Every hand in the audience flew up when Eric Marcus askedThursday night if anyone knows someone who is gay.
Marcus said when he asked the same question 15 years ago to anaudience, no one raised their hands.
Marcus, who spoke as part of Spectrum's PROUD Week, said formore changes like this to happen, people need to learn about thehistory of discrimination of gays and then take action.
"Each of you can make a difference," Marcus said on Thursdaynight. "That's the point of the evening. "
In the L.A. Pittenget Student Center, Marcus shared with a groupof students some of the history of gays he had recorded.
He said the gay rights movement began in the 1950s after WorldWar II in a time when people were optomistic and they wantedchange. In New York in the '50s, police targeted gays, oftenarresting them just for standing in a bar. In those days, Marcussaid, if a gay was mistreated by the police, he had no one to turnto.
As Marcus moved on into the late '50s and early '60s, he beganto discuss the experiences of Joyce Hunter, a woman who heinterviewed for one of his books. Hunter became depressed as sheheld in emotions about her feelings toward other women andattempted suicide twice by the age of 17. After she was releasedfrom a state hospital following her second suicide attempt, Hunterbegan seeing a psychologist who told her if she got married, herfeelings for women would go away. Gays had no pshychologist to turnto in those days who would understand that the feelings they wereexperiencing were not an illness, Marcus said.
The speech drew to a close with the discussion about hatecrimes. Romain Patterson, who was a friend of hate-crime victimMatthew Shepard, helped develop the Angels of Peace idea. Shecreated the group to block out Rev. Fred Phelps and his followerswho protested outside of both Shepard's funeral and his killers'trials. The Angels of Peace wore wings large enough to block theprotesters from the view of televison cameras and Shepard'sparents.
Each of the accounts that Marcus shared with the audience endedwith an individual who made a change in the world. When studentsasked Marcus how to handle issues of discrimination in their lives,he suggested everything from getting to know the Bible to debatewith those who use religion against homosexuality to abstainingfrom doing business with those who don't support the gay-rightscause.
Marcus recently learned that the man who had cut his hair wasvoting for Bush, and he's no longer going to be getting his haircut by that man, he said.
"I don't have to give my money to someone who is voting forsomebody who wants to take the potential right for me and mypartner of 10 years to be married away from me."
Marcus has put up with his own share of discrimination but hasachieved sucess nonetheless, he said.
"As a short gay Jew, you don't exactly have as many privilagesas a tall blonde straight guy," Marcus said.
He said if Kerry gets elected, good things will happen. He saidthe best way for the heterosexual community to learn about the gaycommunity and its struggles is to begin teaching the subject inelementary. He said college was just a little to late to get peopleto open up and come to events like Thursday's.
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