We've made so much progress over the past four decades that it's
easy to forget how far we still have to go. You can see that in the
marriage fight, where gay relationships are routinely equated with
the destruction of civilization. But you can see it more clearly, I
think, in day-to-day life.
I live in Minneapolis, one of the most politically liberal
places in the country. Minnesota has a statewide law protecting
gays from discrimination in employment, housing, and public
accommodations. Minneapolis has three openly gay city council
members, the largest proportion of any major city in the country. A
Republican couldn't get elected dog catcher in this town. My
employer, the University of Minnesota, offers same-sex domestic
partners' benefits to employees.
Not long ago I briefly dated a guy living in San Francisco. He
came to visit me in Minneapolis for a long weekend, during which we
did the kinds of things that dating couples do in order to get to
know one another better. We went out to eat. We went to the movies.
We walked together down the street and in the mall.
He lives in the Castro and when he dates people he's used to
holding hands, kissing, hugging, showing affection in dozens of
little ways. And he gives no thought to doing these things in
public places. Yet when we did these things in public in liberal
Minneapolis, the reception we got ranged from cold disapproval to
open hostility.
In one of my favorite neighborhood restaurants, while we were
waiting in line to order, he hugged me from behind and lingered
there a few moments. The wait-staff shot us nervous looks, like
they feared we might start sodomizing each other right next to the
lamb kebobs. Some guy walked by us singing to his portable CD
player, and spelled aloud the word "G-A-Y" as if it were part of
the song.
Driving back from a movie, I put my arm around my date's
shoulders. Several other drivers slowed down beside us to take a
closer look at my car, a 1959 Chrysler Windsor. When they noticed
my arm around my date their appreciative attitudes changed. The
nice ones pointed us out to their friends and laughed, then sped
ahead. A couple of carloads of young men were more menacing,
throwing paper cups and even empty bottles of beer at my car.
At the zoo, walking down the street, and in the mall, we held
hands at several points (always at my date's initiative). Each time
we got nasty looks. We would pass someone, then I'd turn my head
and see that they were looking back at us and whispering to each
other. A few parents turned their children away from us, as if we
were contagious, harmful on sight.
All in all, in the space of a few days, things like this
happened more times than I can count. At the end of the weekend, I
apologized to him. I was embarrassed. I felt terrible that I
brought him out of a place where he could be himself to a place
where being himself meant living with a constant sense of low-level
danger. There was no way I could ever ask him to leave San
Francisco to come to this place. There being no future, we stopped
dating.
Sad as I was about that, I was mostly stunned. Though I knew
things weren't perfect here, I had not experienced anything like it
in the five years I'd lived in Minneapolis. Had all this really
happened in my cocoon of tolerance and acceptance, my liberal
bastion? Had it been a fluke, an unlucky weekend of chance
encounters with the only ignoramuses around?
Then it dawned on me why it had happened that weekend in
Minneapolis, but not before. In previous dating relationships, all
with men from the area, my dates and I had censored our public
conduct in ways to avoid these problems. We'd engaged in little or
no hugging, or hand-holding, or other obvious signs of affection in
public. We had held back without even realizing it. It was second
nature to us.
My San Francisco date, however, hadn't been properly trained in
this way. He had initiated each of these shameless, heedless
displays and I had somewhat nervously gone along with them. He felt
free in a way I never really have.
What does this atmosphere do to gay people who live outside a
few square blocks of freedom in a few big cities? What effect does
it have on our chances of forming lasting relationships? When
straight couples need a touch of reassurance, they hold hands
without a thought. A husband will casually lean over and plant a
kiss on his wife. These gestures, mild and routine as they are,
help sustain a relationship. Yet for gay couples they are social
faux pas, perhaps an invitation to abuse.
The truth is, there's a deep aversion to gay people that will
not be eliminated by enlightened laws. It's a gut-level disgust
that defies rationalization, that resists education, that fears
without thinking. The laws that rule our lives are not written on
statute books; they are written on hearts. And the heart of this
country, in the heart of this country, is still darker than many of
us had hoped it would be by now.