Get Used to It: Ep. 118, "Working towards Marriage Equality"

(keyboard clattering) (upbeat music) - Hi, welcome to Get Used to It. I'm Sheila Kuehl. And I'm going to guide you through this hour of discussion as usual. Get Used to It is a show that generally deals with issues about or related to our LGBT communities across the United States. So it shouldn't be any surprise that every so often, we're doing a show that deals with the issue of gay marriage, same sex marriage, marriage equality, depending on who you are and where you are, that's what you call it, although I think we have some folks who may have even worse names for it. And today I wanted to do a show to discuss some of the work that's going on in some of our communities around the country related to talking in a way that communities can be very honest about their concerns, about their feelings, but also organizing in the community to really establish support if possible. And so my three guests today are doing that sort of work and three very different kinds of communities in our case in Los Angeles County, but I hope reflects work that's being done in areas where you live as well. My first guess is Lisa Powell. She's the Executive Director of ULOAH, which is United Lesbians of African Heritage. It's a community-based organization doing work, identifying issues and advocacy, working on visibility, unity and empowerment of Black lesbians. Welcome, Lisa. - Thank you. - My second guest is Mario Guerrero, and he's the Public Affairs Associate at Bienestar. And Bienestar is a service provider targeting the Latino community and dealing with issues for people with HIV/AIDS, STDs has been, I think, for a very long time and is now entering into the arena of the marriage equality discussion. So welcome, Mario. - My pleasure. Thank you for having me here. - Thank you. My third guest is Gabe Rose, who's the Co-President of the Student Coalition for Marriage Equality at UCLA. And I invited Gabe, of course, to talk about organizing that is or is not going on around the country around the marriage equality issue and students who in the old days, we always counted on to be the ones to raise these issues or big issues about anything. So we'll see what's going on in each of these. Lisa, let me start with you, if that's okay with you. Tell us a little bit about ULOAH and the work ULOAH is doing in the Black community around this issue. - One of the things that I've noticed over the past 15 or 20 years of doing Black lesbian activism is we've always had conflicts around how people feel religion and spirituality impacts their lives. And quite frankly, it has caused the most heartache and pain in the Black lesbian community, because there is a great fear of loss, loss of family, loss of community, loss of belonging if one goes against some of the religious traditions that are very much a part of the Black community. And so for a very long time, over the whole course of ULOAH's existence, we've had to help people navigate through that very difficult terrain of not being accepted in their families who were very much a part of the church or wanting to stay a part of the church and if they were going to do so, they would have to be in the closet and the kind of stress and strain that that causes over time. And we have continued to do that sort of work until a year and a half to two years ago, things shifted. We've always known that many of the traditional Black pastors did not agree with us about whether homosexuality is a natural occurrence or whether we come that way from the factory, so to speak. But what happened was they, many Black pastors began coming out of the pulpit and into the public square against our community. And that really fundamentally changed things. - So you mean before that, really there had been in a totally religious context, really, even though the churches are essential to the fabric, I think of the Black community and therefore, there's always been a lot of interweaving. But talking about these issues from the pulpit, but the fundamental change was that they're much more public and much more, would you say political or? - Absolutely political. And it's very clear what's happening is the right wing Republicans have noticed that Black people tend to be very much churchgoing people, tend to be more socially conservative on certain issues and they just saw, oh, well, this is an area that we can increase our percentage by organizing politically using Black churches. So what's at stake is a fundamental realignment of traditional allies and using gay marriage as an ultimate wedge issue. So what began to happen and we saw it in Los Angeles and we're seeing it in Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, ministers, Black ministers have come out and have joined hands with some of our most notorious enemies, such as Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition and people like that who have made their living being a professional homophobe. And what it has done, it it has put our community, the Black lesbian and gay community in particular, at a point where we have got to fight on so many fronts, we have got to pull together, educate and mobilize ourselves while they're off and running. I mean, this is it. And I have told a number of people within ULOAH that if we don't step up and meet this and have our voices heard as Black lesbian and gay leaders in this movement, we're going back 50 to a 100 years. - But it seems as though, just at the time when they're upping the ante, making it even more difficult just to come out, even though they're using the issue of marriage as look how far they want to go. For us then to be working for marriage in the community seems as though it's an even steeper climb. Is that what you're saying? - Absolutely. And to be candid, since it's just us sitting here talking, there is a sense in the Black lesbian and gay community that marriage is somewhat of a luxury, that we cannot afford to fight for and to put our necks out for when we are still engaged in trying to fight for racial equality, job safety, against police brutality and harassment in the streets and the basics. So when we go to our people and say, look, this is it. It's high new, it's time to roll. There's a big discussion in the community as to, is this really a fight that we're ready to put our lives on the line for? And it comes because we are already embattled. We live at that intersection of race, sexuality, gender, gender identity. And by the time you have fought that all week long, you wanna kick back with the person you love over the weekend, have fun and not attend another meeting, another protest and will some kind of strategic response. So personally, I don't think it's lost on a number of people that we might be a group that they could just drive a truck straight on through. And that's what happens when you're embattled for a long period of time, do you have the energy? Can you rise to the occasion? And that's what we're committed to doing. - Well, in the Latino community, I mean, it's also a very religious community in its own way, Mario. The Catholic Church certainly hasn't been favorable to any of our issues. What is it like trying to organize in that community around this issue? - Sure. It's very difficult. We encounter a lot of the same obstacles that the African American community faces. Our community is very focused on the family. And LGBT issues, HIV/AIDS, there are issues that are very difficult to openly discuss in the family setting. And so you have the stigma that occurs with both issues that really just stymies any efforts towards marriage equality. And I wanted to backtrack a little bit and I wanted to clarify something in regards to our agency. The HIV epidemic really, if you look at the global impact, it's a heterosexual impact, but here at the local county level, it really impacts the LGBT group more so than other communities. And so we as an agency, we feel that we've been doing the groundwork in terms of LGBT civil rights for quite some time for the 15 years since we've been an organization. But again, very difficult and even more difficult I believe, because people of color agencies, I think, don't have the infrastructure to really support something like this. We know we have to. Take for instance our agency, we have absolutely no funding for LGBT civil rights. We're an HIV, STD health service provider. We're facing Ryan White CARE reauthorization. We're facing names-based reporting here in the state. We're facing all these issues that deeply impact our community, African American community, the community at large, the LGBT community. And then on top of that, we're facing the Marriage Bill, Equality Bill, and we're facing the initiatives. And so what do we do facing all these issues at the same time? Well, my answer is there's no right time to fight for civil rights. In fact, I had a conversation with some legislators. And one of the issues was this is too soon, wait sometime. And I had to be perfectly honest. I mean, I know I wasn't part of the past civil rights movements. So I can't take any credit for that, but you learn, you learn from history, you learn from your everyday work in the area. There's no right time for a civil rights battle. And so we just have to work. In particular, our agency has stepped up our efforts to promote civil rights within the LGBT community. We've had forums in the community where elected officials, labor leaders are coming out. And mind you, they're Latino labor leaders, they're Latino legislators speaking to our community using our culture, our language to talk to our community and say, "Hey, this is your issue. "You have to talk about it in your community." - So how's it going in terms of organizing in the community? I know that it's hard to say we've made a gain here or we didn't make a gain there, but generally the feeling just in the community that you know and understand, say, in LA and any other organizing efforts that you know maybe around the country in the various Latino communities. - It's difficult, but it's exciting. And I'll tell you, I'll answer both really. It's exciting for example, because our agency is going to do a number of things for marriage equality. One thing that I don't think has ever really been done anywhere is our agency is planning on teaming up with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and doing a canvassing, specifically on LGBT issues in a city like Montebello. I don't think that's ever been done. That's something that's gonna happen between the next one or two months. And we're really excited about that kind of work, talking to the general Latino community about our issues and not hiding, not being ashamed, tackling the issues head on. So that's the exciting type of work that's coming up. The difficulties lie in that agencies such as ours, again, don't really have the infrastructure to do this kind of work. We do it because we know it needs to be done, but even within the LGBT community, there really has to be some more investment by the larger national organizations and even the statewide organizations and to the people of color agencies that are struggling that want to be part of the LGBT movement help further our civil rights. But again, we don't have any funding for that. We're dealing with all these other issues. And so just all these issues make it very complicated to do so. So if there was one thing that I would tell the LGBT community at large, it would be to really help the local people of color agencies, help them with the infrastructure, because when you help them now to build their infrastructure, you're not just helping them and the movement, you're helping yourselves as well. - Well, of course, it's not a new kind of refrain I think even in LGBT community issues that so many of the issues were thought of as, well, these are white people organizing about stuff that makes sense to them. And even around AIDS, it started out very much that way, because there was never a lot of honesty about AIDS in any community, but it was slower, I think, to be, and even these days, to be talked about and admitted to in communities of color. And I think you can talk about that, but are there allies in the Latino community that have surfaced that you either were unexpected or maybe expected and have come through? - There have been a number. I mean, I can name like Christine Chavez from the United Farm Workers, also Assemblywoman Cindy Montañez who's a heterosexual elected official and she's from, where is it? Van Nuys area? - No, I think North of Van Nuys because she was the Mayor of City of San Fernando. - [Mario] San Fernando, thank you for that correction. - I think she was 25 years old or so, so I've wondered. - She's been great. She's been really supportive. And so you do have a lot of emerging leaders and allies that are helping you along. - Well, there's a different situation on campus though, I would assume, Gabe, because although you'll tell me, my impression of campus organizing is the difficulty is getting people to in great numbers to care about anything. Now this could be just my prejudice, but what is it like working on this issue at UCLA, for instance? - Well, I think that's fairly accurate in a sense. I mean, I hear a lot of the problems they're describing and they're not so much applicable to me. I mean, we're not fighting against really resistance or opposition on college campuses in the sense that there's not people out protesting against our events or forming significant groups and opposition to our work. What we fight against is apathy really and just students either not caring about the issue or caring about the issue, but not just enough to get involved. And it seems as though my generation has lost the lesson of our parents' generations in that they felt like they could do anything. They would go out and march for civil rights or protest the Vietnam War, any number of really significant political events and huge momentous changes came about because of the work that was done on college campuses. And as we are right in the middle of this huge civil rights fight over marriage equality, it seems though the voice of my generation has been largely absent. - What was it that led you though to wanna take part in this fight? I mean, I think those of us in your parents' generation who were in the same thing, it's like I wasn't being drafted. I wasn't living in Mississippi, but something, I don't know, something happens where it's about injustice or something, but tell me personally why there's plenty to do as a student at UCLA, why do this? - Well, it actually started as a high school project for me. Interestingly enough, I'm a senior project, I decided I would try to write an initiative. And while I tried to ponder the issue that would be most worthy for me to do that for, one just really stood out and it was same sex marriage is just the issue that hits home most with me that when I look at it, I just, I can't believe as we as a nation can go to bed at night telling ourselves that we are this nation of fairness and equality while we then deny basic human civil rights to gay and lesbian couples, same sex couples who are just as in love and just as committed as any other couples. And so I started working on writing initiative and maybe planning on gathering signatures around college campuses, around the state and maybe putting on the ballot. And when I got to school, instead of feeling like reclusive and like I just wanted to go to classes and just immerse myself in the educational part of college, I felt empowered to be on a campus with so many youth that were like-minded and had so much free time to work on issues like, we don't have jobs. Sure, we have class, but we have all this time that is spent studying. And I said, "Why don't I just work on "for same sex marriage instead?" - Instead of studying. - You're right, yeah. I mean, it's obviously important to study as well, but-- - No, I know, I'm just kidding. - But it's just, for me, it was a huge sense of empowerment to be a place with so many people that were so supportive of same sex marriage and that I could really get them organized and working towards this goal that I think the vast overwhelming majority of my campus and campuses around the state and the country share this goal of equality for LGBT peoples. - So when you do you, do you do like educational events, you post stuff in the newspaper and people come to learn more about it? Or are you also thinking of being engaged in a larger coalition, like working against the anti-marriage initiative or whatever? What's the work of the coalition? - It's actually, I think that's another reason we have a little bit of trouble getting students out is we do hard work. We don't just throw fun rallies or do little sit-ins or anything. We gotten clipboards on campus and talk with all the registered voters on campus, which almost everyone is eligible to register to vote. And if they're not registered, we get them registered. And we talk to people, we stop people on their way to class and we talk to them about same sex marriage and let them know about these terrible anti-gay initiatives coming and educate them. And just take down the registration information and contact info so that when this vote comes back around, likely in June of next year, we can get in touch with them, remind them about them, give any updates, and most importantly, remind them to vote because college students, it seems are the most supportive demographic we have in this country of same sex marriage and LGBT rights and equality, yet we voted the lowest rate. And if we wanna win something like a ballot initiative and defeat this just terrible hateful initiative, we can't let our most supportive group not vote. That's just not-- - Well, we were actually thinking of seeing if we could put something on the ballot that had to do with education, because we wanna get the students out to vote. And my experience with students and frankly, with virtually every other demographic is if they see something on the ballot that's about them or for them or threatening them, then maybe they'll get out to vote. But we were, I think we were disappointed as you indicated in the last presidential election that we didn't see a higher voting turnout from students. So I think what you said about apathy is something of concern to us. What about faculty administration, people who are older, are they engaged, staff, anybody? - Somewhat, not to a large extent. I mean, I've talked with a couple of staff members and professors about helping out and getting involved, but mostly it's really just our own thing. And I shouldn't down talk students in my generation so much. We have had pretty tremendous response. I mean, on a given day, we'll get 20, 30 volunteers out there with clipboard spending an hour or two of their day in between classes or eating late lunch or whatever, working for us. So it's really, it has been a very strong response from students. It's just frustrating for those volunteers that do come out when you approach someone and ask if they support same sex marriage and they just brush you off or don't have time or just don't feel like, we're just asking for a minute of their day. And sometimes that's just more than people are willing to give, even if it's an issue they agree with and they care about. So that's puzzling, but I mean, it's mostly, I really like about our organization and the work we do is it's by students for students, it's all about students and getting us involved and active. - Well, I think in terms of the, I mean there is a common thread here, at least one that I tried to pull together when I asked the three of you to be on this show really. And something that both you, Lisa and Mario, were talking about as well. When we were first organizing around domestic violence issues, there were very, very few people working on it. And the hardest thing was to convince people that there was such a thing in high numbers that it was important. And interestingly enough, every community that we tried to talk to, and I think in particular of a breakfast that I went to with members of the B'nai B'rith and another woman with me, and we were trying to talk to them about domestic violence. And they got very upset that we would even indicate that there was such a thing in the community. Do you find that there's a, I mean, I guess just call it denial, but is there a bit of denial about how this issue isn't really important to our community? - I don't know that it's, I wouldn't call it denial, but it goes to exactly what you just mentioned, that we really have to target our respective communities and make it their issue. Let them know that it does impact the Latino community, African American community, the AAPI community, all communities are issues. Really what I think is going to change the hearts and minds of people is seeing people like them that they can identify with, talk to them about that issue. Again, take the Latino community, for instance, the canvasing, it's taking a group of brown faces talking to other brown faces saying, this is your community, this is your mother, this is your father, this could be your uncle, anybody in your family that this issue impacts you directly. And that's why it's important for you to be supportive of the LGBT community because it is your community. - Well, you talk about this clipboard activism where it's very personal, it's very one-on-one. You can imagine that I get quite a different response if I'm talking to an older Black woman in, say, a Black neighborhood of Los Angeles. I'll get invited in and asked if I'm hungry, sit down, I'm at the kitchen table. Whereas someone else who is not Black would not get past the screen door. So it's those kinds of personal interactions that take a lot of time, a lot of caring, a lot of energy, but it will make all the difference. And I do think there's a little denial going on. I don't think that, for example, AIDS would have tore through a number of our communities in the way that it has and continues to do if people weren't just trying to shut the door on sex in general, let alone same sex. So to really be able to talk to people and get them to talk about themselves. I had a conversation a few weeks ago with a Black church woman. This is a straight woman. And within 10 minutes, she was telling me about her little gay cousin that she had grown up with. She was telling me stories about the difficulties that some of the church women were having with what I recognized as their gay daughters, that they could not get them to dress the way they wanted and they were taking them shopping to buy these purses. And it's like, on the one hand, there is some denial operating, but on the other hand, if we just go a little bit further, reach out and really share our lives with people, right under the surface, they will tell you, well, there's several girls on my block and I think that my granddaughter is probably gay. We have grandmothers that will come and drop these girls off to our youth meetings. They won't step inside. I asked one of the girls, I said, "Well, she can, "Your grandmother can come in. "She doesn't have to sit in the car." "Oh, no, no, no, she won't come in." (laughing) I said, "Well, can I take her some water?" "Oh, no, don't go out there." (laughing) So on the one hand, this grandmother knew that she needed to get that girl to a ULOAH youth meeting. But on the other hand, there was a certain line that she couldn't cross personally at that time. - It's interesting you talk about family and you hear a lot about family. And even the discussion about what this issue is about is really about family. But there's an interesting intersection, I think, in all of our communities, because people are very loyal to their families for the most part or they're struggling to be loyal to their families. And where they know, as you said, this is probably the case, they don't, they'll go as far as they can to help. And I think this is why the issue of marriage, and maybe this is why when you were thinking about the consuming issue of our time, even to write about in high school, it's because it's not just about whether you get the job or you don't get the job, which is important discrimination issue, or whether you're treated right in school or not in school, which is an important discrimination issue, but it's just a fundamental building block of a family. - [Lisa] That's right. - And so to deny people the ability to fundamentally build a family in communities that value family, I mean, it seemed to me that that's the hardest connection to make with people and yet the most obvious. It's like you value family so much, why exclude families? We had the same argument during the civil rights movement. - That has become I think our most successful area where we can really talk to people. We started a new program called Family Reunion. And it takes that, people have an idea when they hear family reunion, families relate and particularly Black families. I tell these Black, straight women about this program Family Reunion and they understand that okay, at my family reunion, there's always those couple of people who are a little bit odd, a little bit different, but they're at the family reunion. It is about unity, about finding common ground. It's not about saying, okay, we've got to agree on these 10 things. And another tradition in the Black community, and it's probably true in many communities, particularly communities of color is there's this sense of, hey, these are my people, we are a family, Black LGBTs are part of the overall extended Black family. And I may be able to talk about them, but you can't. So there's a sense of feeling like, listen, I'm not gonna go along with this kind of divide and conquer approach that many are trying to utilize against us. We may not agree really on all of these issues, including gay marriage, but I can tell you, you're part of the extended Black family and we are getting quite a bit of success with that approach. - And I think I was gonna mention too, there's a couple of studies that one actually came from the UCLA University, which has that it's a focus study on the numbers of Latino same sex households and African Americans same sex household. So now you have these studies to really take this issue to the families on a personal level and also just on a societal level saying, this is not something that just happened to you and to your family. This is Latino same sex households, African American same sex households, they're all over the state. - Well, this idea that somehow we are engaged in this agenda. Well, if 65% of Black lesbian couples are raising children, I can tell you what their agenda is. Their agenda is the same as any other parent, trying to do homework, trying to get a good education. We have to resist a lot of that propaganda and tell the real truth about what our lives are like. - Oh, it is really interesting working with the gay community on my campus, because as opposed to kind of the adult community who same sex couples grew up not really having any real hope of getting marriage or marriage rights, you have my generation, which is growing up planning on marrying someone of the same sex as them. It's like, yeah, of course, it's gonna happen. And I think it's-- - [Mario] Hope me to do it too. - I mean, it's such a funny different perspective to hear because they have that instead of they have a family and now they have to fight for those marriage rights, they have this dream that this is the way it's gonna be. And I think sometimes maybe a little naive in thinking that it's gonna happen no matter what, whether they go out there and do the work and knock on the doors or go out with clipboards or not, they just feel like, well, other people are doing this and this is gonna happen someday. And I will have that family and I will have those rights. There's a sense of like already accomplishment, kind of like, oh, we're going down that path eventually, the civil rights movement in the '60s, it succeeded. So ours is gonna succeed too one day. And it's just, it's a very different and interesting perspective than the adult community. - Well, I wonder how much history we all really know about why things succeed. I mean, it never succeeded without a movement. And a movement is really people with clipboards or putting their lives on the line really in so many instances. I thought it was very important that the United Farm Workers who historically are thought of as one of the most basic and important organizing groups in the Latino community and one that really understands how basic rights relate to civil rights, whether it's anything like not dying from the heat or having water to drink in the field or whatever for them to be there on our issues. I mean, when you talk about people saying, we've got a whole lot on our plate, I don't think this is the most important issue, that modeling, I think, of people talking about it and saying, "No, this is a basic issue." And maybe it's not our main issue, but it's basic. - Oh, that was a huge success. It brought tears to my eyes. And likewise, the California NAACP exactly came out in support of marriage equality. - Now, do you think that hurt the NAACP or helped us? So as we're just talking among us. - I think the jury is out. I think there are people who recognize that this is a matter of just fundamental fairness, it's nothing fancy, it's not special rights. And we have then got to rally to stand with them. You can't have her standing out and the national NAACP and the members of the Black Caucus stand up and make this clear that this is a matter of civil rights and equality for all. And then have us be invisible. We have got to show the strength and the resolve behind that kind of heroic leadership. - I appreciate that comment, I'm glad you brought it up. I wanted to bring up Proposition 22. I think there were that we needed to learn from our mistakes from my understanding. - Now, since we have a national audience, you should say a little bit about what that was, because I know Californians may remember, but. - Sure. Well, if you can correct me, Proposition 22 really was the last attempt to initially stop same sex marriage. But the way it was worded really currently allows us to have unions, civil unions or not civil unions, I'm sorry. What's the term for? - [Sheila] Domestic. - Thank you, domestic partnerships, but-- - Actually it just said we won't recognize marriages, same sex marriages from other states because the law in California had already been amended by the legislature to say after decades and decades of saying marriage is a contract, a civil contract between two people, it was amended to say between a man and a woman. So that's the law that's now being looked to be changed in a bill to return it to what it was, which is two people. But Prop 22 said we won't recognize out of state marriage. - Right. And for those efforts, we saw that the people of color communities were brought together in some instances for press conferences and support. And people put their names on the line, their agencies on the line, but that was the extent of the outreach. And again, we really have to stay away from that. We really have to back up this type of work if these agencies are putting their names on the line that we really need to support them and we really need to outreach. When we say we're gonna outreach to people of color communities, we really need to do that. We need to take those clipboards out into those communities to cities where people don't recognize the names, not to City of West Hollywood, as great as that city is, not to Hollywood, but to Montebello, to South Los Angeles, to all these areas, we really need to take those messages out there and to support the agencies or people of color. - Well, I think there's been some sense sometimes in the community, in the gay and lesbian community that we know we're right. I mean the civil rights, it doesn't sit right issue, we're right. So if California NAACP or the Farm Workers come out for us and we go, that that's where they should be as though the correct position is not one that needs to be praised, but only the incorrect position needs to be bought. And this happens a lot of times. - Yeah, it does. And the kind of rallying that needs to be done often doesn't happen because it's like, well, yeah, that's what they should do. Similarly, you mentioned earlier about how it used to be that you, or you mentioned that you wanted to get an education bill on the ballot to try and galvanize students and people who really care about education. Well, you see how in the last election, marriage was used all across the country to galvanize a certain religious base to drive them to the polls. - [Mario] And to get funding. - And to get funding. So not only do you have this overall blueprint of how to really change the nature of what used to be very strong allies, particularly in the Democratic Party. But we have to come to terms with the flat fact that we got outflanked, we're being used this next time. I mean, this initiative in California and in Massachusetts, by the way, it's no surprise that they feel like, hey, it worked like a charm in 2004, let's keep doing it. It galvanizes people. And does it do the same for us? I mean, I can tell you, I don't think so. And we have got to change that. It doesn't have that sense of, there's no way I wouldn't vote. We have to really come to terms with our enemy has something that really, really works and it divides communities and it works to their advantage. - Well, I have a slight advantage over the three of you in having lived so much longer than you and having been in the South in the early part of the '60s coincidentally, but right in the middle of Birmingham, Alabama, just about the time of the picture that everybody saw with the fire hoses. And there were not a whole lot of people fighting for civil rights. We think now that there were, but if you see, even the documentaries, Eyes on the Prize or any of that stuff and you look at the march, even the march, the Selma March, which looked like a whole lot of people, but took an amazing long time to even get people. I mean, you did it at fear of your life, no matter what. And the whole notion that I think that Dr. King had was that our truth, the truth of what we're going through. And it was from my point of view, much worse in the Black community than anywhere I'd ever, ever, ever seen in this country and much worse than what we go through not being able to marry. I'm not trying to compare it because it was much worse. But the notion was we will simply remind people over and over and over and over and over about what our lives are like and what is lost and what is therefore lost in the moral fiber of America because of it. And I think that the message that all three of you and others in every community really are talking about is about what is the moral fiber of America? What does it mean? Is it to be able to make families equally? Or is it discrimination? And that's it. - I've been doing some door to door canvasing in Northern California over the summer and actually with actual real citizens, not students. And it's interesting because you show up at someone's door and you ask them how they feel about the issue of same sex marriage. And you find a lot of people who are on the fence torn between those two sets of morals, maybe the set of morals that some they heard their preacher tell them in church and a set of morals they have about a basic sense of fairness and equality. And they'll say, "Oh, I support maybe civil unions "or domestic partnership, but I don't know about marriage. "That's just tough for me." And they're just, they're caught in their minds between these two very conflicting ideas of morality and equality and America and what this country is about. And the more you show up at their door and show them that this is why we're out here, you talk to them face to face and say, this is what we need, this is why we are not equal and marriage is what we need to be equal and nothing less, you really see those hearts and minds change and they really realize that the right idea of equality and their sense of equality changes and their sense of morals changes into same sex marriage being what really needs to happen in our country. - I think one of the strongest, just one of the strongest things anyone can do if they're part of the LGBT community is come out. I mean, covering all those points that you covered. If someone were to come out to a family that really isn't supportive, that will just change any kind of perspective they've had, they all of a sudden have to reevaluate, well, this is my son or daughter or niece or nephew or uncle and I really love them and I know they're the same person that I've grown up with, but they're gay. That changes everything. I think that's one of the strongest things that someone can do to support our community if they're LGBT to come out and to really talk to their families, not to stay silent, to really tackle the issues head on and tell them, I know you're my mother, my uncle, whatever, and I know you love me, take a few minutes, let's sit down, let's talk about all these issues. - I think it's been the thing that's made the difference over the past quarter century. I mean, the biggest difference in America, people have to work for rights, they have to canvas, they have to fight things that are on the ballot, they have to try to put things on the ballot. We have to organize, organize, organize, we have to have organizations, we have to do it all. But I think overall, the one thing that has made the biggest difference has been coming out because unlike any other civil rights movement, you have to identify yourself with a disfavored group in order to be known as a part of a disfavored group. It's not like race. Race, I mean, who has to tell you, everybody knows. And you also know from the beginning and you grow up with people who are like you and you get some sense of what that experience is like. But imagine having to say to your family, you thought I was human, but I'm really not human. How do you feel about that kind of thing? And it is that alien. - It is very tough because that very thing that you just mentioned about voluntarily identifying with a disfavored group, there's a line of thought in the Black community that that makes it a choice. And that is what distinguishes it from race and that because it is a choice and you chose to "come out", so it all gets very complicated. And it's one of the biggest issues that we have to keep working at and to try and explain that for most of us, it's not a choice at all. And it's much closer to race in that it's, at least for me, it's an immutable characteristic because I came this way. - [Sheila] Me too. - For the longest time, I was hoping and praying that they would identify that one gene that would show the world that I was born this way, but then-- - [Sheila] because it would help. - Because it would help. But then someone told me something very simple and they said, "Well, do heterosexual people have to prove "that they're straight?" That just clarified everything for me. And I mean, I've used that argument. I shared that with my family, my friends. So again, I think it's, again, still very powerful to disclose your sexual orientation and duke it out. I mean, talk about those tough issues just like that one. - Well, Jean O'Leary who recently passed away was one of the leaders in starting National Coming Out Day. - [Lisa] That was masterful. - I mean, the reason for that really was just what you said, it's much more difficult for people to deal with their own feelings of discrimination or let me say it's more difficult for them not to deal with them if suddenly they think, oh, wait, this person that I like. I mean, for better or for worse, when I was elected to the legislature, I was the first open gay or lesbian person there. And so nobody in the entire state legislature could ever again in their lives say, "Gee, I never met one." I mean, they just couldn't say it, they didn't have to say, I like her, I don't like her, whatever, but there it was, it was somebody that they had to deal with and a colleague. I mean, 99.9% of my work has nothing to do with being lesbian. It's really just, I'm voting on the same bills, I'm talking about the same stuff they are. And so from that point of view, it's also a modeling process where here's 12 tellers in the bank and two of them come out, it's difficult, but it's kind of like saying, gee, I didn't notice that they were that different from us and I've respected their work or I know their family or whatever. I think you're right. It's a very important issue. - [Lisa] Absolutely. - So where do we go from here with this organizing? Because we're gonna have to face the constitutional amendment in June in California and more and more across the country, how do you see the organizing going? Or what do you see as some next steps over the next, I don't know, six months? - As Lisa mentioned to me earlier in a conversation, as agencies, as individual organizations and as individuals, we really have to do our part, whether it's an individual effort, but we also have to keep in mind the broader goals and try to see how they fit in. Again, so me as an individual, I mean, going to volunteer with all these and all these events and all these outreaches, but also as an agency, again, even though my particular agency isn't funded for this kind of work, doing it anyway because it needs to be done. I think that's what we have to do. - We have to understand that it's crunch time. You really have to understand what's at stake and then just do consistent, persistent organizing. I mean, that's what the right learn to do. I mean, they organize and organize and organize and we have to continue doing that. We have two or three forums that we have just started looping and continuing. Every couple of weeks, we do it in a different format so that as people slowly wake up, it comes at just the right time. You can't do it periodically and you only have a year to go. And so we're also leveraging what we do best, which is Black lesbian activism, but partnering with Vote for Equality, with GLAAD for media work, with the task force for their organizing expertise and really pulling those things together where we've had relationships for many years. And thankfully we can now say, all right, we know why we have had these relationships and partnerships for all these years and we've gotta make it work now. So the things that only ULOAH can do, that only Bienestar can do, that only young people can do, they have to get busy and do it. And they have to do it really at the highest level of excellence as fast as we can and keep doing it. - Absolutely. I mean, this can't just be limited to something that UCLA does, and great, UCLA is organized and up and running and everyone's hearing about there, but there's 140,000 students at UCs across just undergraduates at UC campuses across the state. Only 25,000 of those are at UCLA. There's 400,000 students at CSUs across the state. This needs to be on every campus across the state and across the country as these initiatives spread across everywhere we go. And just really everyone needs to be hearing about this and know the terrible effects these minions will have and know that the only thing they can do is get out there and vote and give their time. - Well, there is a coalition I know working on laying out the campaign against the initiative, for instance, in June. What can this coalition do to support your work? I mean, supposing I'm going to meet with them, which I probably will one of these days and they're pulling together whatever, $50 million, to fight this initiative, how can they support your work? Tell me what you would think of. I mean, I know it's about money, but also I don't know how the interaction might be between your work and a coalition of national organizations. - I think the best way we can be helped is just to help us coordinate. I know people know people and have contacts on campuses all across the state and we need to start talking. And we as students need to really just be coordinated, be on the same page, be talking with each other and be working with each other what works, what doesn't work, how can we, we have a lot of experience at LA, we can share with people, other people gain experience, they can share with us. And we really need to, a campaign could really help students come together, pool our resources and really work together best as students and within the campaign with the coordinated message and outreach and just campaign to make sure these amendments don't pass. - [Sheila] Good. - It's such a beautiful use of funds when you can say, okay, Bienestar doesn't have to go through this whole big grant process, but we can fund this piece to help them get this little flyer together or we can promote, we can help ULOAH mobilize 500 Black lesbians to hit the streets of Los Angeles. I mean, those are targeted things that doesn't take a whole lot of money to do. It takes some money and some effort. So those possibilities really-- - [Sheila] For organizing in the community. - I'll tell you the best thing that equality for all can do is build a lot of small civil rights organizations around the country. And the best way they can do that is taking the agencies that already exist and going to them and saying, "How can we help you help us fight this battle?" - Well, I think it's very interesting because first of all, we'll have to have of course contact information at the end of the show for those of you that are interested in contacting these people, these organizations, et cetera. But this is just an example, I think, of the work that's going on. And in a funny way, in some ways, it can be coordinated. And in some ways, I'm not sure it needs to be coordinated because each of you has identified an individual area in which you work and that responds to you. I think we also, although we don't wanna tell people what to do, I think mostly we wanna know what are people doing and how can it be supported. But this to me is how things have started really in the past where we, and we can certainly do it a lot easier now that we have websites, email, and all that kind of instant gratification or whatever. So I want to thank you very, very much for being here and for sharing with us. I want to thank you for being with us as well. And if you want to get involved, not just in California, although we would certainly welcome your help in California or any state in which you live, be sure to contact any of the national organizations or any of these organizations to work on it because I think, although you say they take it for granted at the campus level that we are gonna have marriage, I do believe there's never been a civil rights movement in America that's failed. And I don't think this one's gonna fail either. So I'd say to America get used to it. (upbeat music)