I was standing in a crowded Tramps as Miss Patty Melt was busy tossing tortillas around the bar during her rendition of some song involving them. It was back in the days of shoulder to shoulder audiences, and Patty was a draw. I turned to reorder a drink and, as I did so, the patron next to me did the same, but, rather than looking into the eyes of the one whom the cosmos meant me to be with, I was facing an assistant superintendent of the school system in which I had recently begun to work.

I was recently arrived from Los Angeles where Gay Activism had me mixing with all kinds of people in Gay bars with little surprise, although sometimes a won bet, but this was Oklahoma City, and reactions were a little more protective. I had not seen the shocked look I saw on his face for quite some time and, being familiar with it, knew to respond appropriately to someone whose closet door had just been ripped off.

 Up until that point, the bar, apparently, had been a safe space for the man but with it  being a little naive most likely due somewhat to an unrealistic assumption that being the only Gay person you knew it meant there would be no one in a Ga bar who might know you, and I instantly assured him that If I saw him there, he saw me there as well and, according to the attitude at the time, we both would suffer if we told on the other. How would either of us know the other had been there if we had not been there myself?

I had yet to begin my advocacy so I was a non-person, inconsequential, and equal vulnerable. I immediately pointed him out discreetly to a friend to have a witness that he had been if he were to take any action against me in a panicky attempt at self defense by offense.

As I was walking through the central administration building and he and I passed in the hall, he called me into his office. We spoke of the awkward moment, I filled him in on my activism vitae assuring him his secret was safe with me unless he did something bone-hearded. In exchange he informed me that by his estimate at least one quarter of the school district’s personnel throughout the system were Gay and Lesbian but had to remain quiet about it. They survived in the system by playing along as he did.

I understood their need for the closet in the Buckle of the Bible Belt and that they were, in a sense, role models for the Gay and Lesbian students who figured it out while contrarily supporting the idea that there was something wrong with being Gay ot Lesbian if, in order to be that, you had to be secret and only become known to those who needed them as such by accidental discovery. 

Interestingly, although during the advocacy I got a lot of secret and invisible thumbs up, but little if any actual support going beyond the subtle.

I have mentioned before that there had been some initial reluctance to hold any meeting to discuss the inclusion of Gay kids in school district policy and it was made clear right away that while discussing the needs of other students was educational the same for Gay kids was political. 

At the meeting finally called by a different deputy superintendent than the one from the bar at the insistence of the local Union President who understood the importance of inclusion, this was stated by the deputy at the meeting when he admitted that after hearing the facts and the results of studies and reports that he had originally allowed the meeting just to get it over with but had learned that when it came to the Gay kids it was educational too.

He pointed out that he was a fat, Italian kid from New Jersey who was bullied for being “big boned” and always had his immigrant mother ready with some comfort food that really was not helpful. He realized when he had cried to his mother, unlike many Gay kids, he was not rejected even if the sign of acceptance was unhealthy. He saw how his being pushed away by his mother when he needed her the most might be how it is for Gay kids. He saw the horror in that.

A few days after this meeting, as I was again in the central office building, this deputy superintendent handed me a hard copy file of a court case from 1985 that was little known but which made it illegal to fire a teacher merely because they were Gay but, like a Heterosexual teacher, could be for defined moral turpitude under which definition being Gay did not fall. He was confused why the many Gay employees continued to ignore this ruling upon which I relied heavily for protection and cited often in future district actions and in the District Court case.

He went from a definite knee-jerk ‘no” to the original request for in-services for teachersabou he existence and needs of Ga Sudens to slipping me a paper I wasn’ meant to have before moving on to being a highly respected superintendent in Texas where he was conscious of diversity in that district.

Just before students returned each year, the school district’s legal department went over the most recent court rulings that might have a bearing on the upcoming school year with district administrators. I had been called to the district’s legal department who wanted to see some documents I had, and when we finished with that matter the attorney handed me some legal papers. 

A case had been filed by a student in Fayetteville, Arkansas, that had extended Title IX sexual harassment protection to Gay students. There was a legal ruling relevant to inclusion. 

In the case of Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services Inc., the Supreme Court made same-sex sexual harassment suits possible. If the district was to enjoy any protection in relevant cases, blissful ignorance would have been its only defense which it lost when the attorney did her summary of applicable case law.

Along with the reports and studies I continued to supply to the Board, I had included a press release about the case of Jamie Nabozny from Wisconsin who had successfully sued his local school district because nothing was done about the verbal and physical harassment he constantly faced as a Gay teen in school. In my correspondence throughout the previous year, as well in future ones, I reminded the district about the possible litigation that a student could initiate against the district if it insisted on doing nothing.

These rulings bolstered my case and gave me strength, and they were papers that would normally be filed away somewhere out of sight of teachers, yet I had them and would use them all the way to the District Court case.

I was approached initially by Joyce, an administrator in charge of the Minority Student Affairs office and known to many people the world over without them knowing it. In high school she had been at a civil rights rally in Oklahoma City and is seen in one of the many grainy, B&W stock films of the protests and law enforcement’s treatment of protesters as she is being dragged away by a police dog. She showed me the teeth marks on her arm. I would thereafter burden her with my dropping in and unloading with her patiently encouraging me and, by comparing notes, gave me strength.

She introduced me to Clara Luper with whom I remind a friend

Unbeknownst to the administrators who were attempting what they thought was a clever use of information had no idea that I was being supplied information and encouragement from within and this also led to information from without.

Because of these court rulings, teachers were informed verbally in 1998 by yet another deputy superintendent who, unfortunately, was an extremely Gay-presenting heterosexual who was obviously bothered by this confusion,

“Recently there have been same-sex sexual harassment complaints. And, more and more we have to realize that among our children there are some of them who have not determined, fully, their sexuality, and there are some of our children that may be Gay. Regardless of what

you think, let me tell you one thing that is an imperative. Those children must be protected. If we don’t pay attention and protect those children we are in violation of their rights under Title IX, and we could be liable.”

Although this was said vocally, it would take another eleven years of fighting before Gay students were protected in writing and the importance of writing it down was clearly illustrated when my principal, who had not been at our school’s in-serv9ice when this was said, explained as he had not been there and did not hear it, he had no proof it was said, and denying it’s having been said,  would only honor it if it were in writing regardless how many people I could have come to him and say they, too, had heard the statement.

By a certain point, from Gaydar mainly, I became aware of who many of the Gay and Lesbian administrators were, but none ever stepped forward to support me in any visible way, and this became a tool for those objecting to inclusive language because the play-along-to-get-along attitude ran deep in the system.

The most supportive people from the beginning and throughout the advocacy while in the district had been four Heterosexuals in positions of power, five counting the Union Prsesident, with no Gays or Lesbians in similar positions visible. They may have been supportive over the dinner and cocktails to which I was not invited, but none ever spoke before the board at meetings, voluntarily attended any meetings, or spoke out in any situation until the goal had been reached and they wanted to let people know they had been there all along when in reality they hadn’t.

The condition of the insulting and demeaning tolerance was so ingrained in the system that the visible or verbal support was so lacking from the Gay and Lesbian administrators that it was seen as evidence that I was out of touch as things certainly did not bother the Gays and Lesbians already known in the system, usually administrators unwilling to take the chance of losing the high paying job. I was even accused officially at a meeting of not looking Gay and was most likely a political operative attempting to create a political issue just to cause trouble.

At my school there was an openly-secret Gay teacher who was used as a counterpoint as he was a “Good Gay” man who knew his place and was no militant. An open acknowledgement was considered militancy.

The belief was that my advocacy was out of place because none of the Gay and Lesbian administrators were speaking out and this belief was clearly illustrated when the principal, desperate to prove this point, brought a woman over to the school with whom he had worked as a vice-principal at the school where he been before being assigned principal at this one, and she, being a cooperative Lesbian kept her job because she allowed herself to be controlled as an open secret whose denial prevented waves kept her in the job and career is he could have lost if she did not keep her place.

This is the vice-principal who stated to me in her office,  while neither of us was aware that another teacher was standing by the open door waiting her turn to enter to deal with her own business, that “there are no Gay kids in highschool. They experiment sexually and then settle down one way or the other when they get older.”

The principal had his ally and he assigned her to be the person in charge of all the nonexistent Gay students and the information that was given out based on her and his beliefs

Since no school district would admit that No Child Left Behind was a scam but they all fell over each other to show America that they were in total control of a system based on smoke and mirrors and so had no actual substance to grasp with the universal solution to all education problems, those invented by politicians as they ignored the reality oi the classroom, the Oklahoma City Public School hired someone from Texas to be superintendent who brought with him a number of Texas administrator, all of whom left in a short time as applying the scam with the same fervor that made it seem to work in Texas. 

It was obvious that the superintendent wanted a friend in the principal chair and, while squeezing out the principal, he did allow him to bring a new assistant principal over from the school where I had worked with her and had been a friend both at school and socially. As a Lesbian perhaps, she could offset the one who denied the existence of Gay kids in high school. It was clear that while one was less competent than the other, both hoped to get the Principal slot and vied with each other to get it. One sought it by always backing the homophobic principal but that was not the best approach. The other got it because she was the better person and I was glad of that because she was open minded and open enough to offset the machinations of the other and add to the progress we were making.

She would have made a better principal had she, having gotten the position, stayed true to herself and had not played some of the games she employed to secure his position and move further away from the classroom where the real money is.  

There are documents on file at the University of Central Oklahoma that contain emails I received from both about each other revealing the competition and how the advocacy to add inclusive language in school policies was playing into that when both found treating it like a tool for them to use against each other, to hell with the kids. They wanted the job, the prestige, and the money.

At a meeting when the future victor was sitting in for the Texas principal who was on a medical leave for a week or two, I was asked by her to remove something from the Union bulletin board that she decided was negative information about the School Board during contract negotiations.  The bulletin board belongs to the Union by contract and over which principals had no control as they were no part of the bargaining units involved. It would really make her look good if I, as a friend, would betray my union members on campus so she could impress the principal and get the job because she showed she was a team player, backed their homophobia, and she was the one who got things done while the other merely complained a lot.

She wanted me to do it as a friend, and I had to explain that a friend, especially one who knew my dedication as a union representative who had once successfully represented her when she had a contract related problem in the past, would have never asked me to do that for that reason.

Times were changing but the district leadership was stuck somewhere in the past, and, as this inclusion thing was becoming more uncomfortable, if the message could not be stopped on its own, it might end if the messenger was eliminated. Thus began the process of having me dismissed from my job.

They wanted to do this right, so, going over the head of their inhouse legal department the district began to spend thousands of dollars on a private firm whose draw was that the situation would be handled by a Lesbian at the firm and, from phrases used by the administrator who evaluated me, she was directing them to create the case she could win. By this time I had been representing Grievances to close to quarter of a century and was familiar with a lot of the legal lingo that would simply be legal jargon to the people I was dealing with so their constant refusals to answer substantive questions that could not be safely answered with smoke and mirrors became “Asked and answered” followed by silence or a question to me as if I had npt asked one.

“Did Trump win the 2020 elections?”
“Asked and answered.”

As became clear at the eventual Circuit court trial, they should have at least formulated answers as that response did not please the judge when exercises before her bench.

I marched in my last OKC Pride Parade as the Gay teacher the year after I left the district but before heading back East. Two former students came from the spectators apologizing for what role they might have played in what happened surrounding the whole dismissal business. They had been students in my class and were burgeoning Lesbians at the time and they knew the principal was one too. She had also been a phys. ed. teacher and coach and these girls, being athletes, saw her as a role model and hat is who they would report to on my actions and words used in the classroom as because, as was explained to them,while this principal and the district were working to make schools better than they were, I was obstructing that and if I was found to be worthy of dismissal and eliminated, progress would be made. Assuming they were on the side of right, they would report things to the principal and get friends to also report. and would create situations that would put me in difficult to handle situations so they could do what they assumed was the correct and moral thing to do for the greater good.

It was only when they went to community college and mixed with kids from the other city high schools and mentioned my name, that they learned from those kids what had actually gone on and how they had been used.

Although I accepted their apologies, because of the realities of high school and adult machinations, I let them know they were not at fault for being used for the selfish benefit of an authority figure while not only getting nothing in return but preventing anyone like themselves from any benefit.

They were used against themselves.

During the advocacy, in spite of the deputy superintendents statement of the number of Gay and Lesbian administrators, no such administrators helped beyond allegedly invisible moral support. While two Lesbian administrators were obstructing any progress and were joined by a third using her law firm to end the advocacy for including the Gay kids openly in school policies on bullying, harassment and nondiscrimination, the rest of the gays and Lesbians in the syrem who could have been effective for the sake of the kids did nothing. They continued to play their roles.  

Meanwhile, straight people in the central office were slipping me legal documents, and assembling the case that reinstated me to my position and got the inclusive language while Mary, Mona, and Jaqueline did what they could to deny the kids their rights so as to get a promotion and a big payoff for the law firm.

The kids got their rights and the district had to pay the lawyers for their services and the Union’s legal bills when I won my case.

For most of the twelve years from the first request for attention to the existence and needs of Gay students in the district, the addition of the words “Sexual Orientation” and”Gender Identity” into district policies, and my dismissal and reinstatement.

The consistent and supportive people were the Straight ones. Obstruction came overtly and covertly from within ourselves and they had no problem costing the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars to impress in order to get a higher paying position and to prevent the students from getting the protections afforded to all other kids. I know how much these three worked to prevent the inclusive language for their personal advantage because, as the main plaintiff in the Trial de Novo, I had to sign over the settlement and Union court cost checks.

This is GLBT History Month and not all of our history Is good if we are as honest about ourselves as we want others to be.

This is sad history.

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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 Gay people 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Remember Massachusetts 1980

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