Preventing Fatalities

Charles M. Blow: Gay? Whatever, Dude


This blog is in regard to the above New York Times Article.


Unlike many of you, I was in High School from 1963 to 1966 in Glendale, California. I didn't know one person who was gay although I suspected many of this in my school. This wasn't something you would openly talk about then. It was dangerous in 1963 to be openly gay. It could even cost you your life. Every Guy in school knew this.


I remember when a distant acquaintance bragged while riding in a car with us about going out with jocks with baseball bats looking for gays and blacks. At the time this made me sick to my stomach but this was a different era than now. But imagine, this was 1964 and Glendale is bordered by the cities of Hollywood where everyone knew there were many gay people. And even in those days it wasn't safe to be openly gay even then.  I remember I worked with my father who had an electrical Contracting business in Los Angeles County. And I met my first Male Gay couple who owned a music Recording studio in Hollywood. I found it at the time a very surrealistic experience as these were the first two successful rich gay people I had ever met. Since this was so out of my normal everyday life I just sort of put this away in my mind and didn't talk to much about it to friends other than to say I met a rich gay couple who owned a big recording studio in Hollywood that my father and I worked for doing electrical work.


Though like most people in those days in Southern California most people weren't open to open gayness. However, my father got along okay with these clients and they were very fair and generous always with us.


Later, when I met my 2nd wife I thought the guy traveling with her was her boyfriend. 6 months later I was told he was gay. Even though he wanted to marry my 2nd wife if they had it would have been a platonic relationship (celibate marriage). My 2nd wife was much happier to marry me because we had no intention at all of remaining celibate. Later, my wife's friend got AIDS in the middle 1980s. By 1990 he was dying in the Tenderloin of San Francisco. As he regressed down through being about 5 years old mentally and then two and three years old, she spent the last few weeks nursing him as he quietly passed away in San Francisco.  He was a good friend to the two of us always and I remember his favorite saying was , "What ever blows your skirt up, Honey". He was always a gentleman with both my wife then and I and we both felt devastated for the first male peer to die for both of us since Viet Nam. (My 2nd wife's best friend died of Cancer while we were in Nepal.) Unfortunately, my 2nd wife wasn't told of her friend dying until after she had passed on. We were in India and Nepal about 4 months.


If you read the top article button it talks about how over 50% of the American people are okay with Gay and Lesbian relations and how this is a real breakthrough for the gay movement. 


My point of view is very different than this. For me, the best news about this is that many less gay and lesbian people will be killed now by straight ones. And that's a good thing after all these years.


My 24 year old God Daughter is staying with us along with her boyfriend to finish out their job commitments here in this area before moving to San Diego next month. They got me to watch a "Glee" episode and I was amazed at how much the whole attitude about gay stuff has changed on television. Always before, I had noticed that the majority on programs tended to be sort of anti-gay, but now on programs like "Glee" the ones in real trouble are the ones who don't totally accept open gayness. I don't think this is totally realistic in terms of it being the way things really are. However, just like all the Black President's in TV shows and movies all these years created Obama in the White House I suppose creating a more ideal utopian world for gay people like Hollywood is doing will result ultimately in this equality over time. I personally like that less gay people will be killed by straight ones. However, though I personally feel that Gayness should be tolerated I also think that straight families need to be respected too. 


Let me give you a true story to try to illustrate what I'm saying. I won't mention where or when but this happened. A 15 year old boy who was straight whose mother was now a lesbian committed suicide because his father was put down continuously by the mother. I think if a gay person is anti the opposite sex they are then this only reduces everything that is important about family. This boy didn't need to die. Feeling platonically equal about both sexes keeps children alive. So, to keep kids alive and not committing suicide from serious confusion people need to be really balanced about all this so kids don't die unnecessarily or at all.