It Takes One to Know One

BY AMBER LEVENTRY

Vermont, the state I call home, passed a bill that will allow same-sex marriage.  As my partner and I decide on how to transfer our nearly eight year Civil Union to a marriage, I can’t stop thinking of the opponents who think my marriage will deface religion and the sanctity of one man marrying one woman.  And then I think of my religious mother and the dating advice she gave to me when she found out I was gay.

My mother left my father in the fall of 1998.  She had plenty of fine reasons:  His continuous relationship with the unemployment office, his gambling, his extramarital affairs, and general disinterest in being a father.  But she had lived with those for years, so I’m not sure what exactly caused her to leave.

I was a sophomore in college when I got the call.  She wanted me to know she had had enough and was living in a duplex owned by my uncle.  My mother made it sound so simple:  My father wouldn’t leave, so she did.

I had a chemistry exam that evening and wasn’t able to talk long, but she didn’t seem to mind.  She just wanted me to know what was going on.

I was shocked, and not because she had called with such nonchalance about a big issue.  That was typical.  She constantly called to tell me about my family’s trouble with abuse, money, and booze.  I was shocked because after years of fighting, after years of my mother demanding my father to leave, and after years of my mother threatening to leave, she actually left.

A year later—and a couple of boyfriends later—He came riding in.  To avoid cliché and to better put this into perspective, he did not ride in on a white horse, but on a unicorn, perfect to match the dysfunctional fairy tale my mother bought into.

He was soft spoken and kind.  He was divorced and had a young child.  He was a born again Christian, just like my mother.  I found peace in the fact that he was not abusing her in some way.  I had no confirmed reason to dislike him.

But I was convinced he was gay.

Though I have broken her of the habit, my mother used to call me daily, and I had been forced to talk to him on many occasions.  She would ask me if I wanted to talk to him and then quickly pass the phone before I could answer.  It was her way of seeking approval.  If I could just talk to him, get to know him, I too would see how great he was.

I didn’t think that he was all that great, but I did notice how effeminate he sounded over the phone.  And when my girlfriend, Amy, and I went home for Thanksgiving and met him for the first time, we couldn’t stop talking about our discovery.  It was obvious to us that he was gay, but seemingly not to him.

Since I was not out to any members of my family—I had known I was gay since my first kindergarten crush—we didn’t talk about it with my mother.  My family had meet Amy several times, but knew her to be my best friend.  End of story.

We were in my hometown again, and I happily stood on the dilapidated porch of the duplex, flipping burgers on the grill and splashing barbeque sauce on chicken wings and thighs.  My mother came outside to join me, and like passing the phone to him, leaving me no choice but to disconnect, she began her ambush.

She was worried about me.  She feared I would only know how to be loved in unhealthy relationships, having grown up surrounded by them.  She wanted me to find a good Christian man who would take care of me.

I had an idea of where the soliloquy was going, but I flipped the meat, and she kept talking over the stinging sounds of it hitting the grill.  She asked the questions she already knew the answers to:  Have I dated?  Did I like someone?

Then it went back to her emphasized wishes of a good Christian man.  A man.

I didn’t want to talk about dating or Christianity or men.  I wanted to eat chicken.  She kept at it, though, and I stopped listening.

I made a decision and finally let years of fear and anxiety surface and spill onto the porch.  I interrupted her and blurted out, “You don’t have to worry about me, Mom.  I am in a healthy relationship.  I’m gay and Amy’s my girlfriend.”

I heard her tears before I had the strength to look at them.  It took all I had to look up.  Her face was cracked with disappointment and pain.  Through sobs I heard her say she knew and had known for awhile.

I should not have been surprised, but I realized I had been manipulated again.  I was angry and didn’t have the nerve to tell her so.

During my silence, my mother pushed the limits of her inappropriateness and asked if I had consummated my relationship with Amy, as if that would have been the factor deciding my sexuality.

Amy, not knowing what we were talking about, pushed the front door open and asked if dinner was almost ready.  By the look on my face and my mother’s sobbing, she knew dinner was not almost ready.

My mother got up and went inside to be consoled by him.  I told Amy what had happened and she hugged me.  Though I shook from nerves and adrenaline, I felt relieved that my sexuality was no longer a secret.

I hadn’t planned on the conversation happening this way.  At some point, I was going to sit my mother down and hand her literature that defended my sexuality and give her pointers on how to deal with who I was—just like I learned at the LGBT support group I attended.  I had a speech prepared!  And we would be alone, not in the mixed company of my girlfriend and a man I had just met for the third time.

Instead, the four of us had a very lopsided conversation.  I became numb and listened to he and my mother explain their distaste of homosexuality.  They did their best to recite every verse from the Bible they thought condemned same-sex relations.

I just sat there.  I had finally rid myself of the burden of coming out to my mother and my fear became reality.  I was up against the Bible and my mother’s interpretation of it.

My tongue forgot its purpose, and all I was capable of was sitting on the couch, hearing the conversation but watching an episode of The Real World.  He and Amy had been watching the reality show while my mother and I were on the porch.  It was the season with openly gay Danny and his military boyfriend, who MTV showed kissing, but blurred to protect military boy’s identity.

Looking back, his choice of television shows was an obvious, though missed, clue to an inevitable outcome.

My mother told me again she knew I was gay.  If fact, she remembered that when I was in high school, she asked me if I was gay.  We were watching Ellen DeGeneres’ first sitcom.  I lied then and told her what she wanted to hear.  I was not gay.  Don’t be silly.

Now sitting next to her new boyfriend, she asked me why I lied to her.

Wasn’t it obvious?  “This is why!  I knew you would do this!”

I had wounded her.  She cried and told me that it was he who cemented her suspicions.  After he met Amy and me for the first time, he told my mother we were dating.  He was convinced I was gay.

They went on to confide in us that he was a former homosexual, and he knew these things.

Amy and I had been right.  We looked at each other, and our eyes said the same thing:  Are you kidding me?

My mother explained that he had been saved by God.  He used to be gay, but not any longer.  Through prayer and determination, he was no longer the butt-fucking queer he used to be.

Butt-fucking queer are not words my mother used, but I would have loved it if she had.  She said everything else he had brainwashed her to believe.  It only seemed appropriate for her to use the correct terminology too.

He explained that he, like my mother, was a born again Christian.  He asked Jesus Christ into his life, to save him from his sins and the fiery gates of Hell.  Coincidentally, we learned that this conversion had happened shortly after being disowned by his parents when they found out he was gay.  When his father threw him out of the house, his prayers were answered, and he found God.

He told us that someday we too would no longer live ‘the lifestyle.’  And until that day came, he would pray for us.

He seemed to be telling himself more than us that he was straight.  And I was very clear to tell them that being gay was not something to be cured or prayed away.  The day would never come when I would wake up and realize I had been living a lie.  He could pray for something else.

I tried to explain to them that homosexuality is not a choice, it is part of you.  It is predetermined.  It is simply the label someone has given for the way my heart falls in love.

My mother did not believe any of this.  Because she was so hell-bent on having a man in her life she believed what she wanted to believe:  He was no longer gay.  But in a very dangerous process, he also convinced my mother that my gayness could be taken away if she prayed hard enough.

I quickly realized no common sense would overcome their bible-beating defense mechanisms.  We argued for hours, and I finally stopped the conversation by saying that we would just need to disagree.

My goal became less about getting my mother to accept me, but for her to accept that he was not ‘cured.’  Perhaps he was bisexual.  That would make more sense.  That could explain things when he said he was in love with my mother, yet used to date men.

Despite my advice and protest, my mother continued her courtship with him and eventually married him.  It was quite an event.  It was held in their church and had all of the makings of a traditional wedding.  Laughably, my mother wore a white gown and he wore a white tuxedo with a white top hat and cane.

The honeymoon was over as soon as it started.  My mother often provides too much information about her sex life, and I learned that a few months into the marriage he didn’t want to have sex, and he was no longer affectionate.  He was depressed and all he wanted to do was watch television.

She didn’t understand.  I understood.  Now that he was a married man, he could let go of some of the act.  He got the ring on her finger, his parents forgave him.  I would be depressed too if I chose to live a lie.

What’s ironic is that my mother’s desire for love, her faith, is what caused her so much pain and frustration.   She wanted to believe he loved her.  She wanted to believe in her religion.  It had given her hope and the drive to make it through tough times.  Perhaps he could do the same.

She never let go of her faith, but when she caught him watching gay porn one Sunday before church she began to question it.  The issue became good vs. evil, not straight vs. gay.  My mother admitted what she had been silently suspecting: He was a liar.  He was gay.

When bitch-slapped in the face with it, my mother suddenly believed that being gay was not a choice.  I was relieved by her clarity and tried not to say ‘I told you so.’  She left him and for awhile he stayed in town.  It was cheaper for each of them to call it a separation.  When he left the state and starting banging men in New Jersey, my mother called it a divorce.

During her marriage to him, Amy and I had a Civil Union ceremony, which my mother refused to attend; it was against her religion.

She and he did, however, come to the barbeque the day before the ceremony.  In the middle of my backyard, full of my gay and lesbian friends and Amy’s Jewish family, she wore a maroon sweatshirt bearing the head of Jesus Christ with a crown of thorns and the words ‘Jesus Saves.’

My mother went through a lot of discovery during her time with him.  She has regrets and has apologized for mistakes she has made.

Like Jesus, I suppose, I have forgiven her.