Get Used to It: Ep. 140, "State of the LGBT State"

(typewriter clacking) (upbeat funky music) - Hi, welcome to "Get Used to It." I'm Sheila Kuehl, and I'm leading you through the maze of all the conversations that we have and that we have had for the past dozen years, and we're gonna have for the next century, who knows. Today, I have a gathering of three of my favorite people, and if you've watched the show, you know that they always make for some of the most interesting shows because we never exactly know what we're gonna talk about. But this is our first show of the new year, and if you're watching it in rerun, I won't say which year, (guests chuckling) but you'll probably know from what we're talking about. Generally, at the beginning of each year, the governor of each state gives a State of the State, but since we don't have any gay governors that we know of, we don't have any State of the Gay State. So I thought perhaps we would have a conversation today about how our community's fitting in with the rest of America, what we're thinking, what we're doing, what they're thinking, what they're doing, and that's about all I know we're gonna talk about. So my guests today, Torie Osborn, who, at the moment, is still the senior advisor to the Mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa Or, if you're watching in a rerun, she's onto her next career, writing a new book and being a consultant, I don't know, but she was the executive director of the LA Gay and Lesbian Center, of the Gay and Lesbian Task Force, nationally, just a long life for such a young person. Welcome, Torie. (guests laughing) - [Torie] Thank you, Sheila. - (laughs) I think that was good. I think that was good. My guest today is also Phill Wilson, who I didn't even check with him what his title is anymore, but he is the executive director of the Black Aids - Institute. - Institute. I knew it wasn't a project, I knew it was more bigger and important (Phill chuckling) but it's a national organization. And Phill, of course, has been our resident expert on HIV/AIDS issues, both scientifically and kind of politically and socially, but way beyond that, because he's been an activist in our community for most of his life, and we welcome you, Phill. - [Phill] It's good to be here. - And my third guest is Michael Kearns, who, I guess, you'd have to describe him as a performance artist, but that would be like calling a Porsche a car. You know? (all laughing) I mean, it's just so much better than that because he's a provocateur, a commentator, an author, just a creative force, not only in California, but around the nation. Welcome, Michael Kearns. - Thank you, thank you. - So I hope you all feel well introduced. Torie, I'm gonna start with you. Speaking of your writing a new book, I was thinking about the book that you wrote a few years ago - And dedicated to you. which you dedicated to me, and I hope you will the next one, and the next one, (guests laughing) and the next one. You know, what are friends for? Called "Coming Home to America." It was a wonderfully thoughtful book about not only the place of gay and lesbian people in America, but how we, as perennial outsiders, perennial almost immigrants in our own country, were taking our place in institutions in America. And over the past years, everybody thinks, "Well, here we are, we're just so well integrated, what's the problem?" But as you see this new year unfolding and how we've come, not only as a movement, but kind of as a people, what do you think about our place in America? Are we perfectly integrated? Do we still have some, I don't know, insider/outsider issues? - Well, I think it's an unfinished revolution, but then again, I think the whole project of democracy, of gender, of race, are unfinished revolutions in this country and the world. I guess I would say that, there was a poll that came out recently, I think there's some real generational issues. First thing I would say is I think the front line of the revolution is family, children. The most energy, to me, still comes from LGBT youth and their impact in terms of the organizing, the number of gay/straight alliances being formed, the GLSEN chapters, the gay parents groups, the kids of LGBT parents groups, so I think there's still a lot of vibrancy at the family, the family issue is kind of a piece of the cutting edge. The revolution's happening in the PTA rooms and so forth. But I guess I'm struck by how gay youth, LGBT youth, represent really part of a larger generational shift that's happening that isn't just about LGBT youth. There was recently, I think it was a Pew poll, it was a very respected, generational poll that showed not only what we've seen on gay issues, which is that we just have to wait for the older generation to die off, (Sheila chuckling) because everybody under 40 supports marriage equality or anything else that has to do with our rights, but that young people's entire view of the world is different. They believe in government, they believe in service, they believe in social change. They want purpose in their lives. I mean, they kind of want it all, which is part of being young, but they want spiritual purpose, and they want careers, and they want family, and they're completely comfortable in a multicultural world, they're completely comfortable with T as well as the L and the G and the B. And it's a different worldview. So, I don't even know. I would say that we're still outsiders, but I would say that it's not... You know that for the last decade or so, I've felt as if, for me, the issues that have stirred the passions of my heart are economic justice and environmental degradation. And I think that the climate change and the shifts in what globalization has done for the distribution of wealth and access to power, and therefore to political power, the gap between rich and poor, the growing immigration issues, all of which are connected to the impact of globalization on indigenous economies, and just the entire economic shift, and the destruction of the planet, are front and center. And what I see among LGBT youth, and anybody under 40, I'm not just talking about the kids. I mean, I have been accused of being a Pollyanna before. You're the one who pointed out (Sheila chuckling) in preparing for this show that I'm the one that used to say, "The '90s are gonna make the '60s seem like the '50s." Then it was, "Okay, the '00s are gonna make the '60s seem like the '50s." (all laughing) - And we're still in the '00s, so you haven't been proven quite wrong yet. - That's true. Well, I think the '00s may still (all laughing) make the '60s seem like the '50s. - We'll see this year, won't we? - [Phill] Well, so far, the '00s look like the '50s. (all laughing) - [Michael] At the moment. - In some ways, they do. And in some ways, it's even worse. And in some ways, I will say this again, accused of being the Pollyanna for the third decade, that I've been hoping this would come around again, but I really do feel as we go into 2008, and I'll name the year, that there is a stirring out there that is unmistakable, and I think it's been building. In this consumer society, we act as if these things just kind of happen and then they're gone, they're happening and they're gone, but everything from the nonpartisan voter registration efforts that reached whole new segments of the non-voting public. I mean, 40% of American electorate does not vote in the presidential elections, let alone the state senate or local elections or so forth. And I think that what has been, and I say this, and it's a tentative faith on my part, and I don't know how true a prophecy it will be, but I do believe that the old institutions are completely bankrupt for taking care of people's needs and for organizing society in a way that helps human beings grow, thrive, let alone get their basic needs met, and that the old ideologies are completely bankrupt. The Right is bankrupt for all the reasons we know about. Inequality just ain't gonna fly. Human beings yearn for freedom, for a better life, for something better, for the kids if not for themselves. That is one of the greatest truths of all time, there's always a hunger. - But some of the institutions that I think are seen as bankrupt, don't you feel that some of them have been sort of throttled? I mean, in the sense of you were saying the new generation actually believes in government, - Right. - And I think that they have come to understand that policy is developed maybe outside of government, and we can certainly talk about that, 'cause we've all participated in that, but somehow, to make it all work for everybody, you've gotta take government back, I think is what they would say. - Well, you have to take government back, but you have to fund government. - Right. - And for 30 years, this is my takeaway after two years on the senior staff in the cabinet - The city of LA. - Of the city of Los Angeles, for Mayor Villaraigosa, this brilliant, bold, progressive mayor in an urban city, but there's no money. There's no money for potholes and cops, let alone for a green agenda or for investing in economic opportunity for people coming back from our ridiculously overcrowded prisons. There is no money in California in local government. And in California, there isn't even the ability to raise revenue if you want to. So, the old formulas are gone. I'm not saying that all the old ideas are bad. It's power, and solutions are distributed differently. You have a much more robust, if struggling, nonprofit sector, - Mm-hmm. You have foundations that have much more private money, but they don't have as much money as government. You have underfunded government, where the war in Iraq gets $250 million a day, but we can't get enough money for any program in the city or in the state, you know, you're dealing with state budget. - Right. - My point here is in the old days, a good idea, a social movement, would come along. A good idea would happen, a nonprofit would pilot it, government would bring it up to scale. And so social movements petitioned government to kind of redistribute opportunity, whether it was money, mostly money, and you had more and more government money. That isn't true anymore, so solving big social problems is gonna have to be totally more complex partnerships and so forth. - Well, we've talked about- - And LGBTs will be part of it, but the problems that we approach will not be just our problems. - Well, we've talked about how government, to some extent, by being shrunk by the right wing, has sort of devolved a lot of those responsibilities, and, frankly, without helping with any funding, onto nonprofits like the one you used to run, and frankly, Phill, one you still are. - One he currently runs. - And in the health arena, it's been shrinking and shrinking and shrinking as well, with everybody saying, "Oh, HIV/AIDS, that must be kind of over 'cause we've got all those good drugs, and it's just fine, isn't it?" How does it look from your area? - Well, it's interesting, but I think that as I join Torie's bandwagon for a second and being Pollyanna, (Sheila chuckling) but I do think that we are in a new place. I think that the old paradigm of the way that we were behaving as Americans have changed, and I think that what we're experiencing now, that Americans, we are beginning to envision ourselves in the way that we want to be. And I think we've always wanted to be this way, that we've always wanted to be a more magnanimous people, we always wanted to be a people that believed that there was a place for all of us and that we actually were all in this thing together. That's not the way we've behaved. - [Sheila] Mm-hmm. - And I'm not sure that's who we are yet, but we are daring to want to be those people. I think we see that in a number of ways. Some of it's driven by young people, absolutely, but some of it is driven by a fatigue of being afraid. You know? - Mm-hmm. - We don't want to be afraid anymore. - [Torie] Fear fatigue. - Right, exactly, fear fatigue. And we don't want to be afraid anymore. We want to be bold. We want to be proud. We want to be excited about life. We want to be gracious. We want to be generous. We want to be all those things, and we see that everywhere we're going. And to your question, clearly, over the last few years, our government has abandoned us. The phrase around institutional bankruptcy, what I would suggest, I think often when people talk about our institutions being bankrupt, they're talking about moral bankruptcy. - Mm-hmm. - Well, in fact, particularly when we're talking about government, we're actually talking about the real word about bankruptcy, (all laughing) we're talking about economic bankruptcy. - Right. - And I think that what is happening all over this country, and it's certainly happening in the LGBT community, and it's absolutely happening in people of color and especially Black communities is that what we've come to understand is that there is a role for government to play, and we have a right to demand that our government play that role, and we have a responsibility on all sorts of fronts to get us there. What's happening, I think, in the nonprofit sector is that we actually have taken on the burden of doing a lot of both the creating and the mending of the safety net. Particularly, we have a health safety net that is in complete tatters, and we're kind of maintaining it, being the safety net, as we knit it along, if you know what I mean. And that is certainly true with HIV and AIDS. Today, the AIDS epidemic is absolutely active. It is a major issue. It's not the epidemic that it used to be, and in some ways it is a more difficult and certainly a more complex epidemic to deal with, and particularly in Black communities. You look at the AIDS epidemic in America today, and African-Americans represent 12% of the US population, and yet we represent 50% of the estimated 1.2 million Americans living with HIV and AIDS. We represent 40% of the new cases among men, we represent 63% of the new cases among women, we represent 67% of the new cases among infants, and we represent 70% of the new cases among adolescents. Among some populations in America, we have an AIDS epidemic that outstrips anything that you see in sub-Sahara Africa. I just got back from Cameroon and from Nigeria. I spent a lot of time in South Africa. Among Black gay men in America today, in urban settings, it's estimated that nearly 50% of them may be already HIV positive. There's no place on the planet where you see AIDS rates approaching 50%, so there's a huge problem, and a lot of what has happened in pretending that it is over is driven out of desperation and knowing that there's not enough resources to deal with it anyway. - We had the same thing when we looked at just a bill that would allow the distribution of condoms in prisons. - Mm-hmm. - Because everybody wants to pretend there's no sex in prisons. - That's right. - And yet, not the only place, of course, where AIDS would become transmitted, but it was like, what world are you living in that you won't at least give this a chance? - Well, it's what I call the "Alice Wonderland" school of policy, where we believe what is isn't and what isn't is. And that drives so much of what our policy has been, but in the spirit of this show, I guess the thing that I am so jazzed about is that as I travel around this country in LGBT communities and in other communities, that is not where we're going to be. And I think it's even broader than not where we want to be, it's not where we're going to be. There was a comic in, I believe it was today's, maybe it was yesterday's, "LA Times," where there's a polar bear, and he says, "My environment is melting away." And then there's another polar bear that says, "Well, now you know how Republicans feel." (Sheila laughing) From my lips to God's ears. But I certainly think this kind of paradigm and culture of fear and fear mongering, that day is over, and I think Americans all over the country are manifesting that change. And I think that among others, the benefactors of that is going to be the LGBT community because so much of where we are and so much of how we survive, period, is by refusing to be fearful. You come out not because it's not scary and not because there's risks, but you make a decision that, "I refuse to be in that place." - Mm-hmm. - And it is that fundamental decision to refuse to be in that place that has allowed us to survive. And through that, America now has a lot that they can learn from us. - Well, it's interesting. You often see the attitude, or at least somebody trying to catch the attitude in the arts, what are we going to see? What movies? What plays? What music are we listening to? And rather than seeing it get more and more optimistic, it feels to me like over the past several years have been a very dark image. Now, this may be they're not catching up yet, but Michael, you're our resident artist and sort of finger on the pulse of those things. I could be completely wrong. What do you think? - Well, I want to weigh in as another Pollyanna because I don't- (all laughing) - Okay, that's unanimous then. - Yes, exactly. And Pollyanna played the glad game, where no matter how dire the situation was, she would find something to be glad about, and I think I've by and large played that game my entire life, since I first saw the glad game depicted by Hayley Mills in "Pollyanna." I think things have become very dark artistically. There's a lot of this vogue of the Western and the shoot-'em-up and the violence. And I have a 13-year-old, so we're in this constant friction about what can she see and what can she not see. And everybody's rating system can't be the same. My kid can certainly see some R-rated movies that other kids couldn't, and then there are certain R-rated movies I wouldn't let her see. There's some PG-13 movies I'd rather she not see, but the violence issue is of great concern to me. And I think that, obviously, we live in a world where violence reigns. I mean, there's war at every corner in every part of the world. So how could we not be influenced by violence? And how could we not be influenced by that pervasive darkness? I want to talk a little bit about the idea of America and identity in terms of LGBT youth and some of the things that Torie and Phill said. I no longer feel that being an American is any more of an identity, to some degree, as being gay, lesbian, transsexual, or bisexual, because of the internet. - Mm-hmm. - The internet has given us access to a world that is so much greater than the confines of the United States of America, or our own little backyard neighborhood that we live in, whether that's West Hollywood or New York City, or the Village or the East Village. So that we now have this artistic outpouring that is no longer what one could call mainstream. YouTube is mainstream for the youth. I mean, Tia will bring me into a room and say, "Hey, Dad," she's 13. "Hey, Dad, come look at this." And then she'll show me some video of some group, and she says, "Are they gay?" (Sheila laughing) Because you don't know anymore. And I'm saying, "You're asking me? You need to tell me. (all laughing) I don't have a clue." Or she'll be playing something with clearly, that old word we used to use, "gay sensibility," but is it gay or lesbian? I mean, it might have two women, and then there might be another man. A lot of art, and especially GLBT art, has been about identity. Who am I? Who am I as this gay and lesbian person/kid? Who am I as this gay and lesbian American? And how do I fit into this bigger context of this country? What are my rights? What are my privileges? How am I being disenfranchised? But now, I think that these kids, if my kid, who is neither gay nor lesbian identified at the moment, or heterosexually identified, for that matter, but are their perceptions, which are based on this global artistic expression and outpouring that merges gay, lesbian, American, Brazilian, French, and South African, the music, the language, it's so exciting. I mean, I think that it really is exciting. And I think that whatever happens in this country, and I, along with Phill and Torie, do sense a buzz and an energy and a Pollyanna-ish rainbow happening in the next few years. Not immediately, obviously, but I think that it feels like it's my responsibility, our responsibility, to get that message outside of ourselves. And I think that that's why assimilating, as a gay and lesbian or transgender or bisexual person, has its negative aspects in my mind because I'm old. (chuckles) And it's difficult for me after all the years of saying, "These are our rights, and this is who we are," and (babbling), to see that we're now blending. We're making this transition into the world, into the worldview. These are the things that Phill and Torie said in different ways, you know? So, I have as many questions as I do answers in terms of darkness, in terms of the culture, in terms of mainstream, in terms of assimilationists, in terms of identity. I mean, I think identity is the big thing. I think it is no longer necessarily the mantle of a GLBT person to say first and foremost that that's who they are. They may be an American first. They may be a Democrat first. - Right, right. - They may be a social activist first. - But, you know, it doesn't go away, identity doesn't go away. You know, people say to me, "Why is it that Black people talk about race so much?" And I say, "Well," (sighs) - Hello! "you were the one that brought it up." And then you have to say either, "No, it's not important," or "Yeah, I'm proud of it." And certainly in this election year, we may say, - Wow. - "Oh, identity politics is over," but identity in politics does not seem to be over. - True. - It seems to be we either, "Let's not talk about it because it's over," we'll pretend that it's over, or, "Let's talk about it incessantly and pretend we're not talking about it." - Historically, when it came to identity politics, people were elected despite their identity, and I think that an interesting thing is happening in this political season, that the excitement about the political season is because of the identity. - That's right. - You know, the possibility - (chuckles) Exactly. - of electing a woman president, the possibility of elected an African-American president, the possibility of electing a Mexican-American as the president, the possibilities. Now, these possibilities are what driving people, and it kind of speaks to, "Wow. I can dare to dream of the America that I believed we were all along." - Well, I found when I was running that some people would say, "Oh, big whoop, I don't want to talk about your sexual orientation. How do you feel about education? What are you gonna do about healthcare?," et cetera. People in the community, though, said, "How come it doesn't say 'lesbian' on your mailer?" (all chuckling) - [Michael] "On your forehead." (all laughing) "What's wrong with you?" - We're supposed to have an L, I guess. Because there's a certain amount of pride, you have to deal with that, kind of. When one of us runs for president, you don't think they're gonna talk about it? Of course they're gonna talk about it. It's gonna be the first, - But in order for one of us to run as president, I think we have to have taken it off our forehead. I mean, that's the contradiction. - Yeah. - Or something. That's the confusing aspect of it. One has to be part of the whole in order to then get to the position where you're questioning it. - Well, we've certainly learned sexism isn't dead, haven't we? - That's right. - Oh my God! (Sheila laughing) - None of the isms are dead. - It's enough to make me vote for Hillary 1,000 times over. (Sheila laughing) It's unbelievable. - It's enough to make me cry! - Those guys that were yelling, "Iron my shirts! Iron my shirts!" - Oh my! - Oh, I know! - That's just a brilliant line on some heckler's card, wasn't it? - Unbelievable! - [Phill] Wow, I missed that one. - Yeah, I don't know what they're yelling at Barack, but I'll bet you there's stuff at some of those whistle stops - Oh... - [Torie] Yeah. - But we are participating, that's the interesting thing. When you said we exemplify a community that had to not be afraid, but we go back and forth, too, don't you think? - Of course. - I mean, like the rest of America, we can be manipulated out of fear. We can be shut up out of fear. Maybe it's a boiling frog thing, but... - Well, everybody can, but I love the idea that we're entering an era of fear fatigue - Uh-huh. - and, I don't know, the audacity of hope, embracing the angels of our higher nature and sort of going. What do they say, the opposite of fear is faith. - Or love. - Well, the opposite of fear is probably love, but it sort of requires faith to disperse fear. Actually, I heard George Lakoff talk about the most recent brain research, about the chemicals that are released when people are afraid versus the chemicals that are released when people have hope, - Mm-hmm. - which opens their heart, which kind of leads to love or - Expression. - and how totally different their politics are. That when people prey on fear, they will be more conservative. It's not necessarily along Democrat/Republican, but it's the authoritarian, they will need a savior. They will give their power away. When they're in hope mode, they'll be more likely to be more gracious, to be more caring, to be more empathetic. - Generous. - He talked about empathy and empowerment. that those are the two roles that people actually, Democrats or I don't know, when I say the institutions, I just don't mean the institutions and ideologies, I think the categories are breaking down. I think the old world is breaking down, and the new one isn't born yet, and so we're in this funny in-between place, and where all we got, really, is faith and hope. And we gotta have this generosity because we're gonna be figuring this out as we go along. We do not have canned answers anymore. We don't have communism, socialism, Marxism, feminism. We don't have any old ism, any old old ism, and even liberalism, all of them, big government, none of the old answers for the kind of progressive solutions can be canned to fit this moment. - [Phill] I think people are celebrating that, though. - Yes! - I think that's part of the excitement, - Yes! - is that people are celebrating that. And, Sheila, when you talk about us being vulnerable to fear, we are vulnerable to fear. Absolutely, we all are. And the notion around the fear fatigue and overcoming that, it's not a solid trending, there are peaks and valleys, if you will. And I guess comics are on my brain these days, because there's another comic (Sheila chuckling) that was in the "LA Times" a little while ago, where there's an African-American man and an African-American woman, and they're sitting at the table, and the man is reading the paper, and he says to the woman, he says, "Wow! A white state voted for a Black candidate." And the woman says, "You mean 3% of a 98% white state voted for a 50% Black man." (all laughing) - And then she leaves the table, oh go ahead. - They sit and they ponder, and she leaves the table, and he thinks to himself, "Still cool." (Sheila laughing) - That's exactly right. - Wow. - And that's kind of my celebration of where we are. It's still cool. - Mm-hmm. - And they can write Hillary off in Iowa, they can write Barack off in New Hampshire, they can write Edwards off in South Carolina, they can do whatever they want to do, but you can't unring that bell. - Still cool. - And it's still cool. - Yeah. Right. - It's still cool. - Well, you know, the other thing about fear and what happened, I think, with us is that, as an outsider, we sought each other's company. It was more of a, we called it a community, and the idea of a community is not necessarily shared values so much as it's just shared resources, in a way. Like, we're all gonna get together and march, - Right. - or we're all gonna get together and open a center. We came together, and we were in many ways a rainbow. It wasn't great at the beginning, in terms of race or gender, but it got sort of better, and we became more and more proud of that as a kind of an example. And it was joyful. We really enjoyed it. And this communal idea of shared resources is really what we need in order to support government 'cause what happened, and the disconnect between, "Well, I'll give money to the Black AIDS Institute," and, "I'll give money to the Liberty Hill Foundation," is people say, "I don't think I want to pay any more taxes. - Well, that's because the right wing for 30 years has made sure - Yeah. that everybody thinks that taxes are a bad thing because government is a bad thing. It was all part of their plan to undo the New Deal and to roll back government from any progressive direction. Frankly, I think it's an outrage that there are hundreds of CEOs that make 2, 3, $400 million a year. And that there isn't a progressive tax structure. You know, I just read this report that between 2003 and 2005, the top 1% earnings increased by 42%, that is over a two-year period, by $465,000 a year in a two-year period. That's the delta, that's the increase. And it's like, "We need a new tax system, folks!" And at some point, people are gonna start talking about it. They're not talking about it yet, but they are gonna talk about it because that's what we all give to help create a society that begins to take care of each other again. I saw this economist talk about, I'm not gonna say Republican anymore, I'm gonna say the old conservative or right-wing approach to people is, "You're on your own. You're on your own," YOYO. And we need to have WIT, "We're in this together." We are in this together. And I think that part of what's happening, and it's not gonna fit neatly in any ideology, and it isn't left or right, it's more like right or wrong. It's back to kindergarten, where people take care of each other and isolate the bully, you know? We're gonna have to institutionalize it, but it's gonna mean going back to the way taxes were in the '50s and '60s, where the top 1% paid 60%, folks. Where corporations paid 70%! - Of a part of their income, over a certain amount, - Right. - not over the whole thing. - Progressive tax structure. - Right. - I know that has nothing to do with LGBT issues, but we have so starved government. Government is the primary engine of redistribution of economic opportunity in this country, and has been. - But, you know, maybe it does have to do with LGBT issues, and all nonprofit issues. I mean, where do we get our money for nonprofits? - 65% from government. - Yeah, but we ask rich people. I mean, they are not the only people that give, but we're saying to them, and even at Liberty Hill, they're training their children, right? The families are saying to their children, not tithing, exactly- - [Michael] But give. Give, give, give, give, give. - But give. It's an important- - And the arts funding. - Oh, yeah. - (chuckles) Let's look at that issue. - It's not coming from government. - Well, exactly. And that has been so contingent upon our growth as a community. - But if we circle back to where we started, I think that what just happened is important 'cause I agree with you, Sheila, that Torie, what you just said is an LGBT issue. Front and center, it's an LGBT issue, and it's problematic if we think that it isn't. And I think that that is part of the challenge in our ability to come home because if you come home, part of that is not just the privilege of opening the door and being able to walk in, it's the responsibility. - Mm-hmm. - So when you come home, every part of being in that home is a part of your responsibility. It's not just what goes on in your bedroom, it's also making sure that the plumbing works and the garbage is taken out and the dog is walked, - And the neighbors are taken care of. - and all of those things. - And the neighbors, right. - Whether you ever, ever mention LGBT in the context of government or freedom or responsibility or whatever, all of these are LGBT issues. And that's a part of, if you will, I think the reality of this kind of post-gay period in our lives, that we are beginning to mature and to understand all of it. And where it kind of really, really, really hits home is, 10 years ago or 15 years ago, when we decided that we were going to become parents. You really learn that all of it is about you, you know? (chuckles) Because when the algebra and the science and the geometry, and whether there are school uniforms or what the lunch program is, - [Michael] The Pledge of Allegiance. - the Pledge of Allegiance, (all laughing) or all of these things that we never thought about as being our issues, they become front and center. - Are our issues. - Where we weigh in on the starving of government is as much an LGBT issue as whether or not there's gay marriage or not. - Mm-hmm. - Mm-hmm. Wow. - Also, the word that I don't think we've used, it's also sort of a spiritual and moral high ground. - Mm-hmm. - And I would like to think that we have opened some of those doors. - Mm-hmm. - This is my theme, and I will repeat it, and I will continue to cling to it, but I think that HIV/AIDS, the devastation of that is one of the reasons that taught us as a community to go into a stratosphere that was morally right. When we were visiting those bedsides, watching those people die, who are still dying, crossing colored lines, crossing gender lines. When lesbians who were nurses and came to the gay men's bedsides, literally and figuratively, I think that at that point, we started gaining some kind of moral fiber. And I think that we've been forerunners, in many respects, in that way. - [Torie] We embraced a culture of care, right, - Yes, absolutely! - as opposed to just a culture of whatever, success - Absolutely! - or individual rights, even. - Or, "Me, me, me, me, me." - Right. - Yeah. - It's huge. - I think that's right. I think, at least, it gave us another tool in the "me, me, me, me, me" times. - Absolutely. - Because we, "Me, me, me," as many of the other people, - Well, it became less. I think, in some ways, but we had each other. It was a very interesting thing for me because when the Black civil rights movement began, of course, I wasn't Black, and therefore, I wasn't in the movement, but it touched me so deeply that I wanted to be in it, you know? I wanted to be in it, not because it looked easy, not because people weren't dying, but because they were caring for each other so much. And they had something that looked like family to me. And I had a family, I love my family. - Beloved community. - But I wasn't with it. And when things started happening, and we started recognizing that women maybe weren't equal, I couldn't see that right away. And when I did see it, it just hit me like a ton of bricks that I was suddenly in something, not just helping something. But it wasn't until the LGBT movement that I really felt this kind of family, really. - [Torie] After you came out on "Geraldo"? - After I came out on "Geraldo" (laughs) - [Torie] It was a great moment in gay history. - With Dick Sargent, may his soul rest in peace. It was a great moment, but it was a much greater moment for me than it was for America. (all chuckling) - [Michael] Well, always. - I don't know. I mean, I know you all because of that, and we share so much in common, and I think what is happening in America is that people are grasping to find how they share these things. If you watched the Iowa caucuses, you know, they televised them! And you watch these people kind of talking to each other. - It was fun to watch, actually. - Oh my gosh, it was great. - It was really cool. I never knew what they did. - [Michael] There's something human going on. - [Sheila] Right. - Did you ever know what an Iowa caucus was like? - No, I didn't. - It was really fun to have CSPAN there. It was the first time ever. And, in fact, the coverage of this election year, to some extent, it's kind of ridiculous. Three CSPAN channels. - Not for us. - Three different CSPAN channels of the Iowa caucuses, or two, at least. - And you can get them mobile, too. - I know, and then there's all the internet coverage. - Right. - But it's all part of it. If we're right, if our gut is right that there's an awakening of a new spirit, a new energy, a new hopeful energy for change that doesn't have an ideology name, and it seems to be attached to different candidates. I mean, this was before the November election. If we're right that a great, new, rising up of hope is happening in this country, that could become a social movement, it might not, it might be an election year blip, but it could become something greater than that. It could become a force outside. You know I believe social movements make history, not individuals, but it's the combination. John Kennedy had to be there to give the wind to the sails of a civil rights movement that already existed and to make it become a mass movement. It's a combination of the political space that's opened by a great leader or a leader that's in the right moment and says it the right time and the social movement that comes up that's already been in the works, doesn't come out of the air. But if we're right, and we are in a moment of the beginning of new American movement of some kind, maybe a new global movement, because Lord knows it's not gonna be the same. Just like the new Left wasn't what the old Left, just like the civil rights movement wasn't what the labor movement looked like, and it was different players, and it was a completely different culture, completely different culture. You can't kind of predict or name or box up, but if we're right, and there's the beginning of something happening, it's gonna be internet. Do you remember when we had those anti-war demonstrations on February 15, 2003? - It was all internet. - The antiwar movement that didn't work, didn't stop the war, but there were like 15 million people across, and the next day, we just watched these pictures on the internet- - Well, that's it, - Right. - the technology is allowing us. - The technology will echo it and make it, I don't know, more powerful or more objectified, both. I mean, there's downsides to it, too. You can live through technology and not be actually doing it yourself. - I saw a lot more volunteers, probably starting with the Kerry campaign, I really noticed, where a lot of regular people - Mm-hmm. - were leaving their homes and going to other states. And I know this has happened with political junkies, but it just seemed like there were a lot of people. - Oh yeah. Where we were in Albuquerque, I'll never forget it. I was marching with some of the groups I'm forgetting, some of the election protection, smaller groups, but then one day, the Americans Coming Together and then the Democrat, the Kerry campaign, and at every single place, when you would go together, there was a total mix. And there were queers everywhere. There wasn't one place where there were not openly gay people or people who were not afraid of acting openly gay. And there were white working class people who were living in the trailer park, and there were Latino people who were working as janitors. I mean, I'd never seen anything, this was Albuquerque, and I'd never seen an election anything like it. I'd never seen such diversity. But see, we're standing on those shoulders. This election year is standing on four years ago. And after 2000 so disillusioned so many people, and people started widespread. I was just talking to the head of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, Angelica Salas, they have registered 50,000 people in the last six months, new citizens. They go to the big convention center, and they sign people up, and they register them to vote. It's nonpartisan. - Right. - But one's assumption is that most new voters or that the non-voter, the poor, young, single woman, immigrant voter is going to vote the right way. We'll see. - Well, I guess we'll see, won't we? - We sure will. - So do you think it's gonna make a difference? And I'm not talking about who wins the election, 'cause that, of course, is gonna make a difference, but in terms of people's participation. I don't know whether it's Pollyanna-ish or whether it's just optimistic. I think optimism is perfectly supportable and a good way to go. I also think it's good for your health, frankly. Phill, you started to say something a couple minutes ago, but do you think it's gonna make a difference in the way we approach our lives, and, I don't know, how we are? - I definitely think it will. I think it already has begun to happen. The Black AIDS Institute is a very small organization, and we're not large enough to have a volunteer director or volunteer coordinator, but last week, we had a volunteer just walk in our door and said, "I want to volunteer." Today, we had a staff meeting, we have a small staff, there's 14 people on staff, and I realized that three of the people on my staff started as volunteers. People are just starting to say, "Not only can I make a difference, but I have to." - [Sheila] Mm-hmm. - It's back to what you said about the art of the world, of our day, being so dark. I mean, how can America not reflect these dark eight years, almost, that we've lived in? This utter sense of futility and powerlessness and hopelessness? How can that not take hold of us collectively? It just has. You see it on people's faces, disillusionment and anger, the level of anger and rage at the machine that we can't seem to get our claws in to make any progress or change. And I think now you're seeing people are lighter. There just seems to be a lightness of being based on the fact that maybe things are gonna change. - [Sheila] Let's hope it's not unbearable. - [Michael] Right. (Sheila laughing) (chuckles) Oh, yes, exactly. Yes, we want a bearable- - A bearable lightness of being. - That's right. - On this artistic thing, again, I'm gonna go back to the notion that the mainstream, the words aren't ever quite working, by the way. It's interesting how hard it is. - [Michael] Never. - My experience is when you're in creative process- - You mean like the country is in now? - Yeah. - Yeah. - That part of it is that none of the words are quite right. So, on the art front, what I said about the old institutions, things are exploding out of them. The mainstream institutions can't quite capture the new energy. There isn't quite the right words. We don't have the discourse yet. We're reframing everything. And the arts front, I don't know about you guys, but there's unbelievable arts stuff happening. The performance art, the poetry slams, the stuff that you see the kids writing in juvenile detention, the creative programs, there is a creativity that exists. I go to a little local coffee house, I stop by there regularly, and they have these, I mean, these young people are unbelievable, and the murals, and I don't know, I feel as if it's mainstream cultural art that's kind of narrow - Mm-hmm. - and dark and angry, - Absolutely. - but there is something happening. And we don't have the same counterculture. We had a counterculture in the '70s, and the gay community created an alternative counterculture, if you will. When we had highways and during the AIDS epidemic, we had unbelievable - Outpouring. - Outpourings. - We had Michael Kearns. - Your art hasn't stopped. You have less of an outlet for it and less of an audience for it, but you haven't stopped creating it. And there's other people coming up behind you. - You know, you're really right. And we're of a certain age where we're not doing what Michael said. I mean, I'm not looking at everything on YouTube and trying to- - I'm trying to. - I do see most-visited sites. (Torie chuckling) - Right. - And you're right, in a way, - [Torie] The laughing baby. - it's not happy-go-lucky, but there is enormous creativity and I think optimism as well. And social critique. - Yeah. - I mean, so much social critique. - Oh, in an entertaining, funny, flamboyant way. Art and creativity has always been the antidote to bad politics. (laughs) It's always been a way to respond viscerally to injustice- - Which is why bad politics wants - Squelch it. - to control art, squelch art - and certainly not let any - No question at all, whatsoever. - kids study any of that. - Especially queer art, AIDS art. - Well, they don't want it to be taught in the schools because creativity creates independent thinking. - Right, like the school that Tia goes to is all about art and creativity and critical thinking, but that's the opposite of most schools. - So I predict next year when we do this show, because you always, in January and March, - Always bring you guys together, right. - you always bring us together in the beginning, so I predict, - Yeah, let's predict for next year. - in 2009, that we're gonna be having a conversation that will be extremely, well, we're already excited, (Sheila laughing) - We are. - and it's only just being born, but you know, you can sense things sometimes in the air. And it's so funny because we haven't seen each other for months. - [Phill] And we're on the same page. - Right, we're each feeling this kind of sense. And you see it in the election, the people who are going to work, the young people that are volunteering. One of my mentees, who's a sophomore at Harvard, who is an Obama maniac, who was shocked, I have to tell you, that I was even considering voting for Hillary. (Sheila laughing) She just says, "Oh, you're just, you're just so," I go, "What? Say it, 'old.'" (all laughing) - "Go iron some shirts." (all laughing) - Shirts, right. - I could see that I just fell off the pedestal. I could just see it, the moment I fell off the pedestal, right. - Crumbling. - But anyway, she was taking a couple of weeks off from school. Not just her, but hundreds of people, were going to New Hampshire from Harvard and these schools. - But how do you keep them from being disappointed in 2009, no matter who wins? One of the things that I remember about being young is that we put a lot of faith in a lot of things, which inevitably, in some way, would let us down. - Mm. - It would be great if, in part of this excitement, that we were able to communicate that, as Torie said earlier, it's not about the individual, that the change is not really about the possibility of this particular class of presidential candidates. The change is about us because we are what makes that possible. And if we can embrace how we've changed, then we can't be disappointed about that outcome because we will continue to change. And that's what I'm excited about. I sat down deliberately with my nephew to watch the speeches after Iowa because I wanted to share that time with him and for us to have that experience before people started to try to take it away. To say for this hour and a half, we're gonna be in this place, and no matter what they do after that, they can't take that time away from us. - And it just grows and grows and grows, I think. It's interesting to me how much we can see of this presidential race. People say, "Oh, overkill, overkill, it's on all the time." I think that's great. - I do, too. - Totally. - I think it's great. You're gonna vote for somebody, let's have a whole lot of them - Know 'em! to look at. Let's look at all of them. Let's look at all of them in every context. I hated the way it used to be so manipulated. You'd see a moment here and a moment there. And that's the other thing with internet, you missed a speech? Hey, call it up. - You'll see it. - Right, exactly. - Well, but we do have an infrastructure for... I'm a '60s person, I talk about social movements. They may call it something else by the time 2009's around, but we do have an infrastructure. We have a lot of organizations. We have a lot of community-based organizations, not just LGBT, but in different communities. And even though they're underfunded, and even though when you run one of them, you have to spend all your time just building your institution, think of it as a groundwork, - Mm-hmm. - as a network, as an infrastructure for the next great social movement, whether there's churches or synagogues that have a progressive focus, or temples, mosques. Think of it as the nonprofit sector. I believe there's kind of stealth people in every institution, and I think people are gonna kind of break out of them or use them. You need to have organization in order to build movement. And I think we have it, they'll just transform from just doing this service or just advocating for this policy to, suddenly, just like that Rolodex created a Montgomery bus boycott instead of just getting people to the church basement, to the NAACP chapter, it became the basis of a movement. Those infrastructures, when the time is right, they will be put in service of something greater. We don't know exactly what it'll look like, 'cause nobody ever does before it happens, but that's what we've been building in our relationships, through the trust, through the internet, the blogs, but it's not just that, it's not just talking. It's the relationships, and it's the organization. - Well, and the models that we get from people, whether they're the candidates or people speaking for the candidates or people talking about this election, to say, "We must care about each other." - Right. - There's a lot of that message, which I think is enormously important for America right at this moment because, as you said, Torie, the message has been every man for himself. - [Torie] "You're on your own." - You're on your own. - Worse, actually. It's worse than every man for himself or every woman for herself, it's actually, "Turn against your neighbor." - Right. - Mm-hmm. - [Sheila] Right. - It's turn against your neighbor. - And it's that fear, fear, fear. You have to be afraid of everything and everybody, and your instinct and your basic goodness to love your neighbor, take care of people, all those things, finally, it looks like that may be part of the platform. - Well, it's interesting you put those two things together because it's like losing the fear of reaching out and taking care - Your community. - or being part of a community which we kind of model. I'm not saying we're perfect, but we were kind of forced into it because nobody wanted to talk to us - We were! - or take care of us, so it was like we had to do that. - Exacerbated during the AIDS years. - Exactly. - Mm-hmm. - Well, we only have two minutes left. Do you want to make a wish for the year? I mean, we've sort of done a lot of it. - I want to remain Pollyanna. (all laughing) I want the Pollyanna award. - I want you to, Mike. - Well, you know, Maya Angelou said, "When we know better, we do better." - Mm. - And I want us to know better. - Torie? - Does "Revolution now" do it? (Sheila laughs) Marian Wright Edelman talks about a revolution in values in this country, and that's what I think we need. - Revolution in values, I like that. Well, I guess if I were gonna make, it's not a wish, it's really more of a plan because I think we are acting what we're saying, and so many people we know are, that it would be reaching for our higher selves or being not just the country that we want the country to be, but being the person that we want to be, which is what will make the country be what it wants to be. I don't know, I hope that makes sense. I hope it makes sense to you because we've come to the end of our time. So I want to thank my guests so much. Thank you, Torie. Thank you, Phill. Thank you, Michael. Whenever I think of doing a show, I think I have no idea what the show's gonna be about, I'll get these three people together, and there'll be a talk about the big issues of the time. So I just want you to participate, hope. Yeah, hope. Get used to it. (upbeat funky music)