A History of the Struggle to Pass NYC's 1986 Gay Rights Bill

Stephen Petrus, director of Public History Programs at LaGuardia and Wagner Archives at LaGuardia Community College and curator of “The Battle for Intro. 2: The New York City Gay Rights Bill, 1971 – 1986", talks about the work he and his students did in putting together a digital exhibit on the New York City Gay Rights Bill, which passed after a long fight between advocates and opponents, and Allen Roskoff, civil rights activist, president of the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, and the co-author of the nation’s first gay rights bill, recalls his involvement in the bill and the activism that led to its passage.

TRANSCRIPT

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now for our first of two oral history segments this morning, and appropriate for this month of June, this one goes back to the early years of Pride. There's a new digital exhibit on the 15-year struggle to pass a landmark New York City Gay Rights Law. Let's go back and find out what it was, why it took so long, and what it took to get it through the city council in the year 1986, with my guests, Stephen Petrus, the curator of The Battle for Intro 2. : The New York City Gay Rights Bill, 1971 to 1986.

That's the exhibit. Director of Public History Programs at the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives at LaGuardia Community College, and Allen Roskoff, a civil rights activist and a long-time leader in the LGBTQ+ and social justice movements. He is president of the famous Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, a city-wide democratic party club with a focus on progressive LGBTQ+ issues. Allen and Stephen, welcome to WNYC today. Thank you so much for coming on.

Allen Roskoff: Thank you for having us.

Stephen Petrus: Thank you, Brian. Nice to be here.

Brian Lehrer: We've got some clips from this oral history archive that are really fascinating. Just to start out, Allen, you were involved in the bill, I see, which was the first such bill introduced in the US in 1971, but the 51st to be passed in the country, thanks to that 15-year lag. Can you start us off in 1971, what was introduced at that time, and why then?

Allen Roskoff: It was a bill that ended discrimination based on employment, housing, and public accommodations. It was introduced by its prime sponsor councilmember Eldon Clingan, who was a councilmember at-large in Manhattan and it was co-sponsored by Upper East Side councilmember Carter Burden, West Side Ted Weiss, and Brooklyn Leonard Skolnik. We had early hearings on it, but we had massive support in the council after it was introduced, for a short while.

People who sponsored it wound up voting against it. There's a history to that. The reason that the bill was defeated over and over again, though we had the votes to pass it, was because the archdiocese got involved, the Majority Leader Tom Cuite stopped it, blocked it, got people supporting it to vote against it, and later on, Ed Koch. We had some Jewish organizations like Agudath Israel, and in some neighborhoods, we had police and firefighters lobbying their councilmember.

Brian Lehrer: You had a number of Jewish councilmembers sponsoring the bill and a more conservative Jewish organization opposing the Gay Rights Bill?

Allen Roskoff: Yes. Morton Povman, for instance, from Forest Hills, was the sponsor. I debated Rabbi Fabian Schonfeld at The Brandeis Society the night before a vote. The room overwhelmingly endorsed the bill, and Morton Povman voted against it. His wife came down threatening him that if he spoke, she was leaving him, but he voted against it.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a clip from the archive, of one of the councilmembers you just mentioned, who introduced the bill, Eldon Clingan, talking about its potential impact. We go, for the following 38 seconds, back to 1971.

Eldon Clingan: We introduced the bill. This, of course, by its nature, this was a controversial bill. It was a fundamentally controversial bill because it would've made such enormous changes in the society. It basically would've brought under the protection of the government a group that was universally scorned. The American Psychiatric Association had described homosexuality as a disease.

Brian Lehrer: Stephen Petrus, from the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives at LaGuardia Community College, obviously, that was a more recent interview of Mr. Clingan talking about the bill that he introduced back in 1971. Why don't you tell us about this archive exhibit, generally? You can talk about that clip we just heard and what you've tried to put together for this.

Stephen Petrus: Sure, Brian. The exhibit was just launched yesterday in the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives website. It consists largely of 25 oral history interviews that I and my students conducted with key activists, like Allen Roskoff, sitting next to me, Andy Humm, Ethan Geto, as well as former city councilmembers who ultimately supported the bill in 1986, like Ruth Messinger, Sal Albanese, Fernando Ferrer. We also drew from our city council collection that we have at the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives.

We're supplementing recent oral history interviews, memories of this battle, with archival sources, as well as photographs of the individuals involved, taken by LaGuardia students. It's really a treasure trove of material-rich resources. I selected the topic, in the first place, because, to my surprise as a historian, there was very little work done on the 1986 Gay Rights Bill by historians. I found the journalism during the era itself to be relatively weak. Journalists often trafficked in stereotypes.

I thought it was really timely to do a major project. It took two years. I think it's really beautiful, the clips that we have, divided into 10 themes. What you just heard from Eldon Clingan talking about the introduction of the bill in January 1971, yes, he saw it not just as a limited non-discrimination act to add sexual orientation to the existing human rights law in New York City, but part of a broader sexual revolution.

Allen talks about this in his oral history as well, that this would be the first battle of many battles fought by the gay and lesbian community, but that it was to start to focus on housing, employment, and public accommodation. We're just delighted to be able to talk about it and to share this rich resource.

Allen Roskoff: If I may make a clarification?

Brian Lehrer: Please, go on.

Allen Roskoff: Sal Albanese did not sponsor or advocate for the bill. He wound up voting for it. Fredy Ferrer was also not a sponsor of the bill, though he wound up voting for it. Then he introduced an amendment to exclude two and three family homes, which he got to pass, but it was vetoed.

Brian Lehrer: In other words, small landlords would still be able to discriminate in renting to LGBTQ renters?

Allen Roskoff: Exactly. Can you imagine if they did that to people of color or people of the Jewish faith?

Brian Lehrer: Right. Listeners, anybody out there who wants to and can add a little oral history about this yourself, maybe Stephen will take the clip from the show and add it to the archives, who knows?

Stephen Petrus: Good idea.

Brian Lehrer: If you remember this years-long struggle, and maybe took part in some way, or if you just have a question for our guests on the struggle for the landmark 1986 Gay Rights Law in New York, which was a 15-year struggle that began when it was introduced in 1971, call us or text us at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Stephen, staying with you for a minute.

From the dates, it looks like it got introduced not that long after Stonewall, which was in 1969, and the burst of organizing around gay rights that happened then, though it took until the days of the AIDS crisis, 1986, to get passed. Are those two mileposts of time, tempos of time, Stonewall in the '60s, AIDS in the '80s, the right way or a right way to frame this period of time and the battle in the city council?

Stephen Petrus: Yes, that's a good way of thinking about it, the surge of activism after Stonewall. You had groups like the Gay Liberation Front forming in the wake of Stonewall. Then the Gay Activists Alliance. Allen was a crucial member of the GAA, and other organizations forming. This was a critical era, the 1970s, of coalition building, or organizations forming, like Dignity for Gay Catholics, the Gay Synagogue in New York, The CBST, Salsa Soul Sisters, Black and White Men Together.

We're seeing the formation of these grassroots organizations advocating for the bill. Yes, the AIDS crisis would push it forward. There was an intensification or spike in hate crimes, so a greater sense of urgency to pass the Gay Rights Bill. I want to go back to Allen's point earlier, about the Majority Leader of City Council, largely forgotten today, Tom Cuite, based in Brooklyn, who was Majority Leader. There was a Majority Leader before there was a speaker.

Brian Lehrer: We have a clip of him that we'll play in a second, on this, but go ahead.

Stephen Petrus: Yes. The bill had to pass through the General Welfare Committee in city council before it got a full floor vote, and Cuite-- Anti-gay, very pro-Catholic tied to the Catholic church Cardinals, Spellman, Cooke, O'Connor, was basically their advisor. Always kept anti-gay council members in the general welfare committee. It rarely got a full floor vote. One exception was 1974, and it really was bottled up and languished until 1985 elections, which we can talk about later.

There are intricacies in New York City government too, that need to be taken into account.

Allen Roskoff: If I may add, there ought to be a monument in New York, a statue of Eldon Clingan. He was a national, if not international hero, and started the revolution. The council member in the village, Carol Greitzer, who was co-district leader with Ed Koch, asked him if he was crazy for introducing such a bill, and refused to sponsor it. The following Majority Leader, Peter Vallone, consistently voted against the bill.

He went to mass every morning. Then, when it was made clear to him that he wouldn't be Majority Leader if he bottled it up in committee, he let it out. How hypocritical.

Brian Lehrer: We played the clip of Eldon Clingan, and now, from the section of the archive dedicated to the bill's chief opponent in the council, the Majority Leader who you just mentioned, Tom Cuite. Here's the clip from the archive, of journalist Andy Humm talking about Cutie.

Andy: The other reason the bill couldn't pass is because the Majority Leader of the council-- Now you have a speaker, they had a Majority Leader in those days, was Tom C-U-I-T-E, who was the head of the Catholic War Veterans of the United States, a right winger from Brooklyn. He was unalterably against it. If Koch would bring it up in a meeting, he would just get up and walk out of the room. He was going to block it in committee.

Brian Lehrer: That's Andy Humm. Also known, in conjunction with GMHC in later years, I believe, talking about Tom Cuite and that opposition. Allen, talk about the so-called Zaps, that I think you participated in, quick theatrical protests of some kind. Right?

Allen Roskoff: I'll talk about three briefly. A group of us, eight of us went to the Rainbow Room. There was an article prior to our going, about what the management thought was a same-sex couple. It wound up the woman was wearing a pantsuit. It was against the regulations in City of New York for an establishment that had a cabaret license to allow two people of the same sex to the dance. Eight of us went in, four men and four women.

Then, when they did a slow dance, we changed to same-sex couples, had our arms around each other, and our heads on each other's shoulders. Earl Wilson, who was the predecessor to Liz Smith at the New York Post when it was a progressive newspaper, was taking pictures. Two days later, Bess Myerson, Commissioner of Consumer Affairs back then, issued an order. The article in the newspaper was Gays Win in a Waltz.

Another quick zap that we did is, two of us took a couch up to the commissioner's office of the Taxi and Limousine Bureau. If you were known to be homosexual and drove a cab, you needed a letter from a psychiatrist. We brought the couch all the way into the commissioner's office. The secretary said, "We didn't order a couch." I said, "We brought the couch because I'm a psychiatrist, and we have to interview the commissioner to make sure he's sane enough to hold his position."

Brian Lehrer: Very clever.

Allen Roskoff: The third rally that we did is, we went to the Inner Circle, which was a yearly fundraiser that the press court did, the city press court, in room nine of city council.

Brian Lehrer: They still do it every year.

Allen Roskoff: Everybody was there. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: With the mayor usually participating. Wait, hold this story for just a second.

Allen Roskoff: Sure. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: I have to do my top of the hour id, which is WNYC FM, HD and AM New York. We are in New York and New Jersey Public Radio, and live streaming at wnyc.org, as we continue with Allen Roskoff, who's speaking now, and Stephen Petrus, the curator of The Battle for Intro 2, : The New York City Gay Rights Bill, 1971-1986, and Director of Public History programs at the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives at LaGuardia Community College, which has mounted this exhibit.

Allen Roskoff was an activist of the era. Allen, go ahead and finish that story with that third creative protest.

Allen Roskoff: Sure. The Inner Circle had an attendance, the governor, our two senators, the mayor, council president, senators, et cetera. It was a very prestigious dinner. We were told that there was an anti-gay skit that was done during the rehearsal the night before, where they lisped and made fun of the Gay Rights Bill. A group of us went. History is wrong. There was an obituary on Jim Owles, which said Jim Owles got on stage.

Jim Owles didn't get on stage. I got on stage. Jim Owles, who-- incredibly great, a true leader, but we went to the escalator, and-- No, I got picked up by my collar, by the president of the Firefighters Union, who actually carried me out from the ballroom to the escalator and threw me down the escalator. I was not hurt, but Jim Owles came to help me, and Michael May threw him on the escalator and stomped his face.

We had to rush Jimmy to the emergency room of Roosevelt Hospital. I want to add, Jimmy was the only one hurt, and he almost lost his eye. It was very tragic. It wound up-

Brian Lehrer: Ugly.

Allen Roskoff: -being the front page of every newspaper. That's one of the ways we wound up in everyone's living room, and every breakfast table.

Brian Lehrer: Helped the cause?

Allen Roskoff: Yes. We were-- you have to understand, before we did this stuff, the only people who identified themselves as gay were on TV shows, and they had their faces digitalized out, or they spoke in shadows. It wasn't until the Gay Activist Alliance came and a group of us who showed our faces, were very loud, and did these demonstrations. We wound up building, building, and building more and more support.

Brian Lehrer: Let's add some oral history from some callers. Here's Joe, in Manhattan, who says he was a reporter for the Village Voice at the time. Joe, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Joe Conason: Hello, Brian. It's Joe Conason. I want to say hello to my friend Allen Roskoff. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Oh, Joe Conason. Hello.

Allen Roskoff: Hey, Joe.

Joe Conason: Hey. I covered the struggle over the Gay Rights Bill as a young reporter for The Voice. I was the city hall and city council reporter at the time. I just wanted to say, The Voice, although gone, was really one of the few media outlets that covered that fight from a sympathetic standpoint. I think Allen would confirm that. It's just worth remembering there was media at the time that was in the struggle with the gay community.

I learned a great deal from Allen and other activists then, when I was covering the bill. That's it. Thanks for-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Joe. Great addition. Joe Conason, long time reporter in New York City. Brian, in Brooklyn, says he remembers when the City Council Majority Leader voted against this bill. Brian, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Brian: Yes. Good morning. I am a native Brooklynite, and Tom Cuite was our council member. At the time, Park Slope had a very large gay and lesbian community. It was a social group known as gay friends and neighbors. Once we got our hands on Tom Cuite, we voted him out of office. Quickly after that, we voted in Steve DiBrienza, and that was the end of Tom Cuite's machine in the Windsor Terrace Park Slope part of Brooklyn.

Stephen Petrus: That's not exactly true. I have to intervene here. Cuite retired in 1985, and then DiBrienza won the next race. That was a key turning point. It is important to really focus on Tom Cuite. He was born in 1913. He came of age during the mayorty of Fiorello LaGuardia in the '30s and '40s, served in World War II. Gay rights was not on his radar. To Andy Humm's clip when he calls him a right winger, and I love Andy, he was this--

Cuite was a very social conservative, extremely conservative on social issues, but like so many New York politicians during this era, was also liberal on other issues like affordable housing, labor, education. I think it brings us to a bigger question now, New York City, the quintessential liberal city, in the early 1970s, is mostly opposed to the Gay Rights Bill. Liberalism as a political ideology did not really extend to gay rights until later.

Brian Lehrer: Even though gay people from around the country, who grew up in conservative small towns or just conservative states, were moving to New York for the environment here. Right?

Allen Roskoff: Yes. I want to add something, because that's not entirely true. We had supporters on the City Council, even the people who voted against it-- Tom Manton signed a petition saying he was voting for it to get it out of committee. Aileen Ryan, who was a big opponent, had signed a petition saying it was getting out of committee. We had a lot of people who were sponsors of it, who voted against it. Tom Cuite called Tom Manton's father and had Tom Manton's father say to him, "If you vote for the bill, I'm going to disown you."

Tom Martin, who headed the committee, disappeared. Aileen Ryan got a call. Tom Cuite threatened Aileen Ryan. During the break, she got in her car at City Hall and got lost. She couldn't find her way back. We had a council member in Queens, Morty Povman, who sponsored it and voted no, or Sam Horowitz in Brooklyn, or Fred Samuel, a closeted gay man from Harlem, signed the petition, he was voting for it. He got threatened by Tom Cuite.

He voted against it. Very early on, we had a lobbying effort of people who really knew government, people who are experts in the political system, and we were getting that bill through. If it wasn't for Tom Cuite, that bill would have gone through the very first time. It was this group of people that orchestrated the lobbying. We had the GAA. We had a group called the Study Group, which was gay people in government, many of whom were in the closet, and a coalition of conscience, which really put forward the pink triangle.

Brian Lehrer: We have one more. Let me get, because our time is going to run out. I have one more clip from your archive, and I also have one more oral history caller who I want to get in, I think very relevant to the point that Allen was just making. Richard, in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Richard: Hi. I think it was 1974. My councilman in the Mill Basin flatland section of Brooklyn was Monroe Cohen, and he lived a few blocks away from me. He was a sponsor of the bill, I read in the Daily News, who was voting against it. I just looked him up in the phonebook and I called him. He answered the phone, and I started berating him. I remember I kept saying, "Are you a man or a mouse?" He was very abashed and embarrassed. He said, "I have all these pressures, and you don't really understand."

He never defended his change in position, but he made me-- I was saying, "You're a weakling," and he just took it. I thought it was funny. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: You told our screener that the pressure he was under was from the NYPD, or their union?

Richard: He said there were police and fire. The district was probably a fairly conservative part of Brooklyn for the time.

Brian Lehrer: Richard, thank you. Allen, you mentioned this earlier. There was NYPD, there was FDNY, rank and file, opposition, maybe because they were largely Catholic at the time, you tell me, but also, Richard says something else that you referred to briefly before, that there were council members who sponsored the Gay Rights Bill, but then voted against it.

Allen Roskoff: Definitely true. I just said, Monroe Cohen wound up with a lesbian daughter, poetic justice.

Stephen Petrus: Remember, if New York City were just Manhattan, the bill would have passed in 1974, but remember, this is the era of Archie Bunker in Queens. Let's not lose sight of the conservative, cultural, white ethnics in the outer boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island in the '70s. Could be liberal on some issues, but not across the board.

Brian Lehrer: One more clip from the oral history archive that this exhibit is built around. This is Ethan Geto, then a member of the Gay Activists Alliance. He's talking about Ed Koch here, talking to the city council Majority Leader of the time, Peter Vallone.

Ethan Geto: He said, "Peter, if you let the Gay Rights Bill come out of committee, go to the floor of the city council, and don't twist any arms, but tell all the members of the council that you want them to vote their conscience, that you will be supportive of them voting their conscience, whether that means for or against the bill. If you will pledge that, I will support you for speaker." Vallone made that commitment.

Allen Roskoff: May I jump in?

Brian Lehrer: [crosstalk] Obviously, to get the timeline right, he was not yet the speaker of the city council. Allen, one last comment, then we're out of time.

Allen Roskoff: Yes. I just want to say that the reason Peter Vallone did that is because there was one council-- He won by one vote to be a Majority Leader, one vote, and that was because one council member switched, and he switched, demanding that Peter Vallone had to let it out of committee. Peter Vallone went to church every day. He was against the bill. He voted against it, because of self-preservation and self-gain, he was a hypocrite, and he let the bill out of committee.

Brian Lehrer: Allen Roskoff, a gay rights activist and President of the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, and Stephen Petrus, the curator of the exhibit we've been talking about, The Battle for Intro. 2: The New York City Gay Rights Bill, 1971 to 1986, and Director of Public History programs at the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives at LaGuardia Community College. Stephen, just tell people if they can access this online.

Stephen Petrus: Yes, they can. You can go to the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives website, and the exhibit is featured prominently on the homepage.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you both so much for joining us in conjunction with that launch.

Allen Roskoff: Thank you.

Stephen Petrus: Thank you, Brian.

Daniel Ravelo