Actor, radio personality, and producer Gay.
The word stirs up a mental picture for each one of us. Maybe it’s the face of a nephew, a son, a grandson, brother, uncle, or husband. Maybe it’s a co-worker, neighbor or friend that has opened up to share his story with you. If you’re open minded and receptive, there is always a friendly face nearby to personalize the struggle inherent in being homosexual in today’s America. For gay men (and lesbian women) childhood is filled with horrors unimagined by straight people. The questioning, bullying, and sense of loneliness leave many young people torn and separated from mainstream society and their families. It’s a sad fate that has been fed by personal ignorance and the teachings of the church. Across the web and across America promise to “cure” people of their sexuality, all the while homosexuals like Ted Haggard, and untold numbers of theologians are being called on the carpet for their hypocrisy and sex crimes against children. Still the church extols its rhetoric against homosexuals just like the KKK proclaimed its domain over black Americans not even a generation ago. Meeting Barbara Marcus is a refreshing ride into intelligence. She projects the strength, determination and a self-assurance for which we should strive. Barbara’s past is littered with tales that she’s not telling, but her eyes twinkle as she recounts her time in early television (she was a Goldwyn girl), then her fifteen years as Mrs. Robert Duvall. She is currently married thirty years to her beloved Fred. It’s clear from the glow she projects that Barbara squeezes all she can out of every day. During our recent lunch Barbara not only answered my round of questions, but she wanted to know more about me than anyone else I had ever met. Soon strangers at adjacent tables became friends because Barbara wanted to know about everyone. In her white linen blouse adorned with a remarkable coral necklace, she’s a former beauty queen who is now a strikingly beautiful “woman of a certain age.” She gives answers candidly and asks questions intently while filtering life through that rare quality of wisdom. Her bold, fresh book opens with the quote from RuPaul: “We’re all born naked, everything else is just drag”, then it swings into high gear as every page turns to show each man in and out of drag. Barbara took every photograph in the book, winning her subject’s trust, then interviewed each man — not just to learn about drag but to explore more about the world we all share. Forty souls are featured who fought against hate, bigotry, sexual confusion and alienation in their journey to find peace in a world that would rather they just go away or go to hell.
Calvin McNutt’s story stopped me in my tracks – not because it was so sad, but it was so typical of the lifelong pain so many gay men feel simply because they are BORN differently: