Who deserves respect?"Twice I have brought myself great professional grief because “feeling gay man Charles Bouley” went on the radio instead of “thinking talk-show host Karel.”
The first was when Ronald Reagan died. All day long I heard everyone make this man a saint on TV and radio, and I couldn’t stomach it. I had a very different experience of this man, and that experience was most decidedly as a gay man. His disregard for AIDS, the tone he set in the country about how it was OK to let us die, the lack of resources that he provided, and the overall response of his administration to gay people were abhorrent.
So when I went on air, all that came to mind was “Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead,” so I played a piece of the song. I went on to speak of all the problems I had with Reagan and his administration. It was a spirited two hours. It was also on the day that he died.
The following Monday there was hell to pay. Complaints rolled in. I was classless. I was evil. I was way off base. I brought disrespect.
Now, maybe all that was true. But the fact is that as a gay man, I shed not one tear for Ronald Reagan.
(...)
ended up apologizing, not for what I said but for when I said it. I even wrote an open letter to Nancy Reagan, which is in my book You Can’t Say That.
That incident was a definite case of Charles Bouley, gay man—with all the pent-up anger and frustration building from the 1980s coming out.
After that, I reacted “normally” for most major events.
And then the pope died.
(...)
And this man, this soon-to-be saint had written and said that homosexuality is, “part of a new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man.”
So I am part of the new ideology of evil. According to him and his church I should not get married, ever, to the man I love. And the church loves me, the gay man, but as such I can never have sex if I want to be in the church.
(...)
Wonder how Jesus would feel about the pope’s finery, about the images broadcast on giant-screen televisions throughout the world, about people spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to make a pilgrimage to walk by John Paul II’s dead, deified body. What would Jesus do?
Well, I said all these things the day he died and again and created for myself a great deal of professional grief. Again, I was off in my timing. I should have waited a week—or two. It was a knee-jerk reaction to the day’s events, a reaction rooted firmly in the fact that I am gay and that as a gay man I feel this man and his organization are trying to keep millions like me in the dark—or the dark ages.
(...)
As a gay man I had every right to detest Ronald Reagan and the pope. The question is, as a talk-show host, did I have the right to say it on the day of their respective deaths? Well, yes, I have the right, but like any speech, it’s not free. And I did myself more harm than good professionally. Why? Because sometimes I simply can’t take it anymore and my anger comes out.
People have spent their lives telling me how intolerant they are of my lifestyle. This intolerance is allowed; it’s accepted. A gay man dies and it’s OK to go on TV or radio that very day and talk about the scourge of AIDS or how it’s God’s retribution. No one says a thing. A man in a black outfit with a white collar goes on TV and says homosexuality is a sin punishable by burning in hellfires, and everyone’s fine with that. A pontiff writes that I and many like me are part of the ideology of evil, and then we’re supposed to wait until the dust settles to bring that up.
Well, I’m sorry. For once, I’m gay first. I’ve never wanted to be. I’ve struggled not to be. I’ve tried to be the good little gay boy they want me to be and merge it with who I am, not let it dictate who I am. But twice in the past I’ve let it dictate. And twice I’ve paid a price.
(...)
When my husband died, who waited a respectful amount of time before commenting? No one. The next day articles were written about AIDS, even though he didn’t die of it. The next day a radio commentator went on the air to comment on his death and talk about how the “gay lifestyle” can lead to such things. That morning in the emergency room the doctors and police called me his “friend.” Later lawyers stood up in court and called our relationship nothing, not giving me any legal standing (they lost that argument on appeal, by the way).
A generation of young gay Americans died on Reagan’s watch, and it was OK because basically they deserved it for living the “lifestyle.” Millions of gays are openly shunned because the pope called them evil and because they don’t want to be celibate, and that’s all right. A reportedly devout gay man in San Diego couldn’t be eulogized in his beloved Catholic Church recently because church officials found out he owned gay bars. The family, at the last minute, had to move the body and find a new church. But that’s OK.
Say something against the person that is partially responsible for those attitudes before he’s put in the ground, and that’s classless. Let the gay man inside of me out in his righteous indignation, and he gets slapped under the guise of propriety.
I do not mourn the pope. He was a man. An old man with old ideas leading an archaic institution that acted like a crime ring with abusive priests, an institution that maintains opinions that lead to separation and pain. Yup, that’s the gay man talking. But as I get older, I can see now how wrong I was to assume my gay man wouldn’t come out. That’s what being out at its core is. It’s not just living an open life, it’s letting that gay man out to say what he feels in times of crisis, in times of world events. I may think “normal,” but I feel “gay.” At least at times. And I grow weary of worrying about how I feel, and how I seem to be the only one worried about it.
Yes, I’m a gay man. And as much as I’ve tried to deny it, I’m a gay talk-show host. I don’t host a gay show, but there’s a gay guy doing it. And that brings new experiences to the table and new points of view. Ones even those claiming to be tolerant don’t seem to want to hear because they upset their idea of propriety.
(...)
Buffy: "Come on! This is Sunnydale! How bad an evil can there be here?"
at: 4/4/05 4:03 pm
) Moreover, I have recently begun pursuing a vocation to the priesthood Out
Out 
at: 4/4/05 8:53 pm
I'd like to see 
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Out
By American standards (thank you, Canada! 
), a very decent anchorman/reporter.