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Title
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[Letter from Edra Bogle and Tom Cain to "Dear Neighbor," November 1, 1984]
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Identifier
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MSS380_letter_19841101
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Type
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Letters
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Manuscripts
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Date
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11/1/1984
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Description
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Letter from Edra Bogle and Tom Cain to their community, addressed as "Dear Neighbor." The letter discusses the current and serious issues that gay Texans are experiencing and asks that the community keep them in mind when voting. The letter provides both the Republican and Democratic party platforms and explains how they will affect gay Texans and how the Republican platform could eventually be extended to other groups.
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Originally formed as the Texas Gay Task Force, the TGLTF was the first statewide gay/lesbian organization in Texas. Organized in 1973 for the purpose of planning annual conferences (until 1990), the TGLTF served as the parent organization for the Lesbian/Gay Democrats of Texas and the Lesbian/Gay Rights Advocates. CCd to Floyd Chapman.
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Subject
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Texas Gay / Lesbian Task Force
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Bogle, Edra
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Cain, Tom
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Format
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3 pgs.
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Language
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en
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Rights
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Materials may not be used without permission. For more information, contact us at (940) 898-3751 or womenshistory@twu.edu.
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Is Part Of
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Texas Gay / Lesbian Task Force Records, 1970s-1991.
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Accrual Method
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Gift
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Provenance
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Bogle, Edra
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extracted text
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[redacted]
November 1, 1984
Dear Neighbor,
We’re writing to you because, frankly, we’re scared–for ourselves, for you, for our country and its basic beliefs. Martin Niemoller wrote in 1945, just after World War II:
In Germany the Nazis came for the Communists and I did not speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I did not speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me. By that time there was no one to speak up for anyone.
The campaign of hatred and fear and misstatement of fact that Phil Gramm and the Texas Republican Party has been running on the gay issue is all too reminiscent of Germany in 1932, the year in which being Jewish was outlawed. In June, at the Republican State Convention in Fort Worth, the following resolution was passed; in September is was made part of the official state platform:
WHEREAS, the practice of homosexuality is an abomination before God and a perversion of the natural law and is indicative of society’s moral decadence, and leads to the spread of severe diseases, and;
WHEREAS, the legislation of the practice of homosexuality would confer public acceptibility to this activity and would lead inexorably to the breakdown of the traditional family unit and subsequently to the destruction of our nation, no therefore;
BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican Party call upon the federal and state governments to maintain and strickly [sic] enforce laws prohibiting homosexuality [sic] conduct…[and] no persons shall receive special legal entitlements or privileges based upon their sexual deviancy.
What this means to gay people is that the Texas Republican Party thinks it is okay for them to be fired without cause or beaten up with no legal recourse, or denied the chance to see their children–as happens all the time, right here in Denton County. In the last month all of these three situations have been reported to us on our local gay helpline, and we have had to tell the victims that nothing can be done–that we are a minority that it’s okay to attack.
The Democrats have promised to help us, and are keeping their promises. Both the state and the national platforms say:
Government has a special responsibility to those whom society has historically prevented from enjoying the benefits of full citizenship for reasons of race, religion, sex, age, national origin and ethnic heritage, sexual oritentation, or disability.
All groups must be protected from discrimination based on race, color, sex, religion, national origin, age or sexual orientation.
We will support legislation to prohibit discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation. [Not quotas, but simply assurance you won’t be fired if your employer discovers you are gay.]
We will assure that sexual orientation per se does not serve as a bar to participation in the miitary. [Under the Reagan Administration discharge from the military for suspicion of homosexual activities has increased by 30%.]
We will support an enhanced effort to learn the cause and cure of AIDS, and to provide treatment for people with AIDS. [Rather than seeking increased funding for AIDS research, it has come from the pitifully small general Public Health budget, and Secretary Magaret Heckler has boasted of this meager support.]
And we will ensure that foreign citizens are not excluded form this country on the basis of their sexual orientation. [Successful Dallas businessman Richard Longstaff is still facing deportation for no other reason.]
Violent acts of bigotry, hatred, and extremism aimed at women, racial, ethnic and religious minorities, and gay men and lesbians have become an alarmingly common phenomenon. A Democratic Administration will work vigorously to address, document, and end all such violence. [The Reagan Administration refused the request to keep track of cases of anti-gay attacks. The National Gay Task Force, with very few resources, has documented over 200 cases per month of such violence, about 1% of them purely gratuitous killings.]
Walter Mondale has stated publicly: “I will, within the first three months of my administration, issue executive orders banning discrimination in federal government employment on the basis of sexual orientation…[which] would extend to federally contracted private employment. In matters of equal rights, there can be no double standard; either our nation is committed, as I am, to equal opportunity for all Americans, or it is not committed at all.”
If lesbians and gay men can be denied the rights that every American citizen is supposed to have–jobs, physical security, the right to privacy, even freedom of speech–what other group will be next?
Will it be “secular humanists,” whom the Radical Right is so fond of attacking? Those faculty that Dick Armey says are “irresponsible” and whom he is ashamed of having been a part? How about ACLU members, who are guilty of supporting the rights of all sorts of unpopular groups? Or very old people? Phil Gramm says living to be eighty is a luxury.
When HItler attacked the homosexuals in Germany, even before the Communists that Niemoller mentions, nobody paid any attention. They didn’t matter. But each time a group is attacked, it is easier to attack the next one. Sure, we’re afraid for our own jobs and our own security. We’re even more afraid for our gay and lesbian friends who are not open, not part of the gay movement, and therefore much easier for the hate-mongers to discriminate against quietly.
But we are also afraid for everybody’s freedom to be an individual. If Phil Gramm is elected to the Senate, having attacked us openly and lied about gay issues as a basic part of his campaign, it will tell other candidates in the future that this is the way to campaign in Texas. If other Republican candidates–Dick Armey and Jim Horn and Ben Campbell–are elected on the State Republican Platform, it will be considered a mandate to pass the bill introduced (but kept in committee) in the Texas legislature last session to make homosexual behavior a felony and to require gay people to be fired from certain jobs. And if Ronald Reagan is re-elected and appoints Radical Right judges to the Supreme Court, when Don Baker’s case comes up (it struck down the Texas laws prohibiting sexual behavior between consenting same-sex adults in private) we will lose.
And our loss will be everybody’s loss. Not just because gay people will be unable to make contributions to society that we otherwise could, but because nobody will be safe. No one will know when they will come for you.
Please vote on November 6 for candidates who support all Americans’ rights. And please–call your friends and relatives that you know feel the same way you do and see if they have voted. The Democratic Party will be calling, but that’s not nearly as effective as a call from someone you know. Offer them rides, Watch their children. Stay with their sick. We saw in the primaries the importance of even a few votes. Help preserve everyone’s individual rights.
Sincerely,
Edra Bogle [signature]
Tom Cain [signature]
