Forty-seven years ago yesterday, on October 14, 1977, in Des Moines, Iowa, during a televised appearance, Anita Bryant, a retired American singer popular in the 1950s and 1960s with three Top Twenty hits in the days of Classic Rock and Roll, Miss Oklahoma in 1958, and the brand ambassador for the Florida Orange Commission famous for the slogan, “A day without orange juice Is like a day without sunshine”, had a pie thrown in her face by Thom L. Higgins, a Gay Rights activist protesting her major anti-Gay bigotry and homophobia.
She was also an outspoken opponent of Gay rights running the Save Our Children” campaign to repeal the local ordinance in Dade County, Florida that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, using the false Christian belief that Homosexuals were after children for recruitment to some “lifestyle” they insist exists, and molestation as her weapon.
She said such things as,
“As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children”;
“If gays are granted rights, next we’ll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nail biters”
And,
“All America and all the world will hear what the people have said, and with God’s continued help we will prevail in our fight to repeal similar laws throughout the nation,”
all while referring to Gaypeople as “human garbage”.
Not content with her activities in Florida, which, although successful at the time, brought about a national boycott of Florida orange juice with Gay bars not serving any drinks with orange juice and the idea spreading to ally bars, politicians, and social justice advocates, an action that would bear results, she went national most notably with her anti-Homosexual campaign inspiring the Briggs Amendment in California which would have made pro-gay statements regarding homosexual people or homosexuality by any public school employee cause for dismissal in effect, besides preventing GLBT students access to, at times, lifesaving information while making verbal harassment and bullying on school campuses directed toward GLBT students unstoppable, Gay teachers could be purged throughout the state.
It failed.
When I taught in Los Angeles I worked with and knew many fine teachers who would not have been there had Anita Bryant been successful, nor would I have even been hired as I would not be allowed to teach.
Times were changing, and Gay people, in becoming more open and visible, revealed that we were as normal as Straight people, and reality began to push aside religious based false fantasies.
Her activism began to be seen as the fanaticism it was, and there was fallout from it.
The Singer Corporation rescinded an offer to sponsor a possible weekly variety show, and the Florida Citrus Commission allowed her contract to lapse after her divorce, a divorce that killed off her Christian fundamentalist audience with invitations to appear at their events drying up which meant the loss of a major source of income.
Although divorce went against her firmly held religious beliefs, since it affected her directly, she eventually came to the belief that,
“The church needs to wake up and find some way to cope with divorce and women’s problems.”
A series of failed businesses in which she was involved with her second husband ended in bankruptcies, a series of unpaid employees and creditors, and unpaid state and federal taxes.
In explaining their divorce, Bryant’s first husband blamed the Gays by playing the victim, claiming those who reject being victimized by him and the Missus were in the wrong for not accepting it, saying,
“Blame gay people? I do. Their stated goal was to put her out of business and destroy her career. And that’s what they did. It’s unfair.”
It would appear that the people who rallied others to victimize people based on lies so they could lose their jobs and homes is what was unfair, not those people refusing to be further victimized.
The woman who had worn her religion on her sleeve and worked to have her religion the basis of civil laws applicable to all citizens, when asked just a few years ago her views on Gays, she said, in my opinion patronizingly, dismissively, and hypocritically,
“I’m more inclined to say live and let live, just don’t flaunt it or try to legalize it”.
She had caused such damage to Gay people and threatened to do more.
So that is why the pie was thrown.
During Bryant’s fading years, I was living in Oklahoma when Brad Henry was elected governor. He was young, a Democrat, and a creature unique in that state at that time, a Liberal politician. I was on the Board of a political committee in the GLBT Community of Oklahoma City who backed him during his campaign as he spoke strongly for the rights of GLBT people. We helped on his campaign with time and money, and this resulted in our getting an invitation to his inaugural ball after his election.
Henry was popular and this led to having three settings at the ball. On one floor there was a child-oriented room with games, child friendly eats, and adult supervision. The governor had children. Another floor had the Blue Room for those who had donated money and/or given of their time up to a certain level. The third floor had the Gold Room for the high-end donors. Most such events would have just had the one Gold Room for the moneyed and influential, but, because of the guy he was, Brad Henry extended the invites beyond the “elites” while still keeping them feeling special.
The Board I was on met the requirement for the Gold Room, and, as with other organizations being appropriately identified, our table had a sign sticking out of the centerpiece with our organization’s name on it.
We had opted to abandon the totally irrelevant boy/girl seating pattern for the more relevant boy/boy/, girl/girl or whomever you came with pattern, and at dessert were chattering like children planning to do something naughty about going to the dance as the true couples we were, rather than dancing like Heterosexuals.
It may not seem so now, but this was in the Buckle of the Bible Belt that was Oklahoma in 2003, quite close to what 1958 had been in other states when it really had been 1958, at a state wide function of the state’s movers and shakers where there was a lot of press, and where such an action would not go unnoticed, perhaps the very opposite with unknown reactions, so this was one of those little moments that was actually a pretty big deal.
It was a time in that place when anything done by a GLBT person openly as themselves with no shame or fear was most likely the first time it was done out of the closet making it “A First”.
While we were whispering, the MC for the evening had introduced the local, well known dance band whose leader then introduced its guest performer for the first set as the woman who used to sing with them way back before she became famous, and the dancing began. We hadn’t heard the singer’s name over our and the tables’ around us talking.
We walked into the middle of the dance floor and added a little Gay club spirit to it, dancing men with men and women with women, cutting in and mixing up couples, ending up most of the time right below the singer and getting a lot of thumbs up from the other dancers who I thought were signaling that they supported what we were doing.
That would have been enough to show we were among allies.
However, as it turned out, it wasn’t just that we were unabashedly dancing as the Gay people who had earned our invite just as the other people on or near the dance floor that they thought was great, but more that we had been dancing right below Anita Bryant, herself, as she sang her set just above our heads.
Those of us dancing had no idea of this until the set ended and we were approached by a lot of happy people as we left the dance floor who could not believe we had not only taken the bold step of dancing as Gay couples so freely and proudly, but we had taken the further step of doing it blatantly under the gaze of Miss Anita.
It was a big thing, the memory of which makes me proud to have known, been with, befriended, and worked with the people who sat at the table and danced for the Community.
This was that moment in time.
Those at the table who took that step on to the dance floor that night, at least the ones I can remember after the intervening years, were Edward Kromer and his spouse, Paul Bashline, Anthea Maton, a wonderful artist, Margaret Cox, a power house in the fight for women’s rights in general and Lesbians’ in particular, Tom Mac Donald who, perhaps just doing instead of considering possibilities, came up from the Blue Room to the Gold Room with his date because, well, there was live dance music, and me.
I was teaching Special Education at the James P Timilty Middle School in Eliot Square in the Roxbury section of Boston when cable television was being introduced to major cities many of which required that any company bidding for the municipal contract had to include a provision for community cable access so that community members could produce local programming by locals which would require training in video production.
In the ancient times of the 1950s, a big moment at school was when Sister Chabernelle wheeled a small, not mid-century, sized television on a movie projector cart into the classroom, turned it on, and introduced us to Madame Slack who would have us “regardez, écoutez, répétez” to learn French over the airwaves via closed-circuit television. Surprisingly, it was a time when television was new and its uses expanding. it was more than clear that the proper use of video in the classroom could go beyond showing 16mm films that gave the audio-video club members purpose on special days, and many school districts, Boston included, either got to use a local studio on a set schedule or had the wherewithal to purchase one to produce their own programming as time and technology moved on.
A teacher at the James P had signed up for the training at the Campbell Resource Center that had a television studio in order to learn how to produce videos from concept to broadcast and be certified to use the Center’s equipment for school district produced programming. The class had decided they would work toward an elementary level quiz show based on the elementary school curriculum, and since this would need a non-student to be the emcee as they all would be busy with production she asked if I would attend classes beginning at a certain point in the process to be the non-production emcee. I was just another prop on the set for their production work with sound, lighting, and all the rest being done around me. I got to monitor the class and learn without the threat of “failure”.
I learned without pressure.
In 1985, Face-Off premiered on Boston’s public access channel as a fifteen minute show because that was the length of the free airtime then and it was all so very experimental and could die as a nice idea. It did increase to a half hour when it later got sponsors after the bugs got worked out and it was seen as a good thing. It was designed for elementary school students because, face it, they have the cute factor that influences the critics in a good way after all, with each school having their moment of fame by way of a short verbal promo followed by each kid getting introduced with some follow up banter. Questions were based on the teams’ grade level curriculum, and the winners got t-shirts from Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
Students at Boston Technical High School began producing their own intra-mural high school level show, followed by Copley and Dorchester High Schools, and the Jeremiah Burke.
Although the teachers were trained in the technology of video production, set design flaws, which did once involved the background logo I had designed and gravity, creating a Frankenstein buzzer system to answer questions, falling wings, and the exuberance of elementary school kids squealing spontaneously with each “technical difficulty”, added much to the behind the scenes and re-enactments of high school drama club performances where the major piece of scenery was held upright by the same kid for all of Act II.
I left for California at the end of the 1984-1985 school year and Face-Off continued and evolved into something more formal and professional.
I was rummaging around in the rarely use library closet at Carnegie Middle School in Carson, California when I came across a 1980s version of a convenient home video camera and, having seen how magnetic a video camera can be for kids and knowing that producing videos would have my Special Education students conceiving story ideas, writing them down, following directions for a successful production, and what skills they might learn in the process, I brought the camera to my classroom and my classes became known for their video productions especially as they got so into the process, the students began to employ what special effects could be produce with a single home video camera and imagination.
In the alphabet of the day, my students were LH (learning Handicapped) and PHBOA (Predominantly Hispanic, Black, Asian, and Other which included Filipino and Samoan) and hey all had to help write the scripts, memorize lines, build the sets, block the scenes, and record the work. Participation in what was considered fun depended on where you were academically. Doing that math assignment could make you a star.
One video got sent to Nancy Reagan at the White House because of its anti-drug message with a student assigned to my class only because of the choice given to him by the drug court judge, school or jail, as the main character of the druggie who just said, “No’”, so all was well, and for which we received a wonderful note from Nancy herself a few months later and after the student, while not curtailing his business, toned it down to a somewhat acceptable degree.
The District took notice and instituted the VIC (Video in the Classroom) Awards which is still around. It also found my class useful as budget discussions about whether or not the school district in a city of various forms of audio and video production should continue to own a fully equipped and staffed television studio based only on the assumption at the time that video’s only use in the classroom was for entertainment as opposed to education by using m class as a case study to justify the continued ownership of Station KLCS which it still owns.
The case study noted that,
“Self-generated videos have the additional force of linking classroom work to student self-image. The Image of the student on video has the remarkable paradox of being both close to the sense of identity yet far enough removed to allow self-evaluation and critique. It is clear that when self-generated video is used in instruction the tremendous perceptual pull of television is further strengthened by its objective ground in self-image. Self definition is such a driving force in the formative years that its combination with the medium yields an instructional tool tha has been ermed ‘the ultimate candy’”.
And what else did these kids end up doing?
The report concluded with,
“There is a tendency in some situations to think of self-generated video tapes as ‘cream’, to give the video equipment to a select group such as the gifted class, in spite of insistent studies that demonstrate that learning technologies make their greatest impact among “students at risk”. At Carnegie Junior Highs School [those kids in room 45] is making great strides in demonstrating the equitable nature of the power of video tape.”
Middle school Special Ed kids saved a television station just by being the kids they were.
These are those kids:
I had arrived in Oklahoma City in March of 1993. I was intending to stay a short while as my professional file was being reassemble after some papers were lost in the bowels of the Los Angeles Unified School District and the State Department of Education in Oklahoma had the power to make an apathetic system like Los Angels interested in an inconsequential to it teacher problem, and one of the things I chose to busy myself with, besides what brought in a salary, was getting involved in the fight for Gay rights as I had been previously and this had me doing political cartoons for the local Gay news rag.
I had brought a cartoon to the editor of the paper one day and broached the idea of a cable access Gay News program as I had had experience and some degree of training to produce one and it was just a matter of finding the best people. I had been a recent arrival while the paper and its staff were well connected and could find the right people, more so than I could. I was sure Oklahoma City had to have a community access arrangement with the local cable company that would allow studio access after training but before that we could produce the shows ourselves wherever we had the space and deliver tapes to the station which is what we initially had to do.
Since we knew each other from the paper and local Gay Rights activities, and considering we were friends I took the idea to her and, when I had the chance, would stop by the offices to see if she had found anyone who might be interested. We spoke of the format of the show, where we would get our stories which was a no brainer as we both worked for the local Gay rag with its wire services.
Our first meetings of people interested in being involved took place at a small eatery on The 39th Street Strip that never had much luck no matter the cuisine or desired patronage. We bounced ideas around and the editor introduced some people she had rounded up as I did with the one or two people I brought and we discussed the program as we ate.
Our news source would be the wires the paper was connected with, and many times we spent up to the last minute before taping, sometimes finishing copy and editing some as we taped. Crew had to improvise equipment, initially using an ironing board as the tripod, make the wobbly secure, and step in to make something happen that otherwise wouldn’t.
Very reminiscent of Face-Off except it had had real studio equipment.
It was a group of people working as what appeared to be a team, an improv troupe, people quietly making a difference. There was no need for a boss. It was collaborative as I came with video production experience which once learned by others from experience made my skills redundant so that I was just a talking head, others came with writing skills and an artistic camera eye. We solved problems together and produced a weekly show.
Our video editor was a school teacher from Norman, Oklahoma, who would edit our raw footage on the equipment he had in his audio-visual class at the high school where he taught and, considering this was Oklahoma in 1993 and he was using school equipment to edit what any person at that time and even now might claim was tantamount to pornography and he could have been embarrassingly dismissed from the system and profession. Naively or bravely, he always came through.
It was all very grassroots with occasional exercises of authority assuaged for peace in the house.
I had already been a teacher for some twenty-plus years and as a Union officer and activist had had to speak to crowds planned or spontaneously, friendly or hostile, and with experience both behind and in front of the camera, I was at ease with taping a show.
We had just finished covering the International Gay Rodeo at the state fair grounds and were heading back to the house we used as a studio to review raw footage and assemble a special show about the Rodeo. At the time my transportation was foot, pedal, or public, so it took me longer to arrive than people with cars. The editor of the paper, my co-host on the show, was not pleased with the rodeo coverage for some reason although there was really nothing other than clips of the activity and few interviews, so I arrived expecting a party like atmosphere only to arrive at a locked door and being informed by the person opening it that I was no longer wanted upon which declaration the door was shut and locked. Waiting on the porch resulted in a person coming out and informing me “they” had voted me off the show when I had no idea there was to be such a vote nor that I was not going to be allowed any involvement with it. Mine was just to accept how “they” the Star Chamber. voted.
For thirty years I never knew what had happened and being Boston Irish Catholic just assumed as we do that I had done something unspecified for which I felt guilt without knowing what it was I had done, and doing the mental flagellation thing where I asked forgiveness if I ever thought the motivation of others was wrong and I was being too judgmental. My impression that this was a control thing was a source of my guilt until recently when posting a reminiscence of an event, I was corrected by the person I have wondered about as the JD Vance like defenses made things even worse.
While admitting that she had always credited me with the idea for the show, she never made it known her intention was to run the show and to own it and her justification for this being a correct action was that, as I stated before, I had brought the idea to my friend for us to work on together mainly because I had the technical expertise while she had community contacts, But as she now states,
“We did meet more than once but I worked with the people I put together to get it done.”
In order to make extra money, the editor taught Country Western dancing at a local Gay Country bar. As we worked together on the newspaper, she brought up her idea to publish an instruction book and would love me to do illustrations. I am not a Country dancer and I had never really studied Country Western dancers, still or in motion, and to illustrate to book I would have needed a copy of the manuscript to read through and decide what I was best able to draw. I had the manuscript in my possession throughout the process, so she could not publish it without the illustrations unless she gave up on the idea. I did not ask for money as she was a friend asking for my talent to benefit her so my finishing the illustrations and publishing on my own would have been possible a huge betrayal. I could have bypassed her and stolen her idea while telling everybody about the book being her idea with no benefit to her.
Making matters even more worse was that in denying the events of that night she refers to a vote about my ghosting and that only she and the man who has since passed voted in my favor. She will not inform me of that vote which opens everyone to suspicion even people I had assumed for 18 years were friends without knowing the action they had taken against me nor upon what a decision was based.
Unless there was a secret board for whom I had been unknowingly working, with me not present and two votes in my favor, my being thrown off my own show unceremoniously lies at the feet of the camera and sound man?
As she went on to explain,
“I felt so bad about that but it was before we had incorporated Tri-Pride Productions, and had a board” compounding things by mentioning, “You were voted off by a majority of those working on the show”, who were, at the time me, her, Phyl, the camera guy, the lighting guy, and the video editor from Norman. The only two no votes were from me and Phil Byrum. I always wanted to tell you that, but it was going to be hurtful though and I just couldn’t do it.”
Better to have me voted out by unknown people who made a major decision and with whom I continued to live like the ignorant spouse who is the only one in the neighborhood who doesn’t know his spouse cheated on him.
There is more, but suffice it to say that Joan Crawford and I have similar experience with rodeos.
I saw signs, went instantly into activist Union member protection mode, hoping I was not seeing what was becoming clearly seen.
To that end, I wrote a letter to the local Gay newspaper that connected her and me, and have to assume that as of that date and since, as this was known to her before publication as she was the editor and has been in print for 21 years with no rebuttal, as editor, she must have read it and approved its printing or she was very lax in that and in this situation.
The letter as published in the Gayly, Volume 11, number 23, December 1, 1993.
“As the originator of the concept for a cable access news program, I would like to thank the Gayly for its efforts to promote the program. I also thought I would offer some background on where the idea came from and some of the philosophy behind it.
I come from out of state. I have lived in, and enjoyed, the 20th Century. Being Raised in Boston/New York areas, and having taught school there as well as in both Northern and Southern California I have enjoyed the rights of American citizenship. There were always those who, for their reasons and prejudices, sought to limit my rights, but the atmosphere existed that allowed me to maintain the rights I had and work, with a reasonable hope off success, for those I still did not have recognized.
In Boston and California I did not have to hide who I was. And conversations about my home life were as acceptable as anyone else’s. In Los Angeles I could chair the union’s Gay and Lesbian Committee, march in a Gay Parade under a banner that proudly proclaimed I was a teacher, and I could stand with a group of Gay men and women in front of TV cameras on “Coming Out Day” and come out as a Gay teacher. I could choose if I wanted to and how far out of the closet I wanted to, come.
When I came to Oklahoma, although I was still in the United States, it seemed I had to give up quite a few rights to be here. It was the same country, but with different rules. Besides the law that labeled me an automatic felon for what I was regardless of what I did or did not do, I encountered an attitude and a form of Christianity that seemed based on hatred of those who were different whether that difference was based on race, color, creed, or whom you fell in love with.
I noticed that in the news, whereas in other places I’d heard the negative along with the positive, in Oklahoma I only heard references to Gays when there was a condemnation, a crime committed in which there was a tantalizing hint that one or both the perpetrators or the victim might be Gay, or if the crime was a pointedly defined perversion or could be used to imply there was one so you would be sure to stay tuned. The many good things done by, for, and with the Gay people go unmentioned and this implies there is nothing to report.
By correcting this void with a cable Gay news program I wanted to accomplish two things. I wanted to keep our Gay Community informed about ourselves, the positive things we do, and help keep us in touch with what is happening elsewhere. If we don’t hear the good stuff, we may tend to believe it isn’t there. And very importantly, I wanted to let the young Gay people who may be struggling against a limited image off Gays- one controled by those who care the least- who are attempting to accept their difference to see some positive role models and accomplishments. Too often the younger Gays and their friends who are also facing problems of acceptance have to snuggle for self-esteem in an atmosphere that denies it.
And if as a by-product the larger Community begins to shed the fears and prejudices born of ignorance, well, then, I’ll take that too.
It is time that the blackout of positive news about the gay Community be lifted. There’s a lot of good news out there, and now that there’s Gay new program in Oklahoma City, I hope it won’t be long before other cities follow suit.
There’s enough talent in the Community to accomplish that. Perhaps in time there could be other types of shows to showcase our community: talk shows, variety shows, even (now, wouldn’t this be bold?) a Gay and Lesbian soap. The field is there and so is the talent.”
In one person’s an attempt to have power, the students I brought with me in spirit to another experience beneficial to their peers were pushed aside and what they could contribute by proxy was sacrificed for someone’s ego, and, as I said, I defend my students.
Beginning in 2003, Oklahoma State Representative Sally Kern attempted to ban what she broadly described as undefined “Gay Themed” book, brought people‘s attention to the fact that with all the books in Oklahoma City’s high school libraries on diversity in America, there weren‘t any that included Gay people unless as footnotes, or as characters that did not end their stories well.
Gay characters were comic relief, predictably malicious, lonely, and most likely dead before the final chapter to allow for the cautions about straying from nature as defined by the author.
I had found a few books in the high school library at my school that dealt with the topic of Homosexuality. Among these were a book with suggested debate topics with essays on the pros and cons of various controversial topics including Homosexuality along with promiscuity, alcohol and drugs use, and diseases; a book on AIDS where all the heterosexual couples were in normal relationships with some minor varying details which elicited pity for any of them exposed to HIV while the sole Gay teen had decided on a life of promiscuity involving a lot of older men; and one where a conservative televangelist treated the topic of teen sex with cautions about those abominations that might lead them astray. But as far as any history, biography, or work of fiction not related in any way to sex, unlike such books involving heterosexual characters, there was nothing.
Money was raised from individuals and organizations within what was referred to at the time as the Gay Community so one copy each of the books “Stonewall” by David Carter and “Forgotten Profit: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin” by John D‘Emilio could be bought for each high school in Oklahoma City and presented to the School Board in the summer of 2005 as a gift to to the district to cover this void. With two shopping bags filled with books bound in pairs by rainbow ribbon, one set for each high school, members of the community presented the books to the Board at one of its public meetings.
The books had been chosen because of their historical value, and because there was nothing in either that could be even remotely objectionable, with the target audience being high school students so as to avoid any possibility that someone could accuse the books of being recruitment tools from which children would need protection.
Indirectly the actions of the state representative regarding the books in the public libraries also guided the choice of the books and the audience as we followed her proposed requirements for age appropriate Homosexually themed books placed appropriately. The books would be only for high school students, and, being histories, were relevant to the curriculum. They were not sensational.
Neither book is mythological as the virtues and flaws of all involved in both books could be judged individually by their own actions within the larger Community and events, and even at Stonewall the reality is that there were those on both sides who were not the best examples of who made up each group. Neither book attempts to create a false story peopled with heroes and, at times, seems concerned enough to err the other way.
In short, there was no “promoting” of ideas.
We decided on a public presentation as opposed to going to the individual schools as a way to make sure the books were not just silently put in a closet somewhere with no central person or department to keep after to get the books on the shelves if it ever came to that, but their existence would be publicly known and interest in their fate followed.
Various members of the Gay Community spoke to the Board about the importance of such books, and how information may not only have helped the speakers, themselves, make better decisions in their youth, but might help the students avoid some of the pitfalls involved in figuring out on your own what it meant to be Gay and where they fit into the big picture in a society that systematically designs correct information in favor of an agenda based on religion and politics. Both books contained flawed individuals whose errors were not glossed over, so it was not a question of presenting a false, rosy picture, but one that was realistic and at times embarrassing.
I had been to many Board meetings and the procedure for Community Comments had always been first come, first served, before the accepted agends was addressed. However, that night the acting chair grouped people according to topics, listing the book donation last even though I had been the first person to sign up to speak. Usually at Board meetings when any one group and its members spoke and finished their business, those people left. To have artificially placed us last ignoring the Board‘s own procedure guaranteed that when we got up to present the books the audience would not be there and we would be addressing ourselves and those Board members who had not left or taken a bathroom break. This would deny us both the drama of the moment, and witnesses beyond ourselves and the Board.
Those who usually attended School Board meetings like the Union officials and lower on the administration ladder officials noticed this change.
As it was, due to some confusion experienced by a group called before us when the person with the necessary papers was caught off guard having gone into the foyer to review some papers assuming he was further down the list of speakers having signed up just before the meeting began and had to be retrieved, the book presentation moved ahead of a Union issue only to have the acting chair, after announcing that there were four speakers, naming only three, absenting himself from the room, we assumed for a call of nature, so that after the third speaker was finished there was a very awkward pause that almost brought our presentation to an ignorable standstill since by procedure the chair announces the next speaker but had still not returned. Since I was the fourth intended speaker whose name had not been called, I went to the podium anyway, made my remarks, and presented my set of books to the members of the Board along with the other three speakers who came forward from their seats with theirs.
By the time the acting chair had returned, the books had been presented in spite of him.
The irony was that the acting chair who gave many people beyond us the impression he was trying to interfere or at least minimize the book donation was a Black man who benefited from the Civil Rights work of Bayard Rustin, a Black man, or he may not have been sitting on the Board. Yet, obviously being ignorant of who Bayard Rustin was, he tried mightily to censor us and the presentation. This was demonstrable ignorance of Black History, and oddly enough fit well into Strom Thurmond‘s attempting to control Black History as he did in 1963, and as politicians are attempting to do now, and showed that even supposedly informed people were woefully uninformed about their own history.
I was embarrassed for him and his lack of knowledge about someone like Bayard Rustin and his obvious assumption that Rustin was a bad thing.
We did not ask for special, but for equal treatment, and did not expect these two books to be treated any differently than any other books, nor would we accept if they were treated less than any other book. Before even presenting the idea of a book donation I had checked on the school district policy about such donations and found there was none.
The televised media covered our presentation in a positive way, showing the two books presented, and asking those responsible for their motivation for donating the books and their hopes for the books‘ impact on students.
The books were passed on to the administrator in charge of district school libraries. Convinced that someone would come forward to make some impossibly unfounded and bizarre claim that the “Homosexual Agenda” was being promoted in the schools, and that the “Homosexual Lifestyle” was being taught as an acceptable alternative to Heterosexuality, the director of libraries wanted to have a few people read the books to see if there was anything to which anyone might choose to object. Her intention was to anticipate any objections that might arise by coming up with answers to them before they were voiced.
The District‘s initial inability to let the book donors know where the books had ended up when asked a few weeks after their presentation gave the impression that there may have been some reluctance in accepting the books, and they had been conveniently lost in the labyrinth of school headquarters. It would have been a good way to dodge having to deal with them or any backlash toward the donation.
When the books were located, they were just where they were supposed to be, in the office of a person who wanted the books in the libraries but who also found herself facing a possibly awkward and unsought position. The District‘s existing procedure for addressing complaints from parents or students about any book in any school library was applied in anticipation of their being placed on high school library shelves, and when all was said and done, and all arguments that could be were anticipated, the books went into the libraries after a six month process.
Upon checking after the date given as the day of delivery of the books to the high school libraries, I found most high school librarians contacted had received the books with some already having placed them on the shelves. One newly built high school had the two books as some of the first to be placed on the new school library‘s shelves.
As with the Gay History Month displays and other materials that had found less support in the past, these books did not bring down any storms of fire and brimstone, and if they were responsible for the loss of souls or any other demonic mayhem, no one has yet mentioned it.
It is now twenty years since we gave the books and many people made donations toward their purchase. One person, Jim Prock, who swore me to keep his secret, bought the lion’s share of the books when he inquired and found out there were still some books needing purchase and made it happen. The main detail is that he did not wait to see how things were and then stepping in to make it finally happen, but inquired almost immediately and made it happen within hours.
One “little guy” who took a major action, not for praise, but for the benefit of others. Some Kid read one of those books and has no idea a quiet man made the difference.
So, there I am all by myself for eternity and I decide to create people to hang with and when I do, the angels rebel and decide worshiping me was a bit too much for them. Now, instead of being alone, I have sworn enemies that I created for the rest of eternity which is, I am sure, a very long time to come. I tried again with humans in my image and likeness but because I thought a talking snake was a good idea, they ended up disobeying me because of that talking snake and I had to unfriend them big time. I tell them to increase and multiply and their first born son kills the second one and then runs off to live with people I didn’t even know were there.
I have to wipe them all out and start again. Did I start from scratch? NO. I use incest again and start with some chosen left overs that I spared and, yep, you guessed it, they turned on me.
The one group I picked as my favorite has to be rescued from Egypt but they build a golden calf to worship instead of me. I have to keep killing them off. I finally send myself in the form of my son to reset it all and they end up killing me, say they worship the very ground I walk on and the water too, say they will do whatever I say, then ignore me in favor of the very opposite of what I wanted and my will be done and all, while totally ignoring the very reset of all my mistakes, the beatitudes.
Now the people claim someone most unlike me is better than I am.
That, Doctor, is why I am giving up. When they are gone, I am going back to the sweet solitude of eternity.
In 1997, a simple request to the administration of the Oklahoma City Public Schools for teacher professional development sessions on the existence and needs of GLBT students in their classrooms, similar to what was done for the Asian, Black, Latino, and other groups to which students belonged, was rejected because, regardless how important that might be, “local norms will not allow it”. That was code for supporting bigotry, as the local norms referred to were those supported by politicians, the local newspaper, and the all controlling Baptist Church.
Over the next several years meetings were held with administrators, after having been initially refused, that resulted in the formation of a committee to review the Oklahoma City Public School District’s policies on bullying, harassment, and nondiscrimination which some hoped would result in the addition of the words “sexual orientation” so that there would be no doubt that Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender students were included in those policies and their protection and school experience would not be controlled by the personal religious and political beliefs of individual teachers and administrators.
That committee was close to the inclusive language, but an intra-administrative tiff resulted in that committee’s meetings being postponed indefinitely which, as it was to turn out as predicted, was to be never.
The quest for those inclusive words was not abandoned, and for the next several years, 12 in total, that inclusion was sought to various degrees of acceptance by people going to school board meetings on a regular basis to present facts and figures to educate the school district of the importance of those words.
Finally in December 2009, as a result of persistence, and some drama along the way, the GLBT Community’s request and the importance of inclusion was recognized when the words “Sexual orientation and “gender identity” were finally added to the Oklahoma City Public Schools policies on bullying, harassment, an nondiscrimination.
The inclusion of “gender identity” put the school district at the forefront of student protection as very few school districts throughout the country had yet to include it.
As with all things, there is growth. And part of that process is to realize that the gates of hell did not open to consume the school district and the greater city in which it operated, and the imagined unending filings of lawsuits was a fantasy and excuse for immobility.
Quite surprisingly, I am sure, those who had originally opposed inclusion and may have reluctantly allowed it have been seeing the rest of the country catching up.
Proof of that positive growth came, when on this past June 12, 2017, the Oklahoma City Public Schools Board of Education passed a resolution vowing unwavering support for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer students and staff making it one of only five school districts in the country to do so.
Chairperson Paula Lewis has stated,
“The resolution is just a start for our district of recognizing that we are a diverse district and that we are proud of everybody in our district whether it be students or teachers.”
And
“I’d like to get an overarching policy that says we as a district recognize not just our nondiscrimination, but a true policy that says we recognize all these groups and they’re safe to work here and they are safe to go to school here.”
These are the very sentiments expressed from 1997 to 2009 by those advocating for inclusive language.
Carrie Jacobs another Board member explained her support of the resolution.
“It sends the message that the district is for all kids. It says that we see you and we are grateful that you are here. We value your contributions.”
This has become a good Pride Month for me.
And lest they are forgotten, there were a number of people, besides myself, who throughout those long years went to many board meetings, spoke out when it as needed, and helped in the advocacy in any way they could.
Recent events are easy to remember, and can appear to have come out of the blue, but the Community should thank these people:
Rob Abiera, Jim Nimmo, Bob Nichols, Mike (Skye) Camfield, Eddie Kromer, Paul Bashline, Rhonda Rudd and Jayshree, Karen Parsons, Jean Pennycuff, all the guys at Tramps, still here and gone, Nathaniel Batchelder and his Peace House, Rey Jones, a man who wanted justice for everyone, Jim Prock, Victor Gorin, Reverends Scott Jones and Jenalu Johnston, and Paula Schonauer. .
