How One Mother’s Love for Her Gay Son Started a Revolutn | The New Yorker

Contents:

• MOMMI DEART: MOTHERS AND GAY SONS ON FILM
• SALLY FIELD ON BEG A MOM WHO SUPPORTS HER GAY SON SPOILER ALERT
• GAY MEN AND THEIR MOTHERS: IS THERE A SPECIAL CLOSENS?
• HOW ONE MOTHER’S LOVE FOR HER GAY SON STARTED A REVOLUTN
• PARENTS OF GAY CHILDREN AND THE ISSU THEY FACE
• FOR A MOM, LEARNG TO ACCEPT A GAY SON WAS 'NONNEGOTIABLE'
• MOM'S GEICS COULD PRODUCE GAY SONS
• “MOM, DAD… I’M GAY.” A CHRISTIAN PARENT’S RPONSE
• I TRIED TO STOP MY SON OM BEG GAY. HERE’S WHAT I WISH I HAD KNOWN
• MOTHERS’ SUPPORT GAVE GAY SON LOVE TO LAST A LIFETIME
• MANY PARENTS STGGLE TO ADJT AFTER LEARNG CHILD IS GAY, STUDY FDS
• TO HELP GAY SON, 61-YEAR-OLD WOMAN GIV BIRTH TO OWN GRANDCHILD
• MY SON MIGHT BE GAY. WHAT SHOULD I SAY TO HIM?
• DEAR PARENT OF A GAY CHILD

MOMMI DEART: MOTHERS AND GAY SONS ON FILM

Montgomery Clift plays the doctor vtigatg the se and unwtgly be a stand- for the lost gay son and to, rpectively, Kathar Hepburn as Vlet and Elizabeth Taylor as Cathere. 's performance as gay son Tommy is one of the highlights of this terrific Thanksgivg-set edy, directed by Jodie Foster, about a fay that will likely make yours look a lot ls dysfunctnal. )But I'm a Cheerlear (1999)No homosexual rehab mp is plete whout a licly perverse mp director clad a Pepto-Bismol pk su and her hunky closet se of a son (the handyman) sportg sk-tight booty shorts.

Osr nomee Cathy Moriarty stars as Mary Brown, a wonrfully mpy June-Cleaver-gone-berserk type of homophobe who blatantly ignor her son Rock's (geo Eddie Cibrian) proclivy for strikg pos as he strok his garng tools for the viewg pleasure of the same gay teens who're supposed to overe their "afflictn" unr Mary's re. On TV, she won an Emmy for her portrayal of Abby's (Mra Tierney) schizophrenic mom on ER and another for starrg as a lovg mom (Nora Walker) to a gay son played by Matthew Rhys on Brothers and Sisters at a time when gay characters on prime time were rare.

SALLY FIELD ON BEG A MOM WHO SUPPORTS HER GAY SON SPOILER ALERT

In life, Field is an outspoken equaly activist for all margalized groups, and along wh her son Sam Greisman, who is gay, she's been particularly outspoken about phg to pass the Equaly Act, which would ban discrimatn on the basis of sexual orientatn, genr inty, and creds Brothers and Sisters shownner and Spoiler Alert wrer David Marshall Grant and director Michael Showalter (who directed her the die gem Hello, My Name Is Doris) for brgg her on to Spoiler Alert to play mom to Ben Aldridge's K and mother--law to Jim Parsons's Michael. "Throughout her storied reer, Field has played a teen surfer girl Gidget, an airborne woman of God The Flyg Nun, and a unn activist Norma Rae, but her first groundbreakg role as a mom to a gay son is the one that seems to ronate to most lately. She rells her son's g-out scene Brothers and Sisters, where Kev asks why she didn't jt ask him about beg gay if she knew, and she rponds that wasn't her journey to take.

Longtime ally and supporter of the Human Rights Campaign, Sally Field wrote a lengthy say scribg her son's experience g to his own as a gay man, and how important beg a part of that experience was to her.

"It's difficult for me to unrstand a fay member judgg or not lovg or acceptg another fay member bee they are gay, "Ally said an terview wh the Wdy Cy Tim, "It's like when a member of the fay marri someone who is of another race or relign. Ante Beng and Warren Beatty's son Stephen is a gay trans wrer, poet, and activist who's has also posted -pth about his experience and inty on YouTube (you n check out one of his vios here).

GAY MEN AND THEIR MOTHERS: IS THERE A SPECIAL CLOSENS?

Fortunately, for many mothers of gay son—wh time and tn, they learn that the ia that they had somehow ma their son gay is ad wrong This was te of the mothers my study who also me to see the benefs havg a gay son as will be scribed later this post. My rearch, clil and personal experienc suggt that there is ed a al lk between male homosexualy and a close maternal relatnship but flows the oppose directn than what was prevly thought. I thk personally [beg gay] ma me a more emotnal person, more sensive, more touch wh both the male and female sis of myself, but allowg me to even acknowledge that other si ma me closer to my mother.

However, we get to hot water when we allow stereotyp to get the way of unrstandg the uniquens of dividuals and their circumstanc—so is important to remember that not all mothers and gay sons are close.

HOW ONE MOTHER’S LOVE FOR HER GAY SON STARTED A REVOLUTN

They asked if they uld kiss her; they asked if she would talk to their parents; they told her that they uldn’t image their own mothers and fathers supportg them so publicly, or supportg them at woman’s name was Jeanne Manford, and she was marchg alongsi her twenty-one-year-old gay son, Morty. The anizatn they dreamed up that day, which started as a sgle support group Manhattan, was ially lled Parents of Gays; later, was renamed Parents FLAG, for Parents and Friends of Lbians and Gays; nowadays, is known only as PFLAG. The same year Avril was born, Morty’s psychiatrist summoned Jeanne and Jul to his office and rmed them that their beloved goln boy and sole survivg son was the bt of her knowledge, Jeanne Manford had never known anyone who was gay.

PARENTS OF GAY CHILDREN AND THE ISSU THEY FACE

Polil anizg was virtually impossible—one early gay-rights group that attempted to officially rporate New York was told that s mere existence would vlate state sodomy laws—and posive cultural reprentatn was all but nonexistent; there were no openly gay or lbian policians, punds, relig lears, actors, athlet, or micians the mastream.

Newspapers ed the words “homosexual” and “pervert” terchangeably, and the handful of gay people who appeared on televisn to discs their “life style” almost always had their fac hidn shadows or otherwise obscured.

FOR A MOM, LEARNG TO ACCEPT A GAY SON WAS 'NONNEGOTIABLE'

In 1974, when “The Pat Colls Show” aired a segment on parents of gay children, the host troduced by sayg, “Even if he mted murr, I gus you’d say, ‘Well, he’s still my child, no matter what.

”You uld f most of the solar system to the chasm between how the average Amerin of the era would have reacted that hypothetil suatn and how Jeanne Manford rpond upon learng that Morty was gay. The first time he attend a gay-rights prott, he wore sunglass and turned away om the news meras, but he soon beme, his sister Suzanne (now Suzanne Manford Swan) told me, “unaaid and unstoppable.

MOM'S GEICS COULD PRODUCE GAY SONS

” An eighteen-year-old regular at the Stonewall Inn, Morty was there when a fight broke out between patrons and the police the summer of 1969, an event that talyzed the gay-rights movement. The next time Morty wound up jail, Jeanne was woken up by an early-morng phone ll—not om him but om the arrtg officer, who, apparently expectg to Morty’s life, ma a show of askg Jeanne if she knew that her son was “a homosexual.

In the sprg of 1972, the New York Daily News ran an edorial, headled “Any Old Jobs for Homos?, ” that referred to “fairi, nanc, swish, fags, lezz” and mend the Supreme Court for cidg that a public universy uld rcd a job offer to a man who applied for a marriage license wh his male partner. ) That edorial cid wh the annual Inner Circle dner, a parody show hosted by New York Cy journalists, which that year was slated to clu a mockg sk about a gay-rights bill. “You would meet Jeanne Manford and you would never a ln years gus what she had her, ” Eric Marc, the thor of the 1992 book “Makg Gay History” and now the host of a podst by the same name, told me.

“MOM, DAD… I’M GAY.” A CHRISTIAN PARENT’S RPONSE

Then she went on to exprs a sentiment never before aired a mastream publitn: “I am proud of my son, Morty Manford, and the hard work he has been dog urgg homosexuals to accept their feelgs.

I TRIED TO STOP MY SON OM BEG GAY. HERE’S WHAT I WISH I HAD KNOWN

Only the New York Post— s last wang days as a liberal paper, before s purchase, a few years later, by Rupert Murdoch—agreed to publish letter ma Morty realize, fally, that his mother was not jt toleratg her gay son. To reach parents directly, the Manfords placed an ad the Village Voice; to reach them directly, through their children, Morty and the lbian activist Barbara Love scend on New York Cy’s gay hangouts wh fifteen hundred signs and leaflets, handma and posssg somethg of the timate, supplint look of lost-pet posters.

At the vatn of the Reverend Edward Egan, who was later forced to retirement bee he was gay, the meetg was held at the Metropolan-Duane Uned Methodist Church, the Wt Village. In addn to Jeanne and Jul, Morty and Love were prent to answer qutns that the parents attendance might not be fortable askg their own dghters and the time, most parents of gay or lbian children were a supremely difficult posn.

MOTHERS’ SUPPORT GAVE GAY SON LOVE TO LAST A LIFETIME

They were full of qutns, many of them ignorant but all of them scere: about whether their gay son would get more effemate every year; about how their “betiful blon dghter, jt neteen” uld possibly be a lbian. When the prcipal of the elementary school where she worked told her that people were startg to talk and asked her to be more discreet, Jeanne rmed the woman that her profsnal life was one thg and her private life was another and that she would do as she, though, the people who reached out to the Manfords and to Parents of Gays were lookg for help or muny or a balm for heartbreakg pa.

That was not bee she craved the attentn—“There was nothg pretent about her, nothg fortune-seekg, no love of the spotlight, ” her granddghter Avril told me—but bee she was one of the few people willg to speak out public on behalf of their gay this time, Jul was one of those people, too. All around the untry, kids were gettg thrown out of their ho when they me out; meanwhile, Jeanne and Jul were welg Morty and his iends, and the Manford hoehold had bee somethg of a home for wayward gays.

His sixteen-year-old son had jt e out, and his wife, Elae, uld hardly image anythg worse, so Bob told her about Parents of Gays and suggted that they attend a meetg. ”) Another early member, Sarah Montgomery, was a generatn olr than Jeanne—she had been born the neteenth century—but had likewise never faltered her love for her gay son. From the begng, one of the goals of Parents of Gays was to persua more and more of those people not jt to make peace wh their queer fay members but to make mon e wh worked.

MANY PARENTS STGGLE TO ADJT AFTER LEARNG CHILD IS GAY, STUDY FDS

Many early members beme evangelists for the anizatn, spirg siar groups around the untry, and 1979, durg the first Natnal March on Washgton for Lbian and Gay Rights, reprentativ om twenty-five of those groups met to talk about formg a natnal body.

They were planng to ll Parents of Lbians and Gays until one participant raised an objectn: if she attend a group by that name, she would effectively out her closeted dghter.

TO HELP GAY SON, 61-YEAR-OLD WOMAN GIV BIRTH TO OWN GRANDCHILD

And then, once aga, tragedy found the Manford the sprg and summer of 1981, gay men started showg up tensive-re uns New York and San Francis wh a strange form of pnmonia and a rare type of ncer known as Kaposi’s sara.

On the strength of a handful of hard-won legal and cultural victori, the gay muny had jt barely begun to believe that the future would be better; stead, got sudnly, existentially worse.

“I’ve been to AIDS funerals where they got up and nmned the body that was the ff, ” Perry many parents, though, AIDS tght them a ccial lson the harst possible way: the time to love your gay children, like all your children, is immediately and always.

MY SON MIGHT BE GAY. WHAT SHOULD I SAY TO HIM?

Parents of gay children may be shocked when their kids e out of the closet, but once the dt settl, most parents realize that their child is the same one they have loved and red for all their liv, they jt happen to be gay.

So, for example, boys that play wh dolls and have primarily girliends or girls who are tomboys and prefer to play wh guns may have an creased likelihood of growg up to be gay.

DEAR PARENT OF A GAY CHILD

While knowg your child is gay may help you ease the transn to adulthood, 's cril to remember that a gay child is jt a child like any other and a parent of gay child is jt a parent, like any other.

But, now they are both a great place and ready to role to another season givg you the bt versn of themselv as A Gay and His ready for them to enterta you while you listen to them get back to wh banter, chchat, rants and whatever else my e their way at the time. When he me out to his mother, Connie Casey, she sent him to a seri of nversn therapy mistri affiliated wh Exod Internatnal, the Christian anizatn that fold this month and apologized to the gay muny for tryg to "rrect" same-sex attractn.