The Last Closet | Moira Greyland Peat

Those of you who follow us on facebook

may wonder why we have

things like this on facebook

And I do hope everyone is following us

but if you follow us on facebook

you know that we have a laugh

in the afternoon everyday

Can you all see that?

So, you know, we have things

like this, or, things like this one

This one was just up earlier this week

It's a scientist tip on how you tell an

alligator from a crocodile

by whether the animal will see you later

or in a while. That's how you can tell

There's another way you can tell

the difference between them

and that is if the animal is singing

and dancing and playing a musical

instrument, it's certainly an alligator

Crocodiles would never do anything

like that, so why do we do this?

Why are we 'yucking' it up all the time

Well, the fact is that the topics we

deal with on a regular basis are very grim

We deal with a lot of dark stuff

As you just saw, our previous speaker,

practically in tears,

And he's not the only one that's going

through this type of stuff.

And one of the least fun things that

we deal with now, is child abuse.

These are not fun things to deal with.

So we laugh, we try to yuck it up and have

a good time, because if we don't,

we give up. We gotta be in it for the

long haul, which means you gotta be

able to, you know have some fun once

in a while. So that's why we have

stupid alligators and chick magnets

and things like that on our website

every afternoon.

So, I mentioned this pamphlet,

"Do you know a survivor

of the Sexual Revolution?"

If you open that up and study it,

you will not see survivors

of sexual abuse on there.

And the reason they're not on there

is because when I was working this out on

2013, I said to myself, "Well you know

there's always been sexual abuse,

it isn't really fair to attribute that to

the sexual revolution. And besides look at

all these other stuff we have to work on.

Isn't this enough for one organization?

And besides secretly, I didn't want to

deal with it because it's not...

It's awful. No one really wants to deal

with it, but then last year

these issues started coming up, with the

sexual harassment issues with

Harvey Weinstein, and all of these things

And you could kind of see that the girls

were trying to solve the #metoo movement

but they weren't really going to get it

done because they were kind of hanging

on to the sexual revolution.

They were hanging onto things they

shouldn't be hanging on to.

And, so I thought "You know, maybe we need

to be talking about this" And then

the whole thing, clergy sexual abuse

within the catholic church, and then I

just became really convinced

"yeah, we gotta deal with it"

First off, nobody else will deal with

the broad spectrum of the sexual

revolution like we will, so therefore

we're the only guys in the field.

And also the sexual revolution is deeply

implicated in this whole thing.

For this reason. The sexual revolution is

a set of ideas, and those ideas

empower predators. They encourage

predators. The core idea of the

sexual revolution is that everybody is

entitled to sex! Everybody is entitled to

guilt-free, child-free, problem-free, sex.

And anybody who says otherwise is

violating your human rights, for crying

out loud. Who really thinks

you're entitled to sex. I mean come on,

that's the view of a rapist. That's not

real to think you're entitled to sex.

So that one idea, has many tentacles

and is a very poisonous idea. And at the

same time, these ideas also undermine the

victims. They disarm the victims.

And so the sexual revolution is profoundly

implicated in the whole thing. And so,

that's what motivated me to reach out

to our next speaker, Moira Greyland Peat,

whom we're going to honor as

the public witness of the year.

I met Moira at an event sponsored by

in texas, and I heard her story of growing

up with openly, actively, gay, and

lesbian parents. She's the author of the

best selling book, "The Last Closet", and

she's the daughter of famous gay

authors, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and

Walter Breen. And this is a photo of Moira

there in the center with her mother

and her brother. Her mother was the

author of this series of books,

"The Mists of Avalon". She was married to

Walter Breen, who was also a famous author

Moira's mother had a long time lesbian

lover, and Walter Breen lived an active

homosexual life and was himself, an

unrepentant child molester. Both of her

parents sexual abused Moira and her

brother, for years. And since they were

famous authors, and icons really, in the

science fiction community, people didn't

really do much about it.

Her father enjoyed being in hot tubs

with children. Sometimes without any

clothes on, he would encourage

kids to get into the hot tub with him

without any clothes on. And numerous

adults saw or could have seen that the

kids were being groomed.

and really, for all practical purposes

nobody did anything about it.

As a teenager, Moira called the police

on her father, when she caught him

in the act of molesting an 11 year old boy

Her father was arrested, put in prison,

where he died, and her family considered

this an act of betrayal. Rather than

denying what her father did, her mother

said, "well children have the right to

make up their own lines about having sex

with adults. Her father had made his views

clear in this book called, "Greek Love",

and a journal called, "The Journal of

Greek Love", which she edited.

In 2014, Moira revealed all these things

about her parents. People were shocked,

and she was shocked, to find how many

people who were also children of gays,

reached out to her with similar stories.

So the last closet..... book

it not simply a taill of victimization

its also a tail that explain how her parent

became who they became

but more regad your self as lucky of one way

her life will pay resorted

as a result she is a successful professional

musician you wrote this girl

im taking this right of your bio

she is the founder and former artistic

director of the royal english opera

she is a ward winning dramatic color true

sabrentel. with the new life out of range

she is an acomplished concert harpest

singer composer recruting artist and

movie actress. topnight oops

tonight we're gonna hear her

tell her story and perhaps recite

a poem or tow from her work

but first of all help me welcome our

ruth institute public witness of the year

a ......

thank you so much .....

thank you

good eavning, how are you doing ?

usually when I'm in front of

crowd of people im sitting in the corner

with a harp and i dont have to talk

im just going to sit their hmmm

im the radio and that is i think very much

how i felt about my parents

for a long time. im just going to watch

and not say anything i want just

to play the harp over here

anyway