As I remember it, I met my first ‘official’ gay person around 1988. I’m sure the actual time I knew them as gay had to be earlier but I distinctly remember we went to see The Last Temptation of Christ and by then I was officially told. I suspected something when we had gone to see Two Moon Junction with a group of friends and while the other guys talked about how good Sherilyn Finn looked he talked about great Richard Tyson looked. Between those two movies, I met him at a local diner and I was officially informed.

I remember I wasn’t mad, upset, shocked or surprised when he told me he was gay. I was upset that I was the last of our group of friends he told he was gay. I think my upbringing may have been a reason why it took so long for him to tell me. Then again, it could have been simply I was too busy to see him before he was ready to tell me. My upbringing at the time suggested I had a sheltered life. My parents were devout Baptists, doing church every Sunday, had Wednesday prayer service and I know their feelings at the time about gay people were a bit intolerant. OK, probably a whole lot intolerant. While I’m not gay, I knew a little of what gay people went through during that time. My parents, at the time, were always trying to offer social help when I didn’t want or need it. Being in a devout Baptist family discussing things like sex is not something that can be done comfortably. When pre-marital sex is considered the pathway to eternal damnation to the fiery pits of Hell, I wasn’t real comfortable about expressing the feelings I had for some girls at the time. Also considering my feelings for most girls were met with rejection after rejection, I didn’t see the point in getting advice from my parents. If I was depressed about getting rejected, I didn’t need a reminder about eternal damnation to be a pick me up.

So like any Baptist parent in the 80s, if I wasn’t talking about girls, never brought any over to the house or talked to them over the phone, my parents suspected I must be gay. Yes, for a good number of my high school and college years my parents thought I was gay. They never said anything to me, but there were signals they gave confirming my suspicions. I did what any self-respecting teenager would do in this situation; I used it to my advantage. During my junior year of high school, my ridged parents eased the reins on me. I think the assumption was if I went out to parties and hung out with a few friends, I would met some girl that would set me right. I still think to this day my parents feel I’m gay. Trust me, having a cat hasn’t helped the situation (it’s an old person thing about gays and cats, cats not being a masculine pet in some eyes) but I haven’t been disowned and my social life, such as it is, is my life.

There are parts of my life that are private to me. I don’t necessarily mind talking about my life but my life isn’t an open book to be discussed or examined by people who don’t have a stake in it. I can’t be defined by a cursory look at my life. I’m black but assuming you know me because of stereotypes you have formed or because you have a ‘black’ friend doesn’t get you close to understanding me. Everyone is like that, and that isn’t some big revelation. My being black, my experiences as a black person are a part of the picture that is me but a quick look at me doesn’t give you the full picture of what I’m all about. To me it’s the same situation with the fixation some have about homosexuals coming out. Homosexuality doesn’t define people, it is a piece of the picture. My heterosexuality is only a piece of me. My blackness is a piece of me. I don’t look at every woman and think of having mad passionate sex with them, just like I don’t look at every white person and see them in a white sheet shouting the n-word. If I defined homosexuals as some people do, I would have missed meeting some very extraordinary friends.

My friend who came out to me I still consider a friend. Turns out a lot more people I knew in high school have come out and I consider them friends. As far as I know, they didn’t come out with fanfare, with a confession on a talk show or any other public display. I don’t even think any of them were ‘living a lie.’ In the course of conversation they might have mentioned a person they liked or talked about a relationship they were in and it was there. Before the formal coming out of the person I mentioned, I ‘knew’ gay people before, and I say ‘knew’ because none of those people never officially came out. There may have been mannerisms that fit the stereotypical homosexual, to me it would have been rude to ask and it wasn’t important to me.

Jodie Foster and Victor Garber came out in the past few days, which caused a good amount of chatter in the news. The thing is, Jodie Foster’s lesbianism was probably the worst kept secret in Hollywood. Victor Garber may have outed himself a few years ago and it’s just getting noticed now because of his new series Deception, but their coming out hasn’t been the scandal or has the media buzz it would have had pre-2001. If you want to know what that media frenzy was like, just look at the attention paid to Lance Armstrong and his upcoming doping admission to Oprah. All the speculations, all the anticipation, that’s what coming out was for homosexuals in the past.

In some respects we aren’t the same people we were a few decades ago. Knowing someone is homosexual is not that important in most cases. It’s not something to over celebrate and it’s not something to completely ignore. It’s just another part of someone’s life. Thirty years ago or more, when many people assumed they didn’t know homosexuals, coming out publicly was important. To this day I’m astounded that people didn’t think Paul Lynde, Charles Nelson Reilly or Liberace were gay, but it might have been a situation of don’t ask don’t tell. I doubt their homosexuality influenced people to ‘turn’ gay but that was the thought of the time. We have somewhat evolved since those times and homosexuals aren’t thought of as strangers. They are our brothers, sisters and friends. People needed to know homosexuals aren’t people to be afraid of, much like many people needed to know they don’t need to be afraid of blacks, Muslims or any other minority. We all want the same thing; life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.