Friday, December 7, 2007

Looking back at 2007

Looking back at what it was like to be an openly gay man in the Commonwealth of Kentucky during 2007, I can see that (1) My life has been more enjoyable because I have embraced who I am, and (2) I tend to live in a fool's paradise because prejudice against same-sex couples still exists --- the homophobes are just a little more sophisticated.

In September 2006, I was hired as senior staff writer for the Middlesboro Daily News, a local paper in a small Kentucky city with about 11,000 residents. The newspaper has struggled with content quality issues over the years and the Big-Haired Little Fat Woman who serves as managing editor indicated, in her eastern Tennessee southern belle drawl, that she wanted me, with my near-30 years of journalism experience, to help improve the quality of the writing and editing.

Upon my hiring, my partner, Robert, and I had a serious discussion about what this would mean for us as a gay couple. He is a tenured professor of English at a local community college and has been quietly open about his sexual orientation for years, long before I became a part of his life and moved into his home. His students and colleagues are fond of him, but tended to think of him as a non-sexual bachelor, even though that was not the case.

However, the sudden appearance of me --- his new husband/partner/whatever --- at faculty parties and other social functions forced the same people to realize that their beloved old Mr. Chips was, like everyone else, a sexual being. For the most part, most people said, "Oh!" and then shrugged, treating us pretty much like every other boring old middle-aged, middle-class couple. That's because the only people who knew that much about us were those folks in our not-small, not-large immediate circle of friends and family.

However, my taking the job at the newspaper put a different spin on our personal picture. Someone who writes for a newspaper, even a local rag edited by a Big-Haired Little Fat Woman, becomes a public being if for no other reason than he or she has his byline in the paper every day. After 30 years in the business, I realize that people attach all sorts of perceived identities to that byline, some of which may be true and others of which may simply be projected fantasies.

A name in the news --- even the name of someone who writes the news --- becomes a public possession, a subject for gossip and speculation. And I warned Robert that even though we never tried to hide our relationship, there would be less chance to control how people found out about it and there may be people who didn't approve and believed, even though they didn't really know us, that they had a right to judge us. He shrugged and said, "We'll deal with it."
What I think we were expecting, if we expected anything at all, was some kind of crazy redneck yahoo good ol' boys driving by our house at night and pelting beer bottles in our yard while they yelled "Fags!" Or maybe a bunch of women with PHDs (Pentecostal Hairdos) --- Robert's word for the local custom of certain female religious conservatives to pile their waist-length hair up high on their heads in scary, sprayed-into-submission nuclear reactor towers --- coming to our door with pinched little smiles and dropping off religious tracts saying, "Homosexuality is a sin. You will burn in hell. Have a nice day."

Nothing like that happened. The people who didn't approve, who included a couple of family members, simply stayed away. And everyone else just treated us like they always treated us: With our lady friends, we discussed husbands and issues such as how to deal with men who snore or don't like our cooking. With our straight male friends, we discussed politics, football/basketball, and wives who snore or don't like our cooking.

On my first day at the office, I met a young reporter who was leaving the paper. The exact circumstances were never explained --- the Big-Haired Little Fat Woman would only say, "He has 'issues' in his life." I also met another young reporter, a college-age young man. I admit to having underdeveloped gaydar because I lived my life in a closet until my forties. Consequently, I didn't pick up on the fact until a few months later that both of these young men are gay.
Within about six months of the first young man's departure, the second young man was fired by the BHLFW. There were reasons related to his job performance and they made sense, although I did think it was sad that the BHLFW didn't spend more time working with the young fellow and being more specific about what she expected of him. Of course, she didn't have a lot of time to do that sort of thing, as she (a single mom) and her young son always seemed to be having illnesses that kept her up all night and made it difficult for her to come into the office on some days. Fortunately, she had me and a couple of other experienced newsroom workers who could keep the paper going and pick up on her duties.

On my first day on the job, I informed the BHLFW about my relationship with Robert. I knew she was a social conservative, but I was pleased that she didn't purse her lips in a disapproving manner or give any other indications of disapproval. And so, when other staff members discussed their family lives, I discussed mine, openly and casually, just as I would have if I were married to a woman.

By the time summer came around, I noticed that the BHLFW was keeping her door, which was right next to my desk, closed. And I noticed that she gave other staff members --- straight women --- a lot of private access to her office, with the door closed. She also would give them a good deal of free time off --- one staff member had several issues relating to the illness of a family member that required her attention, and a new young female reporter was given frequent time off to prepare for her wedding and honeymoon, even though she obviously had not earned the vacation time to do so.

I kept on working at my duties, which now included regular page layouts that had been previously handled by the BHLFW. I advised and sometimes gave assignments to the young newlywed reporter, who was a talented if untrained news writer. And I spent my days fielding messages for the BHLFW who, more often than not, would not come in until evenings because she could not find a babysitter.

I kept up with my regular assignments, although through miscommunications with the frequently absent BHLFW, I did not participate in the writing of a special progress edition tab, although I supervised the assignments of stories to reporters. Sometimes, I would express frustration --- the BHLFW had a fondness for including "people" news items from the wire; short items describing the madcap adventures of celebrities such as Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton --- which I felt were a wasted use of valuable space in a primarily local newspaper. I sent her a memo on the subject.

In September 2007, I observed my first anniversary at the paper. I remember knocking on the door of the BHLFW's office --- it was now closed to me and most of the public all the time, because having it open interfered with the BHLFW's "concentration" --- and telling her pleasantly that we had made it through a year together. She smiled coolly and little more was said.

A month later, I came to work on a Friday --- after a week of writing several front page stories and laying out several pages --- and was informed by the BHLFW and the new publisher that my services were no longer needed. She recited a list of complaints she had been keeping --- apparently I "sighed" once when she asked me to redo a front page and I had a meeting to cover in five minutes. I informed her that I felt blind-sided and that I thought the minor issues she was bringing up had been discussed and we had both moved on.I packed my desk belongings into a box and left. I thanked the BHLFW for the experience and her friendship as I walked out the door. The publisher said to me, "That was a nice gesture."

I went into a funk for about three weeks. Robert was patient, letting me sit around the house in my pajamas and play on the computer, before finally telling me that I had to get off my ass and go do something. Several friends, including two very nice female co-workers from the paper, made contact to say how appalled they were by the situation. A few people wrote letters to the editor expressing anything from appreciation for the quality of my work to outrage that the paper chose to return to mediocrity and fire a talented, experienced journalist. All these gestures were appreciated by me.

But it wasn't until I started to get up and make moves toward finding a new job that I suddenly started to get over the shock and think about what happened. And one day, I said to Robert, "I think I've been gay-bashed and I think that's why I was fired."

His reaction: "Well, DUH! You're the only one who hasn't been saying it! Everyone in town thinks that's why she fired you!"

It made sense. A socially conservative boss. Three gay men in the newsroom, and then, a year later, NO gay men in the newsroom. I was happily partnered and open about my satisfaction with my life. She was a single mom with two divorces behind her and a sickly kid whose needs kept her from doing her job properly. Plus, she kept hearing about how much the paper had improved since I arrived and to add insult to injury, I thought her interest in Britney, Paris and Lindsey was stupid. It was enough to make ANY BHLFW resentful and want to take action against the thorn in her side.

Of course, if she, bless her heart, read this --- and who knows? She may have that opportunity some day. After all, I AM posting it online --- she would deny that her magnolia-scented homophobia, her over-stressed (and under-stimulated) personal life, her frustration at being a mediocre journalist --- had anything to do with my departure. After all, didn't she hire three gay men?

The BHLFW is not cut from the same cloth as the homophobes who killed Matthew Shepard or
the nutball religious conservatives who protest at military funerals or talk about "saving the American family" from gay marriage. She's a garden-variety bigot, one who knows that she doesn't dare open her mouth in a direct condemnation of same-sex orientations. She's part of the more sophisticated kind of bigots --- the ones who know that if you say, "bless his heart" or "God love her" you can get away with saying anything negative about a person.

I have a better-paying job in a field outside of journalism now. I still write --- I'm finding that I have more energy to pursue the kind of writing that interests me, now that I'm no longer part of the grind of putting out a daily newspaper. So being fired from the Middlesboro Daily News is really a blessing. I can do and say pretty much what I want.

Consequently, I would not take advantage of any state or federal laws that currently exist or might exist in the future to seek redress for my being evicted from a job because of my sexual orientation. But I will support any efforts to prevent it from happening to someone else. I never thought it would happen to me. But it did.

I've always believed the best revenge is no revenge at all and so I will trust in the cosmic powers that be that the BHLFW will get her just rewards for her prejudices someday. Of course, it wouldn't make me cry if the BHLFW never gets a date for the rest of her life; and it would make me glad if her sickly little son turns out to be gay --- then she would have the blessing of knowing what it is like to love and embrace someone who is "different."