<Begin Segment 12>

GN: So something happened to me as an adult when I was in the state assembly. One morning we had this -- first there was a newspaper, a full page article demonizing me because certain members of the legislature had a bill to prohibit discriminating against gay and lesbian. And so they have a photograph of me in this newspaper and I know this was an organized event by the far right, so that appeared in the morning paper. And a group of mothers and their strollers with their little kids demonstrating in front of my district office, they never made an attempt to meet with me to talk about this bill, but to me that was a political intimidation. They didn't care what your position is; they're trying to pick a fight with you. And so that reminded me of what happened to me as a kid, so automatically I became defiant. And they don't want to hear, sit down and talk about it. I mean, and this came from the Rolling Hills Covenant Church. It was an organized event, a right wing, intolerant group of people.

SY: And they, the event was staged just to protest you, just to protest your position?

GN: Yes. And it was organized in a way that other minority assembly members on the Democratic side were being subjected to the same kind of thing. Their local newspaper had a picture of them demonizing them, and then a demonstration in front of their district office. So there were a total of nine Democratic assembly members who were being intimidated in the same way, and some of them had a safe district. I mean, they didn't have to worry about this issue; they know it's a safe Democratic seat, that they're gonna get reelected. Mine wasn't. I only had a three percent advantage of Democratic registration, and so if you have a strong moderate Republican running you don't know what the outcome is gonna be. Well, I didn't care at that point. Not only was I being intimidated, but having experienced racist attitude by some people, I didn't feel that students who even appeared to be gay or lesbian should be subjected to the kind of thing that I was subjected to when I was young, and so I took a stand in support of the bill and I was the only one among the nine Democrats.

SY: So what was your reaction to these women, this...

GN: Oh, I didn't even go out there. It's useless to even get into a discussion. Just let 'em demonstrate.

SY: And you just took your stand by way of a vote.

GN: Yeah.

SY: Wow. That's amazing.

GN: And I made a speech on the floor, and I accused these people of being cowards and I also mentioned about being intimidated when I was younger, when I first came out of camp, with racial slurs, and I said, "This whole incident reminded me of that, and what you people don't know is that I don't get intimidated. I become defiant." And so I said, "I'm gonna do the right thing and I'm gonna vote for it." And I'm telling this on the entire assembly floor.

SY: And so, and you, were you subsequently admonished, or did you have any kind of reaction after that?

GN: Well, there was one leader that's always behind this kind of issue in Sacramento making certain kind of accusation.

SY: So it wasn't all a happy ending. It was still, you had to put up a fight.

GN: Oh, yeah.

SY: Mixed victory, but that's an interesting story.

GN: And that bill eventually passed.

SY: Good. So there is a happy ending. And do you think that that kind of attitude really led you to become the person you were in politics? Do you think that politicians really need that kind of...

GN: Yeah, and there aren't enough people around that will stand up and do the right thing. They're more concerned about getting reelected. And then there are those who go even further than that and that is they become a demagogue, is they'll find issue to, even create hate for people to make themself look good.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.