With the June 26 U.S. Supreme Court decision in favor of same-sex marriage, the number of gay married men will increase and decrease.
I was a gay married man in the sense that I was gay and married to a straight woman. The same applied to lesbians who were married to men. They were lesbian married women.
Aside from arranged lavender weddings, where a woman knowingly married a gay man to keep his sexuality a secret, gay men or men who questioned their homosexuality married women with the advice from physicians or psychologists that “it was only a phase” and they’d “get over it.”
The other advice I got was by a Washington DC psychologist who asked if I thought about sex all the time. I told her no, I did not think about sex all the time. She then told me I could not be gay because gays, she said, think of nothing but sex all the time. More bad medical advice.
An Episcopal priest told me since I was strong in the faith I could control the wickedness of homosexuality. Yes, this was an Episcopal priest in Washington DC.
I tried to follow my priest’s advice and “control the wickedness of homosexuality” but it didn’t work. I found myself pursuing gay men in professional circles. I was never the bar type. I met my partners in libraries, museums, film festivals, professional conventions and conferences, etc. Interestingly, most of my partners were other gay married men.
I realized there was a rather large population of gay married men in Washington and I saw an ad for a gay married men’s meeting in an office building at DuPont Circle. They held regular meetings on Friday evenings. The times I attended the audience reached 150 or more.
Some gay married men brought their wives. One young couple spoke enthusiastically to the crowd about “making our marriage work.” I met some single women there who suspected, they said, their husbands were gay. One woman said she was preparing herself for the time when she would ask her husband the Big Question: Are you gay?
Most of the men used only their first names at these meetings. Early in the program, the leader, who said he was a gay married man, announced one of the important rules.
“Never,” he said, “go up to anyone in public with their wives, kids, and girlfriends/fiancés and say you met them at the Gay Married Men’s meeting.” It happened to me once, he said. “I didn’t appreciate it.” He said he told his wife he went to the meeting to support a gay friend who was married.
In other words, all the men in the group were urged to keep the deception alive. Enjoy a secret closeted gay life while keeping the wife, kids, and girlfriends in the dark.
There was never any discussion about how the gay married man could tell the wife, kids, and girlfriends/fiancés he was gay. It seemed to me this would have been helpful to some men like me. It would have also been helpful to have a psychologist there to talk about becoming honest with one’s sexuality with their family.
Instead, it was all about how to conceal, deceive, and lie to one’s wife and kids. After each meeting ended, the gay married men converged on the nearest and filthiest gay bars in DuPont Circle. I never joined the crowd.
I found the Gay Married Men’s meetings unhealthy experiences, so I found other support in church and with professionals who had experience with the issue.
With same-sex marriage legal nationally, though still contested in some states, gay men will continue to marry straight women. A gay friend in Washington recently did so.
My gay friend is in his 60s and in poor health with no insurance and a spent inheritance. His wife, in her 90s, is healthy and with “Rolls Royce” insurance, my gay friend said, that covers all his health ailments. They are now happily married. In another case, two straight men I know married for similar financial and insurance reasons with the support of their children.
People have and always will marry for love. The love option is now open to same sex couples. Other people will marry to help a friend in need. That is love, too. I pity the people who do not see love in marriages based on affairs of the heart or to help friends in need.
As long as people know what they are getting into, let marriage in 2015 do what it has always done: unite people.
Human Rights Advocate Jim Patterson is a writer, speaker, and lifelong diplomat for dignity for all people. In a remarkable life spanning the civil rights movement to today’s human rights struggles, he stands as a voice for the voiceless. A prolific writer, he documents history’s wrongs and the struggle for dignity to provide a roadmap to a more humane future. Learn more at www.HumanRightsIssues.com
