Chapter 19: Houstonians For Equality

Sunday, September 9, 1984

Mom and Dad had breakfast with us, of course. We caught them up on how our classes were going and everything else that was going on, or at least as much as we could in the time we had.

During breakfast, Dad said, “It turns out I have at least one customer who’ll be at this rally. Dale Henderson of Pronto Print and Copy had a flyer up for it in his shop. He’s located in the Montrose, so I imagine anyone doing business with him would be fine with the politics of it.”

“Anyone who’s supporting Straight Slate and lives in that area is really quiet about it, I imagine,” I said.

“Or really loud, if they’re trying to get a reaction,” Paige said, which got everyone nodding.

They left at their usual time to go to church, while the rest of us got ready for the rally.

After picking up Cammie and Mel at the Nguyen house, we headed off to the Montrose area. Camille and Francis were (of course) also heading to the rally, as were Tony and Jean Seiler.

We stopped at the Walgreens drug store near Memorial, too, and picked up a couple of single-use cameras. The girls wanted pictures from the rally, and I was sure the parents would want copies. The plan was to trade the cameras around so that whoever wasn’t speaking would have one.

Two was probably too many, but we’d have plenty of picture-taking opportunities. Angie had already pledged to try to have a camera handy whenever possible.

The whole thing made me miss cell phones (and especially smartphones) all over again. They had their issues, but they’d changed the world in terms of photography.

Once we’d shopped, we headed off to the rally. As we were passing the Galleria, which was perhaps five miles from the park, Paige said, “I’ve never actually been in the Montrose area before. I hear there are a lot of gay bars and stuff like that.”

The others nodded along, agreeing with Paige.

Jas gave me a little nudge.

“I don’t see you nodding, boyfriend!”

“Um ... it’s ... complicated?” I said.

Angie groaned, and Jas followed a second later.

Mel, though, looked puzzled.

“Is this something to do with ... you know?” Mel said, after a few seconds.

“Usually that’s what ‘complicated’ means, yeah,” Angie said, nodding.

“I was here in, um... 1988?” I said. “Just the one visit.”

“Whap him, Jas!” Angie said.

I got another nudge. It was gentle, in deference to my being the driver.

“Explain!” Angie said. “Why were you here in 1988?”

“There was this girl...” I started.

“Whap!” Paige commanded.

Jas elbowed me, politely.

“Shush!” I said.

“I thought there weren’t any ‘girls’ until graduate school,” Paige said.

“Nah,” Angie said. “That’s wrong. Steve had girls who were friends. Just not girlfriends. And the actual girlfriend wasn’t until after graduate school, though he did sort of kinda date one girl just as his senior year was ending. Sort of. Maybe. Plus, Laura.”

“Yeah. Exactly,” I said. “Anyway, so ... there was this girl. Her name was Lynn. You can, maybe, sort of, think of her as a precursor to Laura. We never ‘dated’ the way Laura and I sort of dated.”

“You dated Laura?” Mel said. Then she nodded to herself, and added, “Wait! That’s the other Laura. Like, not the Laura any of us could talk to.”

“Right!” I said. “And dated is still not exactly the right word.”

“They dated,” Angie said.

“Definitely,” Jas said.

“But we were never a couple,” I said. “She had a boyfriend the entire time.”

“On-again, off-again boyfriend,” Jas said. “You said that yourself.”

“True...” I said.

“This is off-topic,” Paige said. “Interesting! But, off-topic. Lynn. Go!”

“So, anyway. Lynn was in one of my Poly Sci courses. It was a weird class taught by a visiting professor about democracy as a concept. Anyway, she was ... well ... easy to notice. Fashion choices, that sort of thing.”

“And you noticed,” Angie said, nodding.

“Everyone noticed! Anyway, we became friends. Just friends. We had a ton in common, really. We liked the same music, the same books, the same movies...”

“Dating!” Jas said.

“I didn’t say we went to any movies together,” I said. “We just talked about them. She was friends with all of my friends, too.”

“Dave Winton?” Angie asked.

“Dave and several others, yeah.”

“So ... Montrose,” Paige said.

“Okay. So. She had a lousy boyfriend. I’m not saying that because I wanted to date her,” I said.

“But you totally wanted to date her,” Jas said.

“Hell, yes! She was smart and funny and cute and liked stuff I liked,” I said.

“Anyway, go on,” Jas said.

“She and lousy boyfriend got married after graduation. All of us thought he sucked, not just me. How much he sucked, I don’t know, but ... like ... he didn’t like the same things, he smoked and she didn’t, he was rude and pushy. Just ... a lot of things.”

“Controlling?” Angie said, frowning.

“I’d say so, though I don’t know that my recollection is spot-on,” I said.

“I hate him already on general principles,” Ang said, making a face.

“We all do!” Paige said.

“They got married down around Pasadena. I forget exactly. Her dad was in the petrochemical industry, I remember that, and was living near the refinery.”

“Where is the Montrose area in all this?” Cammie asked.

“After the wedding, and the reception, Lynn and her new husband and some of their friends and us went to a club that was right off Montrose.”

“They went to a gay bar on their wedding night?” Paige said.

“It started as ‘Hey, we want to go out dancing. Who wants to come along? We know this cool place!’” I said. “I didn’t realize it was a gay bar until I saw two guys dancing. It was a really mixed crowd. Probably two-thirds of the couples were straight, I’d say. It was the first time I’d ever been in a gay bar. Last I heard, it was the only time Dave was.”

“Not you?” Jas said.

“I made wilder friends than Dave did,” I said, chuckling. “Plus, I lived in the San Francisco area for a while. I’ve been to a few.”

“This is all really fascinating,” Paige said. “I mean, I’m being serious here. It is! It’s a whole different perspective.”

“It really is,” Jas said. “I’m glad this came up!”

“Me, too,” Mel said. “Even if it’s still weird hearing you say that the last time you were somewhere was four years from now. I guess I’ll get used to it.”

“You will,” Jas said. “It’s funny now. Mostly, anyway!”

“Even if we have to whap them when they do it,” Paige said.

“Comes with the territory,” Cammie said, grinning.

Cherryhurst Park itself was a new place for me. I hadn’t seen the bar that we’d been to, either. Of course, it had been forty years and I’d only seen the place once, at night, on a rather weird night. I had no idea if I’d remember the outside of it.

I suspected the inside of it would trigger memories, but going from bar to bar trying to find it seemed silly.

We arrived at the park half an hour before the rally was supposed to start. After asking around, we were able to locate Ellen Carruthers. She introduced us to some of the leaders of Houstonians For Equality, including their president, Chris Hanson. After that, she told us when we’d be speaking. That was pretty much it. Cammie asking for a speaking spot surprised her, but after some quick discussion, she was pretty enthusiastic about it.

We picked up name tags from the table up front — as did most of the crowd — and then hung out and mingled. They weren’t having speakers wait anywhere in particular. The crowd seemed like a cross-section of Houston, pretty much. Some couples were obviously gay, but some were just as obviously straight.

There was no protest group that I could see. I was fairly grateful for that.

We found all of the parents together towards the back. We said hi, but then moved up towards the front so we’d be ready when it was time to speak.

Chris Hanson took the microphone just after eleven and got things rolling. He was a good speaker and had a pretty polished presentation. The gist of it was what I expected: gay people just wanted the same rights as everyone else, and Straight Slate was lying about their claims of ‘special rights’ and ‘unequal privileges.’ That, and the rhetoric from some Straight Slate supporters was inflammatory and downright dangerous.

Sadly, I knew he was right. Not that long in the future, someone (I’d long since forgotten his name) would be gunned down not far from here simply because he ‘looked gay.’ That crime had galvanized Houston’s gay community and things had changed for the better, but I suspected they would have even without a stupid hate crime to spur them along.

Perhaps things would be different in this world. There was no way to know without waiting and seeing. Assuming there were no major changes (like Straight Slate winning this time), I wouldn’t know how close the election had been, or which politicians had gained or lost support, or anything else.

The rally (and Houstonians for Equality in general) was really about two elections. The stakes for the first, for Houston’s city council, were both low and not so low. Two city council seats (out of fourteen) were up for election. One was due to retirement, while the other was because of a death. They would be filled only for one-year terms. All fourteen seats, plus the mayor, would be elected in the 1985 elections, and I think everyone already suspected that ‘Straight Slate’ would be back next year.

The second election was a referendum, to be held in January of 1985, over Houston’s new ‘gay rights’ ordinance. It protected gay city employees from being fired simply for being gay.

We listened to a series of elected officials and community leaders before I heard Ellen, who was introducing the speakers, say, “Now I’d like to introduce two up-and-coming youth leaders. Angie Marshall, from Memorial High School, and her girlfriend Paige Seiler were the second lesbian couple — in the nation! — to attend their high school prom without lawsuits or police. Angie and Paige have some strong opinions about equal rights, as you might expect.”

Angie and Paige headed up to the microphone holding hands. They got a pretty rousing round of applause.

Angie took the microphone first.

“Howdy, everyone! My name is Angie Marshall, and this is my girlfriend...”

She handed the microphone to Paige.

“Paige Seiler!”

That caused more applause.

Paige said, “Look, we’re really just two regular kids. Not ordinary, maybe, but what does ‘ordinary’ really mean, anyway? The thing is, if I was Peter...”

She handed the microphone back to Angie.

“ ... or I was Adam...”

Paige took the microphone back, and said, “ ... but not both!...”

That got a bunch of laughter.

Paige continued, saying, “ ... we wouldn’t be news. No one cares if a straight couple go to their high school prom. It happens all the time. Why in the world should be it national news when two girls, or two boys, go to their prom? It’s stupid!”

Of course, that was met with another rousing round of applause.

Angie took the microphone and said, “Our good friends Lizzie Vinton and Janet Collins kicked this whole thing off a year before us. Lizzie stood up for what was right even before prom, fighting a push to kick her off the student council just because she was gay. Then the two of them went to their prom and ... magically ... it just worked.”

Paige took over, saying, “Of course, it wasn’t ‘magic’ at all. It took a bunch of people, including the guy you’ll hear from next, to make it happen. The people making this rally happen are like that — people standing up for what’s right. We are forever grateful to everyone who fights for the right of people like Angie and me, or Lizzie and Janet, or anyone to just love who they want to love, just like everyone else can.”

Another round of applause rang out.

Angie said, “I’m going to hand the microphone over to my brother Steve. He’s got his own perspective on this.”