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| DLB w/ MK at HRC-PDX /MKS |
One of the great strengths of Oscar winning Screenwriter, Dustin Lance Black is his way with words and he wrote the wisdom of Harvey Milk and the confusing Toughness of J. Edgar Hoover. Black was there to witness the beginning of Prop 8 and was there until the end. Last year, Black attended the Pacific NW HRC Dinner to accept the Visibility award and gave a memorable speech that lead to the Full Fight to Approve Ref 74 and the victory that was a reality a few short months later.
Black was back in the NW on July 27th at the 4th Annual Portland HRC Gala, as a Keynote speaker to share the fight for a battle to Strike the Oregon DOMA law. Black spoke about what is next as a Writer and Activist:
MK: Welcome Dustin Lance Black, Can I call you Lance?
DLB: Sure
MK: Lance, last Year you received the Visibility Award from HRC at the NW HRC Gala and gave a great speech, which proved Magic as in just a few short months, now on July 27th you will be speaking at the Portland HRC Gala. How will inspire the Portland Crowd?
DLB: So I think it’s a, you know, my job will be to hopefully convey that, the importance of telling your personal story and making sure that other people are embolden to tell theirs.
MK: And whatever you said last year at the Seattle HRC, which is the official Pacific Northwest Dinner, but what you did say is it really certainly did work because Ref 74 passed as well as several other states, and up until just a few months ago we’ve had like a total of 12 states legalizing same sex marriage altogether. Plus the 13 which is one that I know you’ve been working on quite a bit, and that’s the overturning of Proposition 8.
DLB: Right. Well, that is what I spent the last four years working on, it was a Federal case, and yes, we won. And we have marriage equality in California again. And as much as I celebrate it on a day that we won back our equality in California I reminded the crowd that was celebrating in West Hollywood that we had to take the surge we have in California and we have to bring it to the ones who aren’t equaled yet. And we have to share how we did it. And we have to share the strength we found in Washington and certainly Oregon is one of those states. I think every time we turn a state into an equality state it’s almost, so much is already known, there’s such a resounding message of hope, the PR people, who are still out there, suffering and they still are facing discrimination. A dominant thinking discrimination. And they can see that that can change. And hopefully give them enough hope to hang on, hang on long enough for you to move to a different state or to stay there and in time.
MK: And I also heard that recently you attended the wedding of the Prop 8 plaintiffs or one half of the Prop 8 plaintiffs, Kris and Sandy.
DLB: Well, that was very dramatic, because I was actually doing an interview with Jack Griffin, who had been a head of the foundation that support the funding case. Now we’re doing interviews. And we got information that may be the Ninth Circuit move sooner than 25 days. And so we often say without the real confirmation of that, and for both our Plaintiffs to take on just when we arrived, it was only on in car from the airports that we had confirmation, and to have something to say, and I think we were at City Hall in ten minutes. Our plaintiffs were already there, and we were first on that day. You know, it’s hard, they happened to be there, to deliver that message that we’ve all been, you know, it’s a small little crew over there, you know, we’ve been working very hard with our families for many years and so that certainly was a tearful, joyful moment. And I will say this. I’ll never forget the conference call immediately after our Plaintiffs were . And I think we all look to them to Los Angeles. And for us to see how did it change, what a difference, and how a difference. And Jeffrey Paul[] really summed it up and he said, yeah, guess what guys, it is different. People will feel different. And it was really moving.
MK: Yeah, and just a couple of weeks before that, actually a month before that, I had met Kris and Sandy on the GLADD awards red carpet in San Francisco and we were just talking about how they were really, they knew it was going to definitely go into their favor, which was fabulous. And we also were talking about your play, 8, and how you’ve gotten a huge amount of support from the mega stars to come and perform on these special performances.
DLB: Yeah. It was heartbreaking, we’re sitting in that courtroom day after day, listening to not only the moving testimony of our Plaintiffs and expert witnesses but watching how the opposition in the equality arguments fell apart when they had to testify on their own. The opposition was very crafty in they ensured there cameras were not allowed in that courtroom. To get the courtroom to get that see that, and no one could see it. No one knew unless you really liked reading transcripts. And this, for me, has always been a movement, it’s been a movement of truth telling and to get the truth out there, I’m eternally grateful, that, you know, that the actor in Gaylord and then in sort of volunteered their time and really put a spotlight on these words. And these are the words that are spoken in that case. And for a long time there’s an education in that for the people here in California so they knew what was argued. It was a piece to make sure that folks knew what was before this court, what with the Supreme Court, and I hope that that flame will serve within the candle for others moving forward as they work towards equality. So that’s what that piece was. If you want something to do well and you have a lot of experience doing it, who’s afraid? (Laugh) You move on. I’ve never made a dime, I’ll never make a dime, uh, gave it away, and all the actors who came to do it did the same thing. So I don’t know what else to say about that.
MK: I had heard recently that you had been working with the Mormon Church to work towards trying to change their rules?
DLB: Yeah, I mean absolutely. Actively engaging people to agree with you, I think it’s, you know, especially on this issue, I think it’s been there for, and I’ve seen that even in the Mormon Church. I grew up in the Mormon Church. So I understand, I understand how a lot of people feel about family, how a lot of that work has been literally introducing them to Dallas and Dally[] so that they understand why it is why we are working toward equality. Why it is we’re fighting for equal rights and protection in this country? And, you know, we’ve seen change in the Mormon Church as they get to know us. And so, sure. You know, they’re not there yet, but certainly we see changes, just in 4 short years.
MK: Now I was just chatting recently with Justin Utley who is a former gay Mormon and is a country singer and actually just recently won an Out Music Award. And he was talking about how it’s also good that people, you know, celebrities, or people who are very, you know, big in the Mormon Church are coming out and, uh, you know, saying that okay, this is wrong. We really need to support. You know, like Marie Osmond, for instance.
DLB: Yeah, absolutely. I think there are a lot of people inside the Mormon Church who realize that gay and lesbian should have equal rights. I see them all the time. There’s a whole group called Mormons Building Bridges in Salt Lake City, Utah, which is a group of straight acting Mormons who came out, who come out, it’s now year after year, and March is the Pride Parade. The first person I saw walk in for the very first performance of Gay On Broadway was Steve Rals[], the quarterback, the Mormon quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. So he’s a great hero to many Mormon people. So, you know, yeah, of course. What’s, you know, so it’s only that, not to anyone out here, people just blanket, like condemn meager people who don’t agree with them, because I actually believe that, yes, there probably are some people who are purely hateful, and enjoy that. But for the most people who don’t know, and once they get to know gay and lesbian people, their minds are changed. And that takes bravery, that takes active engagement on both sides.
MK: Now with DOMA and Prop 8 down, and completely done, do you – what do you think is the next hurdle besides, you know, marriage equality in every single stage of course, but what do you think is going to be the next big hurdle?
DLB: I mean there’s many. The … the next hurdle? I mean one thing I think has to be accomplished is the passage of nationwide employment and housing nondiscrimination. ENDA. And the reason I say that is because, yeah, I could call a lot of the coaches in the country, who are leading our brothers and our sisters in the south behind. Yeah, so if we want to see change in the south, that means in the state I grew up, with the states my mom is from, and where my family is now, so that would be Texas, Louisiana, and Virginia, if we want to see progress and with these people , then we have to make it possible to come out and to feel comfortable telling their story, to kind of work, to come out at church, to come out certainly in the community, the Pride march, to let what that they are with people are so afraid of these areas. And that can only happen if we protect their jobs and their homes. I so often hear, well, gay and lesbian people are really losing their jobs and really losing their homes. And some are. But really what it does when you don’t have employment and housing protection is people are afraid to. They don’t bring their partner to Christmas parties. They don’t introduce their families, you know, at work, or at the community. Their children are asked to lie, or hide their families, when they go to school. And it creates shame. It creates an atmosphere to tell our personal stories which is how we know absolutely that we know the numbers now. And so we’re not seeing change in these areas. So I press everybody I know to get back to the hard work of passing employment and having nondiscrimination nationwide. And I think that that will create a great change in the areas where change is proven difficult.
MK: What I hear is what is definitely needed as part of, and in the inclusions, was would be the on trans protections.
DLB: Yeah, absolutely. Of course trans people should be included in there. No questions. Trans people, gay and lesbian, they fight for gay and lesbian equality for generations now. And generations now. And it would be simple for us to. I hear people say well, that’s going to be more difficult, that’s harder. And I say, well, it could work. You know? It could work. Let’s get it done.
MK: Switching gears a little bit. I hear your next film is going to be about Northwest native Colton Harris Moore. What got you intrigued with that story?
DLB: Oh, Colton? There’s so many things. I started working on that story before he was even tried, and then have you know been following it since and now actually finally have a script written. I got to tell you I was very interested in why. Like why he was doing what he was doing and because what I found when I started looking into it was he didn’t seem interested in keeping any belongings, and he never hurt anybody. And I just found it curious that that doesn’t seem like a sociopath’s personality. And so as I dug and read up more and more about him it became clearer and clear why he was doing what he was doing. And it was really survival and it spoke to an age where we’ve been in where people aren’t able to move out of their socioeconomic conditions. And the fact that the was born into such a horrific situation and really didn’t have a way out and couldn’t find a way out. And I found it really very interesting, this combination of somebody who was trapped in a broken system. But was incredibly brilliant, a brilliant mind. And that combination turned into Colton Harris Moore. This young man was able to solve any problem put before him. Including if I have to get away, I can fly away, even though I’ve never been in an airplane before. And the good news is when I met him, uh, it was really confirmed that he’s just an incredibly warm, caring person who has a lot of regret for what he did, and you can see it in his eyes, and you don’t see that in a sociopathic personality. And I think, you know the ways things have turned out is such a happy ending there. I think with the success of this film, the people who were injured will be, you know, made whole again. And I actually think that Colton is going to come out of this in really good shape. Just meaning that he’s finding himself now and able to get the proper education now.
MK: And of course I want to talk to you further once the film is completed, and I have a couple of burning questions. What would Harvey Milk say about the recent LGBT progress?
DLB: Harvey was an incredibly progressive thinker. So what I can say, you know, so Harvey might have, and this is why it’s such a tragedy, Harvey might have a vision for how to move forward right now, but now it’s different, because his position with the movement in the 70s blew people’s minds. And I would say he had the idea and was preaching to anyone who would listen in the months before he was assassinated that we needed to take the fight to the federal government. At the time he said we have to take this to Washington and to Jimmy Carter. And he was making the moves to do that. And he saw the civil rights fight as just that, a civil rights fight. And we know that those only, it only gains to protect everyone when you take it to the federal level. And so I think he would be incredibly creative, with the progress that’s been made in the 40 years. Forty years ago when people started taking any of this into the federal they were told it was too soon. And you heard, you know, I faced a lot of criticism from my own just for being a part of the federal case. You heard Edith Windsor say she couldn’t give any support from her community. And that was because people were afraid in the community. I think Harvey Milk would be so proud that despite that fear in the community we moved forward, we showed ourselves a great deal of self-respect by demanding Change. And he has a great quote where he says, “Masturbation is fucked. It does not take the place of the real thing.” So if the community could stop playing with itself and get down to the real thing. Some are satisfied with coming to that with all they can get, but if they can’t get the real thing they could find that they could get it. And I think that’s that we’ve been doing, is demanding the real thing, not satisfied with crumbs and stop playing with ourselves. I can always say that quote, it’s pretty true. But I also think he would say we didn’t get the whole thing, let’s get back to work. He talks about couples in Pennsylvania, or from San Antonio, Texas, and guess what, those two kids don’t have equality yet!
MK: This is completely out of left field. What would J. Edgar Hoover think?
DLB: Oh, I’d hope that J. Edgar Hoover would’ve come out of the closet now and leading us lovely, you know, in an open love life. Maybe that would heal him from some of the hate and paranoia that seems to haunt him. You know? And maybe he could experience love in an open fashion, because I do think that when you push that down and hide it and crush that part of it, you’re still feeling wrong, that’s when you sort of being paranoid of an overly protective personality that created J. Edgar Hoover.
See the coverage from the Portland HRC Gala Here!
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