The Paper | Calendar | |Businesses | Attractions | Nightlife | Resources | Gay Links | Home   The Political Climate: The Bathroom Factor by John Laird All politics is local - Former House Speaker Tip O'Neill Every year at this time as Gay Pride passes by, I review the political and cultural progress gay men and lesbians have made during the past year. By all traditional measures we have really moved ahead in last twelve months. But by one little known indicator of progress for modern civil rights movements, we have really moved onto the political radar screen. That indicator? The issue of bathrooms. You probably are wondering what bathrooms have to do with political progress. Let me clear that up. Until the 1960's, the United States, particularly in the South, was guilty of the worst kind of racial discrimination-separate and unequal public accommodations. There were drinking faucets for whites and separate ones for blacks. There were neighborhoods for whites and neighborhoods for blacks. And there were separate bathrooms for whites and blacks. In those days this issue was not a joking matter. There were many stories of African-American citizens whose major concern about long drives was not being able to find a bathroom they could use at any point during their travel. When the struggle to change this reached the halls of Congress, what was one of the issues raised? You guessed it. People of different races would have to use the same bathrooms. This was really scary to those citizens who insisted they weren't really racists, just genteel. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 put the issue to rest and the worst fears of some white Americans did not come to pass. At the same time the struggle was begun for the rights of American farmworkers, mostly of Mexican and Filipino heritage. At the core of the issue was the basic right that farmworkers should have bathrooms on site in the fields-a right that many did not enjoy. It was argued that it was financially not possible for pay for the cost of this basic human dignity. Yet bathrooms were won as a right, and the agricultural industry is still humming along economically. As the Equal Rights Amendment was pressed in the 1970's, the inequality of women in America was stark. Less than 2% of the members of Congress were women, women in the workforce were paid just over half of what men were, and there were countless laws in which the rights of women were subordinate to the rights of men. Yet when opponents fought against equal rights laws, could they oppose such obvious injustice? No. Instead, they brought up the issue of bathrooms. Would equal rights mean that young boys and girls would have to share bathrooms? If the ERA passed, there would be women linebackers on professional sports teams, and where will they shower? Women's rights had arrived as a movement. Bathrooms had become the issue. Yet women have moved ahead in this country in the two decades since this debate, and all the fears about bathrooms-expressed to keep them in their place at the time-failed to materialize. In the 1980's, the years leading up to the adoption of the Americans with Disabilities Act, people with disabilities pointed out the separate but unequal availability of sidewalks, transit-and yes, bathrooms. The stories were similar to the black civil rights movement. People with disabilities were afraid to go certain places because they would not be able to find a bathroom they could use. Last year, many of us in Santa Cruz celebrated the achievements of long-time activist Terry Brickley-a champion of people with disabilities. As his daughter addressed the crowd that day, she described attending political meetings with her father. "Couldn't we ever go to a meeting where they didn't talk about bathrooms?", she asked plaintively. "Not another meeting about bathrooms? Everyone else's father talked about other things." By the end of the decade, people with disabilities were being taken seriously politically-and you could tell that the Americans for Disabilities Act was about to be adopted. Why? Because bathrooms had become the issue. As you read in my last column in this space, a gay couple suffered disparate treatment trying to rent a camping space in the North Coast of Santa Cruz County. They were told they were not a couple and would have to pay almost double the rate any other couple would pay for a similar camping space. Supervisor Mardi Wormhoudt and a number of community activists worked to find a legal remedy for this injustice. A non-discrimination ordinance has now been adopted by the Board of Supervisors, which is part of the political progress I would traditionally hail in my annual report on the advances we have made in the past year. But as the draft ordinance was being kicked around on its way to adoption, what issue came up? Was it concern about disparate treatment? Was it empathy for people who suffer such kinds of public rejection? Was it a passion for justice? Nope. You guessed it. It was a concern about bathrooms. There were questions raised about just who would be able to use which bathroom if equal rights based on sexual orientation were enacted into law. So while I usually tell you each Gay Pride where we have had certain electoral victories since we last met, how we have advanced in being characterized in the movies and television, which new novels and histories chronicle us in a positive light-and we have had all of those this last year-I wanted you to know our movement is finally being taken seriously by one of the best indicators those in the corridors of power have to offer. We threaten bathrooms. We have arrived politically. John Laird is a former mayor of Santa Cruz and is a regular contributor to The Paper.