And Then I Danced

by Mark Segal

  People forgot a fundamental aspect of our struggle from the early days of the movement, which was not to allow the opposition to simply reduce our community to sex. Compare the Chick-fil-A story with a similar struggle that occurred much earlier in our climb out of oppression, the Anita Bryant fight against gay rights in Florida. There, the local community had control and leadership. Anita Bryant was a devout Christian and a popular singer of the day who in 1977 went on a crusade against “homosexuality,” attracting national notoriety and support. She used as her slogan “Save Our Children.” That played into the stereotype that gays were child molesters and predators.

  Dade County, Florida, where she lived, had passed nondiscrimination legislation, and she used the platform of repealing that legislation to assault the LGBT community. She was endorsed and supported by Jerry Falwell and his Moral Majority, who threw in millions of dollars. In 1977 we had little national organization, so the locals led the way. Lacking major funds to combat Bryant, they first fought her and her supporters with logical, tempered answers. And then they dropped the hammer on her. Bryant made most of her money as the spokesperson for Florida Orange Juice, so activist Bob Kunst called a press conference to announce a boycott on orange juice from Florida. Today you’d say the campaign went viral, with people around the nation hearing the call.

  In Florida, Bryant did ultimately win the ballot initiative, but by 1979 she was fired as the spokesperson for Florida Orange Juice. A win and a loss for her, but that win ultimately faded. She never regained the support and stature she once had. Anita Bryant, in the eyes of history, looks similar to George Wallace, standing in the doorway to uphold segregation—or in her case, discrimination.

  * * *

  If I had my way, I’d have taken all the money that went into the battle against Chick-fil-A and given it to Democratic National Committee treasurer Andy Tobias, the master of all political LGBT fundraising for the Democratic Party and its candidates, through the LGBT Leadership Council. Andy understands LGBT oppression well. He’s best known for his financial writing, but early in his career he also published a book in 1973 about growing up and coming to terms with himself. Using a pseudonym, the book was titled The Best Little Boy in the World. It’s my favorite book of a boy coming of age. He also showed me how to turn my involvement in the political system into clout to gain equality.

  My first foray into congressional funds, also known as earmarks, came in 1993. The LGBT Community Center at that time did not have a permanent location. Their slogan was “A Community Center without Walls.” Fundraising was volatile, the board of directors mostly transitory, and the vision simply lacking. Tony Green, chief of staff to my old city council friend Congressman Thomas Foglietta, met with me for lunch to see what he and the congressman could do for our community. Formerly married to a woman, Tony was now openly gay. I told him about the center’s predicament and he was receptive to earmarking funds. With funding, we’d be able to get a permanent location. He sent me the paperwork and we began the process. Along the way, he mentioned that “LGBT” could not appear anywhere in the paperwork, since that would alert the Republicans, who would vote it down. Our solution was to describe the building as “a place for the community most impacted by AIDS.” That $300,000 earmark, the largest funding the organization has ever received, made it possible for what is now the William Way LGBT Community Center to purchase its building at 1315 Spruce Street.

  Thanks to my early work with media and our efforts to pass a city nondiscrimination bill, I knew most of the city officials well. We asked for their support and also got valuable contact information to build my Rolodex. At my urging, Governor Shapp created the Governor’s Council for Sexual Minorities, which further cemented my relationships with state leaders. Invitations to my house parties became coveted, especially by city officials and those hoping to break into politics. Where else could you see a Jewish governor singing Christmas carols with the Gay Men’s Chorus? Along with regional bank presidents, union heads, a Socialist, and a drag queen all mingling with one another.

  In the midst of all of this, District Attorney Ed Rendell, who was thinking about running for mayor, suggested that I form a political action committee (PAC). Almost as quickly as the ink was drying on our PAC filing, there was a fight in the city council regarding a gay pride resolution. It was a perfect reason to launch the Pride of Philadelphia Election Committee. Within weeks a cocktail party was held with leaders of the community, and Ed gave a speech about the importance of raising money in a campaign and the clout that the community could gain. There was also a hint that Ed might run for office again and could use a supportive PAC behind him.

  That first fundraiser was memorable, to say the least. Pride of Philadelphia Election Committee at that time saw itself as a local version of the national Human Rights Campaign, and set as its first goal to gain passage of the pride resolution the following June in the city council. But in order to do that, we needed funds. Enter Barney Frank.

  Barney Frank was the new gay hero to many of us, an openly gay man in Congress representing both his district and the greater LGBT community. Using the gifts of wit, intelligence, knowledge of history, and his famous Massachusetts drawl, Barney commands attention when he speaks. In 1989, when I first met him, you could say “Barney Frank” was synonymous with “pride.” A PAC board member who was involved with one of Philadelphia’s namesake organizations, the Franklin Institute, arranged for us to use space in the institute for our kickoff fundraiser. The plan called for cocktails in the observatory, then down to the planetarium for speeches and a private show. We had the venue, but we still needed a headliner. Congressman Tom Foglietta wrote a letter to Barney in July of 1989 asking him if he’d assist an old friend in starting a local gay and lesbian PAC. Tom’s letter was accompanied by another letter from me telling Barney about my work.

  Barney soon called and told me that he had followed my escapades over the years and would be glad to help. I then called Congressman Bill Gray and Mayor Goode to ask them to serve as honorary hosts. Both accepted.

  Next came the arrangements of caterers, printers, mailing lists, advertising, and ticket sales. The date for the event was set as September 15, and by the fourth week in August ticket sales far exceeded our expectations. Then, with less than two weeks to go, Barney was figuratively caught with his pants down. The scandal involved a callboy who was living with him and the rumors that the guy was running a service out of Barney’s house. Barney told the nation that he knew about his roommate’s background, but was trying to help him change his life.

  As with all Washington scandals, it dragged on and on, and the roommate even started to do talk shows and tell about his sexual antics with Barney, true or not. As the scandal broke I tried to talk with Barney about the September 15 fundraiser. He did not respond personally, but several staff members kept telling me that they didn’t know his plans. Some of my political friends offered to pinch hit, but none had the same level of name recognition. Others suggested that I drop Barney, but I felt that was a bad signal to send out with our first major fundraiser, not to mention downright disloyal. To me the issue was clear. Loyalty mattered, along with the notion that all are innocent until proven guilty. What’s more, Barney was still a national treasure; the public was just coming to terms with the fact that he was human, like the rest of us.

  At the same time, board members were calling me every day to ask about Barney and the fundraiser. We continued to run advertisements, but Barney had walled himself in, and nobody was getting any answers. Finally, I wrote to him and explained that the test of a friend’s loyalty is when you are down, and in this instance we still wanted him since he was a hero, and heroes are heroes, even after falling from their pedestals. A week before the event, I returned home from a meeting to discover a message on my answering machine: “Ah, hello, Mark, this is Barney Frank, sorry that I’ve kept you in the dark this long. It’s not fair and I’m sorry. I promised you I’d be at your function, and I’ll keep t
hat promise. Call my office tomorrow to make the arrangements.”

  This, it turned out, was the easy part. His staff was concerned about media. The press was now camped outside both his office and home. They followed him everywhere, and he was not commenting to them on the scandal. It was a typical DC feeding frenzy. Someone suggested that our gala premier of a new PAC should be staged without press. Then Barney’s staff told us it would be a mandatory condition for his participation. I had to find a way to get this man, embroiled in the nation’s number one sex scandal, into the city to attend a cocktail party, give a speech in a public place, and leave, all without the media catching on.

  I faced the situation like it was a Gay Raiders zap. We stopped the sale of tickets. Only friends of board members could buy tickets. Security was set up at every entrance of the Franklin Institute. Drivers were informed that no reporters were to come near Barney no matter what. And no press releases were allowed. Meanwhile, a strange thing occurred: since most politicians run for the hills, away from their scandal-ridden colleagues, I was surprised to find that both Congressman Tom Foglietta and Ed Rendell called to offer support, and while neither had planned to attend, they both now felt compelled to in order to support Barney and the cause.

  September 15, 1989 was a damp, drizzly, and windswept day. It matched my spirits. Members of my board were telling me that Barney would cancel at the last minute. After all, he had not made a public appearance since the scandal began other than a few attempts at talking with the press. It was decided that I’d be the one to pick him up and welcome him to the city. With my friend Bill Davol, who I thought would have a calming effect on Barney, we set off in the rainy night.

  Barney arrived at the train station alone with one bag. I introduced myself and we shook hands, then made a quick exit before he was noticed. Bill was close by in the car. En route to the institute, I expressed my gratitude to Barney for coming, considering the toll that other matters might be taking on him at this juncture. He was mostly quiet, keeping his head bowed. Finally, worried about his state of mind, I said, “I recently wrote you about heroes and the way they sometimes slip. To me a hero is someone who fights for a cause no matter what might fall around them. The heroism is the cause, not their private life. To me you are still a hero.” Barney lowered his head some more and began crying. We said little else for the rest of the ride, but I was worried. At the reception, the first thing I discovered was that we had succeeded in keeping the mainstream press unaware of the event. Since we sent out no press releases or advisories, the only way for reporters to know was to read the gay press. Imagine the firestorm that would have greeted us if they read the gay press regularly. For the first time in my life, I was thrilled that they didn’t.

  At the venue, some members of the board took Barney around the room and introduced him to the attendees. Several local politicians arrived to assist and lend support. It became apparent almost immediately that Barney was mentally not with us. We quickly arranged for a friend in attendance, a psychologist, to usher Barney from person to person, but he told us that he wanted to mingle on his own. Then he sort of ambled around the room, just nodding his head in acknowledgment whenever someone tried to talk with him. At one point he came up to me as I was going over the rest of the schedule with the board, and asked in a low voice, “Where’s the bathroom?” I suggested that we’d have someone show him, but he declined and asked us to point the way.

  We watched as he slowly made his way to the bathroom. Once the door had closed behind him, we looked at each other in total fear. We honestly believed that he was going to do some harm to himself. As we waited, I found myself thinking of how I would respond to reporters’ questions about the dead congressman in the bathroom. Eventually, we all agreed to send someone inside. I asked Jeff Moran and his partner Richard Bond if they would make sure the congressman was okay. As they reluctantly approached, the door opened and Barney came sailing out. My sigh of relief could be heard all the way in Washington.

  Congressman Tom Foglietta showed up, and we moved to the planetarium where the program was to begin. After everyone was seated I took to the podium and thanked the attendees for their support. The first speaker was Ed Rendell, followed by Tom who would introduce his colleague Barney. Tom spoke stronger and more eloquently then I’d ever heard him before. He reaffirmed his support of Barney and said he looked forward to working on a progressive agenda with him for many years to come. He then concluded, “Friends, let me introduce a fine gentlemen and a great congressman, my good friend Barney Frank!” The assembled rose to their feet en masse, and I could see the tears in Barney’s eyes. Like magic he woke up from what seemed like a walking sleep, and was full of energy. As he spoke he became stronger, and with each comical story he slowly became the Barney the nation had grown to love and appreciate.

  After the speech, we had to get him to the airport to make his flight to Boston, and I hugged and thanked him, offering to help in any way I could. The next time I saw Barney was in the spring of 1994 when he and Congressman Gerry Studds came to my home for another fundraiser, this time for Tom Foglietta. My fondest memory, though, came many years later at a different event at my home. He and Congressman Bob Brady were both there, and Bob talked about how close he and Barney had gotten in Washington. Barney was so comfortable and upbeat that he slow danced with Bob, the same blue-collar guy from the tough neighborhood, the sergeant at arms who had the job of carrying me out of the city council thirty-five years earlier.

  * * *

  That first fundraiser at the Franklin Institute was merely an appetizer for the Pride of Philadelphia Election Committee. Over the next couple of years, the committee continually brought political surprises. One development in particular cemented the strength of the LGBT community; it was a perfect storm that I could exploit, and that storm was Fran Rafferty.

  Rafferty was a city councilman with strong religious beliefs. He was a blue-collar Irish Catholic who had imaginative ideas about God and AIDS. He had a temper, which once resulted in a brawl with another councilman on the floor of the city council. When a gay rights issue came up in the council, he’d yell slurs like, “Fairies!” Beyond his antigay views, his other behaviors were, shall we say, not representative of the pride Philadelphians took in their city.

  Most people thought of Rafferty as the most homophobic elected official in the city. It all came to a head when we introduced a resolution recognizing Gay Pride Month. He suggested that it be called AIDS Pride Month. This led to a series of mishaps and ended with a televised debate on a KYW-TV talk show hosted by Jerry Penacoli, who went on to Hollywood to report for the entertainment show Extra. My plan for the debate was simply to be as quiet as possible (for once in my life) and let him talk as much as he wanted. Just allow him to flaunt his hate and ignorance on the subject, let him be the bully he was. Of course, I’d encourage him along whenever I could.

  Just before we went on the air and were having makeup applied, I looked over to him and saw what appeared to be malice in his eyes. I smiled and said, “Franny, you look so good in all that makeup.”

  At every commercial break, my mind found another line that just kept him roiling. During one commercial he actually suggested he might punch me. It was difficult to hold tight, but people viewing saw a bully in action. All we had to do was let it sink in. We were about to do something that had never been done in American politics: try to defeat a candidate in a citywide race simply for being a homophobe.

  It was 1991 when we announced our campaign against Rafferty’s reelection. The political elite of Philly thought the idea ridiculous. To be truthful, so did I. After all, he was endorsed by the Democratic City Committee and running in a city controlled by an entrenched Democratic machine. He had also been the top vote-getter in the previous election. In our own style we were attempting to take him from number one to number six, since the top five vote-getters would be elected. People thought we could lower him to two or three, but certainly not cause him to lose offic
e.

  The campaign organization was formed with two goals in mind. The first was to help Ed Rendell become mayor and the second was to defeat Fran Rafferty. Ed was almost a sure bet to win, but defeating Rafferty didn’t seem realistic—until we realized that we could use Ed’s campaign to work the ward leaders. We would need to find an acceptable candidate to replace Rafferty who the public could embrace and we needed to make the community and the city believe this was all possible. Television was what I knew, so we decided to produce a commercial. We had little money and a commercial campaign would wipe out most of our funds. This, we realized, would be a smoke-and-mirrors campaign. But it was worth a try. No pain, no gain.

  Richard Bond, a public relations executive on our board, had a friend who sold airtime on KYW-TV. Together, we began to research hot-button issues and put together a storyboard. In the end, the commercial would be a thirty-second spot. It was filmed secretly at NFL Films studios in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, at a deep discount. Yes, NFL Films must be thanked for helping produce the first-ever citywide LGBT political campaign television commercial in the nation. We sent Peter Lien out to photograph Rafferty with the instructions to get as many shots as possible with him looking mean. Mission accomplished. From my days at a radio station called Talk 900, we got Bill Davol to agree to do the voiceover. The spot was a collage of Rafferty photos; in each one he appeared progressively meaner. With the voiceover, we used his quotes and his votes to lay out the issues.

  “You may have thought it was funny when Fran Rafferty insulted lesbians and gays. But was it funny when he had to apologize to Philadelphia for saying he would salute the Statue of Liberty by getting drunk? Or when he voted against more money for our children’s education? Or when he made the city council a laughingstock by having not one but two fistfights there? The sad thing is, Fran Rafferty could be elected again to the city council. If you’re serious about Philadelphia, don’t waste $65,000 a year . . . Say no to Fran Rafferty.”