Season 9 Trailer: Gays Against Briggs

Slow Burn

Slate Podcasts

News, Society & Culture, History, Documentary, Politics

4.6 • 25.1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 May 2024

⏱️ 2 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1978, state senator John Briggs put a bold proposition on the California ballot. If it passed, the Briggs Initiative would ban gays and lesbians from working in public schools—and fuel a growing backlash against LGBTQ+ people in all corners of American life. In the ninth season of Slate’s Slow Burn, host Christina Cauterucci explores one of the most consequential civil rights battles in American history: the first-ever statewide vote on gay rights. With that fight looming, young gay activists formed a sprawling, infighting, joyous opposition; confronted the smear that they were indoctrinating kids; and came out en masse to show Briggs—and their own communities—who they really were. And when an unthinkable act of violence shocked them all, they showed the world what gay power looked like. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Coming soon from Slate Podcasts.
0:02.6	So first it was Date County.
0:04.8	Voters in the Miami area repealed civil rights for gay people by a two to one margin.
0:10.0	In the late 1970s, cities around the country began rolling back anti-discrimination laws that protected gay people.
0:17.0	And then it was Wichita, St Paul, Eugene.
0:21.0	Successful campaigns against the gay community which shocked us all.
0:25.0	A state senator from California watched the laws fall and saw an opportunity.
0:31.0	Homosexuality is a most repulsive lifestyle.
0:35.0	His name was John Briggs, and he wanted to deliver the anti-gay movement its biggest prize
0:40.5	yet.
0:41.5	California realized that they were coming for us. I'm Christina
0:47.1	Kauterucci. This season on Sloburn, we'll explore how a nationwide backlash
0:52.2	against gays and lesbians led to a massive showdown in California.
0:56.5	Now it's something called Proposition 6, the Braves Initiative.
1:00.3	It would call for firing any teachers in California who practice homosexuality.
1:05.0	Your life as you knew it would be destroyed.
1:07.0	We've got to fight back. We can't let this happen in California.
1:12.0	The Briggs Initiative would be the first
1:16.2	statewide vote on gay rights. With so much at stake, young people became activists.
1:24.0	We were all coming out all day long, every day.
1:27.0	And activists became leaders.
1:30.0	My name is Harvey Milk, and I'm here to meet Clutje.
	...

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