Get Used to It: Ep. 134, "Voices of Our Lives: John Heilman"

(type writer tapping) (upbeat music) - Hi, welcome to 'Get Used to It.' Every so often, as you know, on this show, if you watch it, we do an interview with one person for the whole hour because we want, we call it 'Voices in our Lives.' And today I'm very, very proud to have as my guest, John Heilman, who has been the mayor of west Hollywood about 127 times and has been on the council for, oh, maybe 300 years and he's a law professor and intellect and activist, one of the most fascinating men I know and I'm really happy to welcome you here as my guest. Welcome John. - Thanks for having me, Sheila. - Well, one of the things that I like to do is sort of set for an audience that may not know you as well 'cause we have a national audience, is kind of get an idea of how people, sort of how they grow up and how they set out on the path that they do because you've devoted your whole life to public service and to issues of discrimination, harassment and sort of the pursuit of the law and what the law can do. So let's start at the very beginning. Where were you born and where'd you grow up? - Well, I'm not sure I ever grew up, but I'm still working- - [Sheila] Okay, let's phrase that another way. Where did you spend your first 10 years? - I was born in Cleveland, Ohio and I grew up there and you know, my major goal growing up was trying to get out of the house and move on to someplace else and then I went on to college at Northwestern. - So what was your family life like? What'd your folks do? - My father had a small canvas shop and my parents were divorced. So I didn't see a lot of my father. He was gone by the time I was three and my mother did work part-time, didn't have a really great family life, was kind of estranged from both parents as I grew older and you know, I think for a lot of LGBT people growing up, there's always that tension in the household once you start to discover who you are and I think that was part of it, but there were other issues in my family as well. - [Sheila] Siblings? - I have one brother. He still lives in Cleveland with his kids. I see them regularly and torment them. - I bet you're a great uncle. - I love my nephew and nieces. They're great and I'm really proud of what they're doing. They're moving on, going to college and I'm excited for their future. - Well, it's interesting what you said about LGBT people growing up and how we often feel ill at ease in our families, partly because I think with other minority groups you grow up in a family pretty much just like you. - [John] Right. - But with us, I mean, we've talked about this before, you grow up in a family that is really not like you, so far as you know anyway, there are always some family secrets that come out later I guess but, so what was it like for you then in school in Cleveland? Did you have a sense that you were gay? Was there any feelings about it as you were going through up to high school? - I definitely knew I was different particularly in high school and I did have some friends who were gay in high school. I did not identify as gay. I don't think I identified sexually at all when I was in high school but by the time I think I was a senior, I started to know who I was and certainly once I got to college, then the discovery was much more clear in my mind. - So what made you wanna go to college? - Get out of the house. I mean, that was my principal goal- - Just move (indistinct)- - Yeah, so I wasn't really an academic- - You could have moved somewhere and, you know, worked in a restaurant. I mean, you don't have to go to college. Were there interests that you had in high school that you wanted to kind of develop? I mean, we don't have much of a plan for ourselves when we're young, like what I'm gonna do when I grow up but did you have kind of an idea that you took with you to college? - I did, I wanted to go into journalism. I was the editor of my high school paper and I really loved learning about different things and journalism is great in that respect 'cause you're always covering a different story, a different topic and so you're always learning something new. So that was what appealed to me and that's why I went to Northwestern but for me it was really about, you know, doing well in school was my salvation, dealing with a not so great upbringing. It's how I sort of achieved in my way some sense of, I don't know, self-worth or achievement and then carrying that through and getting off to college, that was great for me. - Of course, sometimes journalism, I don't know, I've not been a journalist or written for publications, but sometimes it seems to me it can also be a way of separating yourself from the world in order to comment on it. Of course, in high school, I think we're pretty engaged in what we're writing about. Were there issues, sort of larger issues going on while you were in high school that affected, you know, the paper or you? - Well, yeah, actually, remembering back now I realized that we had conflicts with the administration because we were covering stories like drug use and I was in an urban high school and there was certainly a fair amount of drug use. We covered, we did a story on youth and suicide, which of course is a big issue for LGBT youth. I didn't realize it at the time. - [Sheila] Right. - And then we had I think an article on abortion and that kind of controversial topics at that time, you didn't write about that in school newspapers. So we did have conflicts. I remember having to contact the ACLU to try to get them to intervene on our behalf so that we could continue to publish the kind of articles we wanted to publish. - Now, what would lead you to do that? I mean, how would you know about the ACLU and calling them? - I don't know, I don't know how that came- - Because newspaper editors do understand the first amendment, even if they don't know what it says exactly, but- - I don't know and I think that always stuck with me and I knew even in law school, I remember reading their publications and trying to learn more about the rights that we have under the constitution and their advocacy on our behalf. So, I mean, that's something that has always stuck with me, that they were there for me when I was just this kid who didn't know anything and they were willing to give me advice as to how to deal with the administration in my high school. - So, but you weren't expelled or anything, huh? - No, although I wasn't the ideal student I'm sure, From the administration standpoint. - Well, It's interesting because I think these kinds of experience, you know, looking back in a way, kind of contribute to who we become or how we feel about things because little kids always have this sense of fairness. That's not fair. Sometimes it's about them, sometimes it's about other things but when you say you're not sure you've grown up yet, I totally resonate with that because I still to this day feel like I'm a four year old going, you know, that's not fair. We have to do something about it which I guess is what the ACLU does in a way. - Yeah, I think I always grew up with this sense of unfairness. I don't know whether it was because I had an older brother who picked on me or, but I always felt that there were things wrong with our society and whether it was the environment or whether it was the treatment of minorities in the country or whether it was the economic inequalities in the country. I always had that sense that something isn't right about that and we need to do something about it. I remember even working, sort of organizing park cleanup days or, and this is when I was still in high school. I didn't know what I was doing, but it was part of my early activism I think. - So what was college like for you? - You know, for me personally, I thought I'll get out of that household and then everything is gonna be fantastic and all my problems will be solved and then you realize a lot of those problems are internal problems and so it was a struggle for me in part, I was still very active and involved. We did a lot of really cool things. We brought speakers on campus. I was involved with the LGBT group there and this was quite some time ago where it wasn't so common to have those sort of groups on college campuses and that was, it was great, but it was also I think on a personal level, emotionally more challenging for me than I had anticipated 'cause I had set it up as, you know, suddenly freedom and all my problems are gonna disappear and then I realized, no, I've gotta solve my own problems. - That often is a problem in college where, I mean, it's, some people only have the problem of where should I do my laundry and you know, it's just fine with them But college also tests in a lot of ways things that we believed and didn't even know that we were, you know, holding onto, although I think your generation was much more sort of exploratory in high school about understanding what you didn't believe in or what you didn't have faith in. My generation was very go along, go along, then we went to college and it was like, oh my God, you mean they've been lying to us, you know? So did you continue with journalism in college? - I actually started off as a dual major in math and journalism but I left math after a while because I realized no one washed their hair in that department and it just wasn't right for me. It was so amazing being in sort of upper level math classes and realizing I couldn't understand anyone 'cause in my department, no one spoke English and no one, you know, personal hygiene was not a high priority in the math department but it was, really, there were some amazingly intelligent people there and I still love math, but I went more in the journalism line and that was my degree. - So does that mean you worked on the newspaper at college or you were doing things outside in addition? - I did work on the newspaper in college, but I also worked, we created a couple of specialty newspapers. We had a feminist journal at that time, really enjoyed writing on that and we had some great articles there, again, some cutting edge things that weren't being reported in the main school newspaper and we also brought in speakers again from outside of the campus to participate. It was a good experience. - So I know that you went to law school here in California because you were in one of my classes. - [John] I know. - I think that's where we first met but you haven't yet talked about how you were thinking of getting to the west coast if you were. So you're facing graduation in college, you're a writer, you're a journalist. How do you think about the future and what happened next? - I don't think I thought about the future. I was just trying to get through college and I did it in three years. So I actually spent a year before I went to law school working in a congressman's office back in Illinois and doing constituent services and really learning how that was done and the different departments and the different requests that came into a Congress person's office. Then I really enjoyed that and I had taken some law related classes. I really decided that that was something I was fascinated with and I wanted to pursue it and kind of, you know, decided, okay, I'll take the LSAT and I didn't realize that there were courses that could help you with that. I just thought, okay, I'll go in and take it and did well and then applied to law schools and I wanted to go to either Harvard or Yale or someplace warm and Harvard and Yale said go someplace warm. - Harvard or Yale or someplace warm. - [John] someplace warm. Right. - Yeah, well you ended up someplace warm, which is very lucky for us, I think in California. - [John] Oh, I know. - So did you have an idea about the law 'cause honestly I didn't when, you know, when I started, I thought, again, it had something to do with fairness I thought but I wasn't quite sure. Did you have an idea what you kinda wanted to do with it? - No. I think that, you know, for me, I went to law school because of that sense of fairness and how the law could be used to advance social justice and I kind of went with the mindset of I'm gonna do something that was civil rights oriented and then you get to law school and you realize there's so many different, fascinating areas of the law and it's not always easy to just go into civil rights unless you, you know, when you facing lots of student debt and, but I'm so glad I went to law school. It just really exposed me to so much, probably like you, I didn't have any lawyers in my family. - No, no one in my family had ever even gone to college, so. - Right, the same with me. So no one was saying, "Oh, do this, get a clerkship with a judge." I didn't know any of that. - Yeah, it's funny when we were talking about family too, how similar, because I think you didn't really have grandparents around and I didn't either, just, I think one grandmother. - Yeah, I had one grandmother, all of the others had died before I was born. My parents were a little bit older when I was born and my father had a brother who died when I was one or two. My mother was an only child. So there wasn't a whole sense of family. I did have some cousins. My father's brother's kids. Turns out that several of the kids in that family, several of my cousins, two of them are gay. So maybe there is a genetic connection. - I always thought there was. - [John] Yeah. - So, but moving to California, I mean, everyone always thinks, "Oh, well that's easy. We'll just move to California." But it isn't that easy. I mean, you essentially leave behind everything you know and everyone you know. - [John] Yeah. - And you go to this place, which again, it's sort of like going to college where you think, California will solve all my problems, I'm sure it's just, you know, a place to be free. Did you feel trepidatious going to California or just big opportunity or. - Yeah, I think when you're younger, you don't realize what you're doing. So in some respects it's good. You just pack up everything and you drive to California and I'll find an apartment and I'll, and you don't have any worries about it and I think of course, when you go to law school too, you're sort of thrown in, you've got all this work to do, particularly the first year and you have this ready made set of colleagues or friends and you know, that was great, you know, so you really don't have any time to worry about anything 'cause you're studying all the time, going to classes and so I really kind of just got thrown in here and it all worked out all right. For me, I also had to work during my first year 'cause of financial reasons and so I had some connections at work that at least there were people I knew through work that were not in the law school craziness. - How did you find work? - Actually, I worked for the LA Weekly doing type setting for them and they, at the time they had a new machine and somehow or another, I was doing that type setting back in Chicago and there was a connection. People knew somebody in Chicago and they said, "Oh, he's moving out here. He can type the ads for you 'cause he knows how to do that." And so I used to sit there typing and usually on the phone while I was doing it and talking about what was going on in law school and trying to get caught up on studying, we would have study groups and we would kind of talk on the phone about issues that we didn't understand. - So, but you also worked with the ACLU I think when you were in law school. - [John] Yeah, we started a- - Talk about things coming back together again, huh? - Right, we started a chapter at USC and eventually I think this was, I'm not sure whether I was still in law school or right after, I went on the board of the ACLU and that was an amazing experience, just meeting so many people who were and are still activists on civil rights issues. - So did you form an idea in law school about what you wanted to do next? - No, I, again- - [Sheila] Listen, I- - I still don't know what I'm doing tomorrow. - It's nice though in a way where you say I'm gonna do everything I ever wanna do, I'll just decide what to do next. - Right, I guess I wanted to just go into civil rights litigation. There wasn't a job. I was in the running for a clerkship with Rose Bird who was on the Supreme Court at the time, that didn't work out and I worked for a couple of small firms immediately after I got out of law school and then got involved with the Cityhood Campaign here in West Hollywood. - Yeah, talk about that because I think a lot of people across the country certainly have heard of West Hollywood. It's thought of as a gay mecca, though I think up close and personal, it's much more of a fabulous experiment in multiculturalism. You know, people don't know, a very progressive city, so it wasn't incorporated when you got involved in it? It was just it unincorporated part of LA county. - Yeah, and it was strange 'cause here we are in the middle of Beverly Hills on one side, Los Angeles surrounds us on three sides and it was an island in the middle of LA County, very highly developed already and we didn't have a city council. We didn't have any kind of local government other than the county supervisor and I think one of the key things that drove the Cityhood campaign was rent control which we had in the county but then the supervisors changed from a more progressive to a more conservative group and they were gonna phase out rent control, 80% of our residents, I think at the time 85% of our residents were renters. Many of them seniors and we were going through a period with lots of speculation. So people were being pushed out of their homes or their rents were being jacked up sometimes two or three times in the year. So that was one of the large motivating forces to put Cityhood together but then there were a lot of other people concerned about development issues, hotels being placed in residential areas and then of course the gay and lesbian community at the time, looking for opportunities to elect openly gay people. So all of those forces sort of converged to really make the push for Cityhood happen back in 83 and then 84 is when we finally incorporate it. - But how do you get to be a part of that? I mean, you know, in a way, here you are, you just got outta law school, you're looking for work, clerkship doesn't quite work out. You go to work with a couple of different firms. How do you get involved in a fight for Cityhood? I mean, I know a lot of it is random. It's kind of like, gee, I don't know. I met this guy in a restaurant and he said, "You know, come to a meeting." And the next thing you know I'm being arrested as a communist and whatever but how do you get involved in this? I mean. - I was involved somewhat with the fight over rent control and there was a countywide initiative to try to have rent control in the county and that failed because most of the county isn't like West Hollywood and there was also a democratic group, the Harvey Milk Democratic Club which is no longer operating in Southern California and so I was involved with that organization and there was a group of people who were working on incorporation. They had formed a loose committee at that time and they reached out to get representatives from these other organizations and because of my involvement, those organizations said, "John, why don't you come along and be involved in this?" And so I joined the incorporation committee and we worked together to get the signatures and to sort of fight for Cityhood. - Were you on the ballot for city council at the same time as incorporation? - Yeah, the vote for incorporation occurred in 1984 and at the same time, the voters were asked to vote yes or no on incorporation and they were also asked to, if there is incorporation, if we are a city, then who are your council members gonna be? And it was wild. There were I think 43 candidates. You did a candidates forum and you had a minute, that was it, I mean- - [Sheila] There were more of you on the stage. - Yeah, no, actually there were a lot of, there were a couple of public forums where the auditorium was overflowing with people. I mean the level of interest was that high. - So what was the dream of the city of West Hollywood that you think brought all those people into those auditoriums and made people want to be a city instead of just part of the county? - I think local control was the overriding push that we would have our own local government, that whether we did things right or wrong, at least there was gonna be control at the local level over land use issues, that we could set our own destiny, kind of the, you know, it's the dream I think of all people that you have some sense of involvement and control and that you can chart your own course for the future and, you know, for a gay and lesbian community, certainly it was enacting non-discrimination ordinances, enacting domestic partnership ordinances, prohibiting aids discrimination and then just having openly gay and lesbian people in office and in that position 'cause at the time we became a city, there weren't many, we had a conference in 1985 with openly gay and lesbian elected officials from across the country, I think there were 11 of us and now of course there are several hundred all across at different levels. We have state senators and we have people in Congress, it's wonderful but at the time it was really a very small select group. - But it was more than just local control, wasn't it, John? I mean, you can have local control and not do good things. - [John] Right. - There was such a feeling of the need to establish a progressive city. I mean, I, you know, I live in Santa Monica and in Santa Monica it was not like that from the beginning and there was kind of a revolution during revolution times, you know, 30 years ago to take over the council and make the city have a particular kind of character, but this was a city that started out with a notion of that character from the beginning. - Yeah, I think we've always had a group of people in West Hollywood who are progressive. We have a large Jewish population. Many of them came out of progressive causes or were escaping oppression elsewhere and so they really were steeped in the history of sort of progressive Jewish politics and then the LGBT population was certainly more often than not, aligned with progressive causes, were overwhelmingly democratic. I mean, I think about 88% of our residents are registered Democrats. So the fights we have here are usually over how progressive do we need to be and how pragmatic, you know, sort of balancing the pragmaticism with the progressive and, but yeah, there's just, there was always a sense that we were going to be a cutting edge city, that we were going to be a city that was gonna take stands and that we were gonna take risks and do things a different way and I think you can see that in the history of our legislation, we were the first city to divest from South Africa and not do business with companies that were involved in the apartheid regime. We were the first city to have a domestic partnership registration program, we were the first city along with LA to ban discrimination on the basis of HIV or aids. And some of those things now are very commonplace, but at the time, people were like, "Oh, well, that's different. That's something that cities aren't supposed to do." And we took risk and we've still done things in the area of animal cruelty and the area of gun control. We've tried to be a leader on so many different issues and I think we're respected for that. - Well, I think that it's exemplary of what a city can do. I mean, there are so many overlapping areas of government in, of course we know California best, but I think it's the same in every state in the country where you have, you know, city government, you have county government, whatever they call the counties, you have the state government and the federal government, you all have special districts of some kind that are supposed to deliver the water or supposed to build a freeway or a toll road or you have public-private partnerships. There's so much overlap that people don't quite understand how much a city can really accomplish for its residents. What's the biggest struggle you think that the city has had? - Oh, I think our, well, there are two major struggles. I think housing and affordability of housing. With so many seniors, many of them limited to social security alone or small pensions. They can't afford market rents and some of them are paying 75, 80% of their relatively small income towards rent and that's a very big challenge and particularly with cutbacks in the section eight program on the federal level, it's been a very difficult challenge and trying to create new affordable housing for seniors. It's not easy 'cause the cost of building new housing, it's the same as building market rate housing. So you've got the same land costs, the same construction costs and sometimes you even have extra cost because of the complexity of those projects. So that is a big challenge. I think another big challenge we faced was aids and I think we hopefully have turned the tide somewhat with the medications that are now available, but watching a whole community be decimated and you know what that was like watching people die sort of every week, losing people on commissions and employees and the head of the chamber of commerce and you know, never thought we were going to live through that. I mean just survive that, you know, individually, but collectively that loss of intelligence and ability was just devastating for our community, but we just kept pushing along and right now I think we're facing the challenge of our success. We're so successful in many ways, this is such a desirable place to live, the housing costs are going even higher. People are, you know, willing to spend a million dollars on a two bedroom condo, they're willing to, you know, tear down a 10 unit building to put up eight and it doesn't seem to make sense economically but given the housing prices here, it pencils out for a developer to do that. So trying to address that challenge, trying to, you know, again, plan for the future and make sure we have places for people to live in the future while at the same time, trying to, as much as we can, protect the people who live here now and that's a challenge for, I think local government throughout California. - I see that all along the coast actually, the left coast as they call it, the west coast, even in the central part of the state where you had almost bucolic kind of little sea towns, the waterfront property and anywhere within three or four blocks of it, you know, in the middle of the state, the central coast, et cetera. So that our population in order to find affordability is kind of leaving and moving inland where sort of land is cheaper and I think it's all kind of a victim of its own success because the more wealthy live closer to the ocean and even though we're several miles away here in West Hollywood, it's really very much the same thing as well as being a hip place to live and a tolerant place to live and a very, you know, very good services. So you're right. Talk about, it is a victim of our own success because we lose our senior population. They can't afford us anymore. We don't have a good mix in terms of the different classes. It's hard to hold onto, but the city's done very well I think in at least putting a stake in the ground and trying to do the right thing. - Yeah, we've really tried to adopt policies that will ensure in the future that we do retain that diversity. We have an inclusionary housing program. So when new things are built, developers have to include lower, moderate income units in their new development or pay into a fund. We've developed a number of permanently affordable housing units. I think it's about 270 units through a housing corporation that we created and we continue to advocate on behalf of our existing tenants. So we're trying to do that and we're also trying to do some mixed use so that we take pressure off of our existing residential area and give, you know, again, give opportunities for the new people who are coming to this area to live in the area. Of course, we face another challenge, which is traffic and parking. The whole west side, the traffic issue is a serious issue. We need to have mass transit here and we've been working with the west side cities to try to advocate for that. - Well, there's another big part of your life and I don't know exactly how you made that transition, but I mean, the way you earn your living now as it were, since they don't pay you a whole lot to be on the city council in West Hollywood, teaching the law. How did that come about and why did you wanna do that? - You know, I really love teaching. I didn't realize it at the time. I did it because one of my classmates was teaching legal writing and she said, "Would you be interested?" And I said, "Yeah, I'd be interested in doing that 'cause I like the idea of teaching." And I started off teaching one class and then it was two and then suddenly it was four and then I was teaching, you know, some of the substantive courses and the students reacted well to me and I really think it was something that I didn't realize that I didn't actively pursue, but then once I started doing it, I said, "I really like this." And it also works well with, you know, the council time schedule, as a professor, you're not expected to necessarily be there from nine to five every day. So if you have a city commitment during the day or you have a meeting or an event you have to go to, as long as it doesn't interfere with your teaching schedule, you're free to do that and I think the students also love the idea that I'm out there and I'm actually helping to draft laws or make laws and being involved in that kind of debate about public policy, they they're constantly asking, "Well, how did you do this? Or why did you do that? Or, wow, well, that must have been interesting to be involved in that debate." So I think it connects well with the students. - What do you teach, John? - A little bit of everything. I joke that I teach whatever the person on sabbatical teaches. I've been teaching torts for a long time, personal injury, teaching evidence, which in law school, I didn't really like, I think I missed most of it, but I love evidence, there are rules, it makes sense to me logically. I've taught civil procedure, criminal procedure, criminal law, community property. I teach that at USC, I've taught aids and the law and LGBT issues. We can't offer that course every semester but I try to offer it every couple of years. It's a seminar course and it's great. - And you've been actually, well, you were instrumental in starting a program overseas to take students from your law school and other law schools that wanna join in. I had no idea that you were doing that until you asked me to teach in Amsterdam a couple years ago and tell us a little about that. - Well, we started a program, a lot of law schools have programs that are summer abroad programs. So you could go to Spain or England and study there and you study a little bit about the law of that location but there's usually an international focus to it. We started a program that is a summer abroad program that focuses exclusively on issues involving sexual orientation in the law. So we were able, we were fortunate enough to have you come over and teach a course on gay and lesbian- - And other, even more brilliant people. - [John] Oh, I don't know if there is anyone more brilliant than you, Sheila. - Stop. - And we offered it in Amsterdam at the University of Amsterdam, which is one of the oldest universities in Europe and it was a great opportunity for American law students. Most of them actually not LGBT students- - [Sheila] Right. - Who were interested in the topic or interested in Amsterdam, coming over and watching them study issues that in some instances were foreign to them or were very personal to them and watching that interaction and that growth also, you know, just getting the leaders of the ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights Project. The people from Lambda, somebody from the National Center for Lesbian Rights, having them all together and doing, you know, sort of a panel together, you don't get that opportunity in most law schools. So it was really a fascinating opportunity and, you know, we hope to continue it many years into the future. - Well, it reminded me, you know, when you said panel, actually I think it might be a good idea as a part of that program when you do it again to have an evening, or maybe you did and I had not participated or something, but an evening when all of those professors who are there, participate 'cause I remember when we were talking about first bringing cases to the Supreme Court that had to do with sexual orientation and had an event sponsored by the Gay and Lesbian Center here with a number of theorists from around the country about how we should be in the constitution. How could we find ourselves in the constitution, in the 14th amendment, in, you know, in equal protection or due process or any of those and it was really kind of fascinating to have more than one person talking at a time about sort of these larger issues and you would of course participate too, 'cause it's, you know, it was fascinating being there, even sitting around at dinner as we did in Amsterdam and talking about this, what do you think of the, sort of the level of development of legal theory about our issues in the country? - I think it's amazing what has happened in the last, well, since I've got out out of law school, I mean the level of dialogue and debate has changed dramatically. I mean, we did do one of those panels last year right after some of the marriage decisions and those decisions weren't favorable to us but we had Matt Coles and we had John Davidson from Lambda and we had Kate Kendall from National Center for Lesbian Rights all doing a panel discussion about what did these decisions mean and what was the future and what should we be focusing on. I think that the level of receptivity to our issues has changed dramatically and people are able to talk about them in ways that they couldn't be discussed, even when I was in law school and in law school, I was writing a note on gays and lesbians in the military and this was my law review note and I remember one of the editors saying, "Well, that's not really a serious legal topic." And I, you know, looking back, I think, well, you were wrong, obviously 'cause these topics are the cutting edge civil rights issues and we have some brilliant theorists and brilliant practitioners who've been advancing the whole marriage dialogue on so many different levels, not only litigation, but now through legislation and getting that legislation approved through the California legislature and getting it on the governor's desk and that's something I never thought we would be able to do and I think it's the result of so many years of advocacy and people being out and people, you know, they can't demonize us, too many people know LGBT people and you can't use the same tricks that they did 20 years ago. - Well, sort of the meeting of organizing community, you know, grassroots organizing, community based organizing about the rights of LGBT folks and the sort of legal theory piece of it because I think when you're organizing for something, you don't care whether it fits into a legal theory, you just want it. - [John] Right. - But if you have to go to court to secure it, you have to have some kind of a legal theory and I was actually thinking about our community and our legal theory when the last decision concerning abortion came out not very long ago from the United States Supreme Court and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in dissent had throughout her life but even before she was on any court had brought these cases about women's equality and tried to find that theory in the law that works and she was working under equal protection in the 14th amendment, but the whole Roe V Wade and privacy issue sort of came from a different direction in the constitution and she had always felt that that had its limits, this privacy thing and we really needed to work on this equal protection part, even as it related to abortion and she repeated it again in her dissent in that case and we have taken many pages from sort of the gender litigation and constitutional theories. Do you see that we need to kind of develop that theory for ourselves? 'Cause we haven't done so great in the equal protection area. - Well, I think there are limits, the argument that was made, particularly in the Hawaii case that denying LGBT rights to marry was a form of sex discrimination. I thought that was an argument that we shouldn't have been making, whether it was successful or not, I thought it undermined our efforts to ensure equality for women and girls and it was the argument that was being made against the equal rights amendment that, "Oh, this is gonna legitimize gay marriage." I don't think anyone who supports equal rights for women and girls necessarily believes in gay rights or in the rights of gay people to marry. I don't think, you know, when you vote for an equal rights amendment, you're not voting for gay marriage and to try to use that argument, I thought it was a mistake. It seemed more like a case of legal trickery rather than being right front and saying, we should have the right to marry because it's the right thing to do and because I think it is more of an issue of privacy and whether that's something the government should be involved in telling who should be allowed to marry one another and who shouldn't, but there is, as you know, there are limitations to the privacy argument as well. It's very difficult and I don't mean to be critical of people who brought these cases because they've done an amazing job of, I think, taking different theories and advancing them in places where that theory had more chances of success. So what was amazing about the legal movement is how state specific it was and how, you know, just the same thing through the sodomy challenges, going to particular states and using either an equal protection argument or privacy or cruel and unusual punishment argument where it was most appropriate and I think that's a testament to the brilliance of the LGBT legal community. How many really smart people we've had working on these issues over the years. - So as you look at your students, do you feel optimistic that there's energy there, that there's passion there, that there's, you know, intellect there to continue this? Because sometimes you see movements, it's what our historian hero, John D'Emilio calls leaping and creeping, you know, where things go along and they don't seem to be doing anything and then suddenly you get a leap, but it's the preparation of the creeping that's made the, you know, the leap possible and education is, I don't mean to demean it in any way, but it's a form of that creeping, who are we preparing and how are we preparing them? Are you optimistic about our future with our, you know, with young people doing this legal work? - Absolutely, I mean, what amazes me is how so many people, even conservative students take our rights for granted. They just assume that there should be equality for lesbian and gay people. They don't, it is not something, and I have some very conservative Republican students who, you know, they are die hard Republicans but they will tell me, I don't agree with the party on any of that gay stuff because they're crazy and you know, of course gay people should have equality and they'll even go as far as saying, and of course gay people should be allowed to marry. So I think that to me makes me optimistic and then the young people who are really gonna dedicate their life to LGBT equality, I'm in awe of them. I'm amazed at what they've done already with their lives and how they continue to, even through law school, continue to be advocates, continue to work on issues. They extern for Lambda or ACLU or the Freedom to Marry Project. You know, so many of those opportunities really weren't around when we were going to law school, those organizations didn't exist. I think sometimes we forget that our movement in some ways is still very young and yet, even though we have the sodomy setback, we eventually won on that issue. Gay marriage, we've had, when we first adopted that domestic partnership ordinance, we were being laughed at, we were being ridiculed for doing it and, you know, and there was questions about whether it was even legal for us to do. - And now it's the Republican fallback when they don't want marriage. - [John] Yeah, now they're like, "No, we don't want-" - No, no, we want domestic partners. - [John] Right. - But what about its interplay with other areas? Because the immigrant rights movement is so vibrant. People of colors movements are vibrant in ways that they, you know, they just seem to be growing and growing and disability rights movement I think has not quite taken off as much, certainly the resources are not there the way they have been for us but I see a lot of different silos that are kind of breaking down as people see the interplay. Do you see your students and anywhere in the legal community, seeing these kinds of interconnections? - Absolutely and I think that's part of the success of the whole gay marriage debate in California is the linkage Equality California has been able to make with NAACP and with- - [Sheila] Farm workers. - Farm workers union, and with labor and, you know, our issues are not, they're not in a silo, they're really connected to issues of fairness for all people and we've been able to make those connections, not always completely, but I think we've done a good job of reaching out and I think we've also tried to be there on other people's issues. People are now realizing that LGBT people are in all of these other organizations and oftentimes playing leading roles in labor unions, they're playing leading roles in environmental organizations, in animal rights organizations, in humanitarian organizations. It just, there's so many great people in our community who are successes, not just in our own organizations, but in other organizations that bring together people who care about the future. - Well, and I think that's what helps too with the connection is that we, you know, we go to work because we care about civil rights and we go somewhere and we're there and we're perceived as being of that movement and a gay person or of, you know, of the labor movement and a gay person. So I assume you're seeing this in your students as well. I mean, I don't know, are they progressive generally? Are they like us or not like us? - Well, I get students, the whole spectrum. I mean, I get students who are very conservative. I get students who are very progressive and I get students who are passionate about different issues. I get a lot of immigrant students, students who are first or second generation immigrant, who are, you know, struggling still with English, even though they're very intelligent, you know, they're having grammatical problems as people do when they're learning a language but I'm amazed the students I get from the Vietnamese community and the Korean community and the Armenian community and the Persian community and we get a lot of diverse students and I think at law school, the big challenge is African American students and trying to attract and retain them and USC has done a marvelous job of changing the complexion of its law school. When I went there, as you remember, 25 years ago, it was a very white institution. It was not very diverse and that has changed dramatically over time and again, the level of leadership that these students have even prior to getting to law school, the things they've done, it's amazing to me, but, you know, really, regardless of the political spectrum, I do see that these are people who are, I really feel good about them being the shepherds of the world when we're no longer involved in politics. That must be when we're dead. - In the 22nd century, whenever that is, we're certainly not gonna give up on that. Well, that was actually gonna be my next question as we're kind of not quite close to the end. So we have sometimes still to talk, but what feels still undone in your life, John? What would you wanna keep gathering to yourself? I know you wanna keep teaching. I know you, you know, you love the city, but what's still undone in your life? - You know, one of the things that I'm very passionate about is the aids crisis internationally in particular. I mean, we're doing relatively well in this country. Most of our people have access to medication or services or programs and people are living hopefully more or less normal lifespans, not all of them but we're able to give that hope to people but in most of the world, people don't have access to medication. They don't have access to medical care. They don't have resources, they don't have jobs and I think there's something terribly wrong. Going back to that feeling that you have as a kid, that this isn't fair. It isn't fair that because people are born in Africa or they're born in India or they're born in South America, that they don't have access to the drugs that could save their lives and I think it's a real moral issue, not only for the country, but I think particularly for the LGBT community and the people who, you know, we have struggled through aids. We know what it's like. We know how it can devastate people and when you see people where countries where the average life expectancy has now dropped to 37, that's not right, that's not right that that's happening when the medication is available, that, you know, there's hope out there and those people have no hope and that's something I think we need to change and I think it really is incumbent upon the LGBT community and the aids community here in the United States to take that leadership and we cannot just forget those people. They are people, they are people who have a right to, I think an alienable right to life if you wanna use the terminology and that's something that I'm really trying to work on, we've adopted a clinic in Malawi. I think we're gonna adopt an orphanage. - [Sheila] The city has? - The city has, we're gonna try to adopt an orphanage in South Africa, trying to connect people to resources here that, you know, sometimes there's surplus supplies that could be used in clinics over there that would, again, help people extend their lives and really provide hope for a community and for a nation. - So would you say the glass is half full or half empty? - What are we drinking? (laughs) - So it starts out half full, but then as you drink. - Yeah, I- - I mean, you've always seemed very kind of serious and yet also very with a sort of a wicked sense of humor to me, you know, that these things sort of interplay, but mostly I find you always very optimistic. - See, it's strange. I think, you know, internally I go back and forth. Sometimes I'm so depressed about what's happening in the country and the level of leadership or the lack of leadership and the lack of honesty at the federal level, particularly with this administration and then on the other hand, I'm so hopeful and to see the Democrats come to power, to see the work that has been done and again, I think we can get caught up in the day-to-day but then you reflect back on 20 some years of struggle and you see, wow, we've got states where people can get married. We have the, finally, the federal hate crime act being extended to LGBT people. Now Bush is probably gonna veto that, but- - Til the next president- - The next president, but the dialogue has changed and I think we, so I'm optimistic, I'm optimistic in that respect and I'm optimistic about what's happened in our community here in West Hollywood. I see so many changes that have occurred. Most of them, I believe for the better and you know, just our east side growing and expanding and becoming more economically vibrant. So it depends on when you catch me. Usually I'm optimistic. Usually I think things are moving in the right direction. Occasionally I think we all give way to self doubt and despair, but I'm overall optimistic. - Well, it's funny, you certainly haven't lived anywhere near as long as I have but one of the things that has struck me as I've gotten older is that I have more to compare my current life with and not only in terms of my own life, but the history of the country, the whole last half of the 20th century when civil rights law really developed, you know, thanks to Dr. King and so many people who, and Gandhi, who really said, you know, "We must stand up for this in a non-violent way but we must get it." And all of the laws that developed in the country about anti-discrimination upon which we've patterned our movement, we've contributed to it but we've also sort of benefited from it and that's been a real, I think, upward climb Which makes you optimistic. Then you see all of the, you know, the government subterfuge and the international lies and the way people keep voting and voting for people, you know, who've lied to them and you think, well, that's sort of a downward trend and I understand what you're saying, because it depends on what you're looking at, but how do you see your life as one individual in terms of, I mean, how do you feel about it if you were to sum it up since you're not even half through it but might as well sum it up? - I feel like I've made a lot of progress, when I look back as a kid in Cleveland, growing up in this household which was kind of out of control and not having people who went to college, I feel successful that I was able to get out of the house, go to college, go all the way across the country and go to law school and then, you know, have this great experience being on the city council for a wonderful city and watching the progress that's been made here and have the opportunity to go to Europe and to run a program there and to travel across the country and, you know, internationally and I really feel like, wow, that's not something I would've ever thought when I was a kid that I would have those opportunities. I feel like I've been really blessed in many ways with opportunities and with the chances of doing things that I never thought I would have the chance to do. You know, in fairness, I've also worked hard, going through law school and going back to school to get a master's degree. I mean, those aren't things that, you know, you get because you're just sitting around but I feel like I've also been incredibly lucky with the people I've met and the experiences I've had. So it's been wonderful and I hope I'm only halfway through. - Well, I think, not even. It's funny when you use the term lucky because for a long time in my life I felt like luck was such a driver of it, you know, because I didn't quite understand how it was that my efforts connected to my success. It seemed like some of it came sort of magically, maybe starting out as an actor. You know, you feel like you either get the part or you don't get the part and it's kind of magical, but I've been thinking, what they say about you make your own luck, I do think you're lucky in terms of, you know, who you're born to or whatever, but sometimes not. Was your mom still around when you came out to law school? - Yeah, yeah. - And is she still alive? - No, both my parents are dead. My father died when I was in law school. My mom died about eight or nine years ago. - So it's sort of like what you make of it, but as you said, not holy, it's almost like you've got, you know, these threads that go together. - Yeah, I think you're right and I think sometimes I do feel like, oh, if only I were more lucky, but then I realize most of what I've been able to do has not really been about luck. It's been about making connections and in your case, I mean, you're extremely talented and you're very bright and I think that success is the result of your hard work and, but I think there, in my case, some of it is the result of hard work and some of it is the result of just being in the right place at the right time and having an opportunity to meet people that I probably wouldn't have had I not been there. So you're right. You do make your own success, but I think some of it is just fortuitous. - Well, I can't believe a whole hour's gone by but it has and I'm very, very pleased that you were on the show. I hope that you're pleased as well and we're very pleased that you were with us for this hour of interview with John Heilman and I hope that as we look back, each of us, you and I and all the rest on our lives at the moment we can say, I like what I see. I got used to it. (upbeat music)