Exploring the frontiers of gay consciousness with Don Kilhefner

Does A Fish Know It’s in Water?

Two events took place in the past month—one loud and one soft—that impacted gay people’s lives. One was the marriage circus, which captured loads of media attention. The same-sex marriage breakthrough in California was a major victory because it extended Constitutional “equal protection” rights to gay people to marry for the first time. As a legal victory it is very important. From a gay cultural perspective it is of more dubious value and moves the gay community even further in the direction of gay assimilation, the dominant ideology of our community at this time. The New York Times did a sobering story on the same-sex marriage mania titled “Gay Couple’s Find Marriage Is A Mixed Bag.” The Times research hints at what might happen in California on the basis of three years of experience in Massachusetts: Sometimes same-sex marriage worked, many times it did not. The game of musical beds continued. Vicious child custody and community property battles accompanied divorces. I found it interesting that two-thirds of all same-sex marriages in Massachusetts are between lesbians and continues to raise the question for me of whether the same-sex marriage campaign is more of a women’s than gay men’s issue.

What has been the price we have had to pay for mindlessly allowing, and maybe even participating in, gay assimilation? One price is that very little is happening in the gay community today except for endless parties and fund-raisers. Assimilationists will say we are basically just like heterosexuals except for our choice of sex partners (Harry Hay would say to me: “The only way we are similar to hets is what we do in bed, otherwise we are completely different.”) Some seem to think we already have an identity (homosexual) and with cybersex and hookups who needs a community or even a gay intellectual life. A gay leader in Los Angeles recently thought that Chief Joseph was a Supreme Court judge!

Evolutionary biologists inform us that the basic function of heterosexuals is the reproductive survival of our species. The most essential question for us at present is: What is the evolutionary function of gay people? Is it to mimic heterosexuals? I don’t think so. Otherwise, evolutionarily speaking, we would have gone down the drainpipe of history long ago. It pains me tremendously today when energized young gay men want to know where they can go to become actively and constructively involved in the gay community. For the first time since the 1980s I have no place toward which to point them. It makes me sad when intelligent young gay men tell me they have to “dumb it down” to be part of the gay community.

A second event took place that gave me hope for the future of gay people and the continuation of the community. Students in the drama class at John Burroughs High School in Burbank had planned to do Moisés Kaufman’s The Laramie Project as the school play this spring. It’s the story of the murder of Matthew Shepard and Laramie’s reaction to that horrifying event. The Gay-Straight Alliance at the high school was co-sponsoring the play. When the principal of the high school found out about the choice for the school play he forbade the students from doing Laramie because “it would tear the community apart.” After getting over the shock of having the principal censor their choice of play, they decided to go ahead with the play outside of the jurisdiction of the school.

One of the young women who directed the play said to me:

“We were determined to do the play even if we had to put it on in a back yard somewhere.” The young people were passionate about the play because it told a story that needed to be told. When the Burbank creative community found out about the fiasco it rallied to the students’ aid. The Colony Theatre in Burbank, which had premiered Laramie in Los Angeles several years ago, made it’s lovely theater available to the students for two performances free of charge. Two of the original cast members from Chicago and New York City flew out to Burbank at their own expense to help the students rehearse the play. Help poured in from everywhere and the students were overwhelmed by the support they were receiving.

Even though I could barely walk due to a chronic back injury, I was determined to support the students by attending. As I approached the Colony Theatre, on one corner were a few bedraggled Fred Phelps protesters with signs regarding where you and I are headed if we don’t change our sinful ways. Across the street was a lively group of about 50 pro-gay demonstrators with costumes, face paint, and deliciously vulgar jewelry. It looked like a Radical Faerie gathering. As I moved closer to the pro-gay group I was overjoyed to see that virtually all were less than 25 years of age. And they were alive with chants and camaraderie. Inside the sold-out theater, a prolonged standing ovation greeted the students as the play commenced and ended. They had dedicated the play to Lawrence King, an eighth grade kid who was murdered in his classroom in Oxnard because he was openly gay and sometimes dressed in a “feminine” manner. At the end of the play King’s favorite teacher was present to read a tribute to him. It was immensely thrilling and sad at the same time watching a play about Matthew Shepard being done by a group of politically and socially aware high school students who were forced out of their school and persevered in spite of it all. I sat with tears streaming down my face the entire evening.

I have looked hard at each generation as it came into view to see if this was the one that would move us forward again. Each time I was disappointed, as they became credit card slaves swept up in consumer/entertainment culture, with its glazed eyes and dumbed-down consciousness. We need to remember that the gay community has been shaped by two revolutions—the Gay Liberation revolution and the Reagan revolution. The Gay Liberation revolution provided a sense of gay identity, fought back against oppression, emphasized community building and unity, and developed an ethos based on assuming responsibility for each other. The Reagan revolution, on the other hand, told us that there was a money pie out there and your life’s mission was to get your slice of the pie at all costs. Their right-wing movement scoffed at community building and instead emphasized marriage and family. Looking out for #1 was the name of the game and it was made up of winners and losers judged by the size of one’s portfolio. The Reagan revolution has provided the gay community with largely soulless, visionless, and clueless technocratic leaders to whom all money is good money.

As I sat in the darkened Colony Theatre, I couldn’t help pondering which is the wave of the future for the gay community? Is it the gay assimilationists with their all-we-need-is-marriage-and-children agenda or the young men and women on stage who were moved by a larger agenda? At this time, I’m with the young people.

Don Kilhefner, Ph.D., is co-facilitator of the “Gay Men and the Midlife Awakening” workshop, a Jungian psychologist, and pioneering gay activist in West Hollywood. He can be reached at: donkilhefner@sbcglobal.net.