There are forty-three leather-bound photo albums in our bookcase which chronicle the life Ray and I have made or experienced together since May 4, 1976. From the beautiful woods of St. Joseph’s Abbey, the Trappist monastery in Western Massachusetts where which we would annually cut down our Christmas tree, to a remote village in Ghana where we enthusiastically joined the locals in festively flapping our elbows in a “chicken” dance, the photos capture two young men who are working hard but happily to find or create a safe place for their intimate love.

     Jeremy, our Irish setter, now buried beneath a pine tree in Gloucester near the grave of our canary, Bing Crosby, appears in most of the activities of our first thirteen years. Brit, our yellow Lab, now buried beneath the pine tree in Provincetown, was with us for fifteen more. They appear in hundreds of photos.

     There are shots of Ray and me, with Jeremy at our side, young and excited, stringing popcorn and cranberries as the primary ornaments of our earliest Christmas trees in Boston, and of Ray and me, with Brit at our feet, older and yet still excited, trying to find space for the hundreds of accumulated ornaments, each with its own story, for the on-line purchased fresh tree in Florida three decades later. In one album, we have hippy-length hair and big smiles as we’re admiring pigs and sheep at the Deerfield Country Fair in New Hampshire, and in another our gray hair is cut stylishly short as we’re swimming with sea lions in the Galapagos in Ecuador.

     As we both love wildlife, there are abundant photos of them in the albums, a Noah’s Ark of lions, giraffes, whales, elephants, cows, horses, zebras, penguins, seals, turkeys, leopards, mountain goats, bear, moose, elk, salmon, water buffalo, monkeys, and chipmunks, to name just a few. There are also many photos of architectural and natural wonders – ancient ruins, cathedrals, waterfalls, canyons, fishing shacks, forests, monuments, rivers, and gardens.

     Mostly there are shots of friends – friends, friends, and more friends.

     I have fantasies of sitting with these sacred keepsakes on my lap as I lie in bed in old age and prepare for death. I want the luxury of slowly recalling the people, places, and things which have so influenced our lives and given it such flavor. Doing so will remind me, as I try to remind myself each day, of how extraordinarily blessed I have been to have had such an amazing life companion, to have lived in such wonderful cities and homes, to have visited so many interesting places, to have “followed my bliss” in work, to have found a spiritual path that was so rewarding, and to have encountered so many remarkable people who have generously allowed us to share in their lives and accepted the invitation to participate in ours. I’m particularly grateful for the friends, gay and straight, male and female, with whom we have shared ourselves so intimately.

     Our companions along the way have, for the most part, come and gone. Few faces which appeared regularly in the first assembled album are still in our lives today. Yet each plastic page holds the treasured images of people by whom we have been influenced and who we will never forget. They are grandparents, parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins, visitors to our homes, business colleagues, neighbors, and former strangers we have met on our vacations.

     There are photos of well-known actresses and actors, politicians, writers, network commentators and newscasters, children’s book authors, civil rights personalities, sexuality educators, and priests and nuns, as well as far less publicly-known, but generally more dear to us, social workers, house painters, librarians, teachers, real estate agents, house cleaners, decorators,  fishermen, lawyers, doctors, gardeners, retirees, and the unemployed, among others.

     Our parents and grandparents are all dead, as are two older brothers, and many, many of our friends. The particulars of all of the settings have changed too, as nothing in life stays the same. Our renovated homes in Brookline, Gloucester, Atlanta, New York, San Francisco, and Naples have all been altered by new owners, Walden Pond is more trafficked, as is Machu Pichu, the Mariposa Hotel in Costa Rica now caters to heterosexuals, other vacation havens have closed, Detroit has deteriorated, Wichita has grown, and all else moves on.

     Perusing these pages in bed in my old age will undoubtedly remind me of some of the lessons I have learned along the way. One, of course, is that everything changes. Another is to choose your friends wisely.

     We’re equally depressed by the persistent problem gay men have with sexually transmitted infections (STI). It horrifies us to hear from gay doctor friends that some young gay men, called “bug catchers,” actually want to be infected with HIV. Can anyone tell me what that’s about, other than self-hate?

     We read regularly in the newspaper with embarrassment and frustration that other gay men are so addicted to “getting it on” that they ignore common sense and all of the guidance they have been given on how to have safer sex. Young gay men always seem to be the group with the highest rates of infections. A straight black Seventh Day Adventist doctor colleague of mine, on the Surgeon General’s sexual health task force, told me with bewilderment about his encounter with a man who reported having sex with twenty men the night before. He came to a clinic in Miami to see if he was HIV-positive. When he learned that his test results were negative, he announced that he was heading back out for more action. This preoccupation with sexual gratification, we feel, is an addiction, a sad indication of a very troubled soul, and most certainly not the greatest contribution we gay people have to make to our civilization. While HIV may not cause their death, as it did so many of our gay male friends in the 1980s and early 1990s, including our former roommate Patrick, getting infected on purpose or by foolishness is nevertheless a horrible, horrible waste of life.

     It’s not that I don’t understand it all. As a walking-wounded gay man with an addictive personality and a need of affirmation and distraction, I know that I would have been fully capable of the exact same behaviors.

     I would have loved, for instance, to have had a buffed body and, if I did, I would have wanted to promenade down Commercial Street, showing it off to have it appreciated.    

     I would have also loved to have had sex with lots of the hunky, near-naked men I saw on the streets and at the beach, and if they had offered me a drug that would have made our time together the most physically pleasurable moment of my life, I would really have wanted to take it.

     If you got me into leather and I had found it enhanced my sexual experiences, as I suspect it might have, I would have played the sullen role too if I had thought it would have made me more appealing to my fantasy “daddy.”

     And I think I understand why the “baby dykes” don’t smile and say “hello” to anyone other than to each other when they arrive in Provincetown in the spring. They’re in the angry, separatist stage of their homosexual identity formation. I’ve had those feelings too, but there’s a big difference in all of these examples between having the feelings and choosing to act on them.

     It seems to Ray and to me, that finding and maintaining happiness in life as a gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or heterosexual person is really a matter of making choices that enable you to be happy. We all make (or don’t make) such choices every day.

     If Ray and I hadn’t chosen to make a life of growth together in 1976, if I had stubbornly chosen to remain single, and had never chosen to enter a recovery program as an alcoholic, I’d probably be dead by now. Ray believes the same would be true for him. Choosing to be in our relationship, and choosing to be clean and sober, has kept us alive - physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

     We’re not a model couple, as some would have us be. We’re two very flawed human beings who are working really hard to be in the world in a mutually creative, loving, and life-giving way. On a daily basis, we make hard choices that help make that possible.

     If Ray dies before me, I sometimes worry what will become of me. In our relationship now, I draw the strength to make positive choices. If he dies, will I choose to start smoking grass and drinking again? Will I choose to wildly sow my oats? Will I choose to reconnect with estranged friends and family members out of fear and insecurity?  I don’t think so. I know better now. But, who knows?

     Right now, we have each other’s support, and we give each other encouragement to control our impulses to engage in behaviors we feel would create suffering in our lives and to make wise decisions that enable us to be in the world in a way that brings us both great happiness and peace – not every day and not every minute of the good days, but often enough that the hard work it takes and the tough choices we make to be so constantly and intimately in each other’s lives are well worth the effort.

     Maybe it’s the effects of minor daily doses of Celexa and Wellbutrin, but, as I say, I’m very content with my life. I have enough of everything, and the wants are not for big pecs, or leather outfits, or multiple sexual encounters, or drug-induced ecstasy. I’m happy with the here and the now.

     One of the most powerful influences on my life’s joy is the spiritual guidance I have found in Buddhism and Taoism, and in the inspiration I get from the work of Joseph Campbell.

     Buddhism teaches me that we each create our own suffering and that happiness is found in being present to the moment in all its possible manifestations. Taoism reminds me not to cling or be filled with wants, as they create discontent. Joseph Campbell teaches me that it is okay to let go of religious precepts as long as I don’t abandon the spiritual path and continue to celebrate the many wonderful mysteries of life.

     And more centering than the opiates of science and faith, I am prone to continue smiling even at people who won’t smile back at me because of my safe haven in Ray. His love for me is very humbling. It anchors my every day and night. That’s not to say I want to be with him at all times. He’s no saint and there are lots of times that we both need our space. But we are soul mates, brothers in arms, and we’re never far away from one another in thought.

     One of the best things about the love we share, though, is that it is so liberating. The basic premise of our relationship is personal growth. For instance, if I wanted to go to the gym every day in the hopes of developing a body like the shirtless boys on the Fourth of July, Ray would encourage me to do so, never making me feel guilty for doing something stupid. But I don’t feel the need to go to the gym because I exercise sufficiently for my health, I’m in love with a man who has always loved my body just the way it is, and I have finally come to the point in my life where I do too. I’m not trying to turn any heads with my physique, and that allows me to smile and laugh and be silly in public, whether or not that’s considered “sexy.”

     If I wanted to wear leather and be put in a harness by a dungeon master, Ray would eagerly await the report of my adventure, but I know that if I found it very exciting, I would want to do it a lot. That’s the way addicts think, and behave, unless they’re in recovery. And if I did it a lot, I wouldn’t be home, holding hands with Ray as we watched television in bed. So, I make a choice.

     And if I came home HIV-positive, or with another sexually transmitted infection, Ray would research them on the Internet to find out what challenges we faced.

     The only thing I can think of that he wouldn’t accommodate is if I started drinking again, or began taking recreational drugs. He would hate to end the relationship, but my addiction would threaten his sobriety, which is something he protects without compromise. He would make that very tough choice.

     (For the record, I probably wouldn’t be as understanding and accommodating if Ray came home in a leather outfit, with a boyfriend, or with HIV. There’s a bit of a double standard in our house.)

     My decision to live my life with Ray, as I have said, has made all of the difference in the quality of my life. And it is a decision. We all have wants -- occasional yearnings to act out in “wild and crazy” ways. No one is exempt from the fear of death and a life of mediocrity. Everyone has the desire to leave an indelible mark, to stand out as unique, to experience life at its fullest. But we also all make decisions. We feel our feelings but we must choose our behaviors. The choices we make determine the quality of our lives.

     Our hope for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and other oppressed people throughout the world is that we all be free of the need to react to the pain and disappointments of our lives with self-destructive behaviors. We want all of those angry, tattooed, muscled and drug-dazed men, and all of those young brooding, separatist lesbians to remember themselves as sweet ten-year-olds who had dreams of living healthy, happy lives. There’s always time to choose to be happy.

     We’ve all felt the cruelty of the world in our lives, and our mothers could do nothing to protect us. Choosing as a gay person to take a pill to become heterosexual wouldn’t change that. We’re all walking wounded people, regardless of our orientation, gender identity, race, and economic or relational status. To enjoy the bodies, the time, and the lives we have, we needed to make choices that enhance our health and happiness. Perhaps the muscle boys, the leather men, and the young lesbians have found their health and happiness too, but if so, we wish they’d smile more, and maybe even wave back, just to let us know that they’re okay.   

     “If I could give you a pill that would make you a heterosexual, would you choose to take it?”

     The syndicated television talk show host was not being hostile. He was genuinely interested in better understanding the lives of gay people in his 1974 interview of me. The underlying question is “Do you like being gay, or would you choose to be straight?” Even more precisely, the question is, “Are you happy?”

     When I told my parents that I was gay, my mother cried and said in great pain, “Brian, the world is going to be awful to you and there’s nothing I can do to protect you.”

     She was right. Some people in the world would choose to be truly awful to me – death threats, harassing phone calls, obscene mail, open hostility during my college and corporate presentations, cruel comments in the press, icy silence from some formerly-close family members and friends – and there was nothing she could do to protect me, other than to remind me from time to time that she loved me, and be angered by how others, both straight and gay, responded so meanly to her sensitive middle child. But since coming out publicly at the age of 26 in 1974, I’ve never wanted, no matter how bad it got, to take a pill that would make me a heterosexual, if such a pill existed.

     Ray and I have absolutely no regrets. We’re gay men who truly and fully celebrate being who and what we are. We see being gay as a special gift to us, and we feel that we’ve had incredibly joyful, satisfying, and meaningful lives. We’re very, very happy being gay and we wholeheartedly wish that were true for all gay men and women in the world. But we sadly acknowledge that it isn’t.

     On the Fourth of July each year in Provincetown, the magical spit of sand at the tip of Cape Cod on which we have the privilege of living during the summer, head-turning muscular young gay men from throughout the country promenade shirtless down Commercial Street, showing off their hard work at the gym, but doing so, in most instances, without a single smile. If Ray and I try to make eye contact with, and smile at them, most of them will disdainfully look away, as if we were foolishly coming on to them sexually. Yet, we’re only trying to say, “Welcome to Provincetown.”

     I have often wondered why so many of them, from our perspective, look to be so unhappy, these formerly scrawny “sissies” who have pumped themselves up with weights and steroids. Perhaps they are happy and don’t want to show it. Ray and I have speculated that maybe there’s a secret “tribal” understanding that happy faces, except when induced by recreational drugs, are not considered masculine and sexually provocative.

     We’ve had a similarly sad and lonely experience with some gay men dressed in leather and with many college-age lesbians, both groups of which also have a designated week in this spectacularly beautiful “safe harbor” of humanity. The young women excitedly arrive for Memorial Day weekend, several with cases of beer and a visibly surly attitude toward men, gay or straight, even those of us who smile and say “hello.” Many of the older lesbians in town lay low during this spring “invasion” too. I’ve been told by some that they feel invisible or dismissed by the boisterous, partying younger women and feel, as we do, that it’s just not much fun to be around these particular gay people.

     The men in leather land in Provincetown in September, strutting half-naked down Commercial Street in the evening, despite the cool temperatures, in their elaborate, studded ensembles. It looks like fun, but despite what I have been told about the gay leather community being warm and welcoming, one wouldn’t guess that from looking at their faces. There frequently appears to be a conscious disregard for anyone not in their group’s costume, even for those of us who, once again, are smiling and just saying “hello.” Maybe looking angry is considered “sexy.”

    These experiences make Ray and me feel badly and a little disappointed. We feel badly for gay people who can’t smile with joy at other gay people, and we feel disappointed that after all of the years we all have worked to create a world where gay people could easily find emotional health and happiness, significant numbers of our community appear to have missed the opportunity or have rejected the choice to be happy.

     Ray and I are particularly heartsick when we see the impact that crystal meth and other “recreational” drugs have had on the lives of so many gay men, some of whom we know and love but can’t spend time with any more. We’re losing some of our best and brightest souls to this highly-addictive, destructive substance. Why do we have this epidemic of debilitating chemical abuse? It feels like mass suicide to us. Some friends claim that such drugs make it possible for them to feel an intense sense of brotherhood with other gay men. It seems to us though that the drugs they’re taking serve the sole purpose of helping them escape their very unhappy gay lives. How many of them would choose to take a pill that would make them straight, if such a pill existed?

I was an Altar Boy. I can recite from memory the Acts of Contrition, Faith, Hope, and Love, all of which I dutifully learned as a child. I still know by heart the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit. I was in a monastery for a short period of time. I went to Catholic schools for sixteen years. I worked at a Catholic newspaper for four years. I started a chapter of a gay Catholic organization and became the group’s National Director of Social Action. I taught religious education to school children after work. I won the Catholic Press Association’s award for Best Magazine Article of the Year. During my 17-day hunger strike and civil rights battle with the archdiocese, I was compared by one national Catholic columnist to saints of the Church. And, I advised the National Council of Churches and the United States Conference of Bishops on issues facing young adults. No one questioned my Catholic credentials. Thus, I was the perfect person to ask to ascend the stage and quiet the crowd that day when the Bible was burned in effigy.

Yet that same book in our home today is much less cherished than the dictionary, which makes sense because, from our perspective now, the Bible is a primary source of barbaric behaviors toward homosexuals, while the dictionary helps us on a daily basis to answer important questions. Beyond gay-bashing, the so-called “good book,” to us, is one of the two chief sources of justification of the world’s most evil actions. (The other is the Koran.) Rather than being a bridge to salvation, the book, as it is used, in our opinion, is more a major roadblock to the peace that Jesus promised us if only we would live our lives as he lived his.

The stories of the Old Testament, I feel, even if accurately recorded, trap people in cultural contexts that have nothing to do with their daily lives. Though written generally with the best of intentions, the Bible is an enormous cause of abuse - spiritually, emotionally, and physically – to gay people, women, people of color, Jews, and Muslims, among others. It and the Koran are the most inappropriately cited sources ever written. In the tortured lives of many people, the Bible is certainly not sacred, and therefore burning it is not sacrilegious. Doing so publicly might be really stupid, particularly during a national gay civil rights struggle when you’re trying to convince heterosexuals that you share many of their values. But, it’s not, in my view today, sacrilegious.

If other books can be burned, so too can the Bible. I would prefer not to cause emotional chaos in someone else’s life by doing so, just as I wouldn’t throw darts at a picture of the homophobic “saint” Pope John Paul II in front of devout Polish nuns, burn the American flag in front of my Reagan-loving father, or mock Mohammed in front of a fundamentalist Muslim. But the Bible is not beyond criticism and burning it, in my opinion, is far less abusive of it than misusing it to justify one’s biases.

Do I wish I hadn’t chastised the professor for burning the Bible? What I wish was that I hadn’t been so personally horrified by his actions. My emotional reaction was irrational, bordering on hysterical, like the young fundamentalist children in Jesus Camp. Why do we cling with so much fear to such “things” for meaning?

If the future of the world depends on any or all of us believing that Moses brought down the mountain tablets personally inscribed by God, or that Jesus rose from the dead, or that Mary assumed into Heaven in her earthly body, or that Joseph Smith met an angel in America who gave him golden tablets, or that Mohammed ascended into Heaven in a chariot pulled by winged horses, I think that we’re in big, big trouble. And if we can’t challenge religious mythology openly, and laugh about it if we find it funny, then, Zeus bless us, we’re in far worse spiritual and emotional shape than we might imagine.

Nothing should be taboo to discuss, if necessary outside the range of children. Ray and I cringe when we hear the word “nigger” but we recoil even further when we read “the n word.” We hate the word “faggot,” but please don’t start referring to it as “the f word.” Such behavior gives a simple word or event more power than we can possibly manage.

Is nothing sacred then? I do feel that some things ought to be protected at all costs. But they’re not made of paper, cloth, bread, or stone. They’re ideas, like perhaps the ones that each of us has the responsibility to work toward creating a world where every person is adequately clothed, sheltered, fed, and educated, that children have a right to their innocence, and that no one should be victimized because they are different. Why isn’t it considered sacrilegious that we expend so little time, money, and thought on these worthy endeavors? How can we spend billions of dollars every year to fight or to defend gay marriage, rather than investing that enormous amount of money in feeding and clothing the world’s desperately needy? These are burning questions for Ray and for me.

During a very large and highly-charged Gay Pride rally in the Boston Commons in 1978, right after the much-publicized, agonizing defeat of gay civil rights legislation in Miami at the hands of Anita Bryant, the keynote speaker, a local anarchist history professor, dramatically, in the heat of his rhetoric, threw a Bible into a burning cauldron. Prompted by the horrified jeers from most of the crowd, including from Ray and me, the rally organizers asked me to speak in response to his defiant, sacrilegious gesture. I chastised him from the stage for abusing a book that had great spiritual significance to the majority of us in attendance, and for resorting to a Nazi tactic to make his point. My comments were enthusiastically welcomed by most of the people in the crowd.

Thirty years later, I have to admit that if it happened again, I would be far less offended, and perhaps even amused by the professor’s theatrics. My offense today would come from his complete insensitivity to the feelings of religious gay men and women. My amusement would result from his utter audacity. It was harder for Ray and me then, than it is today, to laugh confidently at the inappropriate behavior of other gay people.

Yet, the speaker did get everyone’s attention and he provided me with a terrific benchmark to gauge my feelings about the Bible and other objects considered sacred by many people, such as the image of Mohammed, the American flag, and the consecrated host.

In my family’s home, and in Ray’s too, the Bible was far more important, but much-less used, than the dictionary. If it was to be handled, it would be done so with great respect. It was a holy book, the word of God. One wouldn’t dare write in the Bible other than to record births and deaths in the designated areas in its front or back pages. There would never be words underlined in pen or notations made in the margin. What needed emphasis or explanation was determined by the publisher, who did so with different colored inks and copious footnotes.

While the Old Testament never much held my interest, the words of Jesus, found in red type in the four Gospels, and a small handful of inspired writings by Paul, created my concept of God and guided my spiritual development. The Sermon on the Mount, in particular, seemed to me the crux of the book.

The Jesus that Ray and I met in the writings of the four evangelists was an amazing man, unlike any other in our lives. He was strong, tender, thoughtful, wise, non-judgmental, self-sacrificing, inclusive, focused, loving and forgiving. As such, we and Jesus became really good friends; the best of friends, even. He was nothing at all like the scary Frankenstein Jesus that has been put together clumsily but calculatedly by those who need a monster to enforce their fear-based biases. The Jesus with whom we both built an intimate relationship in our childhoods was a lover, not a hater. He was so cool, he could have been (and perhaps was) gay.

Although I didn’t memorize and quote biblical passages as a child, or read the “Good Book” from cover to cover, I was, by Catholic standards, a passionate disciple of Christ. When I watch programs such as Jesus Camp, the Oscar-nominated documentary in 2006 on the frightening extreme emotionalism of fundamentalist children, I see myself and the frenzy I could get into as a young Christian. The parents of my neighborhood friends at one time called my mom with the request that I quit trying to convert their children to Catholicism. In high school, I got the highest score they had ever recorded for social work in a standardized career preference test. (“Would you rather read a book to a sick friend than play outside?” Yes.) Though they took my name off the plaque when I identified myself as gay eight years later, I was the unanimous choice of the faculty for the Christian Leadership Award when I graduated from Brother Rice High School in 1966. At Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I was teasingly called “the dorm Catholic” because I went to Mass every day. Shortly after college, I wrote to U.S. Senator Phil Hart (D-MI) and told him in the strongest possible terms that the Holy Spirit had told me he should run for President of the United States. (He did not run, and to my great relief today, never responded to my letter.)

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.

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.)