New Recruits in Fight for Gay Rights : Activism: Orange County support group becomes a political force in successful bid to stage convention for the loved ones of homosexuals on the home turf of anti-gay leaders.

Sandra Moore never paid attention to jokes about gays. Then her son, Sean Holden, told her that he was homosexual. He was 21 and scared to death she would reject him.

Moore reassured Sean that she loved him no matter what, and from that day on, she became an activist.

Recently, Moore, an executive secretary at an Anaheim-based electronics company, was making small talk when a co-worker made an offhand remark about the weather that included a derogatory term for gays.

“His words got me right in the pit of my stomach,” Moore said. “He thought he was making a joke, and the words hurt me incredibly. I told him it wasn’t funny, and we didn’t talk after that.”

Moore is typical of the people who have joined Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, an organization that in recent years has transformed itself from a support group for gays’ loved ones into a key player in the struggle to secure equal rights and societal acceptance for gays.

This week, in a sign of its new aggressiveness, PFLAG is holding its international convention in Orange County, the back yard of such anti-gay figures as the Rev. Lou Sheldon, head of the Traditional Values Coalition, and U.S. Reps. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) and William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton).

“The conservative politics and the hate tactics used against our children have pushed us to fight back,” said Elena Layland, president of the group’s Orange County chapter. “We love our children. And we’re coming out of our own closets to show them just how much we love them.”

“We want the conservatives to know that they don’t have a monopoly on the family,” added Paulette Goodman, national president of PFLAG. “Parents of gays and lesbians are just as traditional. We really don’t believe what people like Dornan and Dannemeyer are saying. We are very much part of the traditional family. And nobody is going to tell us otherwise.”

More than 500 people from throughout the United States and abroad are expected to attend the four-day convention, which begins Friday at the Hyatt Regency Alicante in Garden Grove.

The theme of the ninth annual convention is “Reaching Out Into the ‘90s.” Thirty-two workshops with subjects ranging from “Gay and Lesbian Youth” to “Breaking Down Stereotypes” will be offered. Last year, 300 people attended the national convention in Detroit.

To win the right to host the convention, the Orange County chapter had to vie with one in Charlotte, N.C., which had sought the gathering because of Charlotte’s visibility as the hometown of ultraconservative U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms (R.-N.C.), one of the gay community’s most ardent opponents.

Orange County’s PFLAG won the convention in part because of its fight to keep its speakers’ bureau from being barred at Corona del Mar High School, where teacher Mike Marino had invited gays and lesbians to his psychology class for more than a decade. A handful of parents had attacked the bureau in 1988 and 1989, claiming that the speakers were “recruiting” into the gay community.

Though the PFLAG speakers have not been invited back into the school, the fight energized the chapter and won extensive local press coverage. Indeed, in making its case to be selected to host the convention, the Orange County chapter provided the national federation with a 20-page scrapbook that detailed its role in this and other controversies.

The speakers’ bureau controversy was the catalyst for Orange County’s PFLAG to become more active and “radical,” said Layland, who joined the chapter four years ago with her husband, Raymond, when their 15-year-old son, Todd, told them that he is gay.

People don’t think of parents as being outspoken and radical about gay rights, Layland said.

“Most people think of us as being rather meek,” she said. “They think of us as being a group that sits around and holds hands for an hour. Well, that’s not the case. We’re fighters now.”

To get the convention started, chapter leaders realized that they had to attract more members.

A year ago, there were only 45 dues-paying members in the Orange County chapter, said Mel Trickery, a retired Los Angeles County probation supervisor who has two gay children. Though the group was meeting regularly each month, it was not attracting new members.

“The chapter was from the old school of thinking; they didn’t want to stir any waters,” Trickery said. “Some members wanted everything to be kept at a status quo. But with the attack on the (speakers’) bureau, members realized that they had to fight back for their children.”

So the chapter’s leaders became more visible by attending gay community functions and appearing on national talk shows such as “Geraldo!” PFLAG members also attended every gay pride event in Southern California.

As members of OC-PFLAG, Sandra Moore and her son Sean, now 22, marched side by side in the Long Beach and West Hollywood pride parades, their arms wrapped around each other.

“Here I was with my mom, telling the world I was proud to be gay,” he said. “To have her next to me was something I had never even thought of. It was emotional for both of us.”

Today, membership for the chapter has more than quadrupled, with more than 204 members. The chapter is still growing, Layland said. It is now the largest chapter in Southern California, with more members than Los Angeles and San Diego. (PFLAG, which also welcomes membership from gays, grew out of the 1979 gay and lesbian march on Washington and now has 200 local chapters nationwide.)

With more members, the Orange County chapter has been able to concentrate on raising the $40,000 the convention is expected to cost and on organizing the event, Layland said. Finding a hotel was one hurdle. Layland found herself explaining to hotel management how much controversy the convention might attract because of the group’s membership. Many hotel managers were accommodating; others were not.

One hotel manager in Newport Beach wanted to know how many gay people were attending and wanted to charge an exorbitant amount for the rental of convention rooms, said Layland, who declined to identify the hotel. Hotels do not regularly charge for convention rooms and instead make money with dinners and drinks, said Layland, who has organized conventions in the past.

“The hotel management was homophobic,” Layland said. “They made it known that they did not want such a convention in the hotel premises. I was stunned.”

In August, the chapter faced its most difficult hurdle when Rick Heckenlaible, one of the chapter’s leaders and head of its speakers’ bureau, died of AIDS. A cheerleader for the organization, Heckenlaible, 41, had kept morale high for the convention.

Several days before he died, Heckenlaible was still worried about the convention and was asking questions about how well it was going, Layland said.

“Rick’s death left us wondering, ‘How do we continue with the convention?’ ” Layland said. “The convention was a dream Rick had for all of us. But we know we all have to go on.”

Already, Heckenlaible’s dream is fast becoming a reality for PFLAG member and volunteer David Fuller, 22, who arrived in Orange County from Ellensburg, Wash., a year ago. As a teen-ager, he never thought of being truly open about himself.

“A PFLAG convention in Orange County proves that the county isn’t as closed-minded as people may think,” Fuller said. “Gays and lesbians can be loved and supported in Orange County just like anywhere else.”