(pensive music) (pensive music continues) - Okay, basically Miami was seen as being a, a... as being a very non-political area.

Like if there were gonna be any political progress, it was gonna happen in San Francisco and Chicago and New York, someplace else other than Miami.

And in fact, you know, there was this one political activist reported as saying, "When hell freezes over, you know, gay rights will pass in Miami."

Well, it just so happens that on the day they passed the, you know, the legislation that, you know, it snowed for the first, and ever time, in recorded history in Miami.

(laughs) ♪ I go to Florida a lot ♪ ♪ Because the weather's always hot ♪ ♪ There's pretty girls and pretty boys ♪ ♪ As many Jews as there are goys ♪ ♪ As many Blacks as there are whites ♪ ♪ As many days as there are nights ♪ ♪ As many straights as there are gay ♪ ♪ Yes, they have fun in lots of ways ♪ ♪ Oh, but don't drink the orange juice ♪ ♪ I beg you, please ♪ ♪ Don't drink the orange juice ♪ ♪ I beg you, please ♪ ♪ Don't drink the orange juice.

♪ ♪ I beg you, please ♪ ♪ Might lead to all kinds of bigotries ♪ (lively music) ♪ Miami Beach has pretty sand ♪ ♪ It's nice, it's lovely, some are tan ♪ ♪ The Cuban music is the tops ♪ ♪ At all the discotheques and hops ♪ ♪ Has had his sailing in the Keys ♪ ♪ And all the sharks are out to sea ♪ ♪ Yes, Florida's the place to be ♪ ♪ But won't you take that tip from me ♪ ♪ Oh, don't drink the orange juice ♪ ♪ I beg you please ♪ ♪ Don't drink the orange juice ♪ ♪ I beg you please ♪ ♪ Don't drink the orange juice ♪ ♪ I beg you please ♪ ♪ Might lead to lots of kinds of bigotries ♪ (lively music) - My fellow Americans, I am about to sign into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Its purpose is to promote a more abiding commitment to freedom, a more constant pursuit of justice and a deeper respect for human dignity.

- [Margot] As civil rights and equality issues swept through the United States in the 1960s and '70s, rights for gays were not part of the agenda.

In 1969, a protest at the Stonewall Bar in New York City, for the first time, drew national attention to the concept of equal rights for gay Americans.

(tense music) In Florida, homosexuality was illegal and homosexuals were treated as deviant criminals.

(tense music continues) Ethics commissions like the Johns Committee, spearheaded by former Florida Governor Charley Johns, were charged with the task of outing gays in the public sector and dismissing them from their jobs.

- The ripples and the ramifications of the Johns Committee were felt well into the '60s.

You couldn't be gay and work for the state.

They aggressively went after gay people in the university system and in the school system.

There were suicides because people lost their jobs.

- I'd like to say that their criticism does not worry me and I'm sure it doesn't worry any of the other members of my committee.

It's my understanding and- - And Florida had reciprocal arrangements with 29 other states.

So once a person was fired here, they were through as teachers basically.

So the Johns Committee, they covered a lot of territory.

What they did was publicized, so they put it in the public mind that we were criminals.

- Like the McCarthy era, it was a witch hunt and deeply shameful.

Deeply shameful, what can I say?

Florida.

- There may be some here today that will be homosexual in the future.

There are a lot of kids here and maybe some girls that'll turn lesbian.

We don't know.

But it's serious.

Don't kid yourselves about it.

It can happen to anybody.

85% of the homosexuals, you cannot tell that they're homosexual.

They look like I do.

Like any man does.

They're masculine in appearance.

You'd never know.

So if any one of you have let yourself become involved with an adult homosexual or with another boy, and you're doing this on a regular basis, you better stop quick,, because one out of three of you will turn queer.

- I remember when it was an act of political defiance to go to a gay bar because you knew that, especially around election time, that at any moment the police could walk in and behind them were the TV cameras waiting to splash you on the 11 o'clock news as a pervert.

It was a a terrible time.

(suspenseful music) - I always felt like I was a criminal.

I always felt ashamed of who I was.

I felt I don't want them to catch me.

I don't want them to see me.

And, of course, I had great anger.

The anger was certainly a better reaction than depression.

But we are social animals.

And for me to feel like society, if they knew the truth about me, they would reject me.

And a very small circle of friends, women friends I had, after I told them I was a lesbian, they said they couldn't be friends anymore, 'cause they didn't, you know, think it was moral or natural.

I think that inner shame and the inner self hatred is the worst thing to live with.

And it becomes, their homophobia becomes my homophobia.

(emotional music) - Well, there was a lot of really outrageous stuff going on here.

There was almost no activism, almost any kind in that period of time anywhere.

There was a Mattachine scene here and there, but it wasn't on the level that it is today.

And that door is what we opened when we took on Anita Bryant.

- [Margot] As Miami turned the corner on the 1970s, the young city began to broaden the definition of what constituted being an American and the rights that ought to be protected under its constitution's laws.

Miami's waves of immigration changed the sights and sounds of what was once a laid back southern retirement haven.

Amidst the tugs and pulls of the new Miamians and the already existing struggle for civil rights, the city was growing up fast.

Many, if not most gay Americans kept their sexual orientation in the closet.

At the height of the sexual revolution, the gay experience was distinctly different.

For them, sexual freedom took place mostly in secrecy.

(pensive music) At the end of 1976, newly elected Miami-Dade County Commissioner Ruth Shack broadened the scope of protection against discrimination.

- At that time, you took your life in your hands to be gay.

You were arrested, you were ostracized, you were fired.

I mean, clearly this was the rationale for needing the amendment.

And so we went ahead with it for a group of people who were anonymous.

I mean, I knew who was Jewish.

I knew who was Black, women could not hide, gays could and did.

- [Margot] Reaction to Commissioner Shack's proposal was swift, rancorous and personal.

- I believe that more than ever before that there are evil forces roundabout us, even perhaps disguised as something good, that would want to tear down the very foundation, the family unit.

- Anita Bryant was a former Miss America beauty queen who sang her way onto the hit parade charts.

She was a 1950s icon, a throwback to post-war Americana.

♪ I realize the way your eyes deceived me ♪ ♪ With tender looks that I mistook for love ♪ - [Margot] While living in Miami, she became the symbol of Florida goodness as the face of its multimillion dollar orange juice industry.

(lively music) ♪ Come to the Florida sunshine tree ♪ ♪ For fresh-tasting orange juice naturally ♪ ♪ Orange juice with natural vitamin C ♪ ♪ From the Florida sunshine tree ♪ (lively music) - Remember, breakfast without orange juice is like a day without sunshine.

- [Margot] In the midst of the brewing political maelstrom existed a personal connection between two of the leading protagonists.

Ruth Shack's husband, Richard, served as Anita Bryant's booking agent.

- That's business.

This was life.

And at one point, he resigned his responsibility to Anita with a wonderful statement that is someplace, as a matter of fact, it was used in his obituary, that he could no longer represent someone who so badly maligned what he believed in.

She called and asked if I would not change my position, that it was something she couldn't possibly support, and that it was against everything she believed.

And I said that it fit everything I believed.

And we had a discussion about which was the highest order.

I was making laws based on the Constitution and her was based on her interpretation of the Bible, and a different Bible than I read.

- [Margot] On the unusually cold morning of January 18th, 1977, the Dade County Commission voted on Ruth Shack's ordinance.

After a lengthy and emotionally heated debate, commissioners narrowly passed the ordinance by a five-to-three margin.

Ideological lines were now clearly drawn.

- I believe I have that right, that I can and do say no to a very serious moral issue that would violate my rights and the rights of all the decent and morally upstanding citizens regardless of their race or religion.

- [Margot] On January 19th, 1977, Miami woke up to snowflakes, the first and only time snow fell upon the city.

- The happiness turned to a little bit more of a serious situation where people are going, "We're being challenged by the orange juice lady?

What... Anita Bryant?

What is this?"

People did not know what was happening because it all happened so quickly.

Though the ordinance had passed, they were there in the commission chambers complaining about it.

The next thing that they wanted to do was gather forces, get the petition signed and get a special referendum going so they could repeal our rights.

So that's when everything changed here.

- The overwhelming majority of the constituents of Dade County are against this moral issue.

And in particular, that it concerns our children and the organization which we formed after the courtroom hearing, the public hearing says it all, save our children.

We do not want our children subjected to this kind of a role model.

- [Reporter] Bob Kunst has become the leading spokesman for gay rights here.

He says the current attack against them proves a law is needed.

- There's all this kind of energy that's coming out in the community right now.

We didn't initiate it.

She's doing it.

We're not educating our kids about homosexuality.

She's doing it.

We're not talking about anything.

If anything, we've kept a very low profile on the whole business, but we're not about to be intimidated by her.

- [Margot] Over the course of the unprecedented frigid Miami winter, community activist, Bob Kunst led the battle against Bryant's growing crusade.

He rallied and galvanized what had been a politically dormant gay community.

- Anita made it a sexual issue.

Okay?

Our position was don't tell us what to do and as long as we're giving permission, it's none of your business.

And by the way, we're taxpayers.

And if you wanna be a bigot, you pay for it.

The issue is having an acknowledgement of who we are as a people.

And we run every gamut.

We're in every profession, we've been out there from get-go, okay?

We helped to build the strength of this country.

Stop treating us like garbage.

And by the way, we happen to be your children.

- [Reporter] The fight against the county law on gay rights moved to some 20 Dade County churches today.

According to the organizers of the group that want the voters to be able to cast ballots on the controversial issue, more than 11,000 signatures of registered voters were collected.

Just 10,000 are required for a referendum to be called.

One provision of the law that disturbs those who oppose it is the right for anyone, regardless of sexual preference, to teach in private or parochial schools if they are otherwise qualified.

- There's no way that a homosexual would ever teach- - a known homosexual- would ever teach at Northwest Christian Academy.

Just like there's no way that a prostitute would ever teach- a known prostitute would ever teach- or a known drunk would ever teach, because there are scriptural prohibitions, divine prohibitions against these types of sins.

We know how people can be set free from those sins in the Lord Jesus Christ.

We're not running down the homosexual.

We're simply saying that there are God's laws against homosexuality that we must obey as His people.

- It was so difficult during those years for people to have in their face the whole issue of being gay during that particular period of time when there was such license to discriminate.

And we didn't have the protection and housing and medical, if you will, and employment.

The things, the very things that were on our sheets to put on the ballot to get passed, so we could have the protection.

So people were terrified.

And then when you couple that with the internalized homophobia, then we would be obviously objects of the target for attack.

- [Margot] The fight over gay rights in Miami proved to be one of the most divisive issues in the city's history.

- [Reporter] Ms.

Bryant, president of Save Our Children Against Homosexuals Incorporated, said her forces have gathered well over the required 10,000 signatures.

A large suitcase bulging with petitions were turned over to the clerk's office for certification.

- When I was in high school, I can very vividly remember the whole Anita Bryant campaign and watching the newscast and hearing what she was saying.

And I really didn't know what gay or lesbian was because I didn't realize that was who I was at the time.

So it was very interesting to hear her talk about these people, and I didn't know any of those people.

And from what I heard, I didn't wanna know those people because the way she would describe them was really horrible.

You know, had I had a more realistic idea about what being a lesbian was at the time, I probably would've come to know who I was in high school.

- I guess when I first started understanding that I was different, and I'm not gonna say gay, because I think that label doesn't fit any of this.

So I think, you know, I knew when I was eight years old that I had some kind of affinity that was different toward the same sex.

It had nothing to do with sex at all.

It just had to do with my bonding with guys was different than my bonding with girls.

And, you know, when I had to take my valentine candy to a girl, I really kinda didn't want to give it to her.

I kinda wanted to give that candy to my guy.

So 9, 10, 11, those years I started thinking, I've gotta solve this.

Something's wrong with me.

I mean, it's very, society makes it very clear that you are broken at that age.

So I started looking for, how can I take this?

You know, I started forcing myself to only look at girls.

Then when I got a little older, I thought, "Well, maybe if I get like porn magazines and I stare at women, I will only," you know, I thought there was something I was doing wrong.

Finally, I got to a library.

I ended up looking up the word homosexual.

I realized, "Oh, you know, this is what I am."

(chuckles) You know, even then, it still had nothing to do with sex.

When Anita Bryant was happening, it was so ugly.

And I was a 13-year-old kid, but I knew exactly what was going on because I had already been dealing with this, you know, for four or five years.

And in my household, you know, I would hear my mother constantly argue about homosexuals and how they're horrible and this is a wrong thing, and it's leading society in the wrong direction.

And, you know, I guess I just got to a point that I was in the car and I would defend homosexuals and I would defend homosexuals, and I would defend homosexuals.

So she, I think, just got tired of listening to me defend and was probably getting anxious herself.

She turned to me and said, you know, "Why, are you gay?"

And I said, "Yeah, I'm gay."

And I think, you know, she cried for like two weeks straight.

Like if I ever walked outta my bedroom, she would just break down crying.

She didn't talk to me probably for two to three weeks.

And I remember looking at, you know, the TV set and seeing Ruth Shack back then, and thinking, "You know, I'm with her.

You know, I understand that, you know?"

She's kind of... Thank God for her, you know?

That she was there, 'cause she gave me that little bubble, which at that age was so important to me, because when I tell you, it was like being a little piece of like a french fry being in oil, you know, dipped, that's exactly in my Miami at that time would've felt like.

- [Commentator] The Orange Bowl Parade, Miami's gift to the nation, wholesome entertainment.

But in San Francisco, when they take to the streets, it's a parade of homosexuals.

Men hugging other men, cavorting with little boys, wearing dresses and makeup.

The same people who turned San Francisco into a hotbed of homosexuality want to do the same thing to Florida.

- Punch 270 against this amendment.

- [Margot] As the debate intensified in Miami, it also began to garner national attention.

- The country was really, at this moment, looking to Dade County to save us from a wave of reaction and viciousness and bigotry.

If only those people who feel religiously could consider the golden rule and literally do unto others as they would have others do unto them.

- If I were living in Dade County, I would have no hesitation in voting to repeal the ordinance.

I do not want a known homosexual teaching my child and I think that a person ought to have the right to determine whether or not they want someone with that known lifestyle living on their premises.

- The battle over homosexual rights in Dade County, Florida, the battle pitting singer, Anita Bryant- - [Margot] Among those who took notice was rising San Francisco political figure and gay activist Harvey Milk, who flew to Miami on several fact finding missions.

- I mean, we knew about it and Harvey was certainly worried about it because we were very worried it was gonna come to California.

We saw it in Florida, and then it was in Wichita, and Saint Paul, and a number of cities, it was kinda coming west and we're like, "Oh, it's coming."

We made these placards, big photographic placards of Anita Bryant.

And then we had Hitler and Idi Amin and Stalin and the KKK, and we put them all together in this sort of big photographic pantheon of evil, as I called it.

- I saw it on the national news one evening.

My mother was watching the same broadcast.

Within minutes after the broadcast, my phone rang and she said, "Son, what can I do if I come down there to help?"

And, well, that caught me by big surprise, because I had just come out to her the Christmas, that previous Christmas.

And I said, "Well, gee, I don't know, maybe you can serve coffee and donuts or stuff envelopes."

I hadn't planned to get in on it because I was still very active with the coast guard, and that was not the place to be out in public.

So about 10 minutes later, after I hung up with her, I got another call back and she said, "Pick me up at the airport."

I think it was like 11 o'clock or something, "I'll be on Eastern flight such and such tomorrow."

I go, "What?"

Yeah, I picked her up.

She was down here for the campaign.

She went to all the meetings, and what have you.

And then one day, we were at the warehouse where Jack was having a meeting and he called her up to the stage and said, "I would like to introduce you to someone special."

And said, "I wanna introduce you to Clay's mother.

She's down here from Washington DC to help us with the campaign."

And she got a standing ovation.

(Clay sighs) She couldn't understand why.

And I had to explain to her that it was because they wished their parents were standing by them at that time like she was standing by me.

- It was a whirlwind, I mean, don't get me wrong, we lived in a nice house on the beach, on the water.

So I mean, I don't have a lot of complaints or anything, but there was a time when, yeah, we had, you know, bomb threats and, you know, we had bodyguards at school and we'd come home and there'd be bomb-sniffing dogs and things like that.

So it got nasty.

And now I kind of, I mean, I understand that.

You're always gonna have, you know, people who are a little more hardcore, fundamentalist, whatever, and that happens.

It wasn't easy, by any stretch of the imagination, but now in hindsight, in retrospect, I understand some of it.

When I talk about my mom on a personal level, she's very normal.

I mean, she's very spiritual.

She goes to church.

She believes in, she's a true believer.

I mean, I wish I had that kind of faith, but beyond that, she's just very down to earth.

I think that her intentions originally were to kind of defend the private school institution, and I think because she was famous and because she was very religious and she believed that, you know, what she did, that, yeah, I mean, she's always gonna stick to her religious point of view.

- There's no question that we'll win.

There's no way that we can lose, even in terms of the court.

It would just be such a shame for Miami, that's in such a history-making position, not to have the people make this decision for the courts.

It's never happened before.

- On election day, Bryant's promise was fulfilled.

Nearly 70% of voters opted for the repeal of the ordinance.

Bryant felt vindicated.

- We haven't seen each other for five months.

(laughs) - This is what heterosexuals do, fellas.

(group laughing and applauding) - Tonight, the laws of God and the cultural values of man have been vindicated.

I thank God for the strength He has given me and my family.

And I especially thank my fellow citizens who joined me in what at first was a walk through the wilderness.

The people of Dade County, the normal majority have said enough, enough, enough.

- [Margot] For ordinance sponsor Ruth Shack, it was a crushing defeat.

- And we know that life will never again be the same in Dade County because of what we've done.

There is love and there is understanding in this room that just won't quit.

And I'm very, very proud to be a part of what we're doing here tonight.

- [Attendant] We love you!

(group cheering) - It was extraordinary to walk into the ballroom and see that many men and women who had willingly walked in to declare their support for this.

I mean, people ask me to this day, "What was the gay community like?"

And I said, "What do you mean?

There was no gay community.

They couldn't be a gay community and not be in jail or harassed or fired."

And so to see the ballroom filled with these people in support of the ordinance, some who were straight, some who were gay, that was heart-rending.

It was wonderful.

- I thought it was kind of astounding that there would be so much opposition to it.

What I didn't understand was the very conservative social fabric of most of this community.

There are a lot of evangelicals and conservatives and other mainstream Christians who in 1977 just thought homosexuality was immoral and wrong and that gay people should not be given special rights.

In fact, what was being proposed was nothing special.

It was to give gay people the same rights everyone else had.

- My entire family was involved in helping Anita Bryant, because we believed that, as we do today, that this was an issue that deeply harmed, not just the children, but it also harmed abrosexuals as well, because it kicked into the middle of the street their private lives.

And it made it fodder for debate and for gossip.

So it didn't do them any favor.

It didn't do people who behaved in a biologically incorrect sexual manner, it did not do them any favor.

And the fact of the matter was that where were the ghettos full of discriminated homosexuals?

Of people discriminated because of their sexual preference?

- We all believe in human rights, but we don't believe human rights that would corrupt our children or for individuals to have special privileges that would go against the constitutional rights of normal America.

- [Margot] Gay leader, Bob Kunst, had a different take on election night results.

- We weren't groveling.

We never groveled.

We never demanded anybody accept us.

We accepted ourselves.

The movement has yet to pick up on that 35 years later.

So the issue for our perspective is, what was the victory?

Well, when we had our rally and all the media came around with us, we said right on the spot, just like Christmas and Hanukkah, and what have you, come around, just remember we'll be back round two and three and four, whatever it takes.

We just said the moment that night when we had the election.

And we made our commitment - [Margot] After the 1977 defeat, Dr.

Alan Rockway, Melodie Moorehead, and Bob Kunst kept the cause alive in the minds of Dade County residents.

They relentlessly fought to put the issue in front of voters again.

Each time gaining momentum and building support.

- We collected 18,000 signatures in order to get 10,000 good ones.

That was an experience.

Can you imagine coming right back after all the yelling and screaming and the hysteria that went on with the whole business and Anita accusing us of everything under the sun, and us having to fight her, the Baptist church, the Orthodox Jewish community, the Catholic church, the White House, the whole nine yards, everybody who wanted to use a gay issue to stop ERA, and Florida was a pivotal state at that point.

And we had to fight that entire madness, let alone the fact of opening up this door finally to making gay household word.

And we did it.

So when we came back in round two and this time we go and collect the signatures and we force everybody's hand and everyone said, "Oh no, not again."

And we said, "Excuse me, didn't we tell you?

We're not passive queens out there, okay?

We told you, you want to play this game with our human rights and our tax dollars?

Not gonna work that way."

- When it became clear that we were needing to make a third effort, the county commission, if I'm remembering correctly, had passed a law now that to stop frivolous activities, that we were gonna have to collect 28,000, I mean, it was more than anybody else that was doing the same thing for whether it was the bed tax at that time or the gambling issue, whatever, they didn't have to collect quite as many, but we did.

- And we said to the community at large, "Boy, you missed a great opportunity.

You coulda won the whole thing, but, no, you wanted to keep your blame game going and you needed an excuse and all this other crap."

Meanwhile, the revolution was taking place here.

This wasn't a left/right issue.

It wasn't a liberal/conservative issue.

And that's unfortunately what a lot of the politics was.

It was like, "Oh, let's just keep on beating up on the people who are playing out their Nazi role and anti-human rights and everything."

But that was way beyond all of that.

It was who was emotionally and sexually secure versus insecure?

- The defeat helped fuel the kind of national awareness that developed with Miami.

It was the first time lesbian and gays across the country saw themselves in the media, in the national media, in the news, in the newspapers, on TV, all right?

The first time they saw their issues being talked about, okay?

In, you know, in the national forum.

And so this created a very strong sense of, you know, we belong to something larger than just our small group of friends, and so on.

Likewise, I mean, for many lesbian and gay people across the country, their first political act was not drinking Florida Orange Juice because that was sort of seen, you know, they didn't wanna support Anita Bryant.

So I think it really sorta helped galvanize, you know, political awareness and consciousness.

And then these other campaigns further accelerated that there was this realization as is that, you know, we've gotta do something.

- [Margot] Emboldened by the victory in Miami, Anita Bryan's movement spread across the nation.

In places like Eugene, Oregon and Saint Paul, Minnesota, she continued to promote what she described as her deep moral convictions.

- Unfortunately, the battle that we won today is only that, a battle.

The war goes on to save our children because the seed of sexual sickness that germinated in Dade County has already been transplanted by misguided liberals in the US Congress.

- We flew in from California (crowd laughing) a, pardon the expression, fruit grower.

(crowd laughing) - [Margot] The triumph in Miami also lent credibility to a growing conservative mindset that would later evolve into a political force known as the moral majority.

- Somebody had to lead the battle.

Somebody had to raise up the bat, because I were to tell you, we're dealing with a vile, a vicious and a vulgar game.

They kill you as quick as they look at you.

If you don't think that, you don't know the enemy.

- [Margot] The reaction to Anita Bryant by the gay community was strident and overt.

In Des Moines, Iowa, Bryant and her husband, Bob Green, were the targets of a hostile reaction by a gay demonstrator.

- If you don't flaunt it, who's gonna know you're homosexual or or not, you see?

What they wanted to do was to flaunt it.

It applied to- (pan crashes) (group jeering) (cameras clicking) - [Attendant] Security agents.

Security agents.

- No, no.

Let let him stay.

- No.

- Let him stay.

- [Anita] Well, at least it's a fruit pie, huh?

- [Attendant] Let's pray for him right now.

Anita.

- Right now.

- Let's pray, Anita, why don't you pray?

That's all right.

- Father, we wanna thank You for the opportunity of coming to Des Moines.

And Father, I wanna ask that You forgive him.

- And we love him - And that we love him, and that we're praying for him to be delivered from his deviant lifestyle, Father.

And I just... (Anita sobbing) - We forgive you and we love you.

- Gay organizations throughout the country orchestrated a boycott of Florida Orange Juice.

The product Bryant endorsed.

- You can buy it many ways.

Fresh produce- - They always say there's no such thing as bad publicity.

Well, guess what?

That's not true.

There is bad publicity.

So we were able to, you know, use our anger against Anita Bryant in a really focused way on orange juice so that, you know, people kinda laughed at it, but it was pretty real.

And orange juice is pretty ubiquitous in America.

So once it became in the sort of public consciousness, that orange juice, Anita Bryant, gay rights, it worked.

- They're coming attacking my livelihood.

And it has undermined a 10-year relationship with Florida Citrus of goodwill.

But I feel very strongly, and I have great faith in God that he's gonna take care of me.

I'm not afraid.

I have not been moved in that respect.

And I do not believe that the products and the people that I represent will be intimidated by that kind of a force.

- It's one of the most pivotal moments in Miami's gay history, but really also the national history.

The gay community is able to flex its political, but also its economic clout.

Its muscles, it's flexing its muscles in ways that it hadn't prior.

This is really a key moment.

- [Margot] The negative publicity from the boycott resulted in the Florida Citrus Commission opting not to renew Bryant's contract.

As pride swelled in San Francisco's predominantly gay Castro district, Gilbert Baker created the movement's most emblematic symbol, the rainbow flag.

- I made the flag at the Gay Community Center because I wanted the birthplace of the flag to be at the community center rather than at my house.

And, you know, many people were involved in helping dye the fabric and all of those things.

And then when it went up, it sort of stood there and marveled at, it astonishingly beautiful.

It was hand-dyed cotton.

It looked like silk, just rippling, rippling, rippling in the wind and all the beautiful colors.

And it took me a minute to really take in how stunning it was, you know, to finally see it in the sky as opposed to just, you know, all this heap of cloth in the sewing machine.

And it was just amazing the way people instantly owned it.

It didn't need to be explained.

Everyone understood exactly what it was.

They understood exactly what it meant.

- On November 27th, 1978, Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were assassinated at City Hall.

(sirens wailing) (vehicle whirring) - [Board Member] As president of the Board of Supervisors, it's my duty to make this announcement.

Both Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk have been shot and killed.

- Oh!

- Oh!

- [Attendant] Jesus Christ!

- [Margot] While the gay community was grieving over the loss of one of their most visible leaders, another tragedy loomed.

It was initially called GRID, Gay-Related Immune Deficiency, or the gay plague.

Doctors began to identify a growing cluster of similar cases within the gay male populations of California and New York.

Cases quickly began to appear in South Florida.

- It was sort of a, I guess, a double whammy when you think of it, because on the one hand, the community here has just gone through Anita Bryant and is totally traumatized.

And then all of a sudden it gets the right hook from the epidemic.

And, you know, people that you did know and trust are now dying, and dying young, dying in their '20s and '30s.

And there's nothing being done.

Which that's why things like HCN started up.

There was no government assistance, there was nobody there to help or to do anything.

I mean, you could go to the hospital if you could afford it, if you were lucky enough to have insurance, but they didn't know what to do.

- In the early days, our perspective was it was a disease that had no prejudice.

It could affect anybody and everybody.

It was daunting.

That's what it was.

It was daunting because it was a new disease with no cure.

It was daunting 'cause you had to take care of people that were younger than you and you had to watch 'em suffer.

It was daunting because the wave kept getting bigger and bigger and more and more patients kept coming in.

It was daunting because of the public reaction, the political reaction.

- [Reporter] Nurse Kathy Newton is concerned about contracting AIDS, an incurable disease which suppresses the body's immune system and makes its victim susceptible to deadly infections.

The bulk of the diagnosed AIDS victims have been among homosexual males, hemophiliacs, Haitian refugees, and intravenous drug users.

But recently the disease has been diagnosed in a few people not in the usual high-risk groups.

And that's what's scary for Kathy Newton, a nurse at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, and many other healthcare workers who are helping to treat AIDS victims.

They wonder what that means for them.

- It can be a frightening thought when you feel that you don't have all of the knowledge that you would like to have to manage the situation.

- [Margot] By 1982, the Mysterious Disease had a new name.

It was now called AIDS, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

Its effect on South Florida was devastating.

- When we first saw what the AIDS epidemic meant and we saw the lesions on the skin and the terrible sickness, I think that there was initially, even among reasonable people, this feeling that, you know, these gay people, why have they brought this on themselves?

And there wasn't a lot of compassion.

I worked with some great photojournalist in the '80s and when we would go out to do stories about the AIDS epidemic, I had some photographers who said, "Ah, I'm not going out there.

I mean, I might have to shake that guy's hand."

And, you know, I would say, "You're not gonna get AIDS by shaking his hand."

- I mean, if I pull out pictures from when I was 16, 17, half the people are dead.

And those were people I loved.

Those were good friends.

Those were people I still remember.

You know, and I'm gonna be doing the AIDS ride.

You know, I'm thinking, "Oh, one of my best friends who died, you know, I'm dedicating it to him," because you don't forget people, you know, they're just not here anymore.

And that's all of our loss.

And I really do feel that we all could've done much better with AIDS.

You know, there should've been treatment faster.

There should have been more, our president should have talked about AIDS.

You know, why didn't they?

Why didn't, you know, maybe because it didn't affect them, or at least they didn't think it affected them until somebody had a nephew that died or a son or a father or a mother.

And then they realize, "Oh, we are all pretty interconnected, aren't we?"

Yeah, you feel that in a city like Miami.

You may not feel that so much in other cities.

- For some strange reason, always through my life, most of my friends have been men.

And so then too, I had tons of male friends.

I became very active in AIDS service organizations.

Health Crisis Network was the first one.

And through this whole process, I lost a lot of friends.

- And we used to go caroling and stuff, especially during Christmas, to all the hospitals and hospices.

And it was very hard to see so many young people lose their lives, you know?

Sorry, (chuckles) it's... It was just such an epidemic, you know, people weren't aware of the severity of it.

And you would see so many young people suffering because there was nothing that could be done for them.

- AIDS was very personal for me.

How can it not be?

I lost a huge chunk of my support system, of my friends, and certainly my community.

And I think that a couple of things played into that.

I mean, the stigma that was involved with you're dirty, you know, you were promiscuous.

You were a drug addict.

Just wasn't the case.

At least in my circle of friends.

I lost very talented, you know, vibrant, healthy, wonderful individuals that I literally saw deteriorate before my eyes.

This was a time when medication was, you know, almost non-existent - To me, Miami is death.

There isn't a block of South Beach that I can go to that doesn't represent a memorial service, a house where somebody was sick who I knew and interviewed.

Overtown, Liberty City.

I can't go to the Design District 'cause that's what body positive was.

Jackson, to me, is the AIDS ward.

So the whole time I was here, I still have my diary.

And I was going to two funerals a week on average for the entire time I was here.

Everybody, with one exception, everybody I was close to when I was in Miami is dead.

- [Margot] By the early 1980s, Miami had witnessed a seismic shift in the makeup of its population.

Thousands of new immigrants, predominantly from Cuba and Haiti, were now calling Miami home.

The Mariel boatlift left an indelible imprint on Miami.

- I'm an immigrant.

My parents came here, one from Spain, and my mother came from Italy.

But they came here legally.

They didn't just get in a boat and come over here.

They came over here legally.

Now if they come over here legally and process, and the one ones with the disease are sent somewhere else out in the everglade somewhere where no one will be affected by the disease, then I'm all for it.

- Among those that were deemed criminals, or in some ways criminal, they were criminalized in Cuba, were the homosexuals.

So when they come to the United States, the United States finds itself in a really odd position.

That is that they have this sort of imperative policy of welcoming anti-communist dissidents, right?

It's this really heated moment in the Cold War.

What do we do with all these people?

They're fleeing communism, they're refugees, whatever they may or may not be, right?

But to Castro, they're lumped in proletariat.

So in one side of the Florida Straits, they're, you know, dissidents, and in the others they are, you know, these lumping, right?

These sort of drags of society.

And then you have this long history in the United States, really, from 1917 all the way to 1990, where the United States immigration policy is to exclude homosexual aliens from entering the country.

But because you have these, you know, these people fleeing communism, what are you gonna do with all these homosexuals?

So the United States ultimately implements this proto- don't ask- don't tell policy in immigration.

That is, we will no longer ask whether or not someone is a homosexual if they're trying to enter the country.

And it was really a pivotal moment, a really major reform in immigration policy for the United States.

- They landed here at the worst possible time because people began to talk about this kinda gay disease in Miami in about '83.

So you come from this very repressive society.

You move to South Beach probably, you go crazy, just as there is a virus going through the community.

And if I went back and tried to redo the story now, how many of the gay men of Mariel is still alive?

I'm guessing that 80% of them are dead.

- [Margot] Among the families that arrived during the Mariel exodus was that of Pedro Zamora, who gained national exposure on the MTV reality series, "The Real World."

(Mily speaking in Spanish) (Mily continues speaking in Spanish) (Mily continues speaking in Spanish) (Mily continues speaking in Spanish) (Mily continues speaking in Spanish) (Mily continues speaking in Spanish) - I could close my eyes and visualize, I was sitting in the front row the first time he spoke at Miami High.

And I could see the faces and the changes in facial expression of the kids that were there.

Many of them had not come out of the closet.

So it provided for them an opportunity, an okay, if we might call it that way, for self-emancipation.

- Pedro was incredibly, incredibly important for people of my generation to be able to identify with someone, although afflicted, because he had a terrible disease and he became an icon, dare I say a saint of sorts, within that realm because we all got to know him and love him.

- If we think about the face of HIV aids in this period, I mean, we think about people like Magic Johnson.

We think about even Rock Hudson to a smaller extent, or Ryan White, I would say is, you know, what a key moment.

And then we have Pedro who, and people are watching "The Real World" in really large numbers, and they see, not just a Cuban American, or in this case, an HIV Cuban American, HIV-positive Cuban American, and he's educating the public in a really entertaining way as well.

I mean, he, you know, something basic that he does is, you know, just telling them, "Don't worry.

Just by sharing the toilet, you know, with me, you're not going to get infected with HIV."

I mean, what this does is so critical.

To have this in people's homes, to have people engaging with this debate in unprecedented ways is just so key.

- It's a question ultimately of heart, isn't it?

And Cubans are pretty good at heart.

So in the end, when they see it's their kids, their grandchildren, their nieces and their nephews, it's over.

No matter what their rhetoric is.

I don't even take the rhetoric.

I hear the rhetoric sometimes it's bad.

I don't take it very seriously.

I don't think anybody should take it seriously.

They don't take it seriously because they're, you see them at Mercy Hospital with those kids.

And as long as they're taking care of their own with the same love that they would if they were straight kids dying of polio, that's all the care matters to me.

- [Margot] On November 11th, 1994, Pedro Zamora succumbed to AIDS at the age of 22.

(Hector speaking in Spanish) (Hector continues speaking in Spanish) (Hector continues speaking in Spanish) (Hector continues speaking in Spanish) - AIDS changed everything because America's illusion that the only people who were gay were these few furtive people that they didn't know and weren't their friends and weren't their sons, and weren't their brothers, and weren't their brother-in-laws.

That illusion collapsed in this very short span of time.

All of a sudden, this person who was sitting next to them in their office for 10 years, and they really liked, and they were friends with, they found out was gay, and they were like, "Oh, wow.

He was gay?

And I thought all gay men were like fay and crazy and irresponsible?

But I know this guy.

He babysat for my kids for years."

And you find that out when the person is on their deathbed - At some point as a community, we reached rock bottom and said, "Okay, enough."

'Cause if we're dying and you hate us, and nobody gives a hoot, then screw you and the horse you rode in on.

We're fighting back.

- The AIDS epidemic made the LGBT rights movement what it is.

You know, you watch beautiful young men wither in front of your eyes.

And, I mean, it was that fast.

It was that decimating.

And, you know, institutions like Health Crisis Network and GMHC were created to take care, so that our community could care for our own.

And, you know, we made up some pretty cool things.

I mean, you know, circuit parties were, a lot of circuit parties were fundraisers.

And the AIDS Walk was the first sort of, you know, event of its kind to do this.

So we responded the way our community knew how, and we took care of everybody and, or as best we could.

And you know, when you, hmm, mm, when you care for the people you love and you watch them die, and then you bury them, you don't have a lot of patience for bigotry and homophobia and just stupid hatred.

You just don't.

It's just like, you know what?

I'm not dealing with this anymore.

And in both the organizing around HIV and in the backbone that we found because of it, you have the beginning of what became the LGBT rights movement as a potent force.

- [Margot] As awareness grew about the AIDS virus, medicine began to curtail its devastating effect.

The advent of protease inhibitors helped prolong life expectancy for HIV patients.

- Protease changed everything because you could no longer think, well, you know, I might as well spend everything I have, because I'm gonna die.

You take your meds, you probably won't die.

And it's not to say that it was a, you know, the be all to end all that, gosh, there's thankfully so many more drugs that are available today, but it really changed things.

I mean, people got serious again.

You know, when you're in your 20s, your 30s, your 40s, and you're looking at the end of your life, it's a very weird thing.

And, you know, to have that sort of almost pass by and then it's like, okay, reengage, wow.

I don't know of any other community that has experienced that.

- HIV/AIDS hit in the early '80s.

We became completely obsessed with solving that problem, and we let go of civil rights for a while.

And then with the onset of protease inhibitors and new drug therapies mid to late '90s, you could start to see that people were thinking about other things again.

Like maybe we were gonna live and maybe there was gonna be life beyond this, and maybe we should think about, you know, finding our rightful place in the world again.

- All the people that we lost who aren't here today, like what amazing, you know, producers and creative people and attorneys.

I mean, across every, the whole spectrum of life, what generation of people isn't here.

But again, going back to that silver lining, what evolved from that was organizing, right?

These people banded together as a community.

The illness outed them in a way, right?

So the community had to organize and be more public, I think.

And this was sort of the precursor to the movement to actually plead for civil rights.

- Like the evangelicals, we would say, homosexual activity is sinful, but the orientation itself is not.

And therefore, you know, even the catechism of the Catholic church insists that people that have a homosexual orientation deserve respect and should not suffer any unjust discrimination.

- Your sexual thought life and your sexual conduct is very important to Yahweh.

And God wants a pureness of heart, "Blessed are the pure at heart, for they shall see God."

So when it comes to the issue of homosexuality, we look at it on the same level as we look at all sexual behavior.

And of course, for Christians, especially in the context of church life, of religious life, it is considered sinful.

The Greek word for sin is hamartia.

It means to miss the mark of God's standard, God's commandments, God's call to purity.

So, yes, we believe that a Christian who's not pursuing holiness when it comes to the area of sex in the context of marriage or pre-marriage, God wants to bring them to repentance.

- All of us have relationships with persons who choose the gay/lesbian persuasion.

We have them in our families.

We have them in our churches.

We have them in our communities, and quite frankly, I have some very good friends who are gay.

But in terms of them having human rights, they're human beings.

And we have to make the distinction of, and this goes for any sin, okay?

We have to make the distinction that I believe Christ made theologically.

He said, in so many words, "We hate the sin, but love the sinner."

- There's definitely an incongruence in the sense that how could you isolate the individual from his or her urges, compulsions, natural tendencies, what, his proclivity?

It would be dehumanizing.

- You cannot have a suppression, be it by the government or by any other entity that makes an individual go through life in an inhibited state, afraid to express who he is or how he is.

And it's a matter of respecting, who am I?

I think that Pope Francis best expressed it when he said, "Who am I to judge you?

Who am I to impose my values on your life and restrict your ability to live your life to your full potential?"

- [Margot] In 1992, a group of gay activists in Miami Beach helped pass an ordinance prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The issue of gay equality was once again on the political agenda.

- 'Cause I knew we had the votes on the commission, we were gonna pass this thing, but I wanted to pass it without having another Anita Bryant.

And I knew that we were not going to get like the Catholic church, or, I think it's St.

Patrick's Parish on the beach or the Orthodox Jewish community to support us.

It wasn't gonna happen.

But what I did want was them to not oppose it.

That was all.

Just don't oppose it.

Let us pass it.

Right, now, if everything goes south after that, if suddenly the town turns into Sodom and Gomorrah, children are, you know, ritually seized and converted and things like that, you know, then it's another story, right?

But we don't think that's gonna happen.

We think that this is gonna make the city better and make it more attractive for visitors and everybody else, and much more open, much more diverse.

And all of these things are good.

- [Margot] One year after the Miami Beach Human Rights Ordinance was approved, SAVE Dade was founded to continue to promote full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, or LGBT members of the community.

- At that time, what you would normally do, you made arrangements so that you would leave to New York or San Francisco.

You knew you were not gonna stay in Miami.

Most people I knew that were gay ahead of me, were all in New York and San Francisco.

You went to places that were welcoming you and you knew that Miami was not gonna be one of those places.

You know, and I think that's why, in a way, youth is important.

Because my generation was like, "No, no, no, no, no, no.

We like Miami.

We wanna stay in Miami."

- The opposition to gay rights was very much like the opposition to the women's rights movement.

It seemed unfair, it was biased, it was nasty, attack-oriented or just humiliating.

- The very beginning of SAVE Dade was critical because at that time what happened was the state of Florida had a constitutional amendment that basically said it would overturn every ordinance that existed that protected LGBT against discrimination.

So we decided in the state of Florida to have this meeting in Orlando, and we said, "All right, let's all get up there and we'll have our agenda and we'll decide how Florida moves forward.

That was, I mean, eye-popping for me because prior to that, we had passed an ordinance on Miami Beach.

That was kind of, you know, the same eight people working really hard.

And it was great.

And we were all very proud of ourselves and, you know, it was monumental in that moment.

And then we go to this, what seems enormous fight at the state level, and we're underfunded under-organized, and we kinda don't even really like each other.

So we go to this big church in Orlando and it was full.

And you see lawyers there with, you know, suits and their ties and they're all, they have their little agenda.

And then you see like grassroots workers, you see like cloggers from some part of Florida, the Gay Men's Chorus, you know, lesbians with chains on bikes that come in and interrupt, you know, half the meeting.

It was so dysfunctional that we all kinda looked at each other and we said, "Oh my God, we don't even like each other.

Let's just go back to where we came from" and, you know, we're gonna work in Dade.

We were Date United Against Discrimination.

It was Broward United Against Discrimination, Orlando U- so it was DUAD, BUAD, UAD, FUAD, it was ridiculous, it was a mess.

The first thing we worked on was our name.

We're like, "We can't be Dade DUAD.

What is DUAD?

You know, that doesn't work."

So we did kind of a grassroots process and we came up with the idea of Safeguarding American Values for Everyone.

- [Margot] In 1997, SAVE Dade expanded its scope, taking its fight to the Miami-Dade County Commission by proposing an ordinance which mirrored the amendment that had been rebuked by Anita Bryant.

- Regardless of what anybody can say about Bruce Kaplan, he had the courage to take on that issue and to propose it.

Nobody else did.

- 26 at 10 in the morning.

- [Attendant] Okay.

- As a candidate for the first time, we answered a bunch of questionnaires.

And amongst the key issues for any number of groups was, would you support a human rights ordinance?

And my answer was unequivocally yes.

And it's something that I think that if you look at what we were doing throughout the course of the five or six years on the commission, was to fulfill campaign and political commitments.

And this was one of them.

Political opportunism?

No, because quite frankly, it was a constituency that wasn't loyal in the end.

And certainly as things evolved, it was a one-issue constituency, but it was certainly the right thing.

- If we could just tell them that the first vote is just to send it for public hearing.

While some of us might not vote the second time for it, we'd like to hear the issue.

You know, so I want them to understand that this is- - These are- - Send it off for public hearing.

- These are people on your side.

That's a very substantial statement.

Thank you.

- Well, thank you very much and we'll be here to have you read this ordinance now, if that's what you- - Okay.

We're going to read it now.

- Okay.

Thank you.

- Okay, ordinance on first reading.

- Truth of the matter is that this issue is a divisive issue, is one that it's pitting Americans against each other.

Americans, by and large, today, do not approve or accept or embrace homosexual conduct and behavior.

- [Member] All members vote.

(group chattering indistinctly) It just failed.

- [Member] Good day, I'm sorry, may I ask, what does that mean, sorry.

- It just failed.

It's dead.

- [Member] It means there's no second reading, that it's dead.

- It was the first time in the history of the Miami-Dade County Commission that an ordinance had not gotten past first reading.

There was no reason for them to shoot it down on first reading.

So I was just very, very shocked when... And one commissioner conveniently dismissed themselves to go to the bathroom, who had given me their commitment, that they would not protest it.

Another commissioner who had indicated that, had given his word that he would vote yes for the ordinance, to put it on first reading, and he voted no.

So we were, we lost by two votes of getting it on first reading.

And I was just very shocked.

Quite frankly, I was angry.

- There is a vote, correct?

- Yes, there is a vote.

- Okay.

Then- - First reading, but- - When the commissioners voted to say, "No, we're not even gonna take this forward to the next step."

We were really shocked.

And that pretty much told us that we weren't even worthy of a conversation.

- Again, the discrimination was so plainly revealed and so publicly, and embedded into public record at the county commission chamber, that that, again, galvanized us, right?

We were angry and sometimes anger fuels passion and organization.

So silver lining, it got us, it got enough attention around it, and it, I think it helped us bring more people into the movement who, you know, wanted to be trained and wanted to help.

- Some of the biggest challenges were internally within the gay and lesbian community.

You had a older generation who had actually gone through the painful experience from 1977 and who were, you know, justifiably concerned that we were gonna stir up a beehive that was ultimately gonna make things worse, and, that I understood.

And so we had to deal with that, and there was a certain degree of respect that I felt they needed to be served.

Then the second sort of layer of problem for me were, were the gay and lesbian leaders on South Beach who had passed an ordinance on Miami Beach, which was historic and was very important, and who had contributed quite a bit to the development of the beach, and therefore had some political clout on the beach.

And of course, their fear was that if I stirred up the beehive, that somehow everybody on the west side of the county and some terminology was used, there were people that thought there was Hispanics were gonna be the issue and the problem and, whatever.

But there was this whole thing that if you stir up this beehive, not only are you gonna make things worse, we already have an ordinance on the beach.

Don't screw it up.

To which I said to them, "Well, what would you like me to tell the lesbian couple in South Miami?

That I shouldn't pursue this, because you have your ordinance in your home on South Beach?

And if that's what you think, then come with me to tell 'em."

- In America, Black people were made slaves.

Indians and Blacks were put on reservations.

They were segregated.

Blacks, women, and Indians, and Hispanics were denied the right to vote.

But in America, no one has ever been made a slave because of their sexual preference.

No one has ever been segregated because of their sexual preference.

No one has been denied the right to vote because of their sexual preference.

No one has been forced to sit in the back of the bus because of their sexual preference.

And indeed, a person's sexual preferences are not noticeable unless, and you would never know it unless the person reveals it himself.

You know, abrosexuals or people who engage in biologically aberrant sexual behavior, don't have longer ears than the rest of us.

They don't have a third eye in the forehead.

It's a behavior.

And as such, when they walk into the room, I would never know if a person is an abrosexual or not, or is he an orthosexual?

To me, that's something that a person should keep to themselves.

(engines roaring) - If it's a matter of equality, then equality should apply across the board.

You should not have a problem getting a job because of your race nor your sexual orientation.

You should not have a problem going to visit your loved one in the hospital because of your race or because of your sexual orientation.

I kid my gay and lesbian friends all the time about marriage.

I said, well, you know, you're cheating somebody outta alimony, so you should have the right to be miserable like a lot of heterosexuals are as well.

(crowd cheering) A lot of civil rights leaders are very, very selfish and protective about the words civil rights as if it relates solely to descendants of slave.

Civil rights should apply across the board to all Americans.

- [Margot] Encouraged by the near success of 1997 and the change in the political makeup of the County Commission, SAVE Dade mounted another campaign.

(crowd protesting and clamoring) - I was there in 1998 just in the same way that I would have been present 30 years earlier in the Civil Rights Movement.

Just like I would have impressed 30 years before that when youth were discriminated.

I think this is a matter, you have to be consistent when you defend human rights.

- I'm here because I really believe Dr.

Martin Luther King when he taught us that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

I am a descendant of slaves.

I kept gotta fight where I see people being treated without equality, with them's discrimination.

I mean, it was us before.

It's them now.

It could be us again.

And us can be defined in a lot of ways.

And so I was very happy that the gay and lesbian community embraced me as a partner in the ongoing struggle for equal opportunity.

I always saw this as a matter of equality.

- I remember SAVE Dade coming to me when I was first elected in '94 and they were doing some bus benches and bus placards, just little signs saying, "How would you feel if your child were gay?"

And that just kind of started the conversation or thinking in the community.

So they were ready to go in '98.

And the reason they were ready to go is because they had a great organization.

They had lots of people organized to pass the ordinance and it felt so wonderful to be able to sponsor it.

- I stand here today by myself because my beloved partner of 17 years cannot do so because she could lose her job if she did so.

- [Politician] This country was not based and founded upon principles of homosexuals.

This country was based upon Christian principles from the very beginning.

- So as a Christian, as a member of this community, this ordinance is not about discrimination.

It's about a preference that the gay community want.

And I say that this commission should vote it down.

- The real issue for the NACP is this, that any vestige of discrimination must be gotten rid of at any cost.

Whatever that cost is.

- I urge you to look at the big picture and the big picture here today is how does our community go forward from this moment?

What kind of message are we sending out?

Let's send a message of unity and understanding, not a message of fear and divisionism.

- I feel like if someone makes a choice to do whatever they wanna do, they should be able to suffer the consequences.

There are consequences to our choices.

If you choose to be gay, then you must suffer the consequences.

(crowd jeering) (crowd protesting) - Do individuals who engage in homosexual activities deserve to be given additional civil rights or human rights beyond what is now given to every citizen of this great country?

In other words, do certain individuals in our community deserve additional civil rights or human rights protection based squarely on their sexual orientation?

The answer to these two similar questions should be a resounding no.

(gavel knocking) - Commissioner Carey?

- Yes?

- [Chair] Commissioner Díaz de la Portilla?

- Nope.

- Commissioner Ferguson?

- Yes.

- Commissioner Milan?

- No.

- Commissioner Morales?

- Yes.

- Commissioner Moss?

- The experience of African Americans is not the same experience as the gay community as it relates to discrimination.

And I reject the comparisons that have been made.

- You know, we could count, six.

Pretty, pretty sure we had the six - Inhumane.

- And when Dennis Moss started speaking it wasn't really clear what he was saying.

You know, he's saying this isn't the same as the Civil Rights Movement and I'm not in favor of some of these other things and I'm not going to vote for those other things and... - I'm not supportive of anything else that may come before this commission as it relates to these issues that have been brought up.

- That moment when he voted, I remember sitting between Gwen Margolis and Barbara Carey-Shuler and we were holding each other's hands with our eyes closed, just hoping that his vote was gonna be the vote that we wanted.

- And my vote is yes.

(crowd cheering) - Motion pass.

- Motion passes seven to six.

(crowd cheering) - [Margot] 21 years after being repealed by Miami-Dade County voters, equal rights for gays was now law.

(crowd cheering) - What did we get?

- Equal rights!

- When did we get it?

- Today!

- It was an important moment.

I think we all knew it.

I think we all felt it.

And I believe that it changed the way the paradigm of what's possible in Miami-Dade County.

I think one can argue that post the ordinance, Miami became a different place.

And I think that had the ordinance not passed, I think it would've been hard to pitch Miami as this sort of international destination that somehow accepted everybody, except gay people - Until that black eye of Anita Bryant was washed clean, we couldn't be that city.

Once the LGBT community had again been recognized, not for special rights, but just for equal rights, then a significant piece of Miami's fairly checkered past, when it comes to discrimination, was put to rest.

- How did I feel about it?

How did our community feel about it?

Very simply put, we felt like second class citizens.

And the reason we felt like second class citizens is because some of our worst fears have been realized through the enactment of this ordinance.

(lively music) - [MC] Come on, and again!

(crowd cheering) (lively band music) - I just mad a cut and (indistinct)... (music drowns out speaker) - Right from the get-go, the victory was ours, because the moment we stood firm, the moment we fought back, the moment we put out a role model image of who gays really are, and bisexuals really are, the moment we came back and said, "We're coming back over and over until you get it right, just like Christmas and Hanukkah," the moment we didn't walk around like a bunch of pansies and, you know, with our tails between our legs and apologizing for our existence, we won.

- To see the same churches, to see the same chambers of commerce, the ones who had run scathing, horrible opposition to this through the campaign, were now in support of it.

So it was wonderful.

And I'd like to think that we changed minds.

I think what we have done is given birth to a whole lot of very broad-minded, very bright young people who don't see this as an issue.

- A bigot will be anti-women's rights, anti-Black, anti-Latino, anti, you name it, anti-gay.

They pretty much are against everything they are not.

And I hate to say that I'm a charter member of that not.

I am white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, but I sure don't share those values.

I am an American and I stand for equality, freedom, you know, that's what it's all about.

- What if it's not a a nurture thing, it's nature?

What if you're created gay, your DNA, you're born that way?

And so I have to consider that that's just the way God created you.

And, you know, maybe it's not a sin.

(emotional music) - One of the things that bothers me about this whole issue is that the amount of time and money that I, as well as lots of other people have spent over the past 30 years.

It seems so ridiculous.

We could have cured a disease with all this time and money.

And here we are fighting some, some ignorant people for us to just live our lives.

- The definitions of civil rights that we have already protect the homosexual in the workplace, in the public sector, in the private sector.

The fact that they're male or female, that they're human and they already have a national origin.

- We have a ways to go on a lot of issues.

Marriage is a critical issue with regard to justice and equality for our community, but it is by far not the only one and has taken up a lot of the resources of our movement for quite some time.

And, you know, many would say for good reason and many would say to great result.

But there's certainly also a lot of focus that we need to now start to shift to some other issues.

And I think we're in a great place for it, but what we can't do is be complacent.

We can't say, "Oh, we won.

We're in.

We're not."

The trans community is still being very much left behind in a lot of our conversations, in a lot of the laws that get passed.

You know, protections for gender expression and identity that get left by the wayside in the interest of trying to win.

Well, what are we winning?

We're sacrificing a very important part of our community.

We're all one, we all get beaten up in the alleys for the same reason.

So we still have a lot of work to do, but I think we're in a good place and we have everyone who's come before me and after me both in life and probably on this documentary to thank for that.

(upbeat music) (speaking in a foreign language) - We have evolved so much from where we were just a few years ago.

And I, I think that there's a higher level of acceptance, of let it be, you live your life.

I live my life.

And I think that's not only true for Miami, but it's an image that we wanna cultivate.

We want people from all over the world to think that Miami is the place where you can be accepted for who you are and not judged harshly because of who you love.

And I think it's been beneficial for Miami-Dade County, for South Florida as a whole, to move from the Anita Bryant days of hostility and discrimination and profiling to a more open and accepting view of someone's gender identity or sexual orientation.

(crowd cheering) - The sweetness of full equality.

My vision for the future, no little LGBT boy or girl needs to worry about going to school and not being okay to be just who they are in the moment.

And that's a lot more than just legal rights.

That's a social acceptance, a social recognition, an embrace of diversity that, I mean, it's kinda like we're never gonna all be the same, dude.

Stop trying to force it, get it.

We are all different.

And that's a very good thing.

(upbeat music) (people chattering) (lively music) ♪ I go to Florida a lot ♪ ♪ Because the weather's always hot ♪ ♪ There's pretty girls and pretty boys ♪ ♪ As many Jews as there are goys ♪ ♪ As many Blacks as there are whites ♪ ♪ As many days as there are nights ♪ ♪ As many straights as there are gay ♪ ♪ Yes, they have fun in lots of ways ♪ ♪ Oh, but don't drink the orange juice ♪ ♪ I beg you, please ♪ ♪ Don't drink the orange juice ♪ ♪ I beg you, please ♪ ♪ Don't drink the orange juice.

♪ ♪ I beg you, please ♪ ♪ Might lead to all kinds of bigotries ♪ (lively music,fades out)