Big Deal

I know the official line, which goes as follows: you don’t out anybody unless they’re advocating against gay rights.

So that means that even though you know Senator Smith (you do know that’s made up, don’t you?) is as queer as a three-dollar bill, and you have the photos to prove it, you keep it quiet. But the moment he bangs the drum for family values and the sanctity of marriage? National Enquirer!

I also think that the progress on LGBT issues made in my lifetime has been remarkable. I’ve gone from being sick / disgusting / going-to-hell to being legally married (at least in Massachusetts) and ho-hum-what-did-you-say-oh-you’re-gay?

And the reason for that change?

I wrote a letter to my brothers. I told them I was gay. They took it as they did—one brother easily, another with more difficulty. But the point is that I did it.

So did a lot of people. So much so that gay characters appeared on sit-coms. It became trendy to have a gay friend. And now we’ve got a president who appears at gay events and speaks out for marriage equality.

I did that. Along, of course, with a hell of a lot of other people….

It wasn’t particularly easy. I remember the real fear that I would crush my parents. Jack had a bad heart, the family legend said; he went to the army to enlist in World War II and flunked his physical. Then went to the Mayo Clinic to get evaluated. So would he get up and have a heart attack if I told him? And how can I tell Mom without telling Dad? How is she supposed to go on, with this big secret between them?

So it took courage, for me and all of the rest of us to do what we did. And face it, there were some people who got told, “don’t come home again—not until you’ve changed.” Just as there are parents even today sending their kids off to therapists and programs “designed” to change sexual orientation.

All of this is leading up to Ricky Martin, who tweeted congratulations yesterday to Jodie Foster for being open about her twenty-year relationship with another woman. “This is your moment,” he said. And went on to say that we all do it at our own rate.

And here is where I get stuck.

“How’s Raf,” said Pete, a neighbor of my mother’s.

Pete is an absolutely completely normal Wisconsin guy. He’s got a business installing gutters. He owns guns, goes hunting, drinks beer, drives a truck. You could call him a redneck, but find me the redneck who completely gets that I’m gay, and congratulates me matter-of-factly when I get married.

OK—would he be that way if Franny hadn’t completely accepted, and spoke openly about my homosexuality? Would my cousin’s wife—the one who speaks to the Lord every day—be chatting with Raf at Franny’s memorial service? Everybody who comes out invites other people to come out, too, and news flash—straight people can be in the closet too. Because if you’re straight and think gay people are going to hell or sick or whatever, you’re in the closet.

The irony of it is that once you’ve done it, the rumors, the suspicions, the dark speculations go away. How many trees died because the tabloids spent twenty years luridly hinting—change that to screaming—that Ricky was gay? Or reporting that a man had been seen entering his home late at night? Or that he was seen on a Caribbean beach with a bunch of guys?

So I don’t know. Ricky doesn’t have to tell everybody the details of what he does in bed. But I wonder—does a public figure have an obligation to speak out, or at least acknowledge he’s gay when asked? Right—he’s a singer / performer, not a sexologist. Why should it matter?

I think Jeanne Manford, the founder of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) would have the answer. Everybody has to come out: the rich and famous; the poor and unknown; prominent or insignificant. Scratch that—nobody is insignificant.

And that’s the point.

She was just a schoolteacher at PS 32 in Queens when she walked down the street in Greenwich Village that summer day in 1972. She was carrying a handmade sign. It was just another day in her life.

No big deal.

Wrong—it was.