Hi everybody, welcome to The Librarian is in the New York Public Library's

podcast about books, culture, and what to read next. And we wanted to start you off with someone else's voice today.

Sometimes I don't believe the things I see and hear.

Have you met the woman who's shocked by two women kissing and in the same breath

tells you that she's pregnant?

But gays shouldn't be blatant.

Or this straight couple sits next to you in a movie and you can't hear the dialogue because of the sound effects. But gays shouldn't

be blatant. And the woman in your office spends your whole lunch hour talking about her new

bikini drawers and how much her husband likes them. But gays shouldn't be blatant. Or the hip

chick in your class rattling a mile a minute while you're trying to get stoned in the John

about the camping trip she took with her musician boyfriend. But gays shouldn't be blatant. You go in a

public bathroom and all over the walls. there's John loves Mary, Janice

digs Richard, Pepe Loves de Lores, etc. But gays shouldn't be blatant. Or you go to an amusement

park and there's a tunnel of love and pictures of straits painted on the front and grinning

couples coming in and out, but gays shouldn't be blatant.

Fact is, blatant heterosexuals are all over the place. Supermarkets, movies, at work, in church, in books, on television every day and night, every place, even in gay bars.

And they want gay men and women to go hide in the closets.

So do you straight folks? I say, sure, I'll go, if you go too, but I'm polite. So after you.

So that was poet Pat Parker, who was reading a poem called For Straight Folks

Who Don't Mind Gays, but Wish They Weren't So Blatent.

And the reason why we played that clip is Gwen and I both read the same book the past couple of weeks

called Sister Love, The Letters of Audrey Lord and Pat Parker, 1926. read the same book the past couple of weeks called sister love the letters of audrey lord and pat

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