The Evolution of Civil Rights- Part 3

All this week, in commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., NHPR looks at civil rights law. Sit-ins, speeches at the Lincoln Memorial, fire hoses, and dogs are all familiar images of the struggle for civil rights. Today, people still are looking for equal protections in housing discrimination, equal access, and same sex marriages. In part three of our series, NHPR?s Dan Gorenstein looks at what civil rights means to gays and lesbians.

In 1998 the New Hampshire Commission for Human Rights added sexual orientation to its list of qualities deserving legal protection. It?s the most the most recent addition to a statute that includes guarantees against race, age and sex discrimination. The Commission?s Executive Director, Katharine Daly says the law defines sexual orientation in broad strokes.

Track 18
:17 The way it is defined is having a sexual orientation, which we all do, either heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or being regarded as having one of those. Being regarded as is very important. B/c there is a lot of discrimination based on what people think someone?s orientation is. And they are wrong, they base it on manner, dress, speech. But the harassment is real whether someone is gay or not, if they are being harassed on that basis.

Track 1
I am Ellen Musinsky, and I am a professor at FP.

Track 2
:14 I became pretty aware that I was very attracted to women in law school, when I was 22, 23.

BUT THE PROSPECT OF ADMITTING HER SEXUALITY PUBLICLY AND EVEN PRIVATELY WASN?T PROMISING.

5:52 the feel was my family would reject me, my friends would reject me, I would never work, this was in the age when the public image of gay and lesbian, they were depressed, and alcoholic. You didn?t have positive role models. So I thought to myself I wasn?t going to do this, and I didn?t for a number of years.

BUT WHEN SHE FINALLY DID COME OUT, HER FEARS PROVED RIGHT ON. SHE WAS ATTACKED GOING INTO A GAY BAR IN MANCHESTER.

:15 somebody threw a bottle at my head. It struck me in the shoulder blade. I was instantaneously shocked and enraged. I probably was hurt. I ran into the bar. I was scared, I didn?t know what would happen. I went to the bartender, I just wanted to contact the police b/c I had just been attacked, and they discouraged me. They don?t me don?t call. They won?t do anything. And I was angry and upset with that. I was completely unable to understand why I?it made no sense to me that I had been assaulted and calling the public authorities was going ot be a useless thing to do?that was the first time I did recognize there was a serious disconnect with the law. That the law didn?t work for gay and lesbian people.

AND HER TIME AS AN ATTORNEY IN NEW HAMPSHIRE REINFORCED THAT IMPRESSION.

15:11 certainly I remember when there was an enormous amount of discrimination against gay and lesbian. I remember people getting fired b/c they were gay. I remember as a lawyer lots of people come and see me they were dismissed b/c they were gay. Employers coming out and saying that was the reason.

DESPITE SEEING OVERT DISCRIMINATION, MUZINSKY DIDN?T GET INVOLVED WITH THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT. BUT THAT?S NOT TO SAY SHE WAS APOLITICAL.

Track 4
:20 I had done a lot of work with issus affecting domestic violence, I worked with the NH Women?s Lobby almost back to its beginning. Worked on legislation that affected divorce and economic issues. But I didn?t make the connection where I had some civil rights issues where I had become political about issues that affected me. I had no thoughts. Until 1986 when a bill was introduced that would take away rights for gays and lesbians.

8:15 And I got upset, and decided I would do something about that. I helped organize a group CAGLA. I saw the bill, and I decided I wanted to stop it.

1:50 it was galvanizing for me, and lots of others. Thank you Jack Chandler and Millie Engram. They galvanized the political movement by introducing proposals that took away rights.

AFTER A TWO-YEAR BATTLE, A PROPOSAL TO PROHIBIT GAYS AND LESBIANS FROM ADOPTING OR BEING FOSTER PARENTS PASSED. THE BATTLE LEFT SCARS. THE PEOPLE MUSINSKY WORKED WITH TO CRAFT WOMEN AND CHILDREN?S LEGISLATION SEEMED TO LOOK AT HER DIFFERENTLY.

22:25 I was working with these people who really respected me and acted like they respected me, and all of a sudden they were saying to me, by their vote, or sometimes to my face, you are not ok to raise a child. And that was personally devastating to me.

Track 2
9:01 it sounds sour grapes, it sounds like when I am talking about myself I am unhappy, or don?t feel blessed, but the opposite is true. I have marvelous friends, even the government, and the laws that are flawed, have provided me with comfort and safety that I wouldn?t get in most of the world. I was reading last week about a Saudi Arabian couple that was killed b/c they were having gay sex?things have been real good for me.

BUT WHEN PRESSED, SHE CAN THINK OF A COUPLE OF IMPROVEMENTS.

11:49 I can?t get married, and b/c I can?t get married there are lots of benefits to the state law affords married persons that me and my partner don?t have. No pension rights, no social security rights, no survivor rights. What no survivor rights means is that everything I earned, the state gets 18% of from dollar one.

16:18 god I don?t think about being a lesbian every day. I don?t walk out into the world, and who is going to be cruel to me, am I going to have difficulty at work, I just don?t think about that stuff anymore. ?I think I probably think about the fact that I can?t get married every day. I think about it every day?

17:09 I might move to VT when I retire, just b/c of that.

17:54 it is b/c VT law would treat my relationship with respect, and that is both important emotionally, and when I retire, will make a difference economically.

18:12 that does amaze me, that I am thinking about moving to VT when I retire, I am very happy here. I don?t want to move. But I might.

WHILE MUSINSKY SAYS GAY AND LESBIANS STILL DON?T ENJOY ALL LEGAL PROTECTIONS, THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT HAS NETTED A CHANNGE IN LAWS AND ATTITUDES.

:15 What is startling to me, and wonderful to me, is how much progress we have made.

25:46 when I think back to my fears and what the message I had about what my life would be if I came out, and how out of synch with reality that has been, it just makes me feel grateful that I got to live in the US in NH, during this period. I really had a good life, and when I made the choice I didn?t think I was going to.

ELLEN MUSINSKY IS A PROFESSOR AT FRANKLIN PIERCE LAW CENTER. FOR NHPR NEWS, I?M DG

IN PART FOUR OF OUR SERIES ON THE EXPANSION OF CIVIL RIGHTS, WE LOOK AT WHAT CIVIL RIGHTS MEANS TO WOMEN WHO WANT TO PLAY BALL.