That vote hit gays and lesbians like a thunderclap. It wasn’t only an undeniable refutation of the gay and lesbian lifestyle; it said loudly to gay black stars that you’d better not show your true face in public: “Come out at your own peril,” seems to be our mantra.
The question is: why does the black community want black gay stars like Queen Latifah and others to remain in the closet?
The black electorate was far from alone in drawing the ire of the gay and lesbian community. From members of congress to state lawmakers, black politicians were mostly MIA on the issue of Proposition 8, diving into their political bunkers to avoid handling this cultural dynamite of an issue.
No one wants to touch this issue publicly, but everyone is talking about it behind closed doors, in our offices and at parties.
Conversations about who may or may not be gay in professional sports and entertainment (we will refrain from naming the many suspected stars here) become as impassioned and lively as a March Madness office pool or Fantasy League game. But as long as gay and lesbian stars remain, as we say, in the closet, their status in the black community remains solid. We cannot handle, say, a former gangsta rapper like Dr. Dre coming out and proclaiming his alternative lifestyle (okay, so, we named one rumored person).
Secretive gays and lesbians saw what happened to former superstar George Michael of Wham! His career ended the very day — the very second — the music heartthrob and sex symbol got arrested for having gay sex in a park bathroom. Homosexuals took note of the years of snickering that followed Eddie Murphy after he was busted for picking up a transvestite. The speculation over the reasons for Murphy’s divorce have become a joke in our community, as well as who he was allegedly caught in bed with. Gays hear the talk of about former rap star-turned-minister Mase allegedly prowling an Atlanta park known as a gay hangout. Closet homosexuals know what people have said about the NBA’s Isiah Thomas and Magic Johnson because they kissed on the court before every game during their championship meeting in 1989.
And then there’s the religious condemnation. Black homosexuals and the black church have been interlocked in a “cold war” for decades. Homosexuals are pretty much persona non grata within the black religious establishment. It’s as if gays and lesbians cease to be human once their sexual orientation is known and their pew spaces get revoked.
Black gay stars’ money and status are insufficient to insulate them from the stings of rejection that their fellow gays feel on the regular. Therefore, in their minds, the thing for them to do is to remain undercover, where they are safe from personal assassinations and career explosions.
Nowhere is this issue more prevalent than in Atlanta. Recognized as the so-called black Mecca, it’s also now known as the official black gay capitol of America. But with mass demonstrations against homosexuality organized by the likes of Bishop Eddie Long, Rev. Bernice King and other prominent personalities, the burgeoning homosexual demographic remains unloved and cordoned off from the rest of society.
Who’s going to come out and proclaim proudly that they’re gay or bisexual when people like Sherrie Shepherd and D.L. Hughley blame the astronomically-high HIV/AIDS rates in black America on down-low black men, as they did recently on The View? Who’d want to shoulder that — in addition to the intense shame and emotional issues they may already be dealing with for not being true to themselves?
As it stands, our community’s dishonest and hypocritical look at religion and sex, be it heterosexual or homosexual, is at the heart of the explosion in sexually-transmitted diseases, with Washington, D.C. having the highest levels of HIV contraction in the entire world. It‘s about time for us to have an honest conversation about a few things. Don’t you think? —terry shropshire
