The following article appeared in The Gay & Lesbian Review. May-June 2001;
written by Jonathan Lee

"What makes us different from other minorities is that often our parents are the first people to discriminate against us."

- Eliott Cherry, personal conversation

"What we need is not defiant pride and self-consciousness, but social space to live and breathe."

- From "Being Queer," Crazy Hope and Finite Experience: Final Essays of Paul Goodman

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I am the founder and director of the Maine Speakout Project, an organization that's trying to change the climate of opinion in towns throughout my state--and now in other states through our America Speaks Out National Institute--by training volunteer speakers, most of whom are sexual minority Mainers, to share personal experiences in nonconfrontational "speakouts" with civic, business,religious, and educational groups in their towns.

We started Speakout in 1995 during an anti-gay ballot initiative led by a couple of anti-gay Christian organizations. Having heard of a project in Oregon (Oregon Speakout Project) that, in response to anti-gay ballot initiatives there, was sending out ordinary folks to talk in the towns where they lived and worked about being gay and lesbian, a few of us got excited about doing the same thing here in Maine.

The approach seemed to get at the root of one of the vicious circles that was fueling the anti-gay fires in the first place. Because we were (for good reason) afraid to come out, people in our towns had no awareness of our existence as gay people living right under their noses--which did nothing to neutralize the negative emotional resonance of the terms "gay" and "lesbian" for most people in our still homophobic society. Unaware of the actual gay people living in their communities, people formed images of gay men as gyrating, menacing, leather-clad denizens of San Francisco or (for the older set) Liberace-style queens, while lesbians were imagined as diesel dykes riding motorcycles.

Consequently, when Christian groups would send out their alarmist broadsides claiming that the "gay agenda" was to under- mine the family, marriage, and the American way of life, people had nothing with which to refute these claims--no mental image of gay people as friends, neighbors, workmates, playmates, and relatives. Those brave enough to come out and fight two anti-gay ballot initiatives, one in 1996 and one last year, were but the activist tip of a large and diverse iceberg. The activists' anger and indignation, however justified, could come across as strident and scary to rank-and-file voters.

Needed was a bit of calm communication between gay people and the straight majority, and that's what we've been trying to bring about in Maine for the past several years. In fourteen of Maine's sixteen counties, 330 volunteers have completed our seven-hour speaker training program and participated in more than 350 "speakouts" in their own towns and counties. At these events, two volunteers will go before a Rotary Club or church congregation or group of teachers, students, or parents, and speak for no more than five minutes about a personal experience related to being gay or lesbian. He or she will then answer any question that comes up, trying to treat the questioner with the respect with which any of us would want to be treated.

At first, we were purists: we spoke to Rotary and Elks and Lions and Kiwanis Clubs and--my favorite--the Goddesses of Caribou; but we didn't worry about the media. After all, we were trying to replace the media images of gyrating pelvises with por- traits of hard-working folks. But it didn't take long for us to realize that if we could find ways to frame our stories for the media, we could reach many more people and reinforce the qualitative change being attempted in our face-to-face encounters. Five-and- a-half years later, we have been able to win the attention - and the respect--of major media sources up and down the state. I was surprised, for example, by how even-handedly the TV news shows reported on our planned "Walk with the One You Love" event in Portland in June, 1998. These reports featured hand-holding gay and lesbian couples talking about why they didn't feel safe holding hands in public--great publicity a week before the event itself.

So successful was this first "Wall" that it's since become an annual event in ten towns and cities, endorsed by nine police chiefs and by a Joint Resolution of the Maine legislature, which has declared one Sunday in June as "Walk with the One You Love Day in Maine." This event is an example of what I believe needs to be an important part of the next phase of our struggle for civil rights and full social equality. Bringing gay and nongay people together in what we describe as a "community walk, not a gay walk" is giving straight people a public way to say that they want to live in a place where everyone feels safe to be who they are without fear of insult or attack. We have found that many nongay people come out with enthusiasm to walk with us. By walking together, gay and nongay, we also show the wider public a picture of what's possible: an inclusive community where none of us needs to hide who we are. We demonstrate in an exemplary and not a didactic way that straight people needn't fear that somehow our holding hands will take anything away from their doing so. Finally, we focus attention on the fact that some of us do not feel safe in our own towns and schools.

One of the beautiful things about the nonviolent approach of Martin Luther King, Jr. is that he singled out no "enemy" to vanquish, but instead expressed a determination to use means that embody the desired end. If we treat our interlocutors with respect, especially if they're predisposed to be hostile, and if we speak the truth about our lives, we will slowly win over their hearts and minds, and eventually the laws will have to change. One reason Dr. King's movement touched so many white people was that they saw the moral contrast between the nonviolent protesters and the angry police with their billy clubs, snarling dogs, and fire hoses.

I believe we could accomplish much by accepting the inspiring model of Dr. King--and that of Bayard Rustin, his brilliant gay tactician, who was the organizing genius behind the 1963 March on Washington. We can create more public opportunities for gay and nongay people to come together to affirm a new norm of safe schools and safe communities for all, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other difference. That is why we in Maine are urging groups, organizations, and individuals to join us on June 17, 2001--Father's Day--in launching "Walk with the One You Love" as a national civil rights event. Outside the big cities, these walks are needed to provide valuable opportunities for dialogue, for creating awareness and sympathy and moral energy and even excitement of the kind that our movement needs badly.

We are told by the best gay rights lawyers in the country that we need to prepare a "climate of receptivity" among the majority public so that eventually the courts, if not the legislatures, will accord us the same freedom to marry, adopt children, and serve openly in the military that the straight majority enjoys. If we don't come out where it matters--where we live and work and vote-- then this climate will not change. And if we do not reach out to our straight friends, colleagues, and relatives, they will not realize that we need their support.

I encourage you to join with us in organizing a Walk with the One You Love in your town. Ask your city council to endorse the Walk; ask your police chief to sign on as a matter of making your community a safer place. Urge your representatives to cosponsor an act of Congress declaring Father's Day "Walk with the One You Love Day." Use the occasion to come out to anyone who doesn't know you're gay; urge straight relatives and friends to walk with you. Walk for yourself and loved ones and for future generations. Let this June 17th be the day when we renew the struggle for equality in our time. Walk for the right to be completely public about who you are; walk to create what Paul Goodman called, way back in 1969, "social space to live and breathe."

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So...Why Walk???

I could say as I did in other letters that the walk, "..is a community building event to bring gay and non-gay people together to support people of differing sexual orientations, gender identity or any other difference." Or "This event will emphasize that we are all one community and that however we differ from each other, we need to respect and protect each other."

These statements are true. They answer the question as to what the walks are about but not why I, as the mother of a gay son, feel they are so important. I kept feeling that my church family deserved a more honest answer from me even if it might make me feel a little more vulnerable.

My son, Tyler, is not the primary reason I am involved in the walk. Tyler is doing fine. He has moved into an apartment of his own, has a job and is paying his own bills (well most of them). It is a joy to see him start to soar into life and a little sad at the same time as I see my role in his life changing. I wasn’t always sure that Tyler would soar. I believe growing up a gay child is not easy anywhere but I know it is not easy here in Lisbon Falls.

I feel Tyler was a typical shy, cautious child who stoically suffered through a childhood filled with migraines. He went to preschool at Peggy Bauer’s Yellow Bird School. He had Phyllis Gamache for his kindergarten teacher and Marilyn Curtis as his school aid. He attended Sunday school right here in this church, when he was too short to bump his head on the heating vent in the old basement. Some of his Sunday school teachers were Methyl Nolan, Cynthia Bonsey, Jan McKay and Mom. He joined T-ball and was thrilled with his new glove and ball cap. The very first ball toss hit him in the forehead. He finished the season, as was expected of him, but refused to play ball ever again. I believe he had decided he had enough pain in his life and avoided anything that might involve any more pain. He continued in school with the usual awards and a few of those scattered calls from the principal or his teacher. He had Carol Day for his fifth grade teacher; we still put the Christmas ornament she made for each member of her class that year on our Christmas tree.

I am going to insert an event that actually happened to me, at this point in my story. I was in 4th grade when a new child came into our class mid year. He had curly blond hair, blue eyes, was a little small for his age and he had an exotic name, Michael!! I could hardly do any of my schoolwork after his arrival. I kept staring at Michael. I was mesmerized. I was also confused. We 4th grade girls did not like boys. My impression was the feelings were mutual for the boys. Now I know this was my first instinctive attraction to a member of the opposite sex. It came unbidden, untaught, unexpected. This experience has most likely been lived, with individual variations, by everyone reading this note. A gay friend described this same scenario during my 2nd PFLAG meeting (parents, family and friends of lesbian and gays (bisexuals and Tran gendered)). There was one exception; he was mesmerized by a person of the same sex. My friend’s story vividly brought back my own memory. They were so alike except for that one single detail. I suddenly took a giant step forward in my understanding and comprehension of what it is to be gay.

Tyler says he was in middle school when he began to suspect he might be different than his friends. He began to realize what that difference was at the same time he was also hearing the messages society teaches about gay people. The negative message delivered in the derogatory laughter in movies, TV sitcoms, commercials and gay jokes. The negative messages on radio programs, talk shows, newspapers, politics and Bible verses. His friends and classmates brought these messages to school from their observations of the adult world around them. I can only imagine what a young child, 12,13, or 14 years old, might feel. The confusion of what his unexpected, unbidden and untaught feelings are telling him and what society is telling him. The internalized conflict resulting in denial, confusion, surprise, disbelief, fear, terror, rebellion, heart brake and shame. The conclusion of a young mind that to protect yourself no one must know you have these feelings. The secret must be denied, destroyed and kept at all cost. Who do you think that troubled child will turn to for help? Mom and Dad?? The two people he loves and depends upon the most? Unfortunately no, frequently the people a gay child loves the most are the last to be told his secret. It is a risk too great to take, sometimes, sadly, it is a secret kept for an entire lifetime. Tyler kept his secret to himself. He chose to blend into the crowd. He became the invisible child, not too loud, not too good, and not too bad. He did what was expected of him and tried to avoid what he thought would cause the most pain to his life.

What happens to other children like Tyler? I listened to Steven Wessler at the Great Falls Forum a few months ago. Wessler, a former Maine Assistant Attorney General and leader of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Hate Violence at the University of Southern Maine spoke on how taunts lead to violence. He observed that victims of harassment might react in a variety of ways. "Some turn to drugs and alcohol. Some commit suicide. A few become violent. And some lose their spirit."

I believe all of these categories also apply to gay children but with one more category. Some children become incredibly strong. A gay young person must evaluate what their inner self says and compare that to what societal messages are teaching. Some youth will have the courage to reject societal messages as untrue. This is an incredibly mature step. These youth realize that whom, or how, one loves does not have any relevance on the worth of a person. To loosely quote from Martin Luther King Jr. "One should be judged by the depth of one’s character...."

Tyler has said one thing that haunts me. He said part of his turmoil was caused by his not knowing what his parents thought about gay people and therefore had no way to predict how we might react to the realization that he was gay. The walk is an opportunity for you to avoid my mistake. Share with your family your opinions and follow through by "walking the walk" of your convictions.

I feel this walk is also an opportunity to neutralize some of the negative societal messages that youth, both gay and non-gay, are learning in the current news: the loss of the equal rights referendum and the Supreme Court upholding the Boy Scouts of America’s right to discriminate. I am frankly scared to death when I contemplate what the impact these two messages alone will have on our youth now and especially in their future. I’m not just referring to gay youth who may become victims in the future but to youth who may become the bullies of the future. The youth being taught now, by the passage of these laws and the adults in their lives who do not voice a challenge, that gay people are not really equal. That it is OK to discriminate, "just a little bit". How does a parent explain to their sons and daughters just how much discrimination is OK?

I have a twofold wish for this walk. First, and this is my primary reason for my involvement in the walk, is I pray that this walk will speak to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans gendered and questioning youth in our area. I hope they will hear the message "You are fine just the way God made you. You are not alone." I pray that these teens will hear this positive message and it will help them to cross over into that incredibly strong and healthy category of mature youth.

I also hope a message will reach those in our society who might contemplate cruel behavior toward those in our society who they perceive to be different. The difference may be race, religion, gender, age, handicap, sexual orientation or gender identity. I believe that the same flawed reasoning connects all prejudices. This is why I do not believe it was just coincidence that the Auburn Temple was vandalized twice in the first few weeks after the loss of the two gay equal rights referendums. I hope those who might contemplate violence will hear the message that "We, members of your community, will not tolerate discrimination, harassment or assault of our loved ones." I believe that it is a civil society’s obligation to openly, and continually, reconfirm that hurtful behavior is not to be tolerated. It results in a safer society for all citizens. The Walk with the Ones You Love is a positive step in that direction

Barbara Palmer
Maine Speakout Project volunteer from Lisbon Falls

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