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PW: Let's go to another major area of activist work that Buena Vista became deeply engaged in. There was a gay pride proclamation that the City of Alameda made, I believe, in 1993 maybe. But after the election of a new mayor in 1994, he refused to issue the proclamation here, saying that there was pressure from the religious right and there was, quote/unquote, "too much diversity." Tell me what happened.

MY: Well, there was a national trend going around at that time in terms of groups, particularly religious based groups that were trying to stop LGBTQ identified folks from their rights in local communities, and particularly they were targeting school districts and school boards to keep curriculum out and to keep any discussion about the inclusiveness of LGBTQ children and youth in school districts, and it came to Alameda. I think I can name the church in Alameda that was the forbearer of that, and that was the Central Baptist Church, and their pastor was leading the charge against this. And so the newly elected mayor told us, "I've got to cancel this gay pride proclamation because these folks are in my ear." And I happened to attend a meeting with him, with one of the people, Kathy Teller, who was the writer of the gay pride proclamation. But he apologized, he said, "I really want to support this, but can't do it." And so we came back to the church and talked about what they needed to do. And they decided that they needed to create some kind of organization to do education, because clearly it's an issue of constituency. They're listening to the religious right on this and not other people, and they didn't have an organized voice.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.