MPR’s Gary Eicthen interviews Ann DeGroot, executive director of Gay and Lesbian Community Action Council, about the public campaign efforts to have state legislature expand the Minnesota Human Rights Act to include gay and lesbians. DeGroot says educating is a key in developing support and building allies in the larger Minnesota community.
SPEAKER 1: What we need to do, I think, is educate folks, make people aware of the issues facing individuals who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender. And we also, I think, most importantly, need to let people know that we are everywhere, that this issue affects everybody, and that even in rural communities and small towns, the issues of sexual identity and orientation affect folks.
Now, they may not have lesbians or gay men in their community, for example, or they may not know it. But they may have parents, or family members, or friends, or people who are our allies and supportive. So what we need to do is both get an educational effort out that tells people who we are.
I don't think that as a community we've done a good job across the state to let people know who we really are. And secondly, I think what we need to do is to help those people who are supportive, be able to add their voices to ours and say, this isn't a bad thing. We want these people to feel comfortable and safe in Minnesota.
We don't want a climate of oppression or discrimination here. And we support this. And we're going to continue to support it. So those are our efforts. They're very much grassroots organizing efforts that need to happen.
SPEAKER 2: Based on what you've done so far, do you get the sense that the opposition to this is largely indifference, well, it just doesn't affect us? Or is there some active opposition to it in the sense of this is wrong, and we want no part of this?
SPEAKER 1: Yeah, I think there is some active opposition to this, and that certainly, this interview in fact might trigger some of that opposition at this point. And certainly there is opposition. My feeling is most people in the state don't want anybody to be the victim of discrimination or of oppression.
And even if they don't agree necessarily with the lifestyle, they still don't think people deserve to be treated badly. And more and more I talk around the state and talk to people, the more I think that's really true.
What we need to do is really educate people and help them become familiar with the issues that we're talking about and what we're really talking about. Ignorance and ignorance in the real sense of the word, not stupid, just not knowing is really one of the things we have to overcome here in this campaign.
SPEAKER 2: Do you expect this is going to cost a fair amount of money?
SPEAKER 1: I think it's going to cost some money. I also think we're going to be relying strongly on folks around the state who already are educated and who have information about this issue to be doing a lot of the educating and work.
Certainly, it's going to cost some money. And we're going to be talking about that at our February meeting and putting together a budget and talking about how to fundraise for that. Because at this point in time, we have no funds available. But I have every hope that we will.
SPEAKER 2: You have a guesstimate as to what it's going to cost?
SPEAKER 1: No, I really don't. I wish I could answer that right now, in part because I was waiting for Saturday to decide whether we were going to wait a year or try to go to the legislature this year. I haven't put any figures down. And this kind of a campaign is a lot different than a very quick campaign. So it's hard to estimate. But we'll be working on that over the next three or four months.
SPEAKER 2: A lot of times, efforts like this take several years to actually be successful if they're going to be successful. Do you see this as a long-term affair? Or do you think there is a possibility that you could get the human rights law changed in 1993?
SPEAKER 1: Well, I think it's a long-term thing. And when we were meeting on Saturday, I was struck by the commitment that people have to a long-term effort. We certainly would like this to happen in '93. But if it doesn't, we're going to keep going until it does.
And so we have a long-term commitment to this and really are making our plans with that in mind. It's not like it's going to end in '93 and whatever happens is the end of it. This is already 17 or 18 years in the making, so it's already a number of years. And I think that we might expect a number more.
Part of our campaign is not just changing a law. But it's helping to create an environment where people will feel comfortable being who they are in their communities. And they'll have support for that. So that's part of what this campaign is about.
And I think as we move forward, people across the state will find that there are more of us than they thought and that we're not scary monsters. We're just other people who live in their community who they've known for a long time.
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