Hearing these and other statements about who I am, I’ve felt the same anger, disgust and confusion I felt in the days after Barry and I were threatened in our own home. “Why are they attacking us?” “Did we do anything to deserve this?” Very quickly, I realized that we hadn’t done anything wrong. It was our neighbor who was wrong. And the anti-gay crusaders are also wrong. They’re not telling the truth about who I am.
The life Barry and I live is not the Ozzie and Harriet ideal, but we’re not the only Americans who don’t live that near-mythical model-including Ozzie and Harriet. Nonetheless, most people would find our family life very familiar and anything but anti-family. Just last month we ed Barry’s twin brother’s wedding, where Barry and his brother James were best men. In January when mother had a heart attack, I flew home to look after her. We’ve had both families over for holidays, gone to my niece’s and nephew’s birthdays, attended funerals together and helped our friends through hard times.
President Bush said I’m not normal. I don’t know what he means. Bush’s left-handedness isn’t normal either, if “normal” means “in the majority.” But like being left-handed, being gay doesn’t diminish my humanity, my normal wish to love, be loved, contribute and prosper. When I heard Dan Quayle say on “Good Morning America” and “Prime Time Live” that I had made the " wrong choice," I wanted to ask him what choice he was referring to. When I realized I was gay I also realized I did have a choice, but not between homosexuality and heterosexuality. I could choose to live in the closet, maybe even marry a woman and pretend to be who I’m not, or I could be honest about who I am and live my life openly-no easy thing to do. I didn’t choose to be gay, but I did choose to tell the truth. That’s what my parents taught me.
During the presidential campaign I’ve heard many people say that gay and lesbian people are unfit parents and that we shouldn’t be allowed to adopt. There’s no question that some gay people make rotten parents. Same with some heterosexual parents. Those who condemn us won’t come right out and say it, but they’d like you to believe we’ll “make our kids gay” or that we’ll molest them. But that’s not what our siblings and heterosexual friends with kids think. They know you can’t make somebody gay who isn’t gay by nature. They also know that if their kids are going to be molested that overwhelmingly the most likely person to do the molesting is a heterosexual male. And if their kids happen to be gay, they know that we’re fine role models. Two heterosexual couples have asked us if we would be the guardians of their children should something happen to them. And Barry is godfather to a little boy named Lucas, who just celebrated his first birthday.
In a television interview last month, President Bush said that he would still love his grandchild if he found out he was gay, but he wouldn’t want him to promote his gay lifestyle. Would somebody please tell me what a gay lifestyle is? One may choose a country-club lifestyle, a Western lifestyle, a city lifestyle, but there is no such thing as a gay lifestyle-just as there is no such thing as a heterosexual lifestyle. Homosexual lifestyles, like heterosexual lifestyles, run the gamut. They defy classification. And the only way I can “promote” my sexual orientation is to show other gay and lesbian people by my example that you can be homosexual, live outside the closet and lead a full, happy, family-centered life.
I’m convinced the president doesn’t really believe what he and some of his supporters are saying about me. If he did, he wouldn’t tolerate the many gay men and women he and those in his administration responsible jobs in the White House, the Department of Defense, the National Endowment for the Arts and virtually every other government agency. But the anti-gay campaign has nothing to do with telling the truth. Instead, it’s about trying to scare Americans into thinking that if they vote for Bill Clinton, the awful homosexual&-me included!-will destroy America’s family values.
Barry and I were lucky with our bigoted downstairs neighbor. Our landlords, a lovely heterosexual couple, evicted him without hesitation. While we now feel safe in our own home, as long as the anti-gay campaigners continue to spread their message of ignorance and hate, our nation will remain a hostile, dangerous and sometimes deadly place for us, our friends and millions of America’s gay and lesbian citizens.
