{"value"=>"<p>Manford conducts a wide-ranging interview with Sarah Montgomery (also see audio cassettes 02829, 02859, 02860), a feminist, and former member of the Communist Party USA. Montgomery emphasizes the importance of the immediate enactment of a gay rights bill at the national level; the need for the gay movement to use grassroots campaigns to build a national campaign, and to educate gays and the public. Montgomery expresses the belief that the chief obstacles in New York City to the passage of gay rights legislation are the conservative hierarchy of the Catholic Church, and equally conservative orthodox Jews and fundamentalist Protestants. She underscores the need within the gay movement for self-knowledge and community knowledge which will foster solidarity where there might otherwise be the clash of egos and divisiveness. She comments that the gay and lesbian movement is weak because it is in the embryonic stage, fragmented, and still searching for a middle ground of unity and identity, and that the search for identity which is a cause of friction in the leadership of the movement, benefits only the enemies of gay liberation. Montgomery counsels against a national referendum on gay rights, stating that it is a referendum that cannot be won; and she ends by warning against the potential dangers to democratic participation posed by insider political groups, such as the Study Group (see Name and Subjects Files, and audio cassettes 02824, 02825, 02858), the New York Political Action Council, and the National Gay Task Force (see Name and Subjects Files).</p>"}