Community makes history, then and now

I arrived 30 minutes before the final hearing for the Colorado Civil Union Act was to be heard before the state House Appropriations Committee. The room was already packed with supporters, lobbyists and media. I took a seat in a floor-to-ceiling windowsill along the edge of the room.

The bill to extend most of the rights and responsibilities of marriage to same-sex couples, sponsored by gay Denver Democrats Sen. Pat Steadman and Rep. Mark Ferrandino, had already cleared two other Republican controlled committees. The bill was expected to clear this committee, too, if the chairman, who was under no obligation to hold a vote on the bill, took a head count.

Speculation was running rampant. If the bill didn’t get out of the committee hearing in time for the full House to debate the bill before midnight, it would die.

The bill was supposed to be the fifth bill heard at the meeting. Scheduled to come up before it were pieces of legislation that had no hope of passing on time – they had originated in the House, and would need to be passed on second and third reading before going to the Senate that was set to adjourn the next day.

Democrats on the committee tried to move those bills quickly to their inevitable deaths.

But chairman Jon Becker, aided and abetted by his colleagues, initiated a sloppy but calculated move to run out the clock on the equality legislation.

Anger and frustration filled the room.

As seconds turned into minutes and the minutes into hours, the room became more and more stuffy. The hot air Rep. Bob Gardner was generating with his lengthy speeches and questions didn’t help, either.

I got up for a cigarette. It was going to be a while. I figured I might even have time for two.

As I made my way through the room too small for the crowd the showdown had attracted, I saw the worn but determined faces of several community members – friends and acquaintances not normally engaged in the legislative process.

It took me back to several images I’ve seen from a time long gone by: 1973.

I’ve shared this story before. But given everything that has happened in the last few weeks, it bares repeating.

The story of how the gay community in Denver was created, born out of political action, can neither be forgotten nor shared enough times.

A group of gays and lesbians, acutely aware of the gay liberation movement on the coasts, coupled with the oppression they were suffering at the hands of discriminatory policies by the City of Denver, gathered in the fall of 1972, to create the Gay Coalition of Denver.

One of their missions was to convince the city council to abolish laws that led to the legal, but groundless, arrests of gay men.

About a year later, the council took up the matter. Hundreds of gays and lesbians showed up at the council chambers. A not-so-friendly council president informed those gathered their issue had been moved to the bottom of the agenda.

They’d have to wait. And when it was their turn to testify, only 30 minutes would be allotted. Clapping and roars of support would count against them.

That’s just the beginning.

The rest of the story — Gay Revolt at Denver City Council Oct. 23 1973, And How It Chanted Our World — will be broadcast at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., June 12 on Denver’s Channel 12.

The documentary was written and produced by one of the pioneers of the Gay Coalition of Denver, Jerry Gerash.

When I was preparing for my coverage of the civil union bill, I reached out to Gerash for his thoughts.

“History should encourage us,” he said. “… Our community proliferated in many other spheres of gay life in the ‘70s and ‘80s, to become a powerful LGBT community. A community now strong enough that it can face down the powerful right wing anti-gay forces of today. I believe that the message is the same now as it was then: tell the truth of our lives.”