Transcript

Season 1: Episode 1

Prom Night

Hosts: Gillian Frank & Lauren Gutterman

Guests and Additional Audio: Aaron Fricke, Amanda Littauer, Announcer, Bruce Voeller, Anita Bryant, Newscaster, John Briggs

Aaron Fricke:              It was only—I think—just prior to prom, um, during the principal’s, uh, like, pep rally or something. Uh, he just—in the assembly, um, and everybody had to go. It was, like, mandatory, and one of the things that he was talking about was—I think it was probably the main motivation for this, you know, assembly—which was that this year, not gonna be having any problems. And he wouldn’t even mention Paul by name, but everybody knew what he was talking about, and it was—got a huge applause and thunderous applause. Um, and I think it was about that point, when the applause went on a little too long, that I thought, oh, fuck you. I’m gonna go to this prom [laughter]. I’m going, and you’ll see.

Gillian Frank:             That was Aaron Fricke. In 1980, Aaron sued his high school in Cumberland, Rhode Island. He wanted the right to attend his senior prom with a male friend as a date. At a time when being out in high school was risky and rare, Aaron was openly gay. His legal challenge paved the way for same-sex couples to attend school dances. I’m Gillian Frank.        

Lauren Gutterman:     And I’m Lauren Gutterman. This is Sexing History, a podcast about the ways the history of sexuality shapes our present. For many of us, high school prom was a rite of passage. We dressed up, posed for pictures, and danced the night away. In many ways, prom is a straight institution, the crowning moment of male-female high school romance. Proms can also serve as a kind of practice for courtship and marriage. Think of it this way: the bride carries a bouquet while the female prom date gets a corsage. Grooms, like men at prom, wear boutonnieres. Even the ritual of asking someone out to prom is similar with the promposal.

Gillian Frank:             Wait. What’s a promposal?

Lauren Gutterman:     A prom proposal—or promposal—is when you ask someone to prom. Some of these promposals are pretty basic, like holding up a cute sign, but some are over-the-top productions that involve dressing up in a costume or asking someone out to prom at a special location. They imitate elaborate wedding proposals, and there’s even an MTV show, Promposal, which bills itself as taking the audience on the creative, romantic, and outlandish journey of asking someone to prom.

Gillian Frank:             Proms—short for promenades—first became a feature of American life in the late 19th century on college campuses. As more people began attending high school by the 1930s, proms became popular among high school students. By the 1970s, proms had become an all-important ritual, where young people shed their casual blue jeans and dressed up in formal, adult attire.

Amanda Littauer:        Prom is a ritual that shapes the sexual culture of American youth in ways that typically enforce the belief that the only good and normal way to be is a masculine boy who is attracted to feminine girls and vice versa.

Lauren Gutterman:     That’s Amanda Littauer, associate professor of history in the Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Northern Illinois University.

Amanda Littauer:        By the 1970s and 80s, prom represented a long-standing coming-of-age ritual that marked the sexual maturity of graduating seniors, and the expectation of future heterosexual marriage and family formation.

Gillian Frank:             Because they are so meaningful for adults and students, proms have become a place for social conflicts to play out. At the heart of many of the conflicts surrounding prom, it’s not just the question who’s it okay to dance with? The question becomes what kind of person is it okay to bring home to my parents and one day marry? Proms in many ways reflect sexual values, but they also become places where individuals challenge the sexual values of their communities.

Lauren Gutterman:     In 1979, high school students and adults in a number of cities battled over whether or not it was acceptable for two gay men to dance together at prom. At that time, many schools were hostile to gays and lesbians, firing openly gay teachers, and suppressing positive representations of homosexuality in high school newspapers and in health classes. In 1976, when a gay high school student shot and killed himself in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, the note he left behind stated that he could no longer take the harassment he experienced daily in school. The following year, when a gay rights group sought to donate two gay-affirmative books to a local high school’s library in the student’s memory, the principal refused to accept them, claiming they were inappropriate. (Pause) If you were gay in 1979, you probably wouldn’t dare to bring a same-sex date to prom if you attended at all. The risk of anti-gay violence was simply too great. In today’s episode, we explore how gay youth challenge the expectation that proms were only for straight students. We look at a legal and cultural struggle that gave gays and lesbians the right to openly attend their high school prom with same-sex partners.

Gillian Frank:             Aaron Fricke’s Cumberland, Rhode Island was a typical New England town. Settled in 1635, it was a textile mill town through much of the 19th century and remained blue collar until World War II. Home to about 27,000 people and almost exclusively white, by the 1970s, Cumberland had transitioned into a well-off suburb of nearby Providence.

Aaron Fricke:              When I was growing up, like, it was, you know, well, it was kind of solitary. It felt, um, like, I had gay friends. I had a gay friend—who is still my friend—I met in fourth grade, but I didn’t know that he was gay, and we weren’t able to talk about being gay. But, um, so, uh, it was, you know, kind of a solitary existence, really. One thing added upon another, you know, one experience compiled upon another with, you know, I had one, my mom telling me that, you know, just warning me about gay people and then, uh, having a tooth knocked out by a bully—this one guy. Um, and, you know, it just all kind of added up to m- to a real kind of feeling of withdraw—I mean, I withdrew, and I felt kind of afraid. And I gained a lotta weight, and, um, just felt like a rock lobster [laughter]. Just, you know, just a very solitary existence. Like a solitary existence, and kind of scraped by. Just didn’t want to, you know, associate too much with anybody, let anybody know that I was gay. There were no gay student unions back then.

Gillian Frank:             Cumberland High, where Aaron went to school, was not gay-friendly. In his memoir, Aaron described the crushing feeling of isolation he experienced because he was gay. “I knew no openly gay people,” he said. “There was no one to tell me about gay literature. Cumberland had no gay organizations.” It wasn’t until his junior year that Aaron met and became friends with another openly gay student, Paul Gilbert. It was Paul who began the fight to go to prom.

Aaron Fricke:              Paul was, um, God. How to describe exactly what- from scratch, start from, you know, zero. Uh, let’s see. Paul was, you know, at that time, he was really my, uh, bridge to, uh, I guess, liberation, really, because, uh, although I was- I was, uh, you know, inwardly out [laughter], you know, I mean, inside, I knew that I was gay by the time I met him. Uh, I didn’t have any connection to any, you know, social network, really. Um, and, you know, Paul was that bridge. Uh, Paul had in fact been working a gay help line when I—um, and it’s so strange that Paul was, you know, this very urban-type kind of personality, I guess you’d call him, in a very suburban environment. Um, you know, he was only 17—16, 17, he was, uh, very worldly, I guess you’d call it. Um, and so for me, it was great, because he had gay porn [laughter]. You know, but that was—I’m joking in a way, but that was a big thing. It was like he had, you know, magazines with naked men in them, and he also had The Advocate, and it was just, like, oh my God [laughter]. There’s a world of gay people, and w- and that was- that was what Paul represented, really. He was that bridge to that.

Gillian Frank:             Like most American high schools, prom was the high point of the social calendar. Most seniors attended, but you had to have a date in order to go to prom, and that date had to be pre-approved by the school before a student could buy a ticket to the dance.

Lauren Gutterman:     So, you couldn’t go solo to prom?

Gillian Frank:             No, the school made it so you had to have a date, and that date needed to be approved by school officials. The conflict over prom at Cumberland High began in 1979, when Paul Gilbert, a 17-year-old junior, tried to get tickets for himself and a male date for junior prom. Paul was open about his sexuality, and he was already a gay rights activist. He had helped start the Rhode Island branch of Dignity, a gay Catholic organization, and he was active in other gay rights groups. The school’s principal, Richard Lynch, denied Paul’s request and refused to give him dance tickets. He claimed that other students might attack Paul and his date.

Lauren Gutterman:     Paul pushed back and even received a hearing before the school board. When that didn’t work, he reached out to the National Gay Task Force for advice. The National Gay Task Force, founded in 1973, and known today as the National LGBTQ Task Force, was an early leader in the fight for gay civil rights. By the time Paul reached out to the organization, it had already helped to push the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders, and it had succeeded in getting the National Council of Churches to condemn anti-gay discrimination. The National Gay Task Force agreed to support Paul, and the local ACLU branch offered to help him sue the school, but because Paul was a minor, and his parents refused to support him, he was unable to take his fight to the courts.

Aaron Fricke:              What happened was he was, uh, only 17, and, uh, he was not a- in order to sue, I guess, in any US court, if you’re underage, you need your parents, uh, approval, and they would not give him approval. And, so, it became a kind of a local, um, you know, cause celeb. Um, with- the- his wanting to go to prom. Um, but then it became this huge failure when, you know, he was not able to go, when- when he couldn’t get his parents’ approval. I mean, it was terrible. I mean, he was thrown out of his house. His parents, you know, made him leave. Um, he was on his own.

Gillian Frank:             After local and national news outlets covered the story, Paul received threatening phone calls at home. Some students attacked him in school. Principal Lynch had to arrange an escort system as Paul went from one class to the next. On prom night, facing tremendous pressure from his homophobic father, from school officials, and from students, Paul stayed home from the dance.

Lauren Gutterman:     A month later, Boston’s Committee for Gay Youth invited Paul and his date to what may have been the first ever gay prom. About 100 young men showed up at a downtown Boston gay bar. They danced in front of walls with X-rated murals decoratively covered in blue and orange streamers. One 28-year-old man there told a reporter, “This is the prom I never had. On prom night in high school, I sat at home.” His date—a 27-year-old construction worker—agreed, saying, “In my prom, I tried. I took a girl. Did the whole bit. It was the most miserable time of my life.”

Gillian Frank:             In 1976, Katherine Day—a lesbian student at Girls’ High in Philadelphia—successfully fought her school’s administration for the right to take another woman to the senior prom. Three years later, a gay couple in Sioux Falls, South Dakota became the first gay male couple to attend a prom together. Their principal explained, “Homosexuals have rights, too. You have to accept that.” This upsurge of young activism was not coincidental. It was part of a larger story about gay rights activism in the 1970s. Though gays and lesbians had begun organizing decades before, in the late 1960s, they began to argue that all gay people should come out of the closet.

Announcer:                 The Gay Activist Alliance is the largest and most vocal of several homosexual groups. Bruce Voeller—a research biologist at the Rockefeller Institute—is president.

Bruce Voeller:             Uh, I think the movement is very much, uh, an attempt, uh, by those of us that are openly and- and accepting- accepting of our homosexuality at getting people to, um, accept for themself—get- getting gay people to accept themselves as, uh, worthy and- and good human beings, uh, who can demand their rights and accept their- their position as equals to everyone else in society, much, uh, in parallel to what’s been done by other minority g- uh, groups in the past—Blacks, Jews, and others. And the biggest thing that’s been accomplished is for, uh, a substantial number of people to feel that freedom, to identify themselves as full-fledged and- and worthwhile human beings. And that- that’s our ultimate goal. Our legislative programs are designed to aid that. Our legal programs and our demands, uh, of city, state, and national government.

Gillian Frank:             When gays and lesbians came out, they gave up their invisibility. Even as they made themselves vulnerable to attack, they could also fight for basic rights and recognitions, and challenge the ways that others portrayed them. Coming out meant that gays and lesbians risked physical violence and insults from their families and friends, but they could also claim a right to exist in public spaces. One important space was high school. There, young gay and lesbian activists didn’t just come out. They came out fighting.

Lauren Gutterman:     The media covered these stories extensively, giving young gay rights activists national visibility while also antagonizing their opponents. The Sioux Falls prom even became the butt of a homophobic joke on Saturday Night Live’s weekend update. Harriet Van Horn, a syndicated advice columnist, fretted that, “The love that dared not speak its name in Oscar Wilde’s time is now being flaunted at a teenage gala in South Dakota, the heartland of America. This is not the senior prom whose gardenia corsages we pressed in our memory books.” These young men were fighting for the right to go to prom just as a nationwide backlash was unfolding against recent gay civil rights victories.

Anita Bryant:              In our campaign we- we talk about the danger of the homosexual becoming a role model to our children. I’m not talking necessarily of child molestation in the physical. I’m talking about the psychological, which is even more detrimental, and would have far-reaching effects on our children and our- on our nation.

Lauren Gutterman:     In 1977, Anita Bryant—a popular singer and spokesperson for Florida orange juice—spearheaded the Save Our Children Campaign and successfully overturned a local gay rights ordinance in Dade County, Florida. Within two years, Anita Bryant had taken her fight across the country, challenging gay rights laws in a number of cities. In 1978, John Briggs—a conservative state legislator from Orange County, California—led a statewide campaign to bar gay men and lesbians from becoming public school teachers.

Newscaster:                The issue in California is whether school boards should be allowed to fire teachers who are known homosexuals. The courts have ruled they cannot. Boards must prove a teacher’s homosexuality adversely affects children and makes him unfit for the classroom. State senator John Briggs wants to change that.

John Briggs:               And so, I stand virtually alone in California. I have some politicians. We have some organizations. We have a lot of parents, and I think we’ve got God on our side.

Lauren Gutterman:     Both Bryant and Briggs believed that gays and lesbians used schools to target and to recruit children into homosexuality.

Gillian Frank:             In 1980, a year after Paul first tried to go to junior prom at Cumberland High, his friend—18-year-old Aaron Fricke—decided he would try to attend the senior prom. Aaron recalled how he came to this decision.

Aaron Fricke:              It was all really and largely about, I guess, resurrecting Paul’s—I- I don’t know about reputation, but you know, just not letting him- letting the c- you know, the case and the- or the- just- it was just something that needed to be done. You know, it was, like, that it was- couldn’t just lay there like that. Um, it- it was not just about going to prom. It was about, you know, a great try, and y- w- I mean, y- not a- you- Paul wasn’t even allowed to- to- to try, you know. And, so, it was about just picking up the ball and- and running with it.

Gillian Frank:             Aaron was unable to get tickets to prom. Once again, principal Lynch refused to allow same-sex couples to attend. He imagined that a gay couple at prom holding hands, dancing, hugging, and kissing would cause other students to become violent and put all the students at risk. Lynch later testified, “The chance of physical harm is real. There is no question in my mind at all. We’re going to need a ring of protection around them all night.”

Lauren Gutterman:     So, to be clear, the principal believed that being openly gay was dangerous, because it incited straight students to become violent.

Gillian Frank:             Right. Lynch believed that by allowing open displays of affection between men, it would somehow negatively affect the entire school, if not the town.

Lauren Gutterman:     After learning of Aaron’s request and Lynch’s rejection, John Gaffney—a member of the National Gay Task Force—reached out to Aaron to offer support. He advised Aaron to sue the school in federal district court and offered to cover his legal fees. Gaffney also put Aaron in contact with John Ward, a Boston-based lawyer who handled many gay-related cases. Ward filed a brief on Aaron’s behalf.

Gillian Frank:             Aaron’s classmates reacted badly to his attempts to go to prom with Paul. Not only did principal Lynch refuse his request, but the student government of Cumberland High School also issued a statement supporting Lynch’s decision. One senior complained to the press, “They called us the homo school last year, especially at sports events, like football or baseball games.”

Lauren Gutterman:     Even Aaron’s minister—Reverend Gerald Gordon—released a statement opposing Aaron’s attendance at prom. He claimed that Aaron was not truly gay, and he framed his request to go to prom as a sign of a broader breakdown in family values. Three days after Aaron filed suit in court, a student punched Aaron in the face at school. He required five stitches under his right eye.

Gillian Frank:             Ten days before prom, at a crowded courthouse filled with Cumberland High students, federal judge Raymond Pettine heard arguments from Aaron’s lawyers and the school’s lawyers about whether same-sex couples should have the right to attend prom. During his testimony, Aaron told the judge, “I have the right to attend. I wanna go for the same reasons any other student wants to go: to socialize and have a good time.” Aaron’s attorney—John Ward—argued that it would be against Aaron’s conscience and the realities of his sexual orientation to invite a member of the opposite sex to prom. He noted that Aaron wanted to attend prom with his male date as a political and educational statement to his classmates that his dignity and value as a human being is unaffected by his sexual orientation. The attorneys claim that the school was violating Aaron’s 1st and 14th amendment rights—his right to free expression and his right to equal protection under the law.

Lauren Gutterman:     Principal Lynch—meanwhile—warned the judge that there could be violence at the dance if Aaron and his date were allowed to attend. Lynch’s attorney—James Santaniello—complained that allowing gay couples to attend prom would hurt other students’ reputations. He told the judge that since Paul Gilbert had asked to go to prom, many Cumberland High School students had been subjected to the taunting jeers of students from other schools and called fags. But Santaniello also mocked Aaron repeatedly during his cross-examination, asking, “Would either you or Paul Gilbert wear a corsage?”

Aaron Fricke:              And, I mean, that was really an- an important, important thing for the- for the, uh, defense strategy. A man wearing a corsage is, you know, that’s just, uh, I don’t know, hideous or it’s- that’s, uh, absurd or, you know, they can’t be serious about this [laughter]. He’s wearing a corsage. Um, and they- they kept asking me, “Are you gonna wear a corsage?” And I was, like, I wouldn’t say yes or no. I was, like, maybe, if I want to [laughter] I will.

Gillian Frank:             [Laughter] Do you think they were trying to ask who was gonna be the boy and who was gonna be the girl?

Aaron Fricke:              Yeah. I think so. Now that you mention it, that’s probably just what they were driving at.

Lauren Gutterman:     Two days before prom, on May 28, 1980, Judge Raymond Pettine issued his decision in favor of Aaron Fricke, allowing him to go to the dance, and Aaron decided to take his friend Paul as his date. Pettine’s verdict focused on first amendment issues. He explained that the mere act of going to the dance with another man made a political statement, and that that statement was protected by the first amendment. Pettine further ruled that caving in to anti-gay students gave them a heckler’s veto. The first amendment—he wrote—does not tolerate mob rule by unruly schoolchildren. So, Pettine’s decision underscored what Aaron and Paul already knew; that the act of same-sex dancing had political content; that it was a form of political speech; and that it was protected.

Gillian Frank:             Pettine’s ruling in Fricke v. Lynch made national news, but reactions were divided. The Providence Journal Bulletin—Rhode Island’s largest newspaper—applauded the decision. Providence’s Roman Catholic bishop described it as morally objectionable, because it promoted homosexuality to impressionable young people. Still, the bishop encouraged students to abstain from violence. “Do not answer evil with evil,” he said.

Lauren Gutterman:     Nearly a year after Paul Gilbert began fighting for his right to take another man to prom, he and Aaron were finally able to attend Cumberland High School’s prom together. Dozens of reporters lined up outside the dance. Six uniformed police officers monitored the event, and students stared at Aaron and Paul as they danced, calling them names.

Gillian Frank:             Aaron and Paul were forced to sit at a table with faculty members, and at one point, principal Lynch asked the boys to stop dancing with each other. The couple had slow danced to Bob Seeger’s We’ve Got Tonight, and during that dance, Aaron lay his head on Paul’s shoulder. The pair remained at prom for nearly four hours, and the violent outbursts Lynch had warned about did not occur. However, calls of queer and faggot followed them as principal Lynch escorted the pair out to a waiting car.

Lauren Gutterman:     But for Aaron, the most memorable moment that night occurred when he, Paul, and their peers lost themselves dancing to the B52s’ hit Rock Lobster, which Aaron loved.

Gillian Frank:             Here’s Aaron reading from his memoir.

Aaron Fricke:              Paul and I began dancing freestyle. Everyone else was sti- still staring at us, but by the end of the first stanza, several s- couples had also begun dancing. The song has a contagious enthusiasm to it, and with each bar, more dancers came onto the floor. I doubt that any two people were dancing with the same movements. The dancing was an expression of the individuality, and no one felt bad about being different. Everyone was free to be themselves. A quarter of the way into the song, 30 people were on the dance floor. “Down, down, down,” commanded the lyrics. Everyone on the dance floor sank to their knees and crouched on the ground. Dozens of intertwined bodies crouched on their knees as if praying. We were all one. We shared a unity of pure love while we danced our asses off. Everyone jumped to their feet again, and then resumed dancing. Many more kids have joined us.

Uh, there must have been 60 or 80 on the dance floor now. “Down, down, down,” cried the B52s again, and we all went down. The feeling of unity among us permeated the air again. Now there were at least 100 people on the dance floor. The tempo became more frenetic, and everyone danced faster. “Let’s rock!” bellowed from the speakers, and to my surprise, when I looked up, several other guys were dancing with oth- each other, and girls were dancing with girls. Everybody was rocking. Everybody was rooting. Maybe they were doing it to mock me and Paul. Maybe they were doing it because they wanted to. Maybe one was an excuse for the other. I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. It was fun. Everyone was together. I danced with girls. I danced with guys. I danced with the entire group. Then, the music stopped.

Lauren Gutterman:     Two high school boys dancing together made gay youth visible at a moment when many Americans believed that nobody should grow up to be gay. Their message—broadcast far and wide by a national media—reached queer kids across the country.

Gillian Frank:             And that’s a big part of what this whole fight over prom was about—the right of gay kids to have fun like their straight peers, to be themselves, shamelessly, without fear, on the dance floor, mingling with friends, unconcerned about appearance or sexuality. Paul and Aaron’s attempts to dance together at prom challenged the formal and implicit rules of their school, their town, and their society, all of which said homosexuality was evil and unwelcome. For principal Lynch and all of the students and adults who feared seeing two men together, prom was an opportunity to maintain the barriers that defined who you can dance with and who you can be with.

Lauren Gutterman:     Today, throughout the United States, administrators, parents, and students continue to fight over proms. Transgender students, mixed-race dances, same-sex couples, dress codes, dance styles, and drinking have all made headlines in recent years. Just this past May in Buffalo, New York, an 18-year-old junior sued his high school principal for refusing to allow same-sex couples to purchase tickets to prom, and for denying students’ request to form a gay straight alliance. These battles over youth behavior continue to reflect modern fault lines over race, gender, and sexuality.

Gillian Frank:             Sexing History is produced by Rebecca Davis, Saniya Lee Ghanoui, Devin McGeehan Muchmore, Lauren Gutterman, and me, Gil Frank. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter at Sexing History. Visit us at sexinghistory.com for a picture of Aaron and Paul and a link to Aaron’s memoir about his fight to go to prom. Sincere gratitude to Amanda Littauer for spending time with us.

Lauren Gutterman:     Sexing History is made possible with generous funding from Alan Zwickler of the Phil Zwickler Charitable and Memorial Foundation. Created in honor of the journalist, filmmaker, poet, and gay activist Phil Zwickler, the foundation seeks to promote human rights, education, health, and the arts, specifically with respect to the gay and lesbian community, and generally with regard to those individuals and groups who need assistance to survive and be heard. Visit them at pzfoundation.org. I’m Lauren Gutterman.

Gillian Frank:             I’m Gillian Frank. This is Sexing History.

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