Are You Guys Brothers?

     As a birthday gift to Ray who never complains but who feels as if my work schedule eliminates much of our quality time together, I'm "going fishing" until the first of September.

     This will be my last blog entry until then. Today, I'll finish the chapter on "work" that I started last week. As of next week, my book "Are You Guys Brothers?" will be available at www.authorhouse.com.

      Have a wonderful summer of experiences to which you are fully present. Spend time with the people you love.

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     Since coming out as gay in 1974 at the age of 26, I’ve never again had to endure the day-long horrors of the workplace closet. Initially poor as a church mouse on my own, I nevertheless have been free in a way most gay people, including the love of my life, have not been fortunate enough to be. My being gay, rather than being tolerated at work, was a necessary credential for me in writing, speaking, and serving in the Mayor’s Office.

      I suspect that the two-faced chaos of Ray’s personal and professional identity, coupled with his spiritual hunger for honesty in his life, the high powered nature of his job, and his separation from me all contributed significantly to his hitting bottom with booze and his subsequent suicide attempt. During his recovery, and with his return to the Boston office, he came out without qualification and his work life became dramatically more tolerable. As a result, his client base grew in both size and stability.

     After four more years in Boston, still enduring the “deep disappointment” and anger of a New York boss (the same one who said “fag” more often than “good morning,”) because Ray hadn’t come out to him sooner, Ray flew to New York to give notice that he planned to retire in a year. His boss there urged him to stay on and to take over Lehman’s office in Atlanta. Ray said that he would but only if the firm affirmed his homosexuality by treating me as his spouse and paying my relocation expenses too.

     We were in Atlanta for a couple of years. Our home in Ansley Park was the site of the office holiday party. That provided, perhaps for the first time in Wall Street history, the opportunity for the male spouse of the male office manager to guide the wives of the male staff through a tour of the master bedroom and respond to questions, at the same time offering decorating hints that could be incorporated in their own homes.

     My speaking engagements, after having been dominated for many years by those on college campuses, were now primarily taking place in U.S. corporations, particularly for those in the high tech industry such as with Hewlett-Packard, Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies, and Motorola, and because of HIV, for drug companies, including Merck and DuPont.

     By the time we moved to New York so that Ray could take over as Managing Director of Global Equity Sales, again at the request of his boss to delay retirement for two more years, Wall Street firms had emerged as my primary clients, starting with JP Morgan/Chase. Meanwhile, for Ray at work, the word “fag” continued to spice the boss’s office conversations and conference calls.

     My message to corporate executives is that to succeed in their goal of attracting and retaining the best and brightest employees, they need to create an environment where every person feels safe and valued. It’s not enough to include “sexual orientation” in their non-discrimination policy, to offer domestic partner benefits, to have a gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender employee resource group, and to sponsor gay cultural events. The ability of people to feel safe and valued at work results from the “music” of the office, not the “words” of the corporate policy. How, I ask, do gay employees know for certain that they are valued? (Not, certainly, with the daily use of the word “fag.”)

     Ray became my example of how important it is to focus on the individual behavior of colleagues on a day-to-day basis in order to create a safe and productive environment. After years of stellar service as a revered boss and account manager, he walked away at age 45 from a significant salary because he didn’t want to spend another day of his life feeling “tolerated.” While no one at work was personally, openly hostile, Ray got tired of being the only one who wasn’t asked on Monday about his weekend or on Friday about his holiday plans. His peers weren’t conscious of the exclusion, and they meant no harm, but their strategy of avoidance created for their colleague an environment where he felt marginalized. And so, he gave notice, and in doing so, his frequent nightmares ended and he put away forever the armor he had reluctantly pulled on every morning for most of his working life.

     That was a dozen years ago, and since then Ray and Lehman Brothers have changed dramatically. Ray looks younger, healthier, and far happier, and Lehman has become a leader in the financial world in its efforts to not just accommodate diversity but to empower it.

     My professional career has gone from being fired for coming out as gay to now speaking to bankers in London, Hong Kong, Sidney, Singapore, and Tokyo about gay and transgender issues, at the same offices and to some of the same people Ray had managed in his career. A highlight of my work life was when I was invited to give my two hour presentation to the senior managers at Lehman’s corporate headquarters in New York, with Ray in the auditorium.

      Joe Gregory, the firm’s terrific Chief Operations Officer (COO), and a colleague of Ray’s, welcomed me and Ray, and spoke passionately to Ray’s former peers and to those hired later, about Lehman’s commitment to retain the best and brightest employees by creating an environment that values all diversity.

     I’ve had some big challenges with speaking engagements before, like the time I spoke to 2,000 fraternity and sorority members in an outside venue at UCLA, but speaking at Lehman wasn’t a big challenge at all. There was great enthusiasm in the room and great affection for Ray. It was a moment of bliss for us both. I’ve also had some tough audience members to contend with over the years, like the guy who sighed loudly, and dramatically looked at his watch the entire time I spoke because, he said, my message “would bring about the destruction of Western civilization.” But everyone in the room at Lehman smiled and was clearly eager to learn.

     Under the right circumstances, a speaker and an audience can do an incredible dance together, each following the other’s lead, starting slowly but confidently, and building to a graceful series of turns that obliterate any awareness of time or outside distraction. We did such a dance together that day, and periodically, as the senior executives joined me in laughter at a humorous observation of our shared human experience, I would look over at Ray who was beaming and nodding with pride and gratitude.

     At its conclusion, Joe stood to shake my hand, thank me, thank Ray, and thank his colleagues for their enthusiastic participation. “We’ve come a long way in a short time,” he said, “and we have a long way to go.”

     Ray’s old comrades surrounded him, patted his back, and handed him their business cards before we left for our hotel. I was scheduled to give a second talk the next day to a second group of senior traders, but Ray didn’t feel the need to attend. “I got the closure I needed,” he said, wrapping his arm around my shoulder as we walked down the street. “Thank you. You were just great. I was so proud.”

     In the many years that I’ve been working with investment banks worldwide, I’ve come to understand more about the game of Bingo they all play, but what makes a far bigger impression on me is how hard they all are trying now to create a work environment where people like me won’t fear being fired and people like Ray won’t need to retire.

     So, now Al Parker, my Colt model alter ego, is walking up the stairs wearily after a long day of travel, and Don Knotts is home filling every room with gay pride. It suits us both just fine.

    

    

        

 

     Springtime in Provincetown can be a magical experience. The National Seashore is extraordinarily beautiful with blooming beach plums, Rosa Ragusa, blueberry and cranberry shrubs, sea grass, and scrub oaks and pines. Baltimore orioles, yellow finches, cardinals, and hawks fill branches and the sky.

     I think of all of this as I cool my heels in Columbus, dealing with an hour and a half Boston-based weather delay. It's likely that I'll miss my Cape Air connection, which happens regularly in the spring. I will run from terminal A to terminal C and breathlessly ask at the ticket counter if the flight has departed. I will then hope to get a seat on the next flight. That too will be delayed for over an hour. I hate to travel. If I didn't love my work so much, I wouldn't do it.

     So, while I'm away, biding time in a hotel or airport, my mind drifts to its comfort zone that is landscaped with lilac, azaleas, roses, green grass and buds on a hundred annual and perennial plants, all placed with great expectations or recalled with fond memories.

     I take comfort too in thoughts of getting into the water, swimming out to the boat if temperatures allow, and opening up the throttle for an escapist, wave-jumping trip to the lighthouse.

     When I have satisfied my hunger with images of home, I go back to the book I have brought with me to further distract me from the debilitating impact of packed and cramped planes, and the company of other equally-frustrated passengers. I have come to enjoy spy novels but am currently savoring the musings of Scott Pomfret in his gay Catholic memoir "Since My Last Confession." If you are gay and Catholic (or in recovery from the latter) you will enjoy it.

     In a few weeks, frustrated travelers will have my book "Are You Guys Brothers?" to distract them from their plight. What follows is the first half of the next chapter.

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The valentine that I gave to Ray in the first year of our relationship was a spiral notebook filled with pictures cut out of magazines, accompanied by my biased recollections of our courtship.

     The photos representing me, for instance, were of the very sexy Colt model, Al Parker. The photos selected to represent Ray were of the bumbling character portrayed consistently by Don Knotts. The sound of Ray’s wonderful laughter as he paged through my labor of love is still making its way through space, assuring inhabitants of other planets of how happy gay couples on Earth can be.

     When it came to representing my understanding of Ray’s work in the field of finance, I had a picture of an old woman staring intently at her dozen Bingo cards, looking for all of the B-4s to dot with her dobber. Thirty years later, he tells people that this is still how I think of him on the job.

     The truth be told, though I don’t have much interest in matters of money, I do know that his years on Wall Street were a lot less fun for him than playing Bingo. Ray loved his work, as well as the people with whom he worked, clients and colleagues alike, but he hated the loneliness that he felt daily as a sensitive, politically liberal, gay man working in an office setting that was often the socially insensitive turf of boisterous, conservative, straight white “Alpha” men.

     The coming together in our marriage of our very different career paths was fun for others to discuss, fascinating to observe, and very beneficial to me, as his income allowed me the freedom to do anything I wanted as a gay writer and educator without needing to make any money. But my work life made Ray’s work life far more difficult than it would have been had he paired up with a man less on the cutting edge of the gay civil rights movement.

     When we met, Ray had just left a job as a food and beverage cost controller for a hotel to take a “custodial” position at a bank. He laughs now at how he assumed he would be doing janitorial work but didn’t care because he wanted the increase in pay to cover the cost of his night school college education. It turned out not to be sweeping floors but rather being a custodial accountant of mutual funds, a job which launched his lucrative career. Being very personable, a quick learner, and a hard worker, Ray excelled, became a favorite of clients, and was rapidly hired by a series of firms until he ended up at Lehman Brothers in their Boston office.

     His boss at Lehman was a hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, bigger-than-life, short Italian with a heart of gold but little awareness of things gay. With him, and with many of Ray’s trading floor colleagues, the word “fag” was a frequently employed synonym for “wimp.”

     Meanwhile, back in our apartment, I was coordinating Dignity’s national social action initiatives, writing my column in the gay press, doing the layout of Detroit’s gay newspaper, speaking on gay issues at colleges across the country, fielding calls day and night from gay people, sober and drunk, who needed to talk, and ultimately coordinating the City of Boston’s response to the AIDS epidemic, and dealing with all other gay constituent needs for the internationally-respected Mayor, Kevin White, who hired me as his full-time liaison to the gay community, the first such position in the country.

     Ray would wearily climb our three flights of stairs at the end of his day and enter the bustling center of gay activism in our living room. One day, he walked in on a meeting of local gay doctors and community organizers as we were writing the state’s first “safe sex” brochure. At another time, we were drafting the Red Cross policy on blood donations. And one day, as he was walking past the line of two hundred people who stood waiting to get into the fundraiser we were hosting for our friend, the embattled Rep. Gerry Studds, one person said “Hey, no cuts,” to which Ray smiled and explained “I live here.” In every instance, Ray would peel off his suit coat, pull loose his tie, give me a kiss, and join in the discussion.

      In some ways, this was a great gift to Ray. Coming home each night to a place where being gay was actively and enthusiastically celebrated nurtured his sense of self-determination and esteem. The phone calls, letters, film crews, reporters, strategy sessions, private consultations, and the dinner party conversations with the nation’s leading gay thinkers that dominated our young lives accelerated his journey to self-love.

     But how do you go from laughing at night with Elaine Noble, Tim McFeeley, Ginny Apuzzo, Sr. Jeannine Gramick, and Steve Endean to a Wall Street office the next morning where your identity is a secret? While Ray’s excitement about his participation in the early days of the movement gave him a vision for his future, it also raised his expectations of life and made it harder to keep his mouth shut outside of the house, as so many of his gay and lesbian peers had learned to do twenty-five years ago.

     And so, he came out, one of the first in the financial world to do so, initially to a handful of colleagues and then to his clients. For a short while, two of the major components of his life, his identity and his work, came together in a wholesome, happy way. Not only did it not matter to his clients, but they found his honesty refreshing, and became fiercely loyal to him, as he was to the firm.

     Ray was then brought to New York to work in the corporate office and to run with the big dogs. Though he loved the challenge and the opportunity for further career advancement it provided him, he reluctantly slipped partially back into the closet and endured not only daily doses of verbal “fag” bashing, particularly by his new boss, but also an acute separation from me, who had stayed in Massachusetts, and from a safe space where gay pride permeated every room of our new home. Ray lived alone in an apartment Monday through Thursday and we talked at length on the phone every night. On Friday he would fly to Boston, and then drive an hour to our place in Gloucester, and for two days feel whole again. Those weekends were precious to us both.

There is, for me, always a little sadness in returning home from a long trip, be it business or pleasure. While I'm glad to be returning to the familiar comfort of my own things, I don't look forward to resuming the routine, re-engaging the compromises that I make in negotiating relationships with friends, family, and neighbors, and I mourn the ebb of intimacy that I have so joyfully rekindled with Ray. Once we enter our front door, we plunge into our clearly defined and finely honed roles, one unpacking and the other making up a grocery list. In a day's time, we'll also each be back at our desks for most of the day, miles in the mind away from the shared excitement of seeing a new kind of bird or tasting a new dish.

What's also lost for me until the next venture to the airport is the exhilarating feeling of usefulness, of being "special," that I get from eliciting guffaws from an audience, or tears from a mother whose hand I hold as she tells me of her love and concern for her lesbian daughter. At home, I take my place among others, fearful of silence or sighs if I call attention to my ideas and adventures. And I join in the daily demands of weeds that need pulling and empty toilet paper dispensers that need to be replaced – far less exciting than a long ovation.

I also don't look forward to the mind-dulling impact of the television in front of which I will park myself night after night, despite my heartfelt vacation promises. Like all such resolutions, it too will become a source of tolerable guilt for a few days and then be forgotten.

Ray and I have wonderful lives at home with very special, thoughtful, generous friends. We know that we are uniquely blessed, and that our daily lives are embarrassingly blessed. I don't want for another set of friends, family, or neighbors, nor for a different home or weeds to pull. I know that the intimacy one experiences with one's spouse on vacation is not sustainable when you have to make the bed and cook for yourselves. It's just that I love the emotional and physical highs I get from "being in the moment" while away from home and as I prepare to re-enter the reality of my normal routine, I brace myself to cope with all of the little irritations I have left behind at home.

Writing this down makes it easier for me. It also serves as a reminder that one can feel relational intimacy while watching television and be in the moment while tending the garden. It’s just a little less exotic.

Last night, our former paratrooper, secret service, body guard, private eye, twice-married father of six, tour guide cab driver who earlier had declared that negative attitudes about homosexuality would never change in Singapore, asked if he could take us to a gay bar in town after we had dinner together in Chinatown.

The bar, located on the third floor of a mall was called Cafe Romeo and to my eye was loaded with gorgeous, seductive, heterosexual hookers, one of whom seemed determined to make my acquaintance. We soon learned that rather than hookers, they were gay cross dressers and transsexuals from Thailand.

"They're very pretty," we explained to our driver as we headed back to the hotel, "but are there any bars in town where the gay men are dressed as men?"

"Oh," he exclaimed with delight. "Yes, yes, I know a place, but no one would know that they're gay!"

When we parted company, he looked at us long and hard, smiled broadly, and enthusiastically shook our hands. "Tell me your names again," he asked. We had made a new friend.

We had very similar experiences with our tour guides all year. The Peruvian guide explained that the porters liked us very much but wanted him to explain homosexuality. The Cambodian driver who told us there were no homosexuals in Cambodia declared when he learned that we were gay that he personally felt that gay people should be allowed to marry. The closeted Australian 26-year-old who quietly sat at our dinner table the night before my talk in Sydney to Merrill Lynch confided at the end of the meal, "I want what you and Ray have in your relationship," and then came out to a colleague at the end of my presentation the next day.

In the past 13 months, Ray and I have been fortunate enough to travel the globe and have gladly presented ourselves as a gay married couple to desk clerks, porters, housecleaners, meal servers, taxi drivers and tour guides, flight attendants, business people, U.S. Senators, shop keepers and all others in England, Portugal, Equador, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Charlestown, Venice, New Zealand, Australia, and Singapore. Before the end of the year, we may also be doing so in Japan and India.

It hasn't always felt safe celebrating our relationship with others, and it hasn't always been easy, but we have never shied away from affirming who and what we are, and the effect has been universally positive. Attitudes and behaviors have change in some people, others have felt permission to ask questions, to tell us about themselves or their gay friends, and all of them undoubtedly have relayed the close encounter with a gay couple from America to all of their family members.

So, stories about the very happy, funny, likeable and generous gay men who have been together for 32 years and who were married in Canada, are being repeated in some of the poorest and most remote parts of the world. The probable impact is that more than a few gay children in those homes or neighborhoods are now aware that they are not alone and that there is hope that one day they too might find love with a same sex person. It's also likely that the Peruvian porter who is explaining to his wife where he got the brand new sleeping bag will react less fearfully if he discovers that his son or daughter is gay.

There is a seismic global cultural climate change on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues. You can see it and feel it even in countries such as Singapore that prohibit homosexual sex. The marketplace is making such rapid change possible, but it is the coming out process that is ensuring that attitudes and behaviors toward gay people improve.

All gay, lesbian, and bisexual people are messengers of same sex intimacy. We all put faces on the issue for others. If we hide who we are, the face is one of shame. If we gently but firmly celebrate who we are, the face is one of dignified love.
    
When Ray and I got back to our hotel tonight after a celebratory dinner with my Merrill Lynch hosts during which we toasted the success of my presentations on gay issues, the concierge informed us that a package had been dropped off for us. It was a gift from our former secret service cab driver. There was no note inside, just the address on the outside to "Mr. McNaught and Buddy."

Our underwear is still getting washed out in the sink, but it's a small inconvenience as we stand in our "Paradise" bedroom and smile at a rainbow over Lake Wakatipu and a mountain range near where Frodo saved Sam from drowning.  

Air New Zealand lost three of our four bags somewhere between Los Angeles and Aukland, but the one we did get had in it the dark chocolate from Kilwin's, so I'm happy.

Ray and I are the only same-sex couple staying at the Blanket Bay lodge outside of Queenstown, but it was built and is owned by Tom Tusher, the former President and COO of Levi Strauss, a pioneering company on gay workplace issues, so we feel at home. Nevertheless, the Indian massage therapist from the UK who worked on my shoulder knots this morning commented,  "Your friend told me that he'll be waiting in the spa. Are you guys brothers?"

"No," I replied, "he's my partner," to which she answered, "You look so much alike. " We don't, but the question allows people to explain the intimacy between us that they see. (My soon-to-be-published book by the same name explores this phenomenon further.)

I used to feel very lonely on vacations and work-related trips such as this, but not so much anymore. I used to think that Ray and I were the "odd men out," but the reality is that we're actually more "in" than anyone else. We're the only ones who engage other travelers and are engaged by them in conversation. It's not a matter of "gay vs straight" in the dining room today, but rather shy vs. outgoing, or frightened vs. confident. Unless they're rabid social conservatives, (who fortunately aren't often encountered among other tourists), most heterosexuals we meet are eager to talk because they pick up that we're fun, friendly, happy people to know who might be more interesting than the sullen straight couple two tables over.

After lunch today, we're going for a hike. Tomorrow, hopefully in clean and different clothes, we're taking a helicopter ride through the spectacular Milford section of the country where much of "The Lord of the Rings" was filmed. We'll hike again tomorrow afternoon, and the next day kayak for four hours down a fast-moving river. We fly on Thursday to an isolated eco-lodge in Abel Tasman National Park in the northern section of the southern island in which we will kayak and swim with the seals.

The New Zealand segment of our trip is an early celebration of my 60th birthday. We then fly to Melbourne, Sydney, and Singapore where I'm giving a series of talks on gay and transgender issues to the senior leadership of Merrill Lynch, the latter being the first such presentations of the kind for any such audience.

Those are all fun and interesting things to talk about. So, if you were straight and sitting next to us at breakfast in any one of these places and you suspected that Ray and I were gay, you might break the ice by asking "Are you guys brothers?" but after learning the wonderful truth, wouldn't you really rather talk to us about our lives than to the straight couple nearby who are bickering, whining, and who plan to spend their day retrieving e-mails?

One of my regrets with my folks and Ray's folks was that they only grew to accommodate us being gay rather than celebrating it. If they were with us in the dining room on this trip and heard us asked, "Are you guys brothers?" they might have secretly wished that we would simply say "Yes," so as to avoid feelings of discomfort. They never learned to have real fun with us being gay and with the very interesting and rewarding lives we have.

Fortunately, today the world has changed enough that there is no reason to assume as a gay person that you have to endure loneliness on a vacation or business trip when you're surrounded by heterosexuals. Because gay people throughout the world are coming out and putting such wonderful faces on the issue, and because we are growing in our confidence that we have something valuable to share, we're less likely to feel accommodated than celebrated at the breakfast table as people communicate their awe of the rainbow, and learn that you're wearing the same, though washed, underwear that you had on yesterday.

Ray and I are having a ball in the beautiful land of Frodo, and we're doing so as self-affirming and valued members of the fellowship.

Many years ago, when I was in Burlington, Vermont to speak, I met a married man who confided in me that he was gay. We walked and talked at length, I met his wife and young children, and we stayed in touch for several years as he and his family worked through the recognition of his homosexuality. A few days ago, he sent me a DVD recording of an interview he did on local television with Sharon Underwood, the mother whose deeply moving letter to the editor about her gay son was circulated around the world and generated an enormous international response of affirmation.

Prior to viewing the interview, Ray and I re-read the powerful piece that appeared in her local newspaper at the time when Vermonters were debating, often angrily and cruelly, the issue of civil unions for same-sex couples. We were so glad that we did so. It had been a few years since Sharon had captured our hearts with her “roar” against those who would further victimize her beloved child with their hateful words. How we both had wished at the time that our own mothers or fathers had written the same letter. My guess is that gay people throughout the world felt the exact same thing when they read her epistle. More so than us, whose parents eventually grew time to support us, what must have the gay children of Vice President Cheney, and rabid American social conservatives such as Tony Perkins, Phylis Shaffley, and Alan Keyes felt when they saw a parent so vigorously defend her gay child without compromise?

Sharon Underwood wrote:

Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I've taken enough from you good people.

I'm tired of your foolish rhetoric about the "homosexual agenda" and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny. My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay. He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called "fag" incessantly, starting when he was 6.

In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn't bear to continue living any longer, that he didn't want to be gay and that he couldn't face a life without dignity.

You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don't know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn't put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it's about time you started doing that.

At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won't get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don't know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn.

If you want to tout your own morality, you'd best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I'm puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that's not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?

A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I'll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for "true Vermonters."

You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn't give their lives so that the "homosexual agenda" could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart.

He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn't the measure of the man.

You religious folk just can't bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance. How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage.

You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin. The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about "those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing" asks: "What ever happened to the idea of striving . . . to be better human beings than we are?"

Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that?

My friend's television interview with Sharon Underwood was a wonderful tribute not only to her but also to the power of her witness to a mother’s love. She didn’t singlehandedly calm the turbulent religious and political waters in Vermont at the time of the debate but her words opened many, many minds, and healed many, many wounds not only there but across the globe.

Ray and I felt very personally connected to her, to her letter, and to her interview in two significant ways. The first is that we went to Vermont on our 25^th anniversary as a couple and had our civil union recognized by the state. It was an extraordinarily affirming experience for us, never to be forgotten. Secondly, at the end of the program, the friend who came out to me in whispers many years ago, looked into the camera, smiled, and proudly shared with Sharon and with his audience that he too was gay, something he had not yet stated so publicly. It was a powerful moment for him, for Sharon, and for us.

Please share Sharon’s letter with any gay person or parent of a gay person you know, no matter where in the world you are reading this. You will never know what an incredible source of support it will provide them. Also, please get in touch with me if you have any comments, questions, or stories of your own to share, at www.brian-mcnaught.com.

The term “bisexual” does not imply sexual activity, only sexual attraction, and that attraction is generally not evenly split. Most bisexuals have a predominant attraction to one sex, most bisexuals don’t have significant experience with both sexes, and most bisexuals end up labeling themselves as either “straight” or “gay.” The majority of bisexuals who label themselves as “straight” are men. The majority of bisexuals who label themselves as “gay” are women.

There’s a new poll by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), in conjunction with Hunter College, which has created a stir in the gay community because half of those who identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual were actually bisexual. The bisexual women outnumbered the bisexual men two to one.

Men, gay and straight, tend to scoff at the concept of bisexuality more than do women. Women seem less threatened by the concept, and less fearful of acknowledging their own feelings. But globally, more men than women have probably had more bisexual experience.

Many gay and straight people are suspicious of the label of “bisexuality,” sensing that the person is having trouble embracing the label “gay.” While it’s true that some gay people, myself included, have used the term “bisexual” as a way of wading rather than plunging into the waters of sexual identity, the opposite is probably true when you take into account all people who say they’re “gay.” There are more formerly-married bisexual men who say they are “gay” and more formerly-married bisexual women who say they are lesbian than there are gay people who claim to be bisexual. And, as previously suggested, there are far more bisexual men who say they are straight than there are bisexual men who say they are gay.

There is tension over this issue in the gay, lesbian, and bisexual community because self-proclaimed bisexuals feel marginalized and are angry at others in the community for hiding behind the “gay” and “lesbian” label. Feminist lesbians often see bisexuality talk and behavior by their sisters as a betrayal. Bisexual men who come out of marriages and out as “gay,” become “super gay,” like religious converts. Some embrace the term “gay” because it eliminates any questions about why they didn’t try harder to stay in the marriage. As there is no “bisexual community” per se, it is easier to find friends when you don’t confuse them with the ambiguity represented by bisexuality. While Woody Allen saw it as a way of doubling your options for a date on Saturday night, it also can cause concern when a person considers committing him or herself to an individual who is turned on by both sexes.

As women and men tend to conceptualize sex differently, with women generally seeing it as an expression of feelings, and men generally seeing it as a source of pleasure, and as women and men have very different experiences of orgasm, with women often not having an orgasm through traditional penal-vaginal intercourse and men equating it with ejaculation and having a long history of self-pleasuring, there is an enormous gender chasm when men from Mars and women from Venus try to talk about “sexual expression.” One may be thinking about a “blow job” at a rest stop and the other is thinking of cuddling with a soul sister.

Is sex really sex without an orgasm? Is sex really sex without desire? Is sex and “love-making” the same? What constitutes "sex"? Some teenagers, and some politicians, think that oral sex is not sex. Some teenagers who have pledged to maintain their virginity until marriage insist that anal sex does not violate their promise. Some men feel that it’s not "gay" to receive oral sex from a man but that it would definitely be "gay" to give oral sex to another man. The opposite would be true about anal sex between men. There it is better to give than to receive.

Some men can have sex with other men and not think of it as “gay” as long as they don’t kiss. Some women can kiss other women and not think of it as “lesbian” as long as they don’t touch each other’s genitals. For some people, if you think about doing something, you’re guilty of having done it. For others, thinking is guilt free. It’s okay, and maybe even normal, for instance, for a man to think about having sex with another man, but that doesn’t make him gay or bisexual. It would only count if he actually did it.

What does all of this have to do with “bisexuality?” Everything! If we can’t agree on terminology and definitions, how can we have a rational discussion?

When we talk about heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality, we’re really talking about sexual orientation (our feelings of attraction,) sexual behavior (what we “do” sexually), and sexual identity (how we label ourselves privately and publicly.) I suggest that the vast majority of the population of the world is bisexual in its orientation. Again, that only means that the vast majority of the population has the capacity to experience pleasure, to a greater or lesser degree, if free of all social and religious taboos, with both sexes. Bisexuality is NOT a social construct. In other words, it has always existed and will always exist in humans and in every other species of mammal regardless of cultural influences.

That does not mean that the majority of the population of the world will act on those feelings of attraction. For a variety of reasons – religious beliefs, stability of the family unit, cultural attitudes, shyness, poor self-esteem, fear of the unknown, the hunger for community, etc – people choose their behaviors. They also choose their sexual identity, which is a social construct. The words “gay” "lesbian," "bisexual," "heterosexual," and "homosexual," didn’t exist 1,000 years ago. That doesn’t mean that people didn’t have same-sex behavior, but they didn’t call it “gay” or “homosexual.” Today, it is an identity that allows people the opportunity to create a “lifestyle” for themselves that better meets their needs than was possible for their homosexual ancestors. They can create “gay” newspapers, bars, political organizations, religious groups, and vacation destinations. So too can bisexuals, but they have done so less successfully.

So, what is a bisexual? It is a person who has the capacity to experience sexual pleasure with both sexes, whether or not they act on it, and whether or not they acknowledge it. That describes most people.

(If you have comments or questions, please know that I’d love you to visit me at www.brian-mcnaught.com.)

 

     Tonight’s the magical night of our family Christmas dinner. Tonight we gather with Ann and Harriet, and Tom and David for our annual evening of holiday gift giving, good food, and a lively game of Hearts. We do so in a living room lit by abundant candles and a nine foot decorated tree, a mantle filled with twinkle lights, leaves, and fruit, and snow-covered trees and angels from every culture in every corner.

     The center of the dining room table is Santa’s Village where a moving train circles a North Pole scene of reindeer being readied for their flight, elves carrying gifts and candy canes, and Santa reading over his list. Snowflakes hang from the chandelier, almost touching the snow-covered trees that fill each open space. Red, handmade place cards with snowflakes designate seating. Large elves sit at the side of each plate. These will be taken home as tokens of remembrance.

     We’ll start with gift-giving. Ann will have her Diet Coke and a slice of lemon. David and Harriet will each have one glass of Merlot. Tom will drink a Diet Dr. Pepper. Ray will have his Diet Pepsi, and I’ll have water without ice, but with a slice of lemon. Ann will gather all of the discarded wrapping paper as the others join me in the kitchen and dining room to serve the meal. Everyone has a task and knows it well.

     This evening, we’re starting with artichokes and a wonderful dipping sauce of curry, sour cream, lemon, mayonnaise, garlic, and cumin. Cream of spinach soup is the second course. Each bowl will be garnished with slivered almonds. For the main course, we’re having tomato cheese pie, asparagus, and a sliced avocado and melon salad.

     We’ll then head upstairs for a game of Hearts. In addition to the traditional rules, we play that the ten of spades is ten points against you and the jack of diamonds is ten points off your score. On the table will be jellied fruit slices and dark chocolate turtles. After a round or two of cards, Ray will serve his homemade Christmas cookies, shaped like snowflakes and covered with white icing.

     The evening will end by nine. Ray and I will have little to do, because everyone stays until all of the dishes are done and the house is put back in order. In a week, we’ll do this again here on Christmas Eve with Tom and David, and Tom’s parents George and Kate. The next day, we’ll join them in their home for dinner and gift giving. Ann and Harriet will be back in Massachusetts for the holiday with their four beloved grandchildren and children.

     As I write all of this, I have vivid images of Barbara Stanwyck typing her fabricated description of the make-believe Christmas she planned for her imaginary farm in Connecticut. In the next scene of Christmas in Connecticut a wounded GI in an infirmary is reading her description aloud and salivating at the thought of such a sumptuous meal being consumed in such a romantic setting. He longed to share in her dream. As anyone who has seen the holiday classic film knows, he gets his wish and she has to quickly figure out a way to find a farm in Connecticut for Christmas and create a meal she is ill-prepared to do.

     When I imagine someone reading the description of my plans for tonight, I imagine them saying, “Hey, honey, read this. It’ll give you a toothache.”

     I agree. The description of our magical family gathering is so sweet that unless you know it to be true, it will give you a toothache. And even trusting that it’s true, you may still feel that I and my friends are hopeless romantics caught in a time warp and out of touch with the plight of the rest of the world. You’d be wrong about most of that, but you might feel that.

     I am a romantic when it comes to the holidays. Traditions hold a lot of meaning for Ray and me. We don’t cling to them but we enjoy them.

     When December 26 comes, we’re very ready for the holidays to be over. In fact, Ray and I traditionally take down the tree and clean out the house and yard of all decorations that day. No more Christmas carols are allowed in our home for another 11 months. “Thank you” notes are written for gifts received, and the clean calendar for the New Year is opened with delight. But between Thanksgiving and Christmas, romance rules the day.

     Every year, I make turkey soup from the carcass of the Thanksgiving bird and we have the soup the night the tree is decorated a couple of weeks later. Friends now look forward to that event.

     Every year, we decorate the outside and inside of the house, tastefully I’d say, with white lights, wreaths, old fashioned Santa figures, greens, red ribbons, angels, crèches, and candles. Every year the centerpiece of the dining room table is elaborate and whimsical.

     The goal is to create holiday magic so that we and everyone who enters our home has every fantasy about the holidays they’ve had since childhood fulfilled. “This is a winter wonderland,” a friend said yesterday when entering our Ft. Lauderdale home. Success!

     Every year, we hang from our mantel stockings knitted by an 80-year-old Polish woman in Concord, MA, thirty years ago. We asked her to make five, one for each of us, one for our gay brothers David and Tom, and one for our Irish Setter at the time, Jeremy. Stockings are filled with small wrapped gifts, each with an obtuse description of what’s within. When I was a child, stockings were opened on Christmas Eve, along with gifts from one another. Santa’s gifts arrived on Christmas morning, and were opened quickly before we went to Mass.

     Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we celebrate Hanukkah with Harriet and Ann. Harriet didn’t really celebrate Hanukkah as a child, but has adopted it as her gift to all of us each year. She fills the table with deli-bought corned beef, chicken salad, chopped liver, herring, potato pancakes, matzo ball soup, Koogler, and assorted other delicacies.

     Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Ray and I also watch a series of seasonal films. Our favorite is A Christmas Carol with Alastair Sim. We also love It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, White Christmas, Scrooge, The Bishop’s Wife, and, of course Christmas in Connecticut, among others.

     On Christmas Eve, we always have potato-leek soup. This year, I plan to serve George and Kate, and Tom and David, salmon, spinach-cheese pie, and beets. (You have to get red and green on the plate somehow.)  We’ll play Hearts with George and Kate that evening too.

     On Christmas morning, Ray and I will have a wonderful Danish kringle that we order from O and H Bakery in Wisconsin, something that I’ve had over the holidays since I was a child. Ray will make himself a large coffee and me a hot chocolate. We’ll then open our gifts to each other. We’ve cut back a bit, so it doesn’t take all morning any longer, but it’s lots of fun. We’ll then have bacon and eggs, a once-a-week treat, clean up, watch a holiday movie that makes us cry, and go to Tom and David’s festive home next door for gift giving with Kate and George and Tom and David, then a delicious ham dinner, and a great game of Hearts.

     Add to those rituals weeks of packages arriving and packages being sent, wrapping each other’s gifts in secret and hiding them under designated beds, cards written and cards received, calls made and calls received, visits to friends and visits from friends, and you get the feel of the holidays at our house. It’s all lots of fun. It’s all very exciting to create. It’s all very tiring. And as much as we love it, we’re glad to put the boxes of decorations away for another year.

     We have no illusions that this is how everyone celebrates Christmas. Our good friend Paul Shanley is in prison and we know he experiences the holidays very differently than we do. There are thousands of local people who can’t afford to buy gifts for their children. There are millions of gay and straight people without anyone to share a meal. So we don’t take our lives for granted nor do we take our bounty lightly. We do whatever we can to improve the conditions of those who are less fortunate than us, and we commit ourselves to enjoying each moment we have together.

     Ray and I make no assumptions about the New Year. We hope to have another Christmas together and we hope our current friends stay close. But things change. They always do. That’s life. Yet, regardless of how circumstances change, we can still keep the romance of the season in our hearts. We can make turkey soup when we put up the tree or open a can of Progresso when we decorate the artificial tabletop one. We can make our potato-leek soup for Christmas Eve or rely on Campbell’s for the next best thing. And if we’re all alone, we can have that soup on a folding table in front of the television and watch Christmas in Connecticut and remember that whether it’s fantasy or reality, the joy comes in allowing the magic into your hearts and minds, if just for the moment, and even if it gives you a toothache.

    From our house to yours, best wishes for a magical holiday season. 

A piece in a recent edition of The Economist states that Americans are nearly twice as likely today to live in a community dominated by their own political beliefs than they were thirty years ago. Forty-eight percent of Republicans choose to live among other Republicans, and 48% of Democrats choose to live among other Democrats. That's true for Ray and me. Four years ago, we moved from Naples, Florida, which is in one of the most conservative Republican counties in the state, to Ft. Lauderdale, which is in one of the most progressive Democrat-dominated Florida counties. But it wasn't just to get away from the people who in the middle of the night put Bush bumper stickers on our Gore street sign, one of only a few in the entire town. We moved to be nearer to other emotionally healthy gay people, to "family." And, what's wrong with that?

           Our straight friends and fellow Unitarian congregants in Naples, whom we loved, verbally lamented our move. "Stay here," they pleaded. "We need you. You can make a difference in Naples. In Ft. Lauderdale, you'll be just another liberal gay Democrat among a bunch of other liberal gay Democrats who don't need any further education. Fight the fight where it's happening." Our out gay friends there, limited in number as they are, understood completely. "Save us a spot," many of them, even those who vote Republican, said. "We'll be there soon."

          It's hard for a plant to live, much less to grow, in soil that is toxic. There are plants than can survive without sun and in the most challenging and unforgiving growing conditions. Throughout the United States and the world there are heroic out gay men and women who refuse to leave their countries or home towns just because it doesn't feel safe or welcoming. Their work, their families, their historic roots, their partner, and even their stubborness keeps them where they are. If they are out and emotionally healthy, they put a critically important face on the issue for all of us, and they impact the thinking of their neighbors and colleagues in a way that none of us can do from the comfort of our gay ghettoes. I did such work in Detroit for several years, but I got burned out there and for the sake of my survival, I needed to move.

          Today, Ray and I live in two of the most beautiful, the most gay-populated, and the most progressive communities in the world, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and Provincetown, Massachusetts. We walk hand in hand, kiss our same-sex friends "hello" and "goodbye" on the street, go to gay-themed films that don't show in Naples, write letters to the editor without worrying about being harassed, and put up our "Hillary" sign without fear that it will be defaced. It feels wonderful to breathe so freely, to be represented by politicians (the outgoing mayor of Ft. Lauderdale being the exception) who support you, and to read editorials that champion your cause. It's rich loam in which we grow today, but it wasn't always so.

          Ray grew up in Wichita, Kansas. I grew up in Flint and Birmingham, Michigan. In our thirty-two years together, we've lived in Brookline and Gloucester, Massachusetts, Hillsborough, New Hampshire, Atlanta, Georgia, New York City, San Francisco, and Naples, Florida. In New Hampshire, we were the only gay people on the block, and when we were packing up to move away, a neighbor, with the help of scotch, slurred that we were great guys but that no one wanted us to move in when we did. An elegant Southern neighbor, a courtly gentleman, smiled and waved at us on the street but whispered with disgust to other neighbors that we were "professional homosexuals." In Brookline, someone left a sign above all of the mailboxes in our apartment bulding foyer that read "Get out of town McNaught. I hope you die of AIDS." In Naples, when the local newspaper carried a report on our marriage in Canada, one phone caller referred to us a "pipe smokers," a term I had not heard before.

          Intolerance can be found everywhere, even in Provincetown and in Ft. Lauderdale, but it is less likely to be experienced there than it is in Wichita or Flint. There are good heterosexual Republicans living in Naples, but I got worn down by having every social situation end up being a "teachable moment." I love educating others about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues. I've done so gratefully and enthusiastically for my entire adult life, and I have often faced hostile or unwelcoming audiences throughout the United States and in the rest of the world, but that's what I'm paid to do. When I wear a "Provincetown" T-shirt to the grocery store, though, I don't want to be confronted with "I hate that place," as I was in Naples. "Why?" I asked the middle-aged woman in the produce section. "I'd rather not say," she replied after eyeing me up and down. I want to go to the grocery store, to church, and to dinner in a restaurant and feel safe, welcome, understood, and valued.

          I admire people who make the conscious choice to stay where they are to educate others, as opposed to those who stay out of fear of the unknown, but during this period of my life, I don't want to have to work so hard during my play time. And I know that there is a big difference between out gay people and emotionally healthy gay people. You can be out and not emotionally healthy, but not emotionally healthy and not out. To heal our psychic wounds, and to create a life that allows us to grow to our full potential, requires that we surround ourselves with emotionally healthy gay and unconditionally affirming straight people. In my life, they both tend to be Democrats, and sometimes I have to pull up roots to find them.

On our daily walk this morning, Ray and I were stopped by a passer-by who asked "Are you guys brothers?" Like most gay men I know, we get the question all of the time regardless of where in the world we are. We look nothing alike, but people pick up an intimacy that they want to label. The first thing that comfortably comes to their mind is "family."

Ray and I have been together for 31 years, and we are a family, but we're not related by birth. My experience, though, is that the family that we choose for ourselves is generally far more a source of love and support for us than the family into which we were born. For many gay men and lesbian women, Thanksgiving underscores this truth dramatically.

Sadly, I know of gay and lesbian couples who split up during the holidays to spend the day with their biological families rather than their logical families. Ray and I have not been apart for any holiday since we met. We have traveled together to spend Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, or New Year's Eve with parents and grandparents, but we have never allowed ourselves to be separated to accommodate someone else's expectations or traditions.

Our Thanksgiving table this year will be an intergenerational family affair. Our four best friends will be there. Tom and David, and Ann and Harriet, are essential components of our sense of belonging. Ann and Harriet are in their early-sixties. Ann is an old gay political hack like myself. Harriet, who reminds me of Mrs. Santa Claus, was previously married. Together, they have two daughters, two son-in-laws, and four grandchildren who are the center of their lives.

Tom, who reminds me of Tigger in Winnie the Pooh, is in his mid-forties, and David, more like a lovable Eyore, is a year younger than me, at 58. We travel with them, share a home lot with them, and see abundant movies with them.

We all have homes in Ft. Lauderdale and in Provincetown. We get together in each other's kitchens for dinner and a game of Hearts at least twice a week throughout the year. We love them dearly and we all count on each other for emotional support, such as two weeks ago when Ann was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time in a dozen years. At dinner last night, Harriet asked to say the grace before our meal. She thanked us all for being there emotionally for the two of them. "I have always known that I could count on you," she said, "but this time you blew me away."

Tom's parents, Kate and George, will also be at our Thanksgiving table. George is a walking miracle, having survived a stroke, a heart attack, cancer, and emphyzema. He's in his mid-70s, as is Kate, a retired grammar school teacher, who hums music all day. They have become good friends and big fans of my books on gay issues.

Harriet and Ann's daughter Jennifer, a young but highly-respected attorney in Boston, her husband Steve, who has a gay brother, and their two remarkably bright and enjoyable children, Ben and Elizabeth, will bring our numbers to an even dozen.

The dining room table was set on Monday, which was a great source of relief and joy, as I've been laying in bed at night for weeks thinking about its design. This year's theme is "Carnival," and the table is filled with antique roller coasters, Ferris wheels, and merry-go-rounds. It also has concessions, like clay duck shooting and bump 'm cars that move and make noise. There are ten fall trees with orange leaves, assorted clowns, popcorn stands, and other sources of magic. Each place has a small feathered turkey which are gifts to take home. Everyone is excited about seeing the display. The neighbors have been coming in two by two to ooh and ahh.

I'm cooking two 13 pound turkeys that will be brined in vegetable broth tonight. I've also started my gravy and dressing , and have cooked the butternut squash and rutabega. Ray, the handsome and charming love of my life, is making two pumpkin/pecan pies. Tom and David are bringing mashed potatoes and brussel sprouts. Kate has made her cranberry sauce, and Harriet and Ann are bringing simis, a wonderful Jewish sweet potato and prune casserole.

My biological family will each be in their own homes. My brother Tom will be with his spouse Matthew. My sister Kathy will have her three grown children and their partners, and Maureen will be with her two teenage boys. We used to call each other every Thanksgiving but most of us have drifted apart, something that I never would have thought possible. The same is true for Ray and his family. There won't be any calls to his five surviving brothers, one of whom is in Bangladesh. Our parents have all died, which is perhaps why we no longer stay in touch with all of our siblings (though Kathy has e-mailed me twice in the past twelve hours asking for my gravy recipe and instructions on cooking rutabega.)

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it revolves around family, good food, and an awareness that we all have something for which we can be thankful. From our multigenerational table of gay people and straight people, men and women, Democrats and liberal Republicans, we wish you and yours a wonderful day.