We'll Meet Again

Wayne April presented all of the documentation that was required to become an approved student organization. We approved it and forwarded it onto the administration without a thought. -

Narrator

But Wayne was setting up the state's first ever Gay Student Organization, and although the university would back the group, Paul and Wayne hadn't counted on the outrage response of the state governor, Meldrim Tomson. New Hampshire was very, very conservative at the time, and once it got out that an organization promoting homosexuality, is the way it came out, all hell was breaking loose. (tense music) -

Narrator

The Governor immediately put pressure on the university to block the Gay Student Organization. And he urged the Board of Trustees to strip them of the power and get them all off campus and all that, that's when he did his won't tolerate filth and sexual deviancy on the campus. -

Narrator

Paul decided to defend the GSO to the university authorities. I was delivering a speech to the Board of Trustees, and I was surrounded by the Gay Student Organization. I felt very strong in what I was presenting. I felt that we had the law on our side and the constitution was on our side. When you've got the constitution on your side, you can not go wrong. -

Narrator

Paul's argument was so powerful, the University Trustees stood up to the governor. Furious, Meldrim Tomson went to the papers, publicly threatening the university with cuts if something wasn't done. The Manchester Union Leader, which is the conservative voice of politics in the state of New Hampshire, and the only statewide newspaper, had their lead editorial which was "Boot Out the Pansies." The whole argument that was presented by the conservative politicians and by the conservative media, was just that boot out the pansies, operant behavior, sexual deviants, it went on and on and on, filth. -

Narrator

What began as a simple request from a fellow student for help setting up a new organization, had become a very public state-wide anti-gay campaign. It wasn't long before Paul's family became aware of his involvement. That's when I get a call from my father because my father worked in a daily newspaper, and we talked about civil rights, human rights, dignity, what it all meant, and he said, "And you feel--", I said "I feel I have no choice, "this is what I have to do, "it is the only choice that I can make, "that I have to support this."