In the Life: Ep. 1402, "Generation Q"

tonight in the retrospective generation Q in the life goes back to school I had to go to the emergency room and it turns out that I had a fractured nose and couple chip teeth to a new kind of haunted house please Steve give your life to Jesus and behind the scenes of the youth culture I became meteran Chief abive when I was 31 and I'm still working on the millionaire part all this and more on America's gain lesbian news magazine in the life it works for me in the life is funded in part by the H vanan amaran Foundation additional support provided by the Ford Foundation The Pride Foundation The Lily aen Claus Foundation and the annual support of in the Life members like [Music] you welcome to in the life I'm Stacy an chin in tonight's retrospective generation Q America's Gay and Lesbian News Magazine investigates the world of our lesbian gay bisexual questioning transgendered Youth and their allies according to P flag 10 years ago the average coming out age in America was 23 today it is anywhere from 13 to 16 meaning the majority of quer Youth are now navigating their teens the coming out process and their secondary education at the same time this has moved the battle for safety and the struggle for equal rights into the youth culture though that's hardly where the adult gay community meant to go and it has landed lgbtq teens and their allies at the Forefront of a movement it's okay to be who you are and not to take any of this harassment and abuse from others on The Cutting Edge of a culture M got a very honest approach that allows him to be critical to make choices that are uncomfortable and to make artists uncomfortable when necessary and in the line of fire it's a shame that he have to walk down the street not knowing what's going to happen to us though racism still taints our culture it's no longer legally permissible you can't throw someone out of the Boy Scouts for being Latino or get away with using the nword as an insult in front of the principal but the US Supreme Court has upheld the Boy Scouts right to discriminate against gay kids and recent Studies have produced a number of Statistics indicating that the same mentality has trickled down into the schools every 7 minutes a student is bullied 85% of the time no one intervenes and according to the National Institute of Mental Health lgbtq Youth and those who are Pur ceed to be LGBT are the most likely targets I'd get paper thrown at me or notes in the hallway that just said [ __ ] i' hear kids call me [ __ ] or oh here comes gay Scott I really just didn't want to get up and start my day cuz I know that it it was already ruined bowling's been with us since the beginning of time and for that reason people tend to minimize bullying to say well kids will grow out of it everybody experiences Etc in fact bullying is incredibly destructive do you have any memory of being bullied um maybe like push into offence um being surrounded by a whole bunch of guys I used to have bruises on my arms from this from this pastor son what would he do he would just like be like I'm going to pound you I wouldn't want to go to school because I I was so afraid of what was going to be happening when I got there and um it was really terrifying buing can take a lot of different forms uh there's harassment verbal harassment fing [ __ ] a fairy butter fingers [ __ ] boy there's a lot of physical bullying that goes on one day in the pool he popped me in the face all four jumped out uh two of them with 2x4s and they came after us ready to kill us forcely removing my underwear while I was still wearing it about every month 160,000 kids skip school because they don't feel safe there gay lesbian students are more likely to be threatened uh more likely to be physically harassed and a fairly large percentage have reported that they've been beaten to the point of needing medical attention when you are continually harassed that takes up all of your mental space and attention it's very difficult when you're trying just to survive throughout the school day to focus on learning so these kids are not only being physically threatened emotionally harassed but they're also missing their education he had kept on harassing me like all year long so he came over and just said to me hey you fing [ __ ] you enjoying your pudding sweetie I got to the point where I was so angry at him I just threw the pudding on his brand new shirt him and three of his friends started just beating the crap out of me throwing me on a top of a table and just beating me until I was on the ground there were 650 kids around just staring and watching a fight not doing anything and so a big Crown crowd gathered up around me and I started bleeding and everything and they rushed me into the nurse's office and it turns out that I had a fractured nose and couple chip teeth the adults in the school environment often don't get involved they don't uh step in to call harassment what it is when they see it the school tried to suspend me for a day for throwing pudding at this kid who just beat me up and constantly harassed me meanwhile they were not keeping documents on this kid harassing me or hurting me and the gay kids who we interviewed said that uh four out of five of those kids said that they did not have even one supportive adult in their school the following day I went and gave my tape statement to the police officer and he told me that all this news and media and stuff were coming to the police station and he said basically they are going to find a way to get in touch with you so be aware and keep your mouth closed while I told my mom that I was tired of keeping keeping my mouth closed Thursday I was handing out papers to advertise a protest for that Monday and a couple of them got to the principal and he called me in during my lunch period and I said well I'm a diabetic I have to eat lunch and he said if I left his office that I would be suspended cuz he didn't like the fact that there was all this media going around the school already now as soon as I walked out of the principal's office he told me I was suspended for 10 days and all and these other three kids that beat me up got suspended 5 to seven days at the time most of the kids we interviewed uh didn't think that anti-gay bullying was appropriate felt that it wasn't fair that people shouldn't be treated badly but only 5% of those kids were verbal about that in their school environment Monday came around so I went right across the street from the school and about 50 people came total throughout the entire day if the adults in their lives primarily parents but also teachers and others were more vocal about why bullying is inappropriate we think these kids would be more encouraged to stand up against it themselves and also create an environment where bullying is not a cool thing to do I have a bunch more of these I just don't know where they are right now but this is the first one that I put in the book it was from one of the kids that beat me up they had to write me a letter of apology and it says Scott I sorry for doing what I did it was wrong and next year don't feel threatened because nothing will happen it's over and then he signed his name wait a minut now they actually called on students this kid that was pick that was picking on me the football star he got called down while he was in the same class with me so I know that they talked to him and he was gone out of the classroom for a long time so that's a good sign and since then the kid hasn't said anything me and what surprises me is after all this finally blew over there must been there must be 10 kids that I know that came up to me and said you know I'm gay I'm by I am a lesbian and it's just it completely shocked me I don't look at it as a wind lose situation I look at it as I told them that I'm not putting up with this and I went to the extreme to do it too but I but I had to otherwise it wasn't going to [Music] stop living every day sad in your heart that you can't be who you want to be I can't do it anymore I'm a person this is who I am so today I decided to come out and let everyone know and I was gay and I thought that I'd go about it this way showing everybody the picture of my girlfriend and I and leaving it out on my desk and if they ask me who it is I'm going to tell them I'm Lisa and I guess I'm out now not all bullies lurk in the schoolyard in the fall of 2002 then 13-year-old Thomas mlin became the target of his teachers in Little Rock Arkansas and she calls me abnormal unnatural she's going to change me if I don't change myself it all started when Thomas then 13 was asked by another boy passing in the hall if he was gay I'm like well if if I am I am if I'm not I'm not you know it's none of your business and that's what the teacher overheard and he said it was kind of um inappropriate for school and so he told the assistant principal I guess after fifth period and she got me out of seventh period took me out in the hall and asked if it was true and I said yeah and then she asked if my parents knew I said no and she's like well you have to figure out what you're going to say to him by 3:40 this afternoon because I'm going to tell them that afternoon Thomas's mom D mlin got a phone call at work from the school counselor I remember her saying that he was having feelings for other males I mean she didn't just come out and say he's gay even though this was news to miss mcclaflin she didn't think it was appropriate for the school to be telling her he had to be petrified you know like he had to wonder what's going to happen when I get home or my my parents going to kick me out or what those fears would prove to be unfounded we sat down and we talked about it and assured him that we loved him anyway and it didn't didn't matter to us if he was gay or straight or purple or green or whatever you know he's our kid we love him his teachers weren't as understanding including the one who first overheard him he gave me a four-page note how I was going to go to Hell whatever I didn't change my ways and had a whole bunch of scriptures on it I don't have it anymore I wish I did I threw it away according to Thomas things were bearable until the following year when the ninth grade assistant principal also felt compelled to preach to him so he pulls out his Bible he tells me to come by his desk and he opens it up and he wants me to read something so I'm reading it just looking at it you know like I'm reading it to myself so he tells me to read it out loud so he can hear me and help me with stuff I don't understand Thomas knew that this religious instruction was inappropriate in a public school but when he complained he was suspended for 2 days we're Christians we do go to church and we do believe in God in fact Thomas sings in his church choir and has gotten support from his Pastor I kind of thought him being a minister and all he'd be against it but um he's not he's pretty cool um he is cool not pretty cool he is Cool Thomas was also surprised by the reaction of his fellow students the kids are fine it's just the teachers that are stupid it's like they've taken on different roles the administrators act like the kids and the kids act like the administrators should be acting Thomas was tolerating the situation well until one teacher disciplined him in front of his friends she's like nobody cares that you're gay Thomas don't you understand that you're just trying to get attention the whole class or almost the whole class hears this and they're looking and she screams at him to get out of the classroom she El at me so bad that when I get out of that classroom I cry it's just made him have so many doubts and questions and fears and you know I mean it's it's just really done number on him Thomas continued to talk about his punishments and the School threatened to expel him that was just it i' had enough and I sat down when Saturday afternoon and composed my letter to the ACLU the American civil liberties Union took up Thomas's case filing a lawsuit against the school district for violating his right to free speech and freedom of religion by preaching to him and forcing him to read the Bible I think Thomas's story is sadly typical for queer youth in the state Eric Reese is the executive director of Arkansas equality an organization that fights for LGBT rights and conducts support groups for qu and questioning youth just for the seeing Thomas doing that energizes me you know energizes others to say hey it's okay to be who you are and not to take any of this harassment and abuse from others I want them to to realize you know what their responsibilities are towards our children and to realize that we're all equal if you don't believe the way I believe that's okay okay you're still a person you're still a human and I have to treat you with respect Thomas and the ACLU settled his suit when the school agreed to policy changes that protect gay and lesbian students there's a lot of kids there but just remember if they treat those kids the way they've treated me we can always come back with another suit throwing my daughter away just was not an option I love her why did it take me uh a few weeks to do something that I'd see other parents struggling with for a lifetime because I had no choice the moment she told me she was she was gay I knew at that very moment her job was done the work now was for me to do don't stop loving and don't stop communicating [Music] [Music] for over a decade the youth in the Dallas Texas area have been the focus of one Church's inventive new Crusade to save souls in this month's real toore in the Life follows filmmaker George Ratliff behind the scenes of his documentary Hell House this is Steve he thought his homosexual lifestyle was everything a real man could want please Steve give your life to Jesus since you rejected my son you have no place in My Kingdom depart from me I do not know you hell is a place of everlasting torment just constant Agony and burning Hell House started with this huge Pentecostal Church aside of Dallas Trinity symol of God in Cedar Hill Texas every Halloween they put on enormous haunted house where the object is to scare kids into Christianity the whole church gets involved and they build this huge haunted house from scratch and it's not ghouls and goblins it's it's what they consider contemporary sin and so what are our themes that we deal with in house us we deal with suicide we deal with abortion we deal with drugs there's a combine school shooting scene there's a a kid dying of Aid scene in the hospital scene in every scene the object is some someone dies sinning in the end you're supposed to be afraid that you're going to go to hell too and they they basically try to scare you into joining the church H is basically a fire and brimstone sermon but a high-tech version of it they write and cast every scene Heather talked about homosexuality dealing with a a gay bar there's a a monitor room where they they watch all the scenes on different monitors and it's a huge production Oscar open that door and get started now now they go into heaven that was quick good quick coffin trip there and it's a big money maker too Pentecostals are the entertainers and they've always been great at putting on a show all the the great televangelists are [Music] Pentecostal if you want to try out for a new scene just come up here and grab the scene go home practice it and come back when I was a kid my uncle did things to me that changed my life he said I was born that way how could you do this to me what kind of God are you very excited about it they all aspire to be a suicide boy or abortion girl more girl I got it I did it God help me you see that they really have fun CU it's the one time of the year that they get to basically sin or at least act like they're sinning did you have fun tonight what kind of a gun are you they get they get to act like they're having sex they get to act like you know they're doing all these great things and in the end they're doing God's work so it's a great time had by all of them this church started Hell House in 1990 and it's grown every year and now they have around 15,000 people go through every year and one out of five people who go through there actually convert or Recon convert you know there are people in the next room waiting to pray with you should you walk to the door know the fact that when we die we can go to heaven to be with Jesus it's so awesome the regular kids that have been in a bubble of this Church their entire lives they've been born and raised within it they go to a Christian School you know everything is slanted to Christian it's it's really isolating the church for example likes the film because for them it's like a home movie We're competing against the darkness for Souls that are lost that he's trying to send to hell and we're trying to be a partner with God to bring them into eternal life he said I was born that way I believe the lie AIDS you fool these are not violent people if they were to meet a gay person they would you know ostensibly love the person hate the sin but it just doesn't work that way often time I think hell is everybody's own experience in the film there's you know four kids who uh were Furious about uh what was going on who's it say if you're gay you're going to go Hell or Heaven what does the Bible say about homosexuality what's wrong with being gay I was gay I was by that they are very anti-gay they they think that people who are gay were duped into it and that it's just a psychological mistake that can be corrected it was really you know sad especially with these kids because some of the kids within the hell house and in the school are obviously gay it was very important to be objective and to present this in an even-handed way simply because this unfortunately is America 46% of America considers themselves fundamentalist we are the salt we are the light and we are here to infiltrate the culture finally there's a verit documentary that they can the G Les Community can point to and say see I told you so this is the way Middle America treats us this is the way the fundamentalist Christian America believes help me I'm Beth Anthony I'm Wilson Cruz I'm Patricia Clarkson I'm Alex Sanchez I'm maret Gomez I'm Norman corpy I'm Peter Gallagher and you're watching you're watching America's gay and lesbian gay and lesbian news magazine in the life in the life in the life in the life in the life still to come on in the Life I Lived in foster care through high school um and know how really important it is for adults to step up all the way around these kids are invisible and they're dying I don't care what you believe or what church you attend or how religion oriented your private life is keep it out of my [Music] government [Music] [Music] the 2003 murder of 15-year-old Sakia gun demonstrated that the violence underlying The Bullying epidemic is not confined to our schools because the American public reacted with Universal horror to the killing of Matthew Shepard in 1998 many believe that anti-lgbt hate crimes have been diffused but they still occur with the same regularity 6 years later and they tend to be crimes against youth often but not in sakya's case perpetrated by youth in May 203 15-year-old Sakia gun was brutally stabbed to death at a Bust Stop in Newark New Jersey the murder galvanized the local LGBT community tonight in the life looks at a call for Change and one community's effort to create it the car pulled up and was trying to talk to the girls telling them to come here and none of the girls went so they was telling them we gay so the guy got out the car telling them why you over here with these [ __ ] they [ __ ] the guy was 29 years old 59 210 lb anybody in their right mind can see that these children I mean that these were children when you put the knife to her neck she swung at him and got him off of her then they went to run again and he grabbed her and he just stabbed her in the chest Valencia said as she was looking at her in the car and kept saying don't go to sleep don't go to sleep she said her eyes rolled in the back of her head once the kid died in my arms I I immediately went to like a stage of shot like I couldn't believe it when Valencia lost AIA she had like she went to a very traumatic stage um it was at like she was a time bomb getting ready to explode she really didn't know what to do it was so many people in one year that I have known that lives have been taken because of something so dumb something that it shouldn't even matter you know this happen so often here in New York it happened so often in the black community um young black kids get killed every day all day every day any time of day so I think we've many of us have uh become um desensitized to the horror of having a young person's life uh ended that way but veteran activist laqueta Nelson was so compelled by sakya's murder that she came out of retirement founding an organization to do something about it the Newark Pride Alliance Incorporated came about as a result of the murder of Sakia gun in order to address the issues that were affecting the gay and lesbian Community uh with special effic emphasis on the youth Nelson is focused on achieving a Longs sought Youth Center which would provide a safe place for kids like Valencia To Go part of what uh led up to these young people's deaths is that they've had to go uh places to to neighborhoods and to communities far field from their home to find places where they felt safe all that hatred and all that violence we don't bring it to New York especially to the Village we don't bring it there you leave all that stuff wherever you came from there you could walk down the street all types of night I mean you're still going to be careful but you really have to don't have to worry about anyone coming to get you or saying something to you in Jersey we really don't have anywhere to go to be freely with our sexuality so you come out here to be around people like us rather than seeing this as a national problem that deserves news media attention this has been treated again as a local crime problem as a problem that perhaps only the gay media should be concerned about and the gay lesbian media has not as far as I can ascertain really paid attention to those specific concerns of gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender youth of color so all the way around these kids are invisible and they're dying as everyone knows was a real close friend of mine I'm happy to see that people out here fight fighting against bias crimes it's a shame that we have to walk down the street not knowing what's going to happen to us a very important part of the work that the new Pride Alliance has before it and that's the to educate the people about the lives of gay and lesbian people and and gay and lesbian children and how homophobia and hate crimes and name calling and beating up and things like that how it affects the the the children and the people that these acts are directed at as well as how these Acts affect the community as as a whole the community was further traumatized in the aftermath of sakya's murder after she died there was a statement that the principal had made a um when you live a certain lifestyle things like this deserve to happen to you but I didn't hear him say that so I don't know the truth in spite of the alleged attitude of their principal over 2,000 students attended saki's Memorial in gay community we all want family anyone fell behind the other one picks him up to make sure we right on the same track there's no one going to be left Left Behind ever the emotion of the day captured almost everyone including mayor sharp James who attended the services and promised full support to the community center he came to the funeral and that's when he promised us he said well he'll help us get a sent anything we wanted he help us get it but ever since that day you can't even get him on a phone after initially agreeing to be interviewed for this story the mayor's office later declined I think the n has failed to gain this been Community not only just the youth but the adults too because this has been an ongoing problem for a long time by now newshire have some type of cultural center for the children it's um homophobic this issue about a community center is not a new issue it's a it's something that we've been fighting for for many years but it's taken s's murder to bring the light to these people oh there is a problem there with the young gay you know uh African-American gay and lesbian you no it's not new this has been going on for a long time we have children standing off the streets wanting to come there to play basketball wanting to come there to read a book wanting to come there just sit there and hang out with their friends because they can't hang out on in front of their house because they got to worry about a drive by just it would actually have people come there because they want to do something with their lives I don't think that young people today really have a sense that they can make the world better and they don't really have a sense of what better means I think they're so confused and so overwhelmed in an effort to make New York a safer place the New York Pride Alliance is working in concert with groups like P flag to get these issues out of the closet thank you um although my daughter's physical is not here it's people like you and everybody that support me that keeps our Al within me and I thank everything that everybody's helping me to thank you I deeply want the world to know that I am trying to get this Center that my daughter did not die in vain something is going to be done about this there needs to be a paradigm shift in this state as well as this country with respect to how people in the general public see gay and lesbian people a a a an an image has been implanted in their mind since time and Memorial of us being unclean un wholesome Wicked Unworthy of of of life people fear the unknown and what people fear they tend to hate but if you understand something you would learn not to fear it you would learn not to hate it you would learn probably even to love it or like it all those young lesbians and all those young kids that we hugged and tried to console at Sak's funeral we promised them that we were going to do something to make things better for them and that's what we're going to do we're going to get them a community center so that they can go there and they can gather and feel safe because that Community Center is going to be a place where they can come and not fear that they're going to be hurt in any kind of [Music] way I certainly never thought I would be a public speaker nor did I want to be be out front I'm basically a shy quiet reserved person unless you make me angry um so I guess I'm angry I speak and travel and meet people who who feel like I represent the mom they have or the mom they wish they had who loves their children unconditionally in the last 5 years since I started speaking to organizations and colleges uh the audiences have changed they are braver in the questions that they ask they are uh more aggressive in the way they participate as an audience they understand who they are so much younger than my generation did they are the generation who just so gets who they are this is Judy Shepard and you're watching in the [Music] life [Music] there are roughly 1.3 million homeless youth in America and it's estimated that between 20 and 40% identify as lesbian gay bisexual or transgendered and the streets offering little more than violence and sexual exploitation are hard to escape but the LGBT community in Minneapolis Minnesota is blazing the trail to a possible [Music] solution many people run away from their homes and then run to Metro areas and they end up homeless my mom had kicked me out so I basically just lived in my car I was in a studio with about four other people sleeping on the floor anywhere would be better than where I was living in Wisconsin was just [Music] horrible gbt youth are kicked out drop out of school end up in foster care all those things 10 times more often than any other youth so there's a higher rate of glbt Youth that are on the streets we started conversations about why are queer youth over represented in the homeless youth population what can the community do about it there's so many of us in the community who have extra bedrooms and would probably be willing to have somebody move in let's ask the community if they're willing to do that the result was host homes a Grassroots program that links homeless LGBT youth with welcoming LGBT homes when I came out at 16 I got that it was a it's a phase you'll grow out of it and my mother realized it wasn't a phase she told me that I needed to make up my mind what I wanted to do because I couldn't live in Fargo that would be too much of an embarrass for my parents I mean I could have very easily ended up being one of those kids on the street so that's why I love getting I wanted to get involved let's say something about the fact that Sten the mission is to provide safe spaces for homeless youth a lot of homeless youth were queer and they were out on the streets and they weren't using the shelters um because they weren't safe places to be the shelters that are out there are tend to be very uh scary in the sense that they're not safe I had to leave because some of the staff seemed shady towards me you know there's a lot of things going on that I knew about that I couldn't prove so I had to get out of there the staff sometimes have run-ins you know with the youth and we'll you know sleep with youth or whatever you know it's just it's it's not a good atmosphere to be in so it sort of perpetuates you being on the street because you don't want to be in a shelter you know and you figure oh I'm better off on my own I think that a lot of Youth are aging out of the system and with how the foster care system is set up when you turn 18 you're pretty much sometimes turned out on your own I started coming to the realization that I'm trans I started telling people and I got a lot of like negative reactions and I didn't have any support whatsoever in Wisconsin so I moved and um it was just horrible like I felt so alone my mom had kicked me out she was sort of embarrassed of me cuz I had shaved my head and she was having issues with me being a gay teenager I basically just lived in my car a lot of learning happens if you think back to when you were 18 19 20 and 21 you know that huge differences happen in your life and without having a support system set up there's no way that you're going to succeed information there so I was creating this program that would mostly serve this population that had come out of the foster care system I wanted to make sure that it wasn't the same thing host don't get any financial compensation like like foster homes do the youth are there because the host really genuinely wanted to open up their home and provide a safe space for them to live yeah in foster care they just yeah they place you or they send you you're going to be with this family until you can settle things or until you're 18 then you're on your own they actually get to read through the entire the host's entire applications they get to interview the host his first question was is there a curfew big question for a 18-year-old Andy and Kims I have absolutely love going to because they always feed me oh yeah of course we talk about how things are going if we need to nag Steven on something sometimes we do it then here's another one when I first met them we had a dinner and I felt safe enough you know cuz at the time I had just moved from Wisconsin because I had come out as transsexual and a lot of people weren't okay with it and so I was kind of feeling burned like a feel like extreme fear rejection and like just the fact that I felt okay to like tell them right when I first met them that I'd like support from you guys helping me deal with you know my growth just that Foundation of safety I mean they feed me so and that's a that's a bonus too come on tough up before I entered this program I didn't have uh any support system and I was struggling with my sexuality you know and being homeless and so you compile all those things and it leaves you feeling pretty hopeless if I hadn't moved in with them I um don't know where I would be right now the jbt host home program is the only program of its like across the country it is a community response to a community need and I think it's also important because it gives the jtq adult community an opportunity to really be a part of the solution there's some pieces of my own personal history um around the importance of family and having significant adults Step Up um I lived in foster care through high school um and know how really important it is for adults to step up Holly and Omar are both living independently now and are each pursuing careers that focus on education right now I'm trying to sort of give back my time I uh hopefully can get this position with the why I'm working with after school like Youth and working with some of the younger kids in me like kindergarten to Junior High what I want to do is uh use the power that film has to make change open people's minds a little bit about some of the issues that they don't necessarily think about every day I've been homeless for about about a year and a half and we were on the streets together for about 3 months this house was built 1905 you turn on the heat it go right Holly still has a key to the house I like knowing that she thinks of this as home base I do plan on being a part of Michelle J's lives you know for a long time as long as they'll let me do laundry we have homeless youth or queer we have adult queers with extra bedrooms at its most simple level it's beautiful why can't we have this in every community in 1993 the year after in the Life first aired a group of approximately 1,000 gay lesbian and straight high school students from Massachusetts went to the state capital to demonstrate and to Lobby on behalf of legislation that bans discrimination against gay and lesbian students the legisl was passed that year making Massachusetts the first US state to protect its students from discrimination based upon their sexual orientation in the 1990s Emil wilin became one of the most powerful people in the hip-hop industry as editor-in chief of vibe magazine he educated the world about Urban Music and as an outg man he challenged the homophobia that is often considered endemic to rap and hip-hop [Music] it's about the superstars of Urban Music he wants to tell the stories that exist behind hip-hop the drama the politics sexual identity some people feel like being gays is a challenge hip-hop music has definitely been known to be homophobic that's probably why people in the hip-hop Community are not open about it there are also all these beautiful positive things about hip-hop all I need is one M Quincy came up with the idea for an urban music and Culture magazine that would be Multicultural not just about music but about the Arts and film and politics and it would be young and it would be beautiful and it would be cutting edge I grew up in Cincinnati Ohio which is a very you know big urban city but it's also very conservative I always felt like something was different or uh unique about me I had won awards for art shows in kindergarten and I won my first uh writing essay contest in the third grade so there were always these things that kind of set me apart I remember wanting to have my own magazine and my goal in my head was to be the Eder in Chief of my own magazine by the time I was 30 and To Be A Millionaire by the time I was 30 so I became Eder and chief of VI when I was 31 and I'm still working on the millionaire part but um so you know how in the beginning of the Mary Tyler Mora show she's in Minneapolis and she throws her hat in the air that's how I felt when I came to New York I was really really excited I felt like I was finally home in the early '90s when I was working at Metropolitan home I was introduced to a couple of editors from other magazines who happen to be gay and they very much encourag me to come out and to be honest with myself and my friends and my family as to who I was I remember being a nervous wreck and like butterflies in my stomach and my hands sweating all day and I called home and I remember just kind of saying like Mom and Dad I'm gay and my mother just started crying and screaming and saying no no no please Lord no and my father said that he kind of had an idea which was kind of surprising to me even though the time was very difficult with my family and it was very you know emotionally just hard I definitely felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders by being honest with them when I started a Vibe magazine in '92 I was associate editor he's held every single position at the magazine whether it's taking care of the next section which is our new Talent section fashion director I mean everything when I was considering if I would go after the vibe editor and chief job I definitely in my head thought about the homophobia in hip-hop and the misogyny and the perceived small-mindedness of the hip-hop Community but then I also thought about the fact that I would have the power to change those perceptions and open up people's eyes as editor-in chief of a magazine you are the face of the magazine so you have to represent the magazine you have to come up with the content with your team of editors making sure that the magazine is balanced and fair making sure that the magazine sells on new stands M has got a very calm attitude and a very honest kind of um approach that allows him to be critical to make choices that are uncomfortable and to make artists uncomfortable when necessary to tell the truth to keep his integrity and there's a tremendous amount of respect for him in our industry there was a rapper who was playing his album for us for consideration for a cover and one of the songs came on and I'm there with my music editor and one of my writers and the song is like [ __ ] and beat you down and and kill the [ __ ] and d d d d da and he realized it and jumped up and looked at me and was like I'm so sorry I really apologize and turned the song off I called the record label the next day and I was very very you know disappointed with the fact that that was being considered for the album because I felt like that is not the types of messages that we should be putting out in the music right now the song did not make the album I think what makes him a great leader is that he really pays attention to people I think that's very important when you are um selling a magazine to many people in the world and when you are um acknowledging and recognizing different artists you have to really get into what people want and what people like one story that I really really felt impassionate about was doing a gay hip-hop story no one really knew how to kind of go about it and do it in a way that would be sort of not offensive let's say to our you know non-gay readers that they would find this interesting and at the same time that the gay readers would feel like this was representing them I was going out to these clubs in New York and DC and Atlanta and Los Angeles and Miami that were hip-hop clubs all these kids were thugged out with the gold chains and the gold teeth and corn rolls and just you in name any rapper there was a look like there of that person the fact is these clubs Were Gay the story is a very controversial story about these guys that are into hiph hop and are gay but pose as straight and don't are not out and then it also talks about the conflict of loving music that is you know degrading and that is self-deprecating in and that is homophobic we got more letters from the story than any other story published in the history of the magazine most of them positive most of them kids from Oklahoma or you know down south who were thankful for us for writing the story because it represented them and then some of the letters were from gay black men who were mad that I outed them that I outed the culture I realized that you know what this is a very Hot Topic and obviously we have a lot of gay readers or people who are interested in gay culture so it was kind of it was very rewarding M brings uh just in his person uh the tendency to strive for excellence he has intuitive sense for really what's hot with a particular genre or a particular artist and also uh a real finger on the pulse in terms of what's driving the culture there's still a lot of stories that haven't been told there's still a lot of education and cultural awareness that needs to happen after 12 years at Vibe magazine Emil left earlier this year to take over as vice president of development at Mark Echo Enterprises at this English-speaking conference I was instructed to sing and speak only in Spanish the audience was asked to take off the headsets that provided translation the idea was to show what it was like to live in a world where you didn't understand what was being presented helping the national minority AIDS Council make a point that day made me feel like I was doing something for my community and for my best friend who will always be with me I'm Jan Estrada and you're watching in the life and finally four time Tony Award winner and in the live regular commentator Harvey firestein H jeez are we ready getting all worked up oh forget it I don't believe in heaven in fact I don't believe in any sort of conscious afterlife more to the point I don't believe in God or gods or goddesses but I pray every day sometimes more than once a day and I operate under a complicated belief system pretty much of my own device which I base on scientific laws and humanistic principles and and all in all it works for me I tell you this not to seek converts or to invite any discussion of any specific religion I just want you to know that my beliefs might seem just as silly to you as yours do to me and that's cool we are lucky enough to be living in a country that not only guarantees the freedom to practice religion as we see fit but also freedom from religious zealots who would persecute and prosecute and even physically harm those of us who do not believe as they do you say good kind God-fearing people don't go around killing non-believers I quote The Immortal words of Monty Python no one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition no one ever expects it but that's usually what they get look to the Middle East look to Ireland look to Brooklyn more Wars have been fought in the name of religion than any other cause more people have been persecuted reputations ruined and fortunes plundered and murders committed in the name of religion than any other Enterprise and more everyday bigotry and Prejudice is founded on what religion a person follows than any other factor a nun walks into a room you automatically cut her some slack and give her a modum of respect conversely a man tells you he thinks God is a bunch of superstitious hooy and you start looking to the sky for a lightning bolt to appear now the atheist May in fact be a Nobel Prize winner who has spent his life in service of mankind he may be the noblest being who has ever walk the earth but if you had to leave your wallet with either this guy who says there is no God or with the nun who says bless you my child with beatific smile who you going to trust with your hard earn cash that my friends is how Prejudice works the world has learned in recent years that just because you're a priest doesn't mean you can't be a child rapist in fact the Catholic church is the only organization on record to dispense money from a slush fund set up solely for the paying off of abused children's families so always remember you cannot judge a man by his collar anyway it's supposed to be different in America but is it we live in a land where to winse at the phrase God Bless America makes you somehow suspect if you refuse to salute the flag and say God in your pledge you're actually judged an American but that's not the way America is supposed to be that's the way Iran is and after 200 billion of our tax dollars that's the way Iraq is again predicating patriotism on a citizen's belief in God is as anti-American as judging him on the color of his skin it is wrong it is useless and it is unconstitutional so how did we get stuck with a president who does it every day of the week forget believing in God how about thinking for yourself on a subject in May of this year an American Catholic Archbishop decreed that any parishioner under his jurisdiction who votes for a pro Choice Pro gay rights or Pro stem cell research candidate may not take communion in other words you go to hell if you don't vote the way the Catholic Church wants you to vote are you getting my point yet bottom line I don't care what you believe or what church you attend or how religion oriented your private life is keep it out of my government keep it out of my laws keep it out of my bedroom and keep it out of the war rooms at the Pentagon what you believe and how you worship is a matter between you and your higher power whatever that means to you so how about this you don't tell me I'm going to hell and I won't tell you the emperor has no clothes deal I'm Stacy an chin for all of us at in the life thank you for watching and we'll see you next month in the life is funded in part by the H van amaran Foundation additional support provided by the Ford Foundation The Pride Foundation The Lily aen Claus foundation and the annual support of in the Life members like [Music] you