I wrote
yesterday something to the effect that it’s easier for gay people to come out
now than it was in the 60’s and 70’s. But guess what? If the documentary Out in the Silence is correct, it’s
actually much worse.
At least it
was for CJ, the high school kid who was a jock on the football team until he
came out as gay. Then, the bullying started, the phone calls threatening to
burn down the house began coming in, the pushing and the shoving started taking
place—incredibly—in front of teachers and school monitors.
CJ’s mother
yanked him out of school, and did what any mother would do: she goes before the
school board and protests. Their response? They didn’t even shrug their
shoulders….
‘She’s
gotta get a lawyer,’ I thought to myself yesterday, since I had only watched
the first half of the documentary. So I was relieved when she turned to the
ACLU; after a two-year struggle, anti-harassment seminars began in the high
school.
So why is
it so rough for gay kids today? Well, first of all, kids are coming out in high
school, not in college or beyond. Second, what had been a taboo topic has
become one on everyone’s lips. And third, the religious opposition has become
much better organized.
It all
started when the filmmaker Joe Wilson sent an
announcement of his marriage to his male partner to The Derrick, his local newspaper in Oil City,
Pennsylvania. The Derrick
published the announcement—along with a picture—and then the letters began
rolling in. One particularly painful comment—“it would have been better if you
had never been born”—is enough to tell you the story.
That’s when
CJ’s mother wrote, announcing that her son was being bullied, and wondering if
he could help. So Wilson headed to Oil City, which had been the site of the
first oil well in the States, and was now moldering away. His purpose, yes, was
to look in on CJ, but also to see how the town in which he had grown up was
dealing with LGBT issues.
It wasn’t
pretty. Oil City was the home of the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Family
Association (AFA), which is pretty much as you would imagine. Founded in
1977 as the National Foundation for Decency; headquarters in Tupelo,
Mississippi; 180,00 paid subscribers; 3.3 million people receiving “action
alerts.” Does that tell you the story? Oh, and here’s Wikipedia:
AFA has
been listed as a hate group
by the Southern Poverty
Law Center (SPLC) as of November 2010 for the "propagation of
known falsehoods" and the use of "demonizing propaganda" against
LGBT people.
Think
that’s extreme? Well, check out the clip below, entitled They’re Coming to
Your Town; the “they” is
less gay and lesbian than that dreaded “homosexual agenda.”
Who has the
agenda? Is it the lesbian couple, who are renovating an old movie house as a
neighborhood center? If so, their agenda is less pushing their homosexuality on
people than it is about turning around a decaying city center, providing jobs,
making money, improving the community. But Diane, the president of the state
AFA, called around to local businesses, trying to arrange a boycott. At one
point, one of the lesbians loses it, and comes out says, “Diane has done
nothing for this city but stir up hate.”
There are
victories: a Christian pastor who modifies his views; the father of a gay kid
who won’t turn his back on his son, even though the father himself had beaten
up gay people in his past.
But for all
the victories, it’s the overwhelming negativity of Diane and the AFA that
linger. Looking at her, you see not a woman filled with hate, but rather
someone terrified.
And with
good reason. If she feels that her world is threatened, well, isn’t she right?
Yes, we have an agenda. We’re not going back in the closet, we’re not going to
stop pressing for rights, we’re not going to accept abuse or hate anymore.
The decline
of the traditional family? Is it perhaps time to suggest that there were some
aspects of the traditional family that were less than ideal? For every family
that mimicked Leave
It to Beaver, wasn’t
there one with sexual abuse, secrecy, drunkenness, lies, battered limbs?
We are a
threat—we who have been honest with ourselves, honest with others, and have
fought against those who disagreed. Mostly, we’ve been a threat when we moved
into communities, bought houses, started raising our families.
What’s more
threatening than a new idea?
