor in the political landscape. We're a legitimate constituency. And I think that some of the vitriol that we're seeing is desperation. - [Lorri] It's like a last gas. - Hm. - Well, it is. - [Lorri] Yeah. - It'd be nice if it was a last gas but definitely. - It's gonna last a while but that's what I believe it is. We have won this war, I think, but it's gonna take a long time for us to do all the fill in and secure the fruits of that victory. But by and large, I believe that we have won. - So you think this slight downturn in people's approvals is really just a blip? - Yeah, I think we have to be very careful, those of us who are lucky to live in places like Los Angeles and West Hollywood to remember that we're still in the advance guard and we can see the top of the hill. It's very important not to leave behind people who aren't so lucky who are still subject to hate crimes. Transgender people who can't pass who are still being hurt physically, being attacked physically for who they are. Lesbian and gay people in small towns, in military units, at times like this, it's gonna be really important for those of us in the vanguard not leave the rear guard behind because sometimes they're fighting the most important battles. - Well, I thought it was interesting, the lengths to which the military went to purge us from their ranks. I think it was 10 interpreters who were discovered to be gay or whatever, the very people that we needed as we were about to invade Iraq were let go. And there were really no people to take their place. I mean, I think that people don't necessarily measure what the problem is to them in terms of homophobia. But I was interested when you said that the most violent hate crimes seem to be against our community. Does that make other communities feel safer? - Oh, no. No and I think that actually to clarify what I just said, that homophobic hate crimes are the most likely to be violent but that's only a few points that separate homophobic hate crimes and those based on race or ethnicity but consistently for the last few years, they're the most likely to be of a violent nature. And in response to your other question about whether it's a blip on the screen, it is but it's a blip that we should pay attention to closely, particularly if it's going to be viewed as an opportunity for the right to try to poison the atmosphere. Because if they're able to do that, whether it's in particular cities or states and use this to really fuel nasty public controversies. Yes, we could see that lead to other forms of serious, serious backlash. - Well, this instant feedback that we get now in our lives, although I imagine by the middle of this century, we'll have the sort of science fiction push the button every five minutes on what you think about this question. So we'll have a rolling, I mean, sort of like those billboards that tell you how many people have died of smoking, you know? And the numbers keep rolling. I imagine that all around will have sort of instant reports about the latest poll that we just took five minutes ago about how people feel. You heard it here first. I mean, I really think it's going to be that way. How worried do we need to be about this kind of measurement? - I think we need to be more worried about outta control spin, as I said. Every story has to have an angle. Everything's gotta have a hook. I think it just causing people in my profession to be really responsible with the analysis and to know the difference between a little blip, a little uptick and a genuine social trend that you can measure as having drawn somebody's attention more than once. - So we're gonna rely on the media to be more? - No, we're not gonna rely on them. - Just I'm sorry, please do forgive me. - And actually, I'm not happy with one thing that I said. I actually think that the most visible targets of oppression, transgender people who can't pass gay people in small towns may be the vanguard not the rear guard because what we need to do is fight not to sensationalize their stories. We need to fight to see that their stories are told substantially and truthfully and in depth as well as the legislative victories that we achieve, as well as reportage on the hate crimes that continue to happen in Los Angeles. I think it's up to us what kind of relations with the media we have. - And I just wanted to add one other thing. When I say that we have to pay attention to it. I would say that the polls give us some important information that the defection that has been measured was among regular churchgoers and among certain ethnic groups. African Americans having the largest drop in support for gay rights as measured by those two polls. That's important information for us as far as what are going to be the effective programs to engage constituencies that may not have too many opportunities to really share their thoughts and to have discussions because without that, we sort of abandon those entire constituencies to the religious right. And so, I think that we do need to think about how we're going to take that information and how that can inform our strategies for the future. - Should we be hiring pollsters? - I don't think we have enough money to spend too much of it on hiring pollsters. I think we need to be hiring organizers. - Well, we've done a good job of organizing, don't you think? - Well, we have to do better. The number of people who are doing organizing around the country are very small. The National Gay Lesbian Task Force is really the only national gay group that is doing political organizing at that state and local level and making a tremendous difference. In the last few years, turning the tide on anti-gay ballot measures, for example but that's because they have organized in a very strategic and intelligent way and you can make a difference with relatively small numbers of people. But mostly as Robin has suggested, there isn't a lot of infrastructure in the Heartland even though, I agree with you, I think those are the front lines. People who come out there are making much more of a statement in many respects than we are when we're out in West Hollywood. And they're doing it in virtually every county in the country. They are speaking up, they're demanding change and helping to make a difference. And if those of us who have more resources, communities that are better organized, national organizations with the proper focus can help them organize more effectively, we're gonna make exponential leaps. - Question of the Heartland, it's sort of interesting with presidential primaries that every state sort of has this once every four years kind of debate and gathering. Now it's true, it's usually only one party. The other one's already got their nominee 'cause they've got a president, whatever it is. But still, I was thinking about this because there was a discussion about the Iowa caucuses. I mean talk about the Heartland, Iowa, right? And one of the primaries starting there or the caucus is not a primary. And there was a group of people who all of whom were in the Iowa caucuses talking about how they felt about different subject matter and we're one of the points of discussion. And I actually heard the two hosts of this sort of bombastic show that were interviewing them discussing later with each other about how radical people in Iowa actually were and people didn't really know that. Well, I don't necessarily think that's the case. - I Think we need to remember that, I think the very first presidential candidate to really embrace LGBT issues and make them a part of his campaign was Jesse Jackson. Jesse Jackson also did something that people said an African American candidate could not do. He galvanized the Heartland, he did incredibly well in the rust belt and his pro-LGBT stand did not hurt him at all because he was speaking to the immediately relevant issues. He was talking about economic security and economic justice and people didn't shun him either because he was an African American or because he was proud to include at the time, mostly lesbian and gay people in his campaign. And in fact, I suspect that because he was very comfortable being an African American, he understood lesbian and gay issues in an instinctive way based on his analysis of his situation. I mean, Al Sharpton is one of the few presidential candidates now who's not on the least embarrassed to say he supports equal rights including marriage, he's a reverend. - [Lorri] Right and Carol Moseley Braun too. - Yeah. - Well, it has been a sort of an interesting issue for us and one that we've tiptoed around a little bit. Because when you were talking, it was interesting to me Marshall you were saying that the largest falloff of approval between those two polls in May and July was in the African American community, not the only falloff and it wasn't precipitous but that is an interesting factoid as well because we often compare ourselves to other civil rights movements and the civil rights movement is the Black, the African American movement. And sometimes they've not been so happy with us comparing ourselves to them. - [Robin] Sometimes we are them. - That's right. - That's true. And I think that maybe one of the lessons from this is queer people of color frequently spend more time trying to secure equality at the table within the gay lesbian community than what is sometimes the more risky and dangerous proposition of trying to secure place as lesbians and gays and bisexual and transgendered people within their ethnic constituency. And I think that we've seen some efforts to try to address that. I know that there's a conference coming up in the next couple of weeks where a new nonprofit in the Asian Pacific community is going to specifically spend half a day addressing how to deal with ignorance and homophobia in the Asian Pacific community. A few years ago, our agency co-sponsored something similarly directed the Latino community because of the high number that we were seeing of Latino perpetrators of homophobic hate crime. And so, I think that those are some of the things we have to continue to be able to address some of the historic weaknesses in terms of support for gay and lesbian agenda. - I think in terms of our interest as a generation, international issues and how it was connected to our sort of, not feeling so positive about authority anymore but there's also an international aspect to the issue of tolerance and acceptance and the use of law. And it's very interesting that we see the incredible ends of a spectrum as we look and in terms of countries that are so intolerant that the death penalty is attached really to any discovery that you might be gay or lesbian all the way to Canada which has not yet, I think adopted as an entire country, the issue of gay marriage but two provinces have done so. Frankly, that's how universal healthcare started in Canada too. It was just two provinces and then they said, gee, this is working well. The United States has always kind of gone its own way but do you see us socially or intellectually affiliated one way or the other so that Canada may set a good example for us or these other countries may give solace to our enemies, et cetera. Do you see any affect on us in an international community? - I think the most important thing for LGBT people as it is for feminists is that we don't embarrass our allies in other parts of the world by becoming associated with mcworld. I think there's a fear in a lot of societies, not necessarily linked to a positive belief in any kind of fundamentalism or anything of that kind, that whatever's unique about their culture is in danger of being swamped by the pervasiveness of culture coming in the United States specifically. So maybe ought what Canada and Europe takes some of the lead. But I think that if what we suspect is true and that organic to any society, something not identical maybe but something like what we are doing can happen. I think our best bet is to encourage that and support that and not try to run it. - Well, that goes to assimilation in a funny way, doesn't it? Because I think that the issue of cultures being swallowed up by the American culture and what a fear that is because we're such a megalith, if that's a real word, it's really kinda the same with assimilation. The question of how do we act, how do we wanna be, we're not the first community that's ever had to deal with that. Although we are one of the only communities that has to announce our sexual orientation 'cause otherwise we can pass. I mean, generally every single one of us could pass if we wish to. But I think the notion of the salad as opposed to the melting pot has been one that I think we've tried to do in LA County, for sure but I don't know whether it's working very well. I always thought assimilation was a way of kinda giving up, but this is one of the responses we could have. - Right, well, I think that it is no accident that a lot of the same people who oppose our civil rights also oppose multiculturalism and I think it is harder. It's a lot harder to respect and appreciate difference in some ways because it requires you to learn more and to broaden your own horizons. And if you just say, oh, well let's all be the same which usually means we'll be the same like me. I'm not gonna be the same like you, you'd be like me. And I think Los Angeles is a very interesting city to look at in that regard because we are really becoming more and more a world city. And if we can make it work here which the jury's still out on that, then I think it bodes well for places certainly in our nation and across the world. - Well, I'm gonna stop us there, our time has run out. It always goes so much faster than I expect it's going to. Thank you, Lorri. Thank you, Robin. Thank you, Marshall. Thank you for being with us. We haven't really come to any conclusions here so I guess in terms of history and the jury being out, I guess we'll just have to get used to it. (bright upbeat music)