Frank Bni Disvers How His Dad, Long Silent, Accepted A Gay Son - Towleroad Gay News

Contents:

• MY GAY RETORT TO ALL THE GRIMNS
• THE EXTCTN OF GAY INTY
• FRANK BNI HBAND TO SOMEONE? GAY NYT COLUMNIST B - AGE TO SALARY
• FRANK BNI B, AGE, NEW YORK TIM, CNN, WIFE, HBAND, PARENTS, GAY, LATT COLUMN, EYIGHT AND NET WORTH
• FRANK BNI B, AGE, FAY, GAY, SCHOOL, SALARY, NET WORTH, NEW YORK TIM
• THE VATIN’S GAY OVERLORDS
• FRANK BNI NAMED FIRST OPENLY GAY OP-ED COLUMNIST NEW YORK TIM HISTORY
• FRANK BNI DISVERS HOW HIS DAD, LONG SILENT, ACCEPTED A GAY SON

MY GAY RETORT TO ALL THE GRIMNS

It mgled an analysis of journalism wh gay history, so the stunts and I looked at the Lavenr Sre, which was ntemporaneo wh the Red Sre and led to the firg or forced rignatn of thoands of gay and lbian people om ernment jobs the late 1940s and the 1950s. We looked at the AIDS epimic, the first chapter of which st gay men as generat to be gasped at, lepers to be revis all of that was to be schooled anew the advanc sce. And that tn is beg amplified by the book I referred to: “Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton, ” by Jam Kirchick, an advance py of which I’ve been slowly and raptly makg my way through.

But more than that, mak me grateful, for all that has changed sce those days of li and of the ditn wrten by Kirchick, who is gay, says all. ” I graduated om high school 1982 and then llege 1986, I wouldn’t have gused that I’d be livg now a untry where gay and lbian upl n be legally married ast to ast.

The past five years ma that most Amerins are nsc of equi a way that we weren’t before, and that’s te when not only to gay Amerins but also to other margalized groups. Fotote Gilardi/Getty ImagUsually, this recurrg feature of the newsletter is voted to a matter of language that one of you has brought to my attentn, such as the unwarranted judgment herent the phrase “broken fay, ” which I addrsed several months today I want to look at a phrase of my own obssn, one that creasgly bothers me, though I ed equently and whout pse the very recent past: “openly gay.

THE EXTCTN OF GAY INTY

” It’s a ftg segue om the first em today’s still read “openly gay” newspapers and hear on televisn all the time. That the cln of “openly” nnot somethg noteworthy, optnal and even nfsnal about owng up to beg gay? Or, the se of a certa 75-year-old Floridian, Jackson, who produc plays, televisn shows and movi, forcefully ma the se agast “openly gay” an say published The Advote March, brilliantly llg a “backhand mer badge.

He noted, for example, that Pete Buttigieg was scribed as “the first openly gay bet secretary” to be nfirmed by the Senate. In that se, though, “openly” wasn’t really or primarily about Buttigieg; was a way of acknowledgg that there had surely been gay and lbian bet secretari the past but we didn’t know them as such bee they ncealed or downplayed the fact. If a person’s sexual orientatn or inty is specifilly and disputably relevant to a given article or nversatn and isn’t a secret, ll that person simply “gay, ” “lbian, ” “bisexual, ” “trans” or such.

There was no playful tolg of hair, so there would be no wrongful stirrg of 1964, I grew up when stereotyp about gay people like me were largely negative and eply graed.

FRANK BNI HBAND TO SOMEONE? GAY NYT COLUMNIST B - AGE TO SALARY

And perhaps the celt of the li about , reflected recurrg bat about who should and shouldn’t be allowed to teach schools, was that many gay men were child molters. “Groomg, ” as Moni Hse wrote recently The Washgton Post, “has lately bee a buzzword anti-gay polics.

FRANK BNI B, AGE, NEW YORK TIM, CNN, WIFE, HBAND, PARENTS, GAY, LATT COLUMN, EYIGHT AND NET WORTH

” She went on to note that “preys on every parent’s worst fear — someone harmg their children — by suatg that all gay or genr nonnformg people see their children as prey. “It reflects an angst that gay people who do not nceal their sexualy are attemptg to brawash and molt children. You see this assumptn the famo 1961 short film “Boys Beware, ” which warned schoolchildren agast predatory homosexuals and was produced part by (of urse) a school district.

Natnal Gay Task Force, a 1985 se which the Supreme Court stck down an Oklahoma law barrg teachers om “enuragg or promotg” homosexualy.

FRANK BNI B, AGE, FAY, GAY, SCHOOL, SALARY, NET WORTH, NEW YORK TIM

(The state ced a need to protect “stunt moraly” and “tradnal cultural valu, ” worryg about stunt “imatn” of gay teachers.

As my Tim lleague Michelle Goldberg observed a recent lumn, the anti-gay mpaign that the former bety queen Ana Bryant started 1977 had the unambiguo tle Save Our Children, and Bryant once explaed s necsy by sayg: “Homosexuals nnot reproduce, so they mt rec. Gonzal’s dig at one Buttigieg don’t unrme the signifince of the other’s polil I’m sobered by how much hate nohels remas and by how readily and unabashedly many partisans vilify gay people when they sense a tactil advantage . AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTApril 28, Center FilmsMart Crowley, the thor of the groundbreakg gay play “The Boys the Band, ” liv a Manhattan apartment buildg that he ed to vis equently, for parti, the late 1960s, when “Boys” had s theatril but.

THE VATIN’S GAY OVERLORDS

405, and s nickname, he told me, ed to be “four of five, ” bee that was supposedly the rat of gay is not the rat now. The gays have sttered, not jt om that buildg but om others, and we’ve distributed ourselv throughout the cy — and throughout society. “Gay” tells you about a person’s lts and lov, but ed to tell you more — about his or her boldns, irreverence, pennce.

For s 50th anniversary, ’s gettg s first-ever Broadway productn, wh an all-gay, all-star st cludg Jim Parsons, Matt Bomer and Zachary Quto. I’ll be fascated to see what dienc make of this mpy, tty portra of a group of gay men who talk , traffic secrecy and have rved out somethg separate that is not exactly play is a postrd om an era that we have thankfully moved past, a pot of reference for our hard-won succs over the last half-century and our arrival an fely better place.

We were trib a way that we no longer are, wh ruals that we no longer have, and wh a shared ’s that story now, and what qualifi as a gay play, if such a thg still exists? Jse Green, one of The Tim’s theater crics, wrtled elegantly wh that qutn T magaze Febary, notg that for him, the gay theatril non — or, rather, the gay male theatril non — ends 1993, wh Tony Khner’s “Angels Ameri.

FRANK BNI NAMED FIRST OPENLY GAY OP-ED COLUMNIST NEW YORK TIM HISTORY

”“Sometim, to judge om what’s onstage, I have to nclu that Crate & Barrel is sponsorg the new gay agenda, ” Green wr, addg that he no longer hears “a gay voice, ” which he f as “quick-wted, protean, emotnal. It ptur the flair for melodrama, appete for mischief and exaggerated sense of humor — alternately self-laceratg and self-lnizg — that nstuted a gay armor, worn bee we lived a sort of exile.

FRANK BNI DISVERS HOW HIS DAD, LONG SILENT, ACCEPTED A GAY SON

But there had been enough progrs toward the acceptance and tegratn of gays by 2005 that Andrew Sullivan wrote an say The New Republic tled “The End of Gay Culture, ” which he imaged would “expand to such a diverse set of subcultur that ‘gayns’ alone will cease to tell you very much about any dividual. How gay, lbian, bisexual or transgenr people are treated hg on where we live, what lor we are, how much money we have and whom we work a gay whe man employed by a progrsive-md pany New York Cy, I’m ridiculoly lucky. I’m aware that too much of the past nversatn and art about gayns foced on and was domated by people like me.

”I’m 53, I me out a few years later than she did, and I remember that simply tellg someone that I was gay ma me tertg at a time when most gay people weren’t forthg about that. No matter how open I was about , beg gay felt a b like belongg to a secret we didn’t want to be nsigned to the margs and forced to hidg. A versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn SR, Page 3 of the New York edn wh the headle: The Extctn of Gay Inty.