In the Life: Ep. 604, "As American as Apple Pie I"

on this edition of in the life down on the farm and under the big top I guess you could side with the first ring master ring me out it from cartoons to car makers all as American as apple pie next on in the life America's information line on gay and lesbian issues and culture in the life is funded in part by the H Van Amerindian foundation additional support provided by the guild foundation the Joyce Mertz Kilmer foundation the Michael palm foundation the advocate the national game lesbian news magazine since 1967 and in the life members nationwide welcome to in the life and Detroit where the car is king I'm Catherine Linton we came here to look at a fight for gay rights inside one of America's big 3 automakers Chrysler throughout this edition in fact we'll meet gay men and lesbians who are working in places you might call as American as apple pie on the farm under the big top even in the kingdom that Walt Disney built but we began here the car capital of the world where a gay chrysler worker named Ron woods got tired of being harassed at work and set out to do something about it almost every bathroom wall had my name on it you know describing all these sex acts you know and there was a bull's-eye at work that was posted saying such a such amount of money reward the assassination of Ron Wood with a bull's-eye in it Ron's story was chronicled over the last 5 years and the new documentary out at work when we started out at work in 47 states it was legal to fire someone on paper for being gay and lesbian now in 41 states it is legal to fire someone for being gay and lesbian directed and produced by Tammy Gould and Kelly Anderson out at work is the first documentary to follow lesbians and gay men on the job I told myself you go in there every day I don't care if you're cold you have a flu doesn't matter what you're going to be the best employee they ever had and they're gonna live with me just like I have to live with them and I went in there all the time and did the best I could and I realized it wasn't going to work that - the day I retired in the day I died that I would always be that [ __ ] that people hated you know we've been talking for a long time as gay and lesbians about marriage and about the military and I think that we missed it like the the fundamental thing for our humanities and that's the right to work and the right to be fought at our jobs yeah what's amazing about at work is how these really in a way kind of regular people you know confronted these horrendous situations and really are they find their way out of them I mean Ron goes from being a guy who would go to work and nobody would say hi to him for like a year he would eat you know alone at a table for lunch every day for a year and in the end he ends up getting elected as a delegate to the to the convention of the United Auto Workers he stands up he makes a speech supporting gay rights in the contract in the auto workers contract and it passes unanimously you know so he makes this huge incredible transformation from being completely a pariah of disempowered to being you know this real successful union member and activist and completely out you know I stand firmly in support of this contract a man for all groups listed including the word sexual orientation after I became known as gay in 1991 my life became a living hell due to extreme harassment and discrimination I asked that my union through the right thing by steadfastly demanding that such discrimination be forbidden contractually please take this very seriously and understand that we must protect all of our members thank you very much thank you brother I think it is time for people to understand that workplace rights are for everyone but how do you secure workplace protections for gay and lesbian workers at Chrysler in the life travelled to Detroit to look at gay rights at one of the Big Three automakers at this point in time the company can come at us and fire us for no reason at all and it's not fair it's it's discrimination and it's you've always got a dinosaur on your back because you're you never know if they're yes they want to get rid of it they can do it last fall Chrysler refused to include sexual orientation protections in their contract with the UAW arguing that they already had a general policy of non-discrimination in protest Ron and other activists organized the campaign for equal rights at Chrysler picketing for months at Chrysler world headquarters adding sexual orientation to the contract they refused that is our goal that is our demand I personally and I know many other people that will not stop until we receive that demand meanwhile non-union employees were organizing a gay and lesbian employee association people of diversity the goals of people of diversity at Chrysler really reflect trying to work within the corporation and within the corporate structure as in educating and advocating voice for the gay and lesbian community also in the works from a socially responsible investment firm was a stockholder Resolution stockholder resolution is sort of like a ballot referendum for shareholders when you own stock in a company a company will mail out once every year its proxy statement which will ask all shareholders to vote on a number of issues on behalf of Chrysler shareholders Shelly Alpern proposed a resolution calling for new policies on sexual orientation we were looking for three things from Chrysler one that they changed the policy to be explicit about it secondly that they publicize it internally so that all employees would be aware of exactly what was expected of them and number three that they back up the new policy with diversity training that would cover sexual orientation issues in the workplace Chrysler agreed to the demands of the resolution on the condition that it not appear on the proxy statement so far they have revised an employee policy to include sexual orientation in its non-discrimination clause the new policy that came out it was a surprise to us we were not aware that it was happening it's great it's an awesome stuff it really is it's an official policy of Chrysler that actually spells out the word sexual orientation I think it is a positive step but it absolutely is just a positive step we want substantial real fundamental change here at Chrysler what's happened was the company learned to spell they actually learned how to spell sexual orientation but they didn't know where exactly where to put it they need to put it of the contract between the UAW and the corporation but Chrysler argues that adding sexual orientation to legally protected categories such as race and gender sends the wrong message one of the things that we think is important as a corporation is to send a message that we will not tolerate discrimination or harassment against any of our employees on any basis and to further spell out and list out groups we felt might lead individuals who were not listed to believe that they were excluded and our intent was to ensure that all of our employees know that they are included in our non-discrimination policy Martha Grove on has been out on the job since 1989 and has suffered years of harassment I think that management is perhaps more willing to address a complaint of discrimination when it comes to one of their own one of their own supervisors or their own top-level engineering staff now generally management often has an attitude of contempt towards hourly workers towards people who work with their hands we are very concerned about our employees we believe that it is very important for us to have inspired workforce in order to deliver the kinds of products to our customers that we want to so to the extent that there are employees in our workforce who have concerns we would encourage them to to come forth and to have a confidential conversation with me or someone in my office so that perhaps we can give them the kinds of assurances that they would need to bring forth any concerns that they have but what about those who remain closeted to avoid harassment we contacted eleven additional employees who would not be interviewed on camera and only one would agree to appear anonymously but to be able to perform my job and they know they can so I keep quiet I can do I'm very out at work I work with a really incredible group of people my bus is great he knows about pod in fact I run press releases and stuff by him these drastically different experiences at Chrysler are why some union members continue to push for the contract changes I mean I believe in being played do not get me wrong but sometimes you have to lay it on the line and say you're not going to give it we've tried for five years to get this and so we're going to pick it I don't just want language there's all kinds of anti-discrimination language but the discrimination still goes on I have to there are everything that comes out of my mouth to protect myself and I did that it's very hard while shareholders and union members at Chrysler took steps towards making workplace history voters across America made political history this past November by electing a record number of gay and lesbian candidates to public office here in the nation's capital for the first time there's an openly lesbian african-american in the United States Congress representing the District of Columbia and as you're about to see in addition to being black and lesbian in this traditionally straight white male institution representing DC poses yet another set of challenges no matter who you are we bring you now a day in the life of the woman who is facing these challenges head-on the United States representative Sabrina Sojourner this is a Brooklyn this is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the District of Columbia and it originally was the suburbs of Washington DC I have lived here for five out of the six years that I've been living in Washington DC Brooklyn is about 70% land about six to eight percent Latino as about 2% Asian and then the rest white and that is about what the demographics of this of Washington DC are I moved here six years ago and I suddenly had to face something I had to give up my right to having a representation in the House of Representatives and in the Senate rational delegation Krissy speaking may I help you as the u.s. shadow representative from DC Sabrina is lobbying to gain representation there are a lot of people who really don't know that we don't have a vote in the House of Representatives and don't know that we don't have any senators they don't think about it and they just don't know and so our big job is to raise the education level and the understanding level of both people in the Congress and in the country and around the world ironically Washington DC home of the federal government is the only place in the country whose citizens have no voice all decisions that impact the district are made by Congress none of whom represent the district there are literally thousands of decisions that are made that fully and solely impact the District of Columbia the District of Columbia is one of the places in one of the jurisdictions that allows adoption by lesbian and gay couples and every year that there's a Congress that doesn't like us that those particular regulations are put in jeopardy and Congress shouldn't have nothing to say about that for Sabrina representing the interests of DC residents does not happen from behind a desk she goes to the source first stop Tyler elementary school kids safe is kids safety program what everybody could say 9 1 1 1 3 1 2 3 now next off a meeting at the University of the District of Columbia to strategize about securing a school budget threatened by the city financial control board it's outrageous that we in the District of Columbia should be deprived of public higher education access because people don't think that it's important for us to have it a late lunch was reserved for robert chan a student intern with the Office of Asian American Pacific Islander affairs Sabrina's ability to outreach to different communities reflects her own multiple identities I am a woman a single mother I'm a feminist I'm african-american I'm Cherokee and as chronicled in her book psychic scars and other mad thoughts I'm also a survivor of sexual abuse and I think that all of those things have come together to create Who I am in a way that gives me a depth and breadth of understanding of how oppression in particular works with all of these concerns Sabrina still has to face her own backyard last year I had done all of this tilling and planting anticipating spending my entire summer gardening and then you know a few community people and some friends had this idea about me running for office and by the time I got all the petition signatures in and all of this was like so incredibly overgrown it was amazing finally Sabrina's partner Leticia comes to get ready for the evenings event so what's on tap for tonight the dinner right yep and it's black tie optional black ice if there was ever a moment in my life where I felt what the world of my oyster it is this moment certainly before I decided to do this no one saw an open african-american lesbian in this kind of a political position I know that you've entrusted me with not just your vote and not just your personal support but a large expectation about doing something different with this position and I want you to know I'm ready to do my best not to let you down Thank You Sabrina Sojourner Maysoon learned why many observers have called the government a circus and politicians clowns but the real circus or at least the three-ring circus is a quintessentially American form of wholesome family entertainment where strong men tame lions and beautiful women fly through the air and leotards the men are macho and the women are glamorous and everybody is heterosexual on the surface but upon closer inspection one will find that from Center rings to sideshow stages gay people have always been among the dreamers who've decided to run away and join this very unique institution we begin with one of the most unique circus forms the sideshow from the very beginning of the sideshow the American sideshow in the middle of 1800s the intent was for family entertainment that's what they call the sunday-school show there were some exceptions to this from the very beginning there there were bearded ladies which was sort of gender-bending and its very earliest form and then also another act kind of snuck in around the turn of the century we don't quite know the origin of this it was called well the in the sideshows is known as a half-and-half but it's known medically as the hermaphrodite the interesting thing in from the the sideshow angle is that traditionally the half and a half's were were men were just cross dressers transvestites Josephine Jose they see God you drop your left me from the people I I've spoken with the old sideshow performers and showman that worked with the half-and-half side in almost every case that I've come across they were gay sometimes they would work a season or two as a half and a half and then grow a beard and it just dresses a woman in and perform as a bearded woman though the majority of the bearded ladies that worked in sideshows were actually women one of these actual or authentic bearded women is Jennifer Miller yeah I worked at Coney Island circus sideshow for three seasons and I am the bearded lady there and I give a a rap a good hard funny political monologue and which culminates and knife juggling not all the gay people that I've known who've worked in sideshows have been felt comfortable being out I was out as a lesbian there was Michael Wilson lovely fabulous Illustrated man who's died now who was bisexual and who wasn't out at work except to me and then there was a sort of half man half woman across the street who was out as well so two out of three were out and one was half out not bad beyond wanting to be openly lesbian Jennifer wanted a space to express her politics so she created her own in the form of a circus circus amok is a free circus that performs in the parks of New York which it is political where we're concerned with putting that information that we feel will confront the audience honest on a thinking level about two contemporary political issues it's predominantly queer personnel ring members with an aesthetic that's based in whatever you could call a queer aesthetic a queer aesthetic based on some very classic circus routines the Adagio act is based on a very classic Adagio act an Adagio act being a very slow motion partner acrobatics Act which even in the straight circus the mainstream circus has often been a very homoerotic act I think there's there's a long tradition of homoerotic imagery in the circus but the occasional homoerotic imagery does not add up to an easy place to be out in the circus world the circus world I find is very traditional even the small circuses so you might be able to be a player in the circus and be gay or lesbian and have your friends accept you but you're not going to feel like you're part of a an endeavor that's representing you unless of course you come to circus amuck or airmail an independent two-man trapeze act that is one of the only acts of its kind in the world the basic ingredients of what makes our act work are similar to any kind of relationship a lot of trust communication and commitment as out gay men we wanted to include that aspect of our identity in our act because it is inherent in any kind of performance in duet whether it be in dance or circus and inherent romantic quality a sensuality involved we really wanted to keep that presence in our act performing in places ranging from this straight Club in Japan to gay clubs in San Francisco airmail meets another goal the gay community isn't really used to seeing circus and circus isn't really used to seeing in the gay community or the gay a gay presence so I think the in combining that it can bridge you know both and just for a straight audience also seeing two men working closely together it kind of reaffirms a positive image you know of gay people but the question remains does one have to be a sideshow attraction or form an act in order to reveal a gay identity under the big tongue openly gay ringmaster Eric Gillette explains his experience I'm an actor and I'm a singer and now I'm a ringmaster but I'm not a gay ringmaster okay sing or a gay actor I have all those things and I am gay my sexuality does not enter into the way that I present my work in this particular forum his forum the largest and most traditional American circus when Eric arrived at Ringling Brothers 11 years ago our interview today would have seemed out of the question I've never forgotten my very first day on the show I was driven in by the company a driver from the airport take him to see my train room and our train master was waiting with the general manager and with the manager of the show and when I got out of the car the first thing they did was walk up and shake my hand very firmly and say boy are we glad you're here that last ringmaster was a [ __ ] but Ringling Brothers support over the years surprised even the ringmaster himself I didn't know myself how they would feel about public acknowledgment of it outside of the the world in which I lived until I was approached by publicist for Ringling who asked me if I wanted to be profiled in our magazine and I thinking well if Ringling's come that far and in this many years I think I can go right along with him I was I was proud that I I guess you could say I was the first ringmaster Ringling outted ultimately whether drawn to the center ring or an alternative stage gay people arrived in this world for reasons one would expect what would attract somebody to the circus you know you come here for the excitement of the show and for the wonder of what we do and you express yourself within that as we've just seen circus people struggle with that difficult balance between their very public work and their private selves it's a struggle in fact that very few gay Americans escape not even one of the kings of pop art Andy Warhol a man whose success was based in celebrity and mass media was anything but public about his private life but Warhol's attitude towards sexuality and gender surfaced in his art long before he became famous as correspondent Hal German discovered at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh we know that Andy Warhol and sexual partners he had lovers we found romantic letters from him to other people and vice-versa Tom Sokolowski is anxious to dispel a myth Andy Warhol he says was not a lonely asexual man he just kept his private life private he came from ethnic blue-collar roots so in many ways he was very very traditional his partners were his private partners and what he did with them wasn't part of his art but if all you know of Andy's art is soup cans and brillo boxes his earliest work may hold some surprises they're not erotic and they're really gentle and they're really sort of loving images as director of the Andy Warhol Museum in Warhol's hometown of Pittsburgh Sokolowski is fascinated by Warhol's art and by his life Andy Warhol was the consummate construct itself he went from being the decidedly Eastern European immigrant Andrew wahala whose first language was Slovak tongue not English to going to be Andy Warhol which was a hip name to commercial success on Madison Avenue was very funny in the advertising world he was referred to as the shoe guy so if ever you wanted the best person to illustrate an ad for shoes you called Warhol but Warhol's private drawings from that period show another side asian boy women kissing women men kissing men this work which looks very sweet maybe even saccharine to us nowadays and yet how often would you find two men even in a little drawing in the 1950s while new-new everyone in gay subculture in New York and he immediately found out all the people who were like himself not all gay men necessarily but people who were interested in this kind of constructed identity who understood the chic and the cool and the snappy and the daring he always wore these ghastly wigs in a sense when you saw this week which was sort of sprouting out Medusa like you'd look at the wig and not at Warhol so again it was this cover and he understood how America was gonna look at its stars and that surface and the constructed identity was more important than anything else and for the rest of his life and for the rest of his art that was the prime focus Marilyn Monroe Elizabeth Taylor Judy Garland and in this room a reproduction of Warhol's silver clouds exhibit from the late 60s very gay you know what could be more Fey or more gay perhaps than bouncing balloons sculpture the 1960s also found Warhol behind the lens of a camera creating experimental films in many of them seemingly nothing happened the Empire State Building for eight hours and five minutes and people say oh you know what a bunch of direct that is and yet if you look at it it's about observing this one object which also is rather phallic it was the idea of observing a human activity slowed down to such a case that you would maybe observe different things happening in it that normally when you just move quickly through them you don't understand the subtlety of them yes fifty four minutes of couples kissing including two men but not in a kind of forbidden way but rather part of the process of his everyday life or every gay person's everyday like make them just as mundane which this long protracted film about a kiss is as kissing would be in any heterosexual couples life this is something that I we they do this is a film clip from one of Warhol's rarely seen screen tests the subject here is Marcel Duchamp who performed in drag Rosi la vie the idea was to sit or stand in front of the camera for four minutes without speaking four minutes sounds like a short time but it's interminable when you just have these bright lights on in front of you to use very very bright lights and marcel duchamp begins and then gets very nervous by the end of any human being would though many of his subjects were openly gay Warhol's art in later years became less overtly gay you know in a way I think perhaps Worrell felt he had conquered that issue with in and of himself still there is this Andy Warhol in drag and some of his very last photographs what does he focus on but the beautiful body of a young man scantily clothed they're not clothed at all so his interest in the male form was something that was continuous all his life it in many ways is quintessentially a gay equation in that it's a way of seeing those things that maybe the world doesn't like to see in itself and to speak with authority and with some fun and with some sense of power what more powerful legacy can one give to gay America than that hi I'm Eric Michael Gillette from Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey if you're watching in the light still to come on in the life gay on the farm and parents get political but first we're here in Los Angeles home to Micky slice of the American Pie the Disney Corporation we came here for a glimpse inside the Magic Kingdom home to many gay men and lesbians both on screen and behind the scenes now gay radar has always detected a certain level of camp in the good clean family fun that's created here but now from executives to animators gay men and lesbians are increasingly making their mark at this all-american institution correspondent Bill Britt picks up the story first that Fez and best combo is much too third century these patches what are we trying to say beggar no that's we're an animated hits like Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast in gay themed movies like priests and in Disney's decision to stand by Ellen whether she comes out of the closet or not it's obvious Disney is not keeping its camp humor and gay characters in the closet well here at company headquarters gay and lesbian employees are marking the one-year anniversary of the company's domestic partner policy which extends healthcare and other benefits to the partners of gay and lesbian employees we came here to find out whether being gay at Disney really means being part of the magic just a little bit of sure we're part of the magic yeah I have to say that I love I love working for this company and I've met some fabulous people of dizzy what do you want me to do dressy dragon do the hula but times have not always been so magical for gay employees at the company that Mickey built just ask former Disney teen idol Tommy Kirk star of Old Yeller Swiss Family Robinson and the shaggy dog Kirk made the news 5 years ago when he revealed that at 21 he was fired for having a gay liaison with a minor the man who fired him Walt Disney himself Walt Disney had a reputation as one of more conservative businessmen and ever had attitudes that were very much in keeping with conservatives of his time which were homophobic you know gays lesbians either you know don't exist or shouldn't exist 25 years later the Disney lot is a very different place for its gay employees Richard Jennings head of Hollywood supports was instrumental in persuading Disney to join other Hollywood studios in adopting a domestic partner benefits policy how did he come to pass the benefits were actually passed for these employees well Disney is our biggest studio and Disney had a special concern that a lot of the studios don't which is that as a very family identified company they they knew that they would come under more attack by members of the radical right for extending these benefits in response to the domestic partner benefits the Reverend Lou Sheldon head of the traditional values coalition wrote with the understanding that the homosexual agenda has penetrated Hollywood it should come as no surprise that Disney now supports anti Family Values Michael Eisner you have decided to give health benefits to all your employees same-sex benefits to people who are couples you've come in for a lot of criticism for that was that a tough decision actually was not a tough decision every single company in the entertainment industry 400 other companies IBM just did it we believe it's appropriate non-discriminatory we have a non-discriminatory policy at the Walt Disney Company but you might have been easier to taking the safer Road right No no the safer road is the right Road besides adapting to gay employees Disney has also had to adapt to the gay consumer back in Disneyland in California there was a case where same-sex couple was out on the dance floor of one of the Disney owned nightclubs they were asked by a management person to stop doing that and that ultimately led to a lawsuit against the company for it but that was nine years ago this year dug swallow is planning to attend gay and lesbian Day at Walt Disney World in Florida which he founded seven years ago though not sponsored by Disney the annual June event sparked more unwanted attention from conservative groups like the American Family Association gay men and lesbians working within the Walt Disney Company can turn for support to League the lesbian and gay united employees of Disney I try to respond to people by saying that I think it's a wonderful time we live in when the definition of the family is growing and expanding and changing and my family maybe my partner and my bluetick coonhound and my two cats and my seven fish that's my family I think that one of the reasons Disney gets a lot of flack is because people sort of hold on to it from their childhood as a last sort of bastion of innocence and when you put the word homosexual and Disney it really sort of messes with their mind but what they have to understand is there isn't very much just as much of an innocence on my part I had that same sort of childhood and that same same sort of fascination with the the stories that were told to me is David gonna be available at noon Rick lead is the openly gay president of the wind dancer group a Disney affiliate that produces the hit sitcom home improvement well I've done business with Disney probably all of the 20 years or so I've been in the entertainment industry and I would say that there have always been lots and lots of gay employees at Disney and there are an awful lot of senior people in the Disney lot who are gay who are openly comfortably gay you know animation for four decades and there are a lot of artists and animators they've always been I guess a lot of artists who are gay a lot of animators who are de Mond the time I worked at Disneyland a very large percentage of the employees are gay it was probably the one of the outis places to work there's something about features animation which very much has drawn on the talents skills of gay and lesbian people I don't know why that is but we very much dominate in that field which which has been very important to Disney since the beginning one of the brightest stars and Disney's Feature animation department was producer and lyricist Howard Ashman who won two Academy Awards for his work when Disney projects William Locke accepted an award for his late partner I was the first gay partner that I'm aware of to accept an Academy Award posthumously or otherwise I also wanted to focus some attention on the fact that Howard had died of AIDS and that people should be aware of the fact that we're losing a very important creative community and some of Howard's sensibility as a gay man popped up in the final product no way - practically nothing I think the first one came up in in the Little Mermaid with the character of Ursula just in in Howard's visualization of that character he drew a lot from divine the the drag queen from Baltimore where he grew up and that whole sort of sly camp humor crept into her character very early on and of course Gaston and the whole macho thing and Beauty and the Beast was sort of a send-up of you know gay masculinity and how obsessed gay men can be with that and the subtle lines in certain songs about decorating with antlers etc you know was something that really would come from a gay Sensibility being that a gay man was writing it you know it just happened naturally so what attracted gay men and lesbians to the wonderful world of Disney in the first place well like most kids from the 60s I was plunked down every Sunday night in front of the television too to watch the wonderful world of color and that's how I grew up on it but it was that sort of magic was always very appealing to me as a child Howard loved Walt Disney television and films he had a dream when he was a small boy about the Mouseketeers from the Mickey Mouse Club coming to his bedroom window and saying Howard come with us come be a part of our group and and he would run away with them and be a Mouseketeer so he finally did do that I think at about the age 35 I've always thought the Disney attracted the brightest and the best and then when I met the people in league I thought wow these are the brightest and the brightest of the brightest and the best so I've had a wonderful experience the last five years of Disney so obviously both of you do genuinely feel part of the magic sometimes a little too much but yeah the man who created the Magic Kingdom didn't start out here in Hollywood in fact Walt Disney spent his early years on a farm and his love for farm life and rural America inspired him to create Main Street USA now an attraction at Disney theme parks around the world gay men and lesbians who grew up on the farm have their own stories to tell about how their upbringing influenced their lives and why they've decided to stay in their communities or to leave farm life for good we'll take you now far away from Los Angeles to Dodge County Wisconsin for the story I grew up in southeastern Indiana and Franklin County on a small accommodation dairy farm I was born in 38 the farm that I grew up on was sort of a typical Iowa farm we raised all the own crops failed - hey did the corn do its everything for the whole ball of wax I grew up on a farm in south central Wisconsin a dairy farm that had been in my father's family for since about the mid eighteen hundreds we'll fellows is the editor of farm boys which profiles over three dozen gay men who grew up on farms throughout the Midwest I was often frustrated by the lack of representation of rural experience with regard to being gay so with some curiosity kind of looking at how does gay identity and rural heritage intersect I don't I'm not comfortable in the typical gay cultural things I'm not typical bird blowing bars around people that socialize outrageously or and so finding a finding a partner someone like will is who sort of mirrors a more conservative approach to life I think that that that happened because of what happened you know growing up in that in a kind of firm culture that I did I think that there's a there's a big prejudice in recognizing gay people in the rural areas simply because there's so much media that's so centered around the coasts around the urban atmosphere within the gay but also just in the way that we view ourselves you know we almost discredit people who are living out in the rural areas as not necessarily being in the gay community which is false I grew up in a little town just outside of Green Bay and the name of the town is freedom and I always like to say freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose which kind of puts my feelings about living in a small town I had absolutely no exposure to gay anything gay or lesbian growing up there was nothing in the media there was there was no one in my community that I knew if they were or not I mean I had no idea I don't think I could spell lesbian much less know what one was Terre Aires grew up in the city but now lives on a 50 acre organic farm I've run into a lot of lesbians who want to live in the country and who are afraid of isolation especially with winters like we have here in Wisconsin the fact of the matter is I have people coming through all the time who want to you know who want to visit year-round because they also want to get out of the city whether it's for a short respite where there's the afternoon or whether it's for a week to get away because there's something relaxing and and healing if you will about being in the country farm boy turned filmmaker Marc Christopher now lives in New York but returns to his home state of Iowa to rejuvenate he has also returned there in his work Marc short film Aguila Iowa is playing in theaters this spring as part of the feature boy's life too it sounds sort of corny but you really I mean it's an earthy upbringing if you grow up on the land like that you're really attached to the land you really have a lot more ground in a way of looking at life I mean especially in this business and the movies you know it gets really crazy when I go home in the summer it's really a place where I can go back and refuel because you just see what's important again Steve gay and Jim Lauper both felt most at home returning to farm life as adults I think it's pretty well everybody looks at us as a farm couple yeah they run a hog farm and have been living there together for 13 years it's a lot of hard work and it's our our life and their livelihood you think you're the only gay person you know that lives probably in your County or your you know your immediate area but I think now that we've we've been open and out and living as we have for a long time we've met so many other gay people that live around here that you know I don't know how I ever felt that way so there's a lot in the area a lot of gay couples a lot of gay couples and just a lot of single gay people that you know grew up in a small town that we have here and it's where you're born and raised and coming back home after college and and starting to farm here was probably something that I always thought I'd do one way or another and just the fact that I came to perception that I was gay didn't change that at all it's you know just who I am so it just was natural to me whether living in the city or not everyone we talked to valued their experience in the country I spent a lot of time outside outdoors with mother nature and all the elements that she provides and I think I think it just gives one a better sense of how the whole world works we were able to play all kinds of games running through the pastures and hiding in the barn and you know we were not supposed to climb a silo though but we did anyway so I think farm kids have a little bit different value a little bit different appreciation for four things in life I think there's a lot that you learn by rural living or sacrifices that you make when you're growing up and stuff and I think it instills different values and different things in your life that affect you later on parents voices tell yet another part of the story of being gay or lesbian in America and that's where P flag comes in parents and friends of lesbians and gays is a national organization that has always offered love and support to gay people especially their parents who go through their own coming-out process when they find out that a son or daughter is gay or lesbian but P flags work has also been known to upset a few people and so in the past couple of years we've been seeing a whole new side of PFLAG the activist side homosexuality is an abomination practices of these people is appalling h-honest the two things it is a pathology it is a sickness my son Paul was brutally murdered the FBI said it was a gay bashing paid for by parents families and friends of lesbians and gays in 1995 PFLAG launched a campaign called project open mind the keystone of the campaign was to have been a series of television ads linking hate speech with hate crimes and suicide the people and organizations that were involved in in this hate speech did not take kindly to our message in an open letter to station managers the Christian Broadcasting Network warned they would immediately seek judicial redress against any station that dared show the ads however because of this whole thing there was a controversy and our message the project opened my message about the linkage between hate speech and hate crimes got out probably much more effectively than at the Azrael beyond television ads P flex message has also been carried to the floor of Congress our nashville president and national vice president bitsy henderson and Nancy McDonald both testified against the Defense of Marriage Act this bill is yet another piece of legislation that tells the american p both in no uncertain terms that we do not value the contributions of gay and lesbians we talk about three things that are at the center or core of PFLAG and and that is support education and we talk about advocacy a national organization can lead you in one direction but when you have 400 chapters out there that can each do things the multiplying effect is incredible that is the the strength of PFLAG so you know when you talk about a Fargo chapter having a billboard and puts it up there right in the middle of a Fargo I am frankly awestruck when when the Toledo what chapter does a book and video on homosexuality I am really so so proud of these organizations when a chapter in northern Idaho frankly you know exists it's really inspiring another chapter is located in Bay Ridge Brooklyn here at a monthly meeting members share the heart of their experiences and reveal the motivation behind key flags activism I would like other parents to look at me and say if she has a gage order anyone can have a gage order if she is accepting and loving maybe I can be too it was a very long slow process for me to accept my daughter it took many years I initially responded rather poorly I'm ashamed to admit I was too preoccupied with what was she doing to me rather than what was happening to her so I was less than supportive and today 23 years later helping other people who go through what we went through and try them baby make it a little easier for them by telling them what our experiences and what we went through it was an eye-opener to see parents going through the growth process the coming-out process I was really by myself I had nobody to talk to No discuss it with I think the shower in the morning was my best friend because I was able to cry I think even if you don't talk even if he just sit here and listen I keep coming back and listening you will see you're not the only one you will see there's nothing really wrong with your child it just puts you at peace in a piece it's a kid that has not come out yet and he comes to us first to see our reaction to him we can explain to him where his mother or father is coming from because we've been there I think that makes the discussion groups great because we understand also where the kids are coming from and how hard it was for them to come out because it's not just about us it's about them too the greatest strength of PFLAG is the community of safety and comfort that it provides people who are going through similar situations for many members marching and a gay pride event is one of the first and most enduring highlights of their time in PFLAG the first time I participated it was my coming-out and my saying and wearing a sign that said I love my lesbian daughter and all the young people asking us and wish them wishing us well and wishing we were their parents and wish my parents would come out and it just was overwhelming they cheer you on and except you it just makes it very easy to be active in a community that the kids really want to have it's an experience I will never forget and so I March every year and duplicate that feeling to make a difference in somebody's life anybody's life if all gays and lesbians and their parents stood up right now and said this is that the problem with your way the problem would be gone there's one real kernel that you get out of the PFLAG organization what it's all about what I see all around me at PFLAG is love it's love it's love of people for their kids my child is very lucky and I'm very lucky from all of us at in life thank you for watching and we'll see you next time in the life is funded in part by the H van Amerindian foundation additional support provided by the guild foundation the Joyce Mertz Gilmore Foundation the Michael palm foundation the advocate the National Gay and Lesbian news magazine since 1967 and in the life members nationwide you