 Every year in West Hollywood we have a Gay Pride parade. There is also one in Long Beach, San Francisco, and other places throughout America. Gays come together to celebrate their uniqueness.
There are other things that bring gays together. A few years ago, Bob La Font, a gay activist in Long Beach, was brutally beaten and burned, his hands tied behind his back. He barely escaped with his life, and spent months in the hospital recuperating. Bob spent months being groggy and asleep because the doctors knew if he regained consciousness the pain would be unbearable.
Bob is fine now, and hosts 'The Gay and Lesbian News Magazine' on Long Beach Community Television. But what I remember most about that terrible time period was how the gay community pulled behind him! Indeed, sources from within Long Beach Community Television tell me there was even a move to get his program off the air since he could no longer serve as producer! Thankfully, Robin Bowers came to his aid and took over the producership of the show.
Those in Los Angeles may have read of Bob's plight in scores of gay magazines and newspapers available in Southern California. I was truly impressed how the gay community stuck together! Would the Atheists have done the same for me had I been beaten and burned? How about Humanist groups? Or fundamentalist Christians whom I've known? They might extend sympathy and prayers (Atheists excluded), but would they have fought for me if I'd been in that position?
Some might have tried their best, but I doubt it. See, Humanists and Atheists don't have the same organizational unity the gay community has worked hard at creating. And fundamentalist Christians? Well, they'd probably think I deserved it.
Stories like Bob's make me want to be gay! In fact, at one time I probably was. I had a friend in my youth, whom I would kiss and hug. We'd take showers together and fall into passionate embraces. Once we even made out in a movie theater, and a nearby forest. My family moved, and I found myself in a new school. I kept sizing up the boys in my class. Which one of them could I have the same kind of fun with? That was in the seventh grade.
Suddenly: conversion to fundamentalism, and the sermons against homosexuality!
"What is homosexuality?" I asked.
"When people are attracted to the same sex instead of the opposite."
"And God hates that?"
"Boy, does he!"
"Why?"
"He just does! Shut up, next question."
Fundamentalist Christianity did its trick. Today, I am married and heterosexual. But I still look back on those days of childhood innocence, and long to recapture those moments. I go to gay clubs, and realize I CAN be attracted to drag queens or effeminate boys, but that's about it. I just don't feel normal! There are groups like EXODUS that help gays recapture their lost heterosexuality. But where are the groups that can help me, a straight man, recapture my lost homosexuality?
This poll was started on March 19, 2000.
NOTE: Many thanks to Steve Hogan for excellent art direction and layout.
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