NY’s Gov. David Paterson Speak’s OUT

Low approval ratings, crushing state deficits, a cold shoulder from Obama–it’s not easy being David Paterson. But in an exclusive interview, New York’s governor explains why he remains a champion of LGBT rights.

Why is LGBT equality so personal for you?

When I was a young person watching the civil rights demonstrations in Alabama and Georgia and Mississippi, I was always struck by the people who didn’t have to be there—the members of the clergy, the union leaders, and private citizens, who were white or Hispanic. And particularly, the whites were not targets of discrimination, but they were people who saw how it wasn’t just an issue of what was happening to black people in the South, it was what was happening to our country.

And so I wanted to be someone who not only was an advocate for change within their own community but could leave that sort of bonded field and see the world in its entirety. So therefore I got involved in women’s rights issues and I got involved in issues involving other discriminated minorities like Asians and Hispanics. But by the time I got into those situations, the inertia of change had already started to present itself.

But when I went down to Greenwich Village in 1975 when I was 21 years old with a friend of mine who was gay, and we poured cans of Florida orange juice down the sewer to send a message to Anita Bryant—this was not a popular thing to do. And particularly in the African-American community, being an advocate for gay and lesbian rights was not a popular thing to do.

Read the entire interview at: The Advocate!