Hi History Makers, Eric here. A few months ago we launched Making Gay History's Patreon

channel, a place where we're sharing new video interviews never before heard clips from

my archive that didn't make it into the episodes and more. If you're not a member of our Patreon

community yet, I hope you'll join today. Just $5 a month gets you access to these Making

Gay History extras, and you'll support us as we work to bring LGBTQ history to life

through the voices of the people who lived it. Find out more at patreon.com slash making

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And thank you so much.

I've had so many people say to me, how can you be gay and conservative? It's impossible.

Of course, they equate conservative with homophobia, with Jesse Helms and so on. And I understand

that attitude, but it's their wrong. And there are a lot of gay conservatives, not all

of them in the closet. But you can be, and it's our fault for not coming out and having

more courage to speak out. And I didn't have that much courage because I was yanked up.

But it's not a contradiction in terms. Any more than it is to be liberal in gay.

I'm Eric Marcus, and this is Making Gay History.

When former congressman Robert Bowman and I recently caught up on the past 30 plus years

of his life in preparation for this episode, we discovered we both had the same question.

What was he doing in my book? Among the 49 people whose oral histories I included in the

original edition of Making Gay History, Bob Bowman is an anomaly. As he himself pointed

out, quote, all these people that are heroes, and I'm a villain, so to speak.

Unlike the other people I featured, Bowman did not earn a spot in my book through his involvement

in the LGBTQ rights movement. But he did make a history. In 1980, the Republican congressman

...