My family life growing up was as typical as any upper-middle class family you can imagine. My parents married in the 70's, had their first child in 1978, and then had me 3 years later. My mother and father were responsible adults, worked their way up the ladder, and moved my sister and me to California when I was very young. The city we grew up in is the birthplace of Richard Nixon, a city whose motto is, "The land of gracious living," and is particularly known for its largely conservative residents and numerous churches.
My sister and I had normal, happy childhoods; she was the studious, yet somewhat rebellious teenage daughter. I was the slightly lazy, nerdy band member who never got in trouble for anything more serious than skipping school once or twice. My mother is the overprotective, overly generous kind; the type of mother who would hear you briefly mention that you wanted a new [insert item here] in passing, and 2 weeks later you would suddenly find it sitting inconspicuously somewhere in your room. My father was the disciplinarian, but also the type of man who wanted so much for his family to be happy that he absolutely could not wait all the way to Christmas for us to open our presents. My dad would open 1 or 2 presents for us each day of December. This of course drove my mother crazy because that meant she had to buy more presents to restock the tree.
In September of this year, my parents will be celebrating their 43rd anniversary. Through all of the normal stresses, disagreements, irritations, arguments about finances, and differences of opinion that accompany any typical American marriage, my parents have managed to stick by one another for almost half a century, and both of them are as happy as ever.
The fact that my parents are still together would, sadly, make theirs an increasingly unusual situation in America in its own right. However, our situation is a bit more complex than that. My father -- my biological father, who is still married to my biological mother -- is gay. He always has been, and he always will be.
I first found out in my early teen years. Let's just say that I came across a few things lying around the house that made it very clear that there was a gay man living in our residence, and that man wasn't me. When I finally decided to talk to my sister about it a couple of years later, she capriciously noted, "Oh yeah, I've known it for years. So does Mom."
I was floored! We all knew Dad was gay. I thought, "What a relief! Now we can just talk about it openly!" My sister quickly corrected me. We all knew that Dad was gay, Dad knew that we knew, and we knew that he knew that we knew, and yet all of us continue to this day to act as though none of us knows. It's an awkward charade that we play out as a family every day of our lives. The reason is simple: the era in which my parents grew up, and the very society we live in today, shuns homosexuals and treats these individuals as second or even third class citizens...and that's just the ones who aren't lying to everyone they know about who they really are. My father's place of employment, and possibly our entire social circle of family and friends, would be enormously -- possibly irrevocably -- disrupted should his secret become known. The fact that his mother, a devout Catholic who would be positively crushed to find out her son is gay, is still alive and well at 96 years old, is also somewhat of a factor in his decision to remain silent about his sexual orientation.
My family's story is part heroic, part tragedy. My mother is likely the only woman on the planet who could put up with being faithfully married to a gay man for all but 19 years of her life and remain happy despite that fact, likely in large part due to her devotion to her children. My father, on the other hand, has been forced to lie about his true identify for his entire existence. One could argue that nobody ever forced my father to choose to live a straight man's life, but in the society we live in today, and especially in the society in which my father was raised, in order to have a "normal," happy family life with no restrictions, no obstructions, no baseless judgments, and no disappointments to his parents, my father had to continue the facade of a straight man for as long as possible. I can't possibly imagine the internal stress and conflicted emotions my dad must feel on a daily basis as a result of his suppressed identity.
I have no doubt that my father and mother are genuinely in love, but their love is an emotional bond, not a physical connection, one which I don't think the vast majority in our supposedly modern society can understand even today in the midst of a groundswell of gay rights legislation and support.
I'm telling my dad’s story now because someone needs to stand up for my father, and our society has indoctrinated into him a belief that he would be less of a man as a homosexual so much so that I know my father will never be able to do it himself. Each time I hear an influential politician, lobbyist, or community activist talk as though homosexuality is a choice, or espouse the egregiously ignorant and primitive notion that homosexuals can't raise a happy, healthy family, my blood boils. I am the man I am today directly because of the unconditional love, support, and guidance both my father and my mother have given me throughout my life. I could not possibly ask for greater parents or a greater upbringing.
If there is one great injustice that still persists in full force in our 21st century America, it is the simple fact that discrimination against homosexuality is absolutely no different than discrimination against minorities, genders, religions, or any other characteristic of a human being believed to be inviolable. Yet somehow this specific sexuality-based discrimination not only persists, but in fact flourishes today in a society that prides itself on being forward-thinking and pro-human rights. Our country determined in 1967 that a ban against interracial marriage was unconstitutional. Today we laugh and think how obvious that unconstitutionality is, and yet in the next breath we pass California's Prop 8, banning same-sex marriage. This blatant and wholly indefensible hypocrisy positively confounds me.
My father may die without ever telling a single soul his deepest secret, but my hope is that his story of immense self-sacrifice can play a small role in the advancement, education, and tolerance of our country. We must begin to recognize that our inherent human need to bond and group together must not be overshadowed by our insipid human tendency to find fault and ostracize one another for individual differences. We cannot credibly critique the Middle East for abuses against women and religious intolerance, or against China for human rights abuses against the Tibetan people, when we relegate many of our own citizens to the shadows based on nothing more than whom they find sexually attractive.
Just as slavery is today seen as America's mark of shame, so too will our persistent injustice against homosexuality one day be seen as standing on the wrong side of history. Until that day comes, America is only looking in the mirror each time we hear about a woman stoned to death for adultery in Saudi Arabia or a Ugandan man sentenced to life in prison for simply appearing to be "too effeminate." Americans are appalled when we hear stories such as these and think to ourselves how lucky we are to live in such a progressive and educated society. As it turns out, my father is not the only one living a lie.
My sister and I had normal, happy childhoods; she was the studious, yet somewhat rebellious teenage daughter. I was the slightly lazy, nerdy band member who never got in trouble for anything more serious than skipping school once or twice. My mother is the overprotective, overly generous kind; the type of mother who would hear you briefly mention that you wanted a new [insert item here] in passing, and 2 weeks later you would suddenly find it sitting inconspicuously somewhere in your room. My father was the disciplinarian, but also the type of man who wanted so much for his family to be happy that he absolutely could not wait all the way to Christmas for us to open our presents. My dad would open 1 or 2 presents for us each day of December. This of course drove my mother crazy because that meant she had to buy more presents to restock the tree.
In September of this year, my parents will be celebrating their 43rd anniversary. Through all of the normal stresses, disagreements, irritations, arguments about finances, and differences of opinion that accompany any typical American marriage, my parents have managed to stick by one another for almost half a century, and both of them are as happy as ever.
The fact that my parents are still together would, sadly, make theirs an increasingly unusual situation in America in its own right. However, our situation is a bit more complex than that. My father -- my biological father, who is still married to my biological mother -- is gay. He always has been, and he always will be.
I first found out in my early teen years. Let's just say that I came across a few things lying around the house that made it very clear that there was a gay man living in our residence, and that man wasn't me. When I finally decided to talk to my sister about it a couple of years later, she capriciously noted, "Oh yeah, I've known it for years. So does Mom."
I was floored! We all knew Dad was gay. I thought, "What a relief! Now we can just talk about it openly!" My sister quickly corrected me. We all knew that Dad was gay, Dad knew that we knew, and we knew that he knew that we knew, and yet all of us continue to this day to act as though none of us knows. It's an awkward charade that we play out as a family every day of our lives. The reason is simple: the era in which my parents grew up, and the very society we live in today, shuns homosexuals and treats these individuals as second or even third class citizens...and that's just the ones who aren't lying to everyone they know about who they really are. My father's place of employment, and possibly our entire social circle of family and friends, would be enormously -- possibly irrevocably -- disrupted should his secret become known. The fact that his mother, a devout Catholic who would be positively crushed to find out her son is gay, is still alive and well at 96 years old, is also somewhat of a factor in his decision to remain silent about his sexual orientation.
My family's story is part heroic, part tragedy. My mother is likely the only woman on the planet who could put up with being faithfully married to a gay man for all but 19 years of her life and remain happy despite that fact, likely in large part due to her devotion to her children. My father, on the other hand, has been forced to lie about his true identify for his entire existence. One could argue that nobody ever forced my father to choose to live a straight man's life, but in the society we live in today, and especially in the society in which my father was raised, in order to have a "normal," happy family life with no restrictions, no obstructions, no baseless judgments, and no disappointments to his parents, my father had to continue the facade of a straight man for as long as possible. I can't possibly imagine the internal stress and conflicted emotions my dad must feel on a daily basis as a result of his suppressed identity.
I have no doubt that my father and mother are genuinely in love, but their love is an emotional bond, not a physical connection, one which I don't think the vast majority in our supposedly modern society can understand even today in the midst of a groundswell of gay rights legislation and support.
I'm telling my dad’s story now because someone needs to stand up for my father, and our society has indoctrinated into him a belief that he would be less of a man as a homosexual so much so that I know my father will never be able to do it himself. Each time I hear an influential politician, lobbyist, or community activist talk as though homosexuality is a choice, or espouse the egregiously ignorant and primitive notion that homosexuals can't raise a happy, healthy family, my blood boils. I am the man I am today directly because of the unconditional love, support, and guidance both my father and my mother have given me throughout my life. I could not possibly ask for greater parents or a greater upbringing.
If there is one great injustice that still persists in full force in our 21st century America, it is the simple fact that discrimination against homosexuality is absolutely no different than discrimination against minorities, genders, religions, or any other characteristic of a human being believed to be inviolable. Yet somehow this specific sexuality-based discrimination not only persists, but in fact flourishes today in a society that prides itself on being forward-thinking and pro-human rights. Our country determined in 1967 that a ban against interracial marriage was unconstitutional. Today we laugh and think how obvious that unconstitutionality is, and yet in the next breath we pass California's Prop 8, banning same-sex marriage. This blatant and wholly indefensible hypocrisy positively confounds me.
My father may die without ever telling a single soul his deepest secret, but my hope is that his story of immense self-sacrifice can play a small role in the advancement, education, and tolerance of our country. We must begin to recognize that our inherent human need to bond and group together must not be overshadowed by our insipid human tendency to find fault and ostracize one another for individual differences. We cannot credibly critique the Middle East for abuses against women and religious intolerance, or against China for human rights abuses against the Tibetan people, when we relegate many of our own citizens to the shadows based on nothing more than whom they find sexually attractive.
Just as slavery is today seen as America's mark of shame, so too will our persistent injustice against homosexuality one day be seen as standing on the wrong side of history. Until that day comes, America is only looking in the mirror each time we hear about a woman stoned to death for adultery in Saudi Arabia or a Ugandan man sentenced to life in prison for simply appearing to be "too effeminate." Americans are appalled when we hear stories such as these and think to ourselves how lucky we are to live in such a progressive and educated society. As it turns out, my father is not the only one living a lie.