African-Americans have been reluctant to admit that there is as much justification for our civil rights struggle as gay people as for theirs as persons of color. On a TV show, I heard one of them comment recently that there was no comparison. He became quite vehement about it. "It is NOT the same," he fairly shouted. I have heard that before, to my face.

Another comment he made was that color is in-born, and homosexuality is not. Nearly all of us who are homosexual have the feeling deep in our hearts and our psyches that he is utterly wrong. Our sexual orientation is in-born, too, and is as unchangeable as the color of the skin, not that some people don't try!

One of my grandmothers owned a drugstore on the cusp of what was then known as "the colored section" of her city in the American South. Among her African-American clientele, one of the most popular of the items she sold was a skin lightener, a sort of cosmetic bleach which moved so fast she could hardly keep it in stock. It worked, although rather less dramatically perhaps, than the visible difference between the teen-aged Michael Jackson and the middle-aged man he is today. (He of whom it has been said that he is the only black boy who ever grew up to be a white woman!)

Similar are the gays who strive so hard to change themselves to straights. I believe they mostly fail, despite their protests to the contrary. Not all have resorted to the Christian fundmentalist groups specializng in this bogus "conversion." Many spend years in psychiatric therapy.

I had a friend who spent a decade on a psychiatrist's couch and thousands upon thousands of dollars seeking a "cure" for his homosexuality. He claimed to have succeeded, married a lovely woman and fathered children. Some years afterward, he visited me in San Francisco, where I took him to dinner and we had a catch-up chat, not having seen one another for a long time. I noticed that while he insisted he was no longer gay, saying that sex with a woman was so much more "satisfying" than with a man, he could not keep his eyes off of our handsome male server, who was of the gay persuasion, gay waiters being a special feature of the chic restaurant.

Late that night, I was checking the hallways in the large hotel which I managed and where my friend was a guest, when I saw the self-same gay waiter slipping quietly out of my friend's hotel room discreetly buttoning his shirt as if he had just got out of bed and dressed. I must admit to a wry inner smile as I stepped into a maid's closet to avoid his seeing me.

How could I help but think of all the money, all the time, and all the bullshit I had heard from my friend who had insisted he was "cured" of being gay? Treatment may have changed the way he thought and talked and lied about himself, and to himself, but in the end it could not change his orientation toward his primal need for sex with another man.

Apropos the article below from the Advocate on November 11, 2000, I applaud Mrs King for the way she addressed the gay community. She is as noble in her leadership of African-Americans as was her brave husband. The great lady includes us in his dream.

Headline:
Coretta Scott King speaks at Creating Change

Text:
Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr., told gay and lesbian activists at the Creating Change conference Thursday that Tuesday’s presidential election is “an object lesson in the power of coalition unity.… I think we have just seen the future of American democracy flash before our eyes last Tuesday. The coalition that gave Al Gore a popular majority can surely be as powerful as the New Deal coalition that transformed America in an earlier era.” She added that increased gay visibility and rising numbers of gay elected officials “will help educate the American people that lesbian and gay people seek the same goals of quality education for young people, cleaner air and water, safer streets and better health care that straight people want. We have to work harder for the broader vision of the compassionate and caring society that demands decent living standards for all citizens.” The conference, which is sponsored by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, is being held in Atlanta through Sunday.

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