-: And actually, it didn't have a name
but my mother was really key in my understanding
of women and equality, because she was,
she was a soldier, let me tell you.
-: Was she? -: Oh, yeah.
-: Tell me in what way?
What was she like?
-: In every way.
I'm telling you, she ...
I was gonna turn this off here so we don't hear that.
Mom came from a generation of women who were alive
and cognizant.
She was born in 1913. -: Wow.
-: She died at 103.
-: Oh, wow.
-: And she was sharp up until almost the very end.
-: That's wonderful.
-: So anyway, the long and short of that is she
and Dad were missionaries.
And they were in, they were teaching, preaching,
and she was also, she was a teacher-nurse.
So she had come up.
Her family had money,
and they sent her to a private high school and college,
and so they were,
how to put this?
She would have been just a kid during the,
a little, small kid really, during the feminist era,
but in the rural boondocks,
I mean, everybody had to work like nobody's business.
Nobody got cut any slack,
and she said she still remembered children dragging bags
of cotton behind them.
-: Wow, is this in Alabama?
-: Alabama. -: Yeah, wow.
-: And she was from South Carolina.
-: Okay.
-: And so my dad's people are from Alabama so ...
But anyway so, long and short,
they were just out in the boonies with each other
and so there really wasn't any ...
I mean, her ideas were shaped by what she could do
and she could do a lot of things.
And she also had been a kid who they,
she was raised by older sisters,
who didn't have kids.
I mean, she was raised in New York City
so she was used to speaking out.
Of course, Harlem at that time was going
through the renaissance, -: Oh, yes.
-: So that was a place where she flowered really.
-: Wow, how wonderful!
-: And so then when she met my dad,
and they decided to go back as missionaries,
you know, that time, that era, for black women
was really interesting because they were being educated too,
you see, along with black men and so forth.
So anyway, she also was a runner,
and she made the Olympics tryouts.
-: Wow!
-: Apparently her mother wouldn't let her go,
because Hitler. -: Oh, yes!
Wow!
Oh Vivian, that is amazing!
Were your parents missionaries, you mentioned Guinea,
is that where it was?
-: No, no, actually the New Guinea connection is
that when I was considering the deaconate.
-: Okay.
-: Our sisterhood.
I decided not to go but to help them,
and they needed a handbook that would translate
from English to Pidgin,
and would be pictures of things that they could,
that they worked with, that they needed.
I can remember clear as anything,
drawing a picture of a kidney-shaped bowl,
and that kind of stuff.
-: Oh, wow.
-: Yeah, and forceps and things like that they needed
to explain.
But anyway, so that was my (laughing)
that was my pre-Peace Corps.
And then we had something called
the Prince of Peace Corps,
and it was, of course, spun of off the real one,
the Peace Corps, but I applied for the Peace Corps
and I was accepted to Afghanistan.
-: Really? -: Mm-hmm.
In those days the Secret Service cleared you,
and it was an all-day test at the post office.
And so anyway, Eugene Burdick who wrote The Ugly American
had come to our campus,
and just practically the whole campus was like ...
We had more Peace Corps volunteers from that little college
than any other school in Nebraska.
-: Seriously.
-: And so I was on my way to Afghanistan,
and one of my dearest friends was in Turkey,
and he came back and said, "Oh no, no.
"You can't do that."
(laughing)
"And as outspoken as you are, no."
(laughing)
But, as it turned out I didn't have to make the decision
because the Afghan government said they didn't want us.
-: Is that right?
-: Yeah, they shut that down.
-: Wow, Vivian that's fascinating.
Do you know, where you left off was you were talking
about studying with one of your favorite theologians.
Who was that?
-: One of my favorites was,
her name was Mrs. Hauge, H-A-U-G-E.
Her husband was dead by the time I knew her,
but the Hauge Honors were a section of the Danish church.
-: Oh!
-: Yeah, and so our thing is that she wanted to be a pastor
in the church and the last I heard,
she had gone back to Denmark.
She wasn't ever, I don't know what her family history was.
I know she was Danish but she went back to Denmark
and married a Danish dairy farmer,
and was ordained in the Danish church.
-: Oh, wonderful! -: Yeah.
-: That's great! -: Yeah.
-: So, pass over the water here.
We're getting some water here.
-: Yeah, don't wanna pour this over your machinery.
-: Yeah, good point.
-: Okay, I'll let you get it. -: Good.
How did you get initially involved in Re-imagining?
You mentioned, well what was the connection?
The Ecumenical Deaconate?
-: Yeah, the connection was that I had been at that desk
and we were located here in town.
The Lutheran National, the Lutheran Church.
-: Oh, okay.
-: And we did a lot of conferencing and so forth and so on,
plus I'd gone to the Decade,
two of the three Decade meetings,
the beginning and the middle.
And I wasn't able to get to the one in Africa,
my brother died the week before I was supposed to go.
So I couldn't go, but anyway.
So basically, and also in that interim,
I became ...
What can I say?
I became chair of the Women's Equity Action League,
which Arvonne Fraser was the national president,
and had been state chair and that was the women's
legal side of the movement.
-: Really? -: Yeah.
And so that's when I got to know people like Jenny,
who was head of NOW and so forth.
And those were the two big feminist organizations,
so I tried, and did bring in more black women
to the movement because, at that point,
we had really been told in no uncertain terms
that the feminist movement was a white women's movement
and it was anti-black male and yadda, yadda, yah.
-: So who was telling you that?
-: Oh well, let me see here.
Just about every black male.
(laughing)
So and, I tell you,
it was like I was being pilloried in the black newspaper
because I was destroying the black family
because I stood on the steps of Morrill Hall
with Jack Baker and Dr.,
oh gosh, what is his name?
He's long dead now, but ...
Oh, gosh if I could say the name now you would know it,
but anyway, he was a very, very well-known professor
of sociology at the U.
But anyway, long and short, the headline indicated
that I was destroying the black family.
(laughing)
I'm standing with a gay male. -: Really?
-: Oh yeah. -: Wow.
-: So yeah.
-: How were the white feminists?
Were they, what was their attitude?
-: Well their attitude was they were pretty much happy
as long as I didn't talk about race.
-: Oh, mm-hmm.
-: But that wasn't gonna happen so.
(laughing)
-: Good!
-: So, people who I knew then,
who got it, like Jenny, we're still friends
after all these years.
-: Jenny, who was head of NOW? -: Yeah.
-: Yeah, yes.
-: And we were actually, we were meeting with Walter Mondale
to talk about ...
One of them I convinced to come into our meetings
so she could see that we were
really bringing class-action suits.
That's how we were really doing our work.
That also covered other protected classes.
So, for example, one of the cases
that we brought very successfully about was,
at least in the metro area, was public schools.
A certain amount of money that was being spent
on girls' sports as opposed to boys' sports.
-: Oh, yes, yes!
-: And also another one we brought was about,
which covered all girls.
-: Mmm, yes. -: Yeah.
And so, then we brought another one
that really affected black males as well,
and we were intentional about that,
was about the number of people who were coaches
and who were assistant principals,
because mostly that track into coaching came
through the assistant principal.
-: Is that right? -: Yeah.
So, learning to do analysis was, and working from that side,
made me more interested, of course, in public policy
because we were doing things like
going through every statute in Minnesota,
to look at one of them.
Every one of them to see how they were disproportionately
either loaded against women or holding, et cetera.
I mean, we did things like ...
We did a study with a bunch of college students
for WCCO-TV's, their licensure.
-: Mmm!
-: So we looked at every program, we looked at every ad,
oh, it was just amazing.
-: Wow, that's massive, wow.
-: So research is kinda my middle name here and I love it.
It tells the story of a lot of policy work.
A lot of it isn't based on any research,
or bad science, or a combination of all of the above.
-: Right.
-: But so, that was very satisfying.
-: Important work.
So were you involved in the actual planning
of the '93 conference?
-: No, no, I was a participant
and had a bunch of people there.
-: Mmm, I would love to hear what you remember
about the '93 conference.
I know it's been a while but what was your impression?
-: Well, my impression was that I had read the work
of almost all the speakers.
-: Yes!
(laughing)
-: So, it was just grand to hear them, see them,
you know, talk to them.
I mean, it was just,
it was like all my feminist bucket list stuff.
(laughing)
Had come true, you know.
-: Right, yes!
-: And to actually respond to one of the speakers,
and I'm trying to think of what her name was.
I'm so bad on names today.
But anyway, and ...
And my student who, Rene Whiterabbit,
-: Yes!
-: Was also on that panel. -: Right, yes!
-: And it was the speaker, her and me.
-: Oh, oh.
-: Yeah, so we were looking at color
and what people call intersections now.
-: Right!
-: And really trying to see how we could
work inside of
ethnic groups that
really felt quite threatened by the movement and so forth.
And then now they had to meet at a church.
(laughing)
-: Wait, what do you mean they had to meet at a church?
-: You know, it was one thing to be out in the streets
and about, and at your work.
The law has changed around women and what you can do
and so forth.
-: Right.
-: But it's quite another thing to meet it at church.
Church is the most segregated power.
-: Exactly.
-: And it's not just for race either.
I mean, I'm in 150-year-old congregation
and I remember clearly,
clearly when the first woman clergy came
to that congregation.
-: Is that right?
-: She's a dear friend.
I was just seeing her yesterday.
She was in rehab from a fall, but anyway, yeah, oh yeah.
And all of the angst
and preaching and da-de-da-de-da,
and all that and people dropping off
and the things they said to her were just outrageous.
-: Oh, oh.
-: Yeah, so, but she was a, as I said,
she was a good soldier,
(laughing) -: Yes!
-: She pushed all the way through it and the fact
that the church says that you have to do something
doesn't mean congregations are going to do it.
-: Exactly.
-: So you know, being on that end of it,
it was interesting too.
I had forgotten this but my friend Una from Denmark was here
and she was saying, "You preached a very good sermon
"when you came to Denmark."
And I had forgotten all about it.
She had invited me,
you know when you're on these U.N. conferences,
they're a month long.
-: Really? -: Mm-hmm.
And so you have to have either,
you have to have your own resources
or you have to be sent by somebody,
because who ...
You know what I'm saying.
You go and spend a month.
-: That's incredible.
-: And so anyway, as it turned out,
she said, "Do you remember about what I told you
"about the prayers?"
I said, yeah that part I remember.
Denmark has a minimum, at that time,
they had 14 different political parties.
And they all got equal time.
-: Wow. -: Yeah.
And there was one, I think there may have been two,
one or two debates on TV, that was it.
That was it.
I mean, people weren't taking signs.
You didn't see all this stuff on the ...
There were no ads and things like that.
It was just, that was it.
If you couldn't tell your story then, the end.
You were done for.
So anyway, this one pastor who was,
she was a Communist and one Sunday she,
in a country where pastors are civil servants,
just like the postmen, and organists too, as well.
And all their major universities have theological stuff
in them and so forth.
And so for someone to say that they were not gonna follow
the order of service,
becomes a matter of law here.
-: Oh!
-: Okay, so there is no separation of church
and state in all.
-: Right.
-: So I was like really?
And this Communist pastor had decided she wasn't going
to pray for the Queen and her ladies-in-waiting
and the knights.
(laughing)
And they were threatening to put her in jail!
(laughing)
-: Wow!
-: And so, well that whole memory of all of that
and she said, I remember she said,
"I told you."
She said, "Please, please, please you have to pray
"for the Queen."
(laughing)
I don't have any problem praying for your Queen.
(laughing)
-: Oh, that's wild, it is.
-: But yeah, so by that point,
I was very active in the Women's Equity Action League,
and active with higher ed folks,
and you know,
earlier the three of us had,
we were at Augsberg and I was just a young pup
starting my,
(chuckling)
Starting my teaching career
and three of us ended up being discriminated against
and we were in different departments,
and so we didn't know
that we were being discriminated against
until one of my students, who was a young black man,
did a cover story with our three pictures, saying,
and the headline said something like
lions three, Christians nothing.
-: Oh really?
(laughing)
So how were you being discriminated against?
What was revealed?
-: Oh what was revealed in my case, let's see,
what was revealed was that they were giving, quote, men,
who were quote, heads of households, more money than women.
-: Oh!
-: And so my colleague, who he and I started the same day,
same department, neither of us had kids,
we were both married,
and I was working much harder than him.
He was not teaching and I was teaching
and working as a staff member and head of a program.
-: Wow.
-: And he was just doing his counseling work
and going to have coffee.
And so one day,
I answered the phone and someone said
on the other end, they were doing a credit check for,
I knew he was buying a car, for I'll say Tom, whatever.
That is not his name but anyway,
and could I verify that he was making X amount of dollars.
Well it was $5,000 more than I was making.
-: Wow!
-: And my husband was going to graduate school,
and like, I said, I said to the person,
I hope to God not and hung up the phone.
(laughing)
I was kind of a hothead.
-: Yes!
(laughing)
Well, that's terrible. -: Mm-hmm, yeah.
So then when I brought that to my director of our department
he said, "Oh well, he's a head of a household."
I said so am I.
What are you talking about?
Oh no, that was head of household.
And then I discovered that, at the time,
that teachers who marry each other?
-: Mm-hmm.
-: Her, in Minneapolis, her salary dropped.
-: Oh my goodness!
-: Okay.
I was like no, huh-uh, this can't happen.
I ended up testifying up at the legislature about it.
I just couldn't let ...
I'm kinda like a dog with a bone.
(laughing)
-: Oh good for you!
-: They did change that.
-: They did change, yeah, yeah.
-: But you know, one of the things,
one of the lessons I learned early in seeing my parents,
my mother particularly,
is that you have to show up.
-: Mm-hmm, yes.
-: You have to show up
and if they're gonna do something tricky,
they were always doing tricky stuff in the south,
trying to keep people out of stuff.
-: Right.
-: So if they said the committee meeting was going
to be at 11:30 at night, you show up at 11:30 at night.
And things did happen that way.
-: Yes.
-: I went to a meeting at midnight,
and so we'd have to have relays like somebody would be
up there and say, "Okay now, there it's coming up
"in about two hours."
And you'd get out of your jammies and get in the car and go.
-: Wow!
-: So we were on the front lines of all that stuff
and so if anything, I have to say that the whole ...
Well there was this tension between feminism and womanism.
-: Right.
-: At the time of the conference.
-: Yes, say something about that, yes.
-: Okay, so black feminists were pushed,
or black women who had any sensibilities around this issue
were pushed very hard into a different place
so that they were not ...
You know, your blackness was at stake
if you were with the white women's movement.
Anyway, so the womanist movement gave black theologians,
female theologians, a place to stand, place to be.
-: Right, right.
-: And so people were very, very,
what's the word?
The word feminist was like a bad word.
And in a funny way, it still is with young women, today.
-: Yes.
-: And I wanna say, and they think they just fell
into this stuff, but it's like no, huh-uh.
And one of the things that ...
You know, it was a hard left, if you will,
and that's both theological and political.
It was a hard left to accept that God,
and the Godhead, for those of us who are Trinitarians,
that one piece of God could be like half the creation.
-: Mm-hmm, right, right.
-: In spite of the fact that the proverbs
and the wisdom literature had always been translated
and heard and seen with effeminate ...
With a whole, if you didn't clear it out,
which some German theologians were very good at doing.
Which is why the King James is used so ...
I mean, you know, if you didn't translate it out,
it's there.
-: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
-: I mean, the Godhead has she in it.
-: Right.
So Vivian, how did you negotiate that,
the feminist/womanist?
You're kinda in the middle there, what did you do?
How'd you handle it?
-: Well you know, basically I didn't see any
real difference between the two.
To me, it was just a matter of semantics.
And the womanist tradition, I think,
like I said, it gave people a place to stand.
I didn't need a place to stand.
I was already standing there,
with my denomination and so forth, you see.
-: Right.
-: So by the time that conference had happened,
we had had women in clergy for 20 years.
-: Yes, yes, you've been involved in supporting that.
So at the conference, you talked about the speakers
and responding.
Are there any other particular moments from that conference?
-: I do remember just looking out
and it was a pretty vast crowd.
And just looking out and thinking
oh my God there are all these people,
who think the same way.
I mean, because you know,
so much of what my experience had been was
creating it myself,
or helping other people, helping other people to do work.
And it was an uphill battle,
because we were in the most conservative part of the church.
-: Mm-hmm.
-: And so when we would go to national meetings and stuff,
which I continued to do after I left and went back to the U,
was really, was really tough.
I mean, it's taken a tone now for people to say
oh let's call that woman, oh and by the way,
we have to find a job for her husband.
(laughing)
Yeah, and so here we are.
And I looked out on that crowd
and I was like oh my God, this is amazing.
-: Yes.
-: You know, and it was such a vindication, really,
and that there were people of color in this thing.
And I remember meeting some Asian women,
and I was like oh my dear, how lovely is that?
-: Yes!
-: And so Native women and kids have been,
let's see Marlene Helgemo was my go-to parent,
to go with me, to have meetings with the kids
and so forth and so on.
So, she was my right hand and then when she decided
to go into ministry I was just thrilled.
-: Oh! -: Just thrilled.
-: Wonderful.
-: And then she's still working now with that same group
of kids that I started all these eons ago.
-: I love it!
That is wonderful.
So did you get involved in the Cordaid Council
shortly after the '93 conference?
-: I think that was it.
I think that was it.
-: Yeah.
-: You know, that part of the memory is so ...
And I remember Manly.
-: Yes!
-: Who forgets Manly?
-: I know, wonderful guy.
-: Who was our chair?
-: For the '93, it was Mary Kay Sauter
and Kathi Austin Mahle. -: Yes, yes.
(talking over each other)
-: So do you recall the backlash?
Did it affect you at all?
-: Oh yeah, I remember the backlash.
-: Yeah, yeah.
-: But you know, it was like at that point,
like I say, our denomination was grounded
and so, you know all this goddess talk and all that crap.
It was just ...
You know, I'd been up against some of the best
of them really.
(laughing)
Things like meeting in the same hotel in St. Cloud,
as we were getting ready to go down,
that was one of the, um, in 1976,
when we had the women's conference in Houston.
-: Mmm.
-: And that was, that ...
Oh, man, Phyllis Schlafly brought her conference
to the same hotel.
-: Really?
-: Yes, really.
Her strongest group was farm women in Stearns county.
-: Oh, wow!
-: Oh, yeah.
And her Eagle Forum? -: Yes.
-: Oh man!
And she had,
there was a book out that an anti-feminist,
a woman, had put out and it was ...
Oh, it was awful but it was a best-seller
and I remember that Phyllis had her women
saving their egg money to fight this battle against us,
and oh, man.
And then once we got to Houston--
-: Just to clarify, us would be the Lutheran Church
and ordained--
-: No, actually us would be the Women's Equity Action League.
-: Oh, okay, okay, got it, got it.
-: The Action League, NOW, you know all of the feminists,
we were getting our delegates down that we'd chosen.
-: Yes.
-: And by the time we got down there, two things happened,
and galvanized me, I guess,
to do my work in a different way.
And that was that I had come out of the south
where mentoring kids and so forth and so on
was just a part of our nature.
I mean, you didn't even talk about it.
You had a youth for a ...
You know, kids knew that they had to keep secrets,
I mean, you know it was all part of the fabric of our lives
but when I got here, kids were so segregated from adults,
and the ministries.
Never shall the twain never meet.
Or rarely, but so when I went down to Houston
and we had to walk the gamut
of all these horrible, white males calling us faggots
and this, lesbos, and yadda yadda yah,
and spitting at you and so forth.
That took me back to my civil rights roots.
-: Yes!
-: Okay, so I'd done this walk before.
-: Yes.
-: Okay, for many other people it was terrifying.
-: Right!
-: And which is one reason why having black women
particularly in the movement was so helpful,
because we'd been there.
-: Yes, yes. -: And so--
-: And this was Houston, the Lutheran Church--
-: No, this was the national conference
to send women to our national conference
of women's groups and everything,
which then chose delegates to go
to the first women's conference of the Decade.
-: Oh, okay.
-: Of the U.N. Decade.
-: U.N. Decade, ok.
-: And of course, Arvonne had been very, very instrumental
in getting that Decade.
-: Who had, I'm sorry?
-: Arvonne Fraser.
-: Arvonne Fraser, okay, got it.
-: Yeah, so anyway, that was the step thing
so all the states were choosing their people to go
on to this.
-: Yeah.
-: So that was before we had a conference, okay?
The religious conference,
so unlike the civil rights movement
where the church people were leading.
-: Yes.
-: In this case, the church people were following.
-: Right.
-: And really dragging their heels I might say.
So anyway, I just wanted to quickly say that.
So fast forward to the conference,
there were people that I had known
in this other place you see?
-: Yes!
-: Who were now in this religious space with me.
-: Yes.
-: And really there were a lot of women who were very,
who had been very beat up by the church
and the patriarchal nature of the churches.
And so many of them had dropped off.
I mean, they were no longer in churches.
So this wasn't a place that you went to.
-: Yes!
-: In terms of the women's movement.
This was a place that was pretty fraught with,
with peril. -: Yes.
-: So the women's movement got kind of a bad rap
about being a,
what am I trying to say?
About being anti-church or so forth and so on.
-: Which must have made Re-imagining very striking.
-: Oh man, very striking.
And that group of people were still fighting,
you know, they hadn't gone any place.
-: Yes, yes, yeah.
-: They were still fighting.
-: So, given your background,
were you surprised at the reaction to Re-imagining?
To the 1993 conference?
-: I was, in a sense, because I thought we'd passed all that.
-: Yeah.
-: And I was surprised by that. -: Mm-hmm.
And how do you account for it,
as you think about it now, Vivian?
-: Oh, that's an interesting question.
I'm gonna give you a Bob Turre, Robert Turre answer.
-: Okay.
(laughing)
-: Which is that, as long as groups that are dispossessed
or oppressed don't coalesce,
in any way that the other, the majority sees as threatening
okay, they'll make deals with you.
-: Right, yes.
-: They'll do transactions.
But the minute you start to coalesce in numbers
that are uncomfortable?
-: Yes!
-: Then you threaten their
(chuckling)
How did he say that?
Well, let me just skip up.
We would say you threaten their privilege?
-: Yeah.
-: Okay, and this is a power move,
so whether or not you can deliver on it is irrelevant.
-: Yeah.
-: But it's just seen as a threat
and then people start organizing,
people start really trying to take it apart and so forth.
And you know, this was the point at which
just about, and I hate to say it,
just about every major movement
of our time has been attacked. -: Mm-hmm.
-: You know, I read this morning this news about CIA
turning Nelson Mandela in.
I was so,
I thought I had seen and heard it all.
-: Right, yes.
-: With all that's been through the movement with Dr. King
and Hoover doing all his mad shenanigans.
But I was just, I have to say I was floored this morning.
-: Yes!
-: So that kind of, whenever you are threatening,
as Turre would say, or you're perceived
to be threatening institutions that the majority holds dear,
or needs, then you're expendable.
-: Yeah, yeah.
-: And you have to be stopped.
-: Right.
And from what you said earlier,
it sounded like that the backlash wasn't as powerful
in the Lutheran Church.
-: It may have been but I, at that point, was not working
in the Lutheran Church, I was back at the U.
-: Sure.
-: So, but as far as you know, the mentoring stuff, nah.
-: Yes, yeah, yeah.
So do you remember anything
about forming the Re-imagining community?
Were you involved in that?
-: Well, yes, I think that, as I recall,
people really began to see that this was,
in and of itself, a movement.
-: Yes!
-: That it wasn't just kind of okay,
let's have all the religious come together
and see where we are,
and I can tell that we're further ahead than you.
(laughing)
But it really, I think, was
for most people, the first time
that they really saw that working,
in this issue.
-: This issue being women's?
-: Women and their roles in the Church.
-: Yes.
-: And so I think for,
that as we began to see that people needed to be supported.
-: Yes!
-: People were losing jobs!
I was like what?
-: Yeah.
-: Really? -: I know.
-: Yeah, and the three of us at our college, back in '70,
where was that?
It was in the late '70s.
We had won our case.
-: The Augsberg case.
-: Did you?
Wow, that's great.
-: We were on our way to winning it,
and then the (laughing) civil rights department guy
flew in here from Chicago and spent a week here on campus.
And they thought that they were free
from any kind of restraint
because we were a religious institution.
Well when he pointed, as he looked at all contracts
and this and that and all the things, we had no idea.
Then he pointed out to us, says if you had taken one dime
from the federal government you were covered.
-: Oh really? -: Yeah.
And we had just built a second dorm using federal money
and not to mention all this other stuff,
so we were covered.
And as it turned out,
they started a committee on Sibley,
Dr. Sibley was who I was trying to remember.
-: Oh, okay.
-: Mulford Q. Sibley who was,
Mulford Sibley was probably
one of the most famous professors at the U.
He did research work,
God in the '40s, on race.
What was the famous race study?
I can't remember it.
Gosh, one of the former presidents of Harvard had been
part of that, and one of my professors had too.
Golly, I can't think of the study, but it's very famous.
Anyway, so Mulford was really somebody
and I feel like, even yet,
privileged that I got to know him,
and that we were together standing on the steps together
-: That is wonderful. -: For gay rights.
-: Yes, yes!
-: Oh, you know and this was the thing.
So I would volunteer for things nobody else wanted to do.
So the first state study on discrimination
against gay people had come
to the Department of Human Rights.
The then Commissioner really didn't want anything
to do with it, so he passed it over
to the women's advisory.
-: Oh, really? -: Really.
And so the question was thrown out to us,
well, I'm sure nobody in here wants to do that,
but anybody interested?
And of course,
(talking and laughing drowns out speech)
So we hired a wonderful researcher
who also was gay and did a wonderful report.
-: That is great.
Oh, that is great.
-: Now, as it turns out, it was all about men.
-: Oh. -: Okay?
-: Mm-hmm. -: Yeah.
It was like really?
Are you going to go to barber shops?
Well there wasn't any place for gay women.
There were no clubs, there were no anything like that
at that point.
So that movement came along
behind this movement but anyway.
-: Boy, you were involved in so many important movements.
And talk about intersectionality.
You really lived it.
-: I lived it, so back to this thing though.
Knowing that people needed support
and that the larger religious faith community,
the national faith community had to see
that this wasn't a what?
A shot in the, what do they call it?
-: A flash in the pan.
-: Flash in the pan.
-: Yes!
-: Yes, and that, I learned long ago,
has nothing to do with skillets.
-: Oh!
-: Flash in the pan, you know a putter pan?
-: Oh is that it?
Oh, that's great, that is great.
How did feminist theology affect the structure
and functioning of the Re-imagining community,
would you say?
-: I'd say that it was the lifeblood of it truly.
-: And how'd it manifest itself?
-: Well in that I think people were stronger,
I think people had a place where they could speak
without fear and really help one another.
I really think it created that space
for us to be able to move up.
-: And what kind of challenges would you say
the community faced during its 10 years?
-: Oh, there were many. -: Yeah.
-: There were many.
One was losing your job, obviously.
-: Great, yes.
-: And another was not being taken seriously
or how to say it?
Being sidelined as one of those bra-burning feminists.
And so people either expected you to burn your bra,
(laughing)
Or they,
it was almost like,
what was it almost like it was?
People who were being,
I called it tortured, on their jobs and such.
They didn't have any support.
They didn't have any place to go with it.
-: Right.
-: And especially religious folks.
-: Yeah, yeah.
So, the churches weren't taking them seriously?
Is that who you mean?
-: Some weren't.
-: Yeah, yeah.
-: Some were just kinda like let's just pretend
they are not here.
If we just ignore them long enough, they will go away.
(laughing)
Can I get some more water from you?
-: Oh, okay, sure, sure.