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Copyright 1992 The Houston Chronicle Publishing
Company
The Houston Chronicle
July 12, 1992, Sunday, 2 STAR Edition
SECTION: LIFESTYLE; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 3300 words
HEADLINE: FAMILY TIES;
Some parents are stunned when they learn
their child is gay or lesbian. Others suspected but never dared ask. The
revelation can break homes and hearts. But in the end, one parents' group
says, what counts is love
BYLINE: BARBARA KARKABI; Staff
BODY:
ON a hot morning in May,
a 45-year-old woman from a small
town in Georgia linked arms with a young
gay activist in a downtown
Houston park.
Nancy Rodriguez listened quietly as gay and
lesbian activists
announced the verdict that had just been
handed down in the 1991
beating and stabbing death of her son, 27-year-old
banker Paul
Broussard.
Her stance was ramrod-straight, and her face
had the composed,
tight look of someone trying hard to control
deeply felt emotions.
Occasionally she pressed the hand of Scott
Lewis, a member of the
gay activist group Queer Nation who has become
like a surrogate
son, or touched a large college ring she
wears on the third finger
of her right hand. It was her son's ring.
Rodriguez has not taken
it off since his death.
In the year since Broussard was killed in
a widely publicized
""gay bashing'' incident, his legacy has
touched the lives of
people who never even knew him. The shock
of his killing has caused
at least some parents of gays and lesbians
to become more involved
and to strengthen their relations with their
children. It has
brought home to parents, police and the general
public how much at
risk gays and lesbians are from anti-gay
harassment.
""When I heard about his death, I thought,
"Oh, my God, that
could have been my son,' '' said Carole Miller,
who has a gay son
and a lesbian daughter. ""I had already started
to attend meetings
. . . but this really motivated me to try
and make a difference . .
. ''
Now Miller is vice president of the Houston
chapter of the
Federation of Parents and Friends of Lesbians
and Gays, a national
organization and support group that helps
family members come to
terms with their children's sexual orientation.
Over the past year,
the local P-FLAG group has begun to take
a higher public profile,
partly because of new leadership and partly
because of the sadness
and horror many parents felt at Broussard's
death.
""We are not a cross section of parents.
There are lots that
we never see, who have thrown their children
out or broken
relations,'' said Gail Rickey, president
of the Houston P-FLAG
group. ""Many of the parents we see are hurting
and searching for
answers but want to keep their relationships
going with their
children. Others have accepted and want to
make things better for
their own child and other children. ''
Rodriguez's search for answers and for justice
has thrust the
soft-spoken woman from Warner Robins, Ga.,
into a role she would
never have imagined for herself. She has
taken part in rallies,
like the one that took place Saturday to
commemorate her son's
death, has made the long drive from her hometown
to Houston more
times than she cares to think, and has worked
closely with local
gay activists and the district attorney's
office to hammer out an
acceptable sentence for Jon Christopher Buice,
18, one of 10 young
men accused in her son's death. Buice was
accused of landing the
fatal blow.
""I didn't decide to get involved. It just
sort of
happened,'' she said. ""I'm doing it for
my son -- he can't be in
the courtroom or in the marches, so I have
to be there for him. If
somewhere along the line it helps someone
else's children not to
(harass gays), he won't have died in vain.
There's enough problems
in this world; we all need to learn to get
along together. ''
In an interview in a downtown hotel room
after the press
conference announcing the 45-year prison
sentence given to Buice
after he pleaded guilty, Rodriguez described
her emotions -- relief
at the stiff sentence, anger at her son's
brutal slaying, sadness
at the thought of a family atmosphere that
might encourage gay
bashing.
""I've been told you can't blame the parents.
But they had to
have been raised with some kind of prejudice,''
she said of the
teens accused in the slaying. ""I wasn't
brought up that way. I was
a GI brat, but you are taught to get along
with everyone. I wasn't
raised to hate people. ''
She admits it's been hard not to hate those
charged with
attacking her son with nail-studded boards
and a knife about 3 a.m.
on July 4, 1991, as he was leaving the gay
nightclub Heaven.
Broussard died later at the hospital. The
incident rocked Houston
and gained national attention.
To Rodriguez, who struggles to find meaning
in her son's
death, letting people know that gays and
lesbians have families who
care about them has become a major goal.
Although she has only
attended one P-FLAG meeting (in Atlanta,
two hours from her
hometown), she speaks highly of the group.
Rodriguez has talked with Miller on the local
P-FLAG help
line, a number that gays and their parents
can call to get
information or just to talk. The help line
is staffed by parent
volunteers who check the answering machine
frequently and return
calls within 24 hours. Rodriguez also plans
to attend a monthly
Houston P-FLAG meeting at 2 p.m. today at
IntraCare Hospital, 7601
Fannin.
Since ""coming out'' is an important and
often emotional time
for gays and lesbians and their families,
she may tell P-FLAG
members about her son and their relationship.
She may even talk
about the day Broussard came home from Texas
A&M University and
told his mother he was gay.
""I guess he was about 18 or 19. He came
home from college
and said, "I have something to tell you,'
'' she recalled. ""We had
just been to visit him and the fellow he
lived with, and I had
figured it out, but I thought it was up to
him to bring it up.
After he told me, I remember saying, "If
you want to talk about it,
that's fine -- but it's OK with me. ' You
see, I felt that it was
his own business. ''
As she has told people over and over during
the past year,
""That's your child. If you loved them before
they told you, why
would you stop loving them after they tell
you? ''
Rodriguez was proud of her son. He was born
in New Mexico and
spent most of his youth in Warner Robins,
Ga., where he and his
brother and sister were raised. She loves
to tell how Paul, who was
an Eagle Scout and played in the school band,
graduated 15th in a
class of 469. He paid his own way through
college by working at two
jobs, and eventually found a job with NationsBank
in Houston.
She knows that many parents of gays and lesbians
do not
accept their children's homosexuality, and
few are as open to it as
she was. Even so, many are having to come
to terms with it. P-FLAG
brochures quote Kinsey Report statistics
estimating that 10 percent
of the U.S. population is homosexual. One
out of four families,
they say, has a gay member.
Since Broussard's death, one of his teachers
has visited
Rodriguez and told her that she has a number
of gay students in her
class. A therapist who counsels Rodriguez
said many parents of gay
and lesbian children come to her and ask
her to ""fix'' their children. She, like other parents, has learned over
the past year
that an estimated one-third of the teen-agers
who kill themselves
are homosexual.
""I would love to do something for those
kids in my town,''
she said. ""I told my therapist that I could
open up my house for
the kids, but she said the town would never
accept it. ''
The tragedy of gay and lesbian suicide was
discussed at the
June P-FLAG meeting, during which a tape
of a ""20/20'' segment on
the issue was shown. Featured in the interview
was a California
woman named Mary Griffith, whose son Bobby
killed himself in 1983,
shortly after he turned 20.
Griffith, who was a fundamentalist Christian
at the time of
her son's suicide, recently visited Houston
and talked to parents
at a party hosted by P-FLAG president Rickey.
Since her son's
death, the guilt-stricken Griffith has dedicated
her life to
working with parents and children to prevent
teen suicides and to
promote understanding. While in town, Griffith
spoke at a
fund-raiser for the Houston Institute for
the Protection of Youth,
a new group that helps disenfranchised youths.
""The family is a child's lifeline,'' Griffith
said. ""I
firmly believe that if Bobby had family support
or education in
school, he would be alive today. For all
of us it was the biggest
secret. I didn't want anyone to know, and
neither did Bobby. It's
such a terrible trap for parents, and that
is why P-FLAG is so
good. The group is a godsend as far as I'm
concerned. ''
When Bobby, at the age of 16, told his family
he was gay,
Griffith prayed that God would ""heal'' her
son, and she believed
that he would, right up to the day Bobby
died. She constantly
played a Christian radio station in their
home and told her son to
pray harder. Her husband thought that if
Bobby would date more
girls, he'd change his mind about being gay.
A Christian counselor
told their son the same thing.
""By the time he was 18, Bobby decided none
of that was true.
That was just the way he was, and he was
trying to accept it,'' she
said. ""Of course I discouraged that every
step of the way. He was
afraid that God would send him to hell, because
that is what I
thought.
""I think he finally felt that God's hell
couldn't be any
worse than what he was suffering. He felt
rejected by God, church,
family and society. ''
The morning Griffith learned that her son
had jumped off a
bridge into the path of an 18-wheeler, she
remembers telling
herself: ""God's will be done. God knows
best. '' But then she began
to feel troubled. Why, she asked, hadn't
God ""cured'' Bobby and
made him straight? The more she thought about
it, the more she
refused to accept that her son would burn
in hell and that she
would never see him again.
Eventually, she said, she suppressed her
homophobia enough to
visit a minister at the Metropolitan Community
Church near her
home. MCC was founded in 1968 to minister
to gays and lesbians. For
the first time she was able to discuss homosexuality,
her beliefs
and her fears in a more open atmosphere.
Besides helping her along on her spiritual
journey, she said,
he also recommended that she attend a P-FLAG
meeting.
""It's scary to believe in something so strongly
and not know
it's wrong,'' she said. ""When I went to
my first P-FLAG meeting, I
was just amazed. I didn't know other parents
existed, and it was
like listening to myself talk.
""I had come to the conclusion there was
nothing wrong with
my son, and they reaffirmed that. This is
how Bobby and other gays
and lesbians were born -- their feelings
are just as natural as
ours. It might have made a difference if
I had known about P-FLAG
before, but I probably would have thought
they were from Satan back
then. ''
Not everyone's journey to acceptance is so
difficult. But
many parents go through periods of anger
and grief after their
children ""come out'' to them, Rickey said.
Once those feelings are
processed, she and other parents said, relationships
with their
children have grown and their own lives have
become more open to
diversity.
Coming out makes a difference in their children's
lives, too,
Rickey said. Those who feel they have to
hide their sexual
orientation from their parents often lead
unhappy and fragmented
lives.
In the wake of Broussard's death, activist
Lewis decided to
tell his family that he was gay.
""It was a wake-up call to me. I left Heaven
that night only
30 minutes after Paul and his friends did.
What if they called my
mother and said, "Your son was killed coming
out of a gay bar'? ''
Lewis said. ""I needed to tell her myself,
and I realized that
until I told her, we could never have a complete
relationship. She
went into therapy to deal with it and seemed
pretty open. Then she
went to a revival and changed her mind. But
I'm luckier than most
because I haven't lost any of my family,
and many of my friends
have. ''
As for Rickey, the past year has brought
changes, too. In
June, she proudly marched down Westheimer
and Montrose in the
Houston 1992 Lesbian/Gay Pride Parade, something
she might not have
done in the past. She loved every minute
of it, in spite of the
blistering heat.
""Walking down that parade route, the crowd
would look at our
flag and cheer. The response was so incredible,''
she said. ""The
more I waved, the more they cheered. They
said things like, "Thank
you for being here' and, "I wish you would
talk to my mom. ' To do
so little and get such a response was really
touching. ''
Ronalyn Hall, president of Houston P-FLAG
in 1990, and her
son John David McDaniel, both marched in
the parade, though with
different groups. McDaniel, 28, came out
to his mother when he was
18.
""We always had a good relationship, but
now it's even
better, and there are no secrets, no walls
between us,'' he said.
""Even so, the first thing she said was,
"Tell me it's not my
fault. ' That was a long time ago, before
people realized that it's
a genetic thing. The older I get, the prouder
I get and the more I
realize I'm OK. ''
Hall is proud of her relationship with her
son. Over the
years, she has tried hard to educate others
about gay and lesbian
issues and let people know that gays are
not ""evil, scary people. ''
""I joined P-FLAG because while I didn't
need support myself,
I thought I might be able to help others
that did,'' said Hall, who
is no longer as active as she once was. ""The
group has really
grown this year, and I'm very pleased about
that. ''
Rickey has watched as parents have clung
together and cried
their way through their first P-FLAG meetings.
As parents learn and
grow, some call her between meetings and
tell her how much better
they feel. She watches with pride as they
in turn counsel other
newcomers in the group.
Some parents who call the help line or attend
meetings say
they have suspected their children were gay
or lesbian for years.
Others have never had any idea. For all parents
it is helpful if
children prepare what Rickey calls a ""psychological
packet''
containing suggestions on books to read and
perhaps a therapist or
friend to consult.
Sadly, many parents find out their sons are
gay at the same
time they learn of an AIDS diagnosis.
""I met one mother who seemed to be more
upset about the fact
her son was gay than the fact that he was
dying of AIDS,'' said
Walter Porter, a P-FLAG member whose son
died of AIDS four years
ago. ""I told her, "Look, you can't do this.
You have got to come
to terms with your son. ' ''
Rickey quickly corrects visitors who hope
P-FLAG will ""fix''
their children. That's not what the group
is about. Some parents
don't like that message and never return.
But everyone reacts differently. One father,
who asked that
his name not be used, read everything he
could get his hands on. He
found comfort in statistics and came to understand
that his child's
sexual orientation was natural. In the process,
he also set aside
the homophobic feelings he was raised with
and brought his family
closer together.
One mother recalled the years she spent suppressing
the fear
that her daughter was a lesbian.
""It was like, if we didn't name it, maybe
it wouldn't be
true. When I finally found out, I wanted
to die. I prayed very hard
to die, because all I knew was to flee or
fight, and there was no
place on the planet I could run to,'' she
said. ""I figured it was
my fault and that my husband would blame
me. But we went through it
all together. I look at it as when I was
sick and when I got
better. I was real sick for three months,
and after that I was just
fine. ''
P-FLAG's Miller's longtime suspicion that
her daughter might
be a lesbian was confirmed when she came
home with her lover, a
nurse, and told her mother the two had a
special relationship.
Still, she had never thought her son was
gay. He had dated women
and was close to being engaged when he told
her.
""When my son came home three years ago and
told me he was
gay, I said, "But how can that be? You're
a terrible dresser and
you always have holes in your socks,' ''
she recalled with a laugh.
""Every gay man I knew was always such a
snappy dresser. ''
Miller now is actively involved in gay and
lesbian issues and
is pleased at the pride her children feel
in her commitment. She
flew out to San Francisco two weeks ago to
walk with her son in
that city's Gay Pride Day Parade. Next year
she hopes her children,
who both live in California, will join her
in the Houston parade.
Since they lost their son to AIDS four years
ago, Walter and Lou Porter have found comfort working with a Catholic
AIDS support
group and helping parents adjust to their
children's homosexuality.
A large color photograph of Walter Jr. dominates
the couple's
living room and reminds them of the promise
they made him to help
AIDS patients and their families. They began
attending P-FLAG
meetings six months ago and view that as
part of their work.
""We loved our son, but we didn't condone
or accept his
sexual orientation,'' Walter Porter said.
""I tell people, "God
gave us our children for a reason. They are
going to be difficult,
but we are going to love them because they
are our children. ' The
alternative is to lose them. I think a lot
of parents feel they
will lose their friends, or kinfolks won't
talk to them. But if
that's what they think, they need more help
than the gay person. ''
Rodriguez remembers her fears that AIDS would
take Paul
Broussard from her. She never worried about
gay bashing. The
anniversary of his death was tough as she
recalled the
early-morning call telling her that Paul
was badly hurt and would
probably not live.
Rodriguez rushed to Houston, hoping to get
there and hold him
in her arms one more time. But Paul died
before she arrived. Now
she often sits at her son's grave in Georgia,
decorated with roses
from her garden, and wonders why.
""I visit his grave almost every day. I sit
there and say,
"Kid, let me know it's OK,' '' she said.
""I know he would tell me,
"Mom, cut it out. Let go of it. ' Because
some days it just eats me
alive. It's not going to change the world,
but if his death starts
making people accept each other for what
they are, then maybe it
will mean something. ''
Recommended reading
Here are some books recommended by the Federation
of Parents
and Friends of Lesbians and Gays and other
sources:
""Now That You Know: What Parents Should
Know About
Homosexuality'' by Betty Fairchild and Nancy
Hayward (Harbrace,
$ 8.95).
""Beyond Acceptance: Parents of Lesbians
and Gays Talk About
Their Experiences'' by Carolyn Welch Griffing,
Marian J. Wirth and
Arthur G. Wirth (St. Martin Press, $ 9.95).
""Parents Matter: Parents' Relationships
With Lesbian
Daughters and Gay Sons'' by Ann Muller (Naiad
Press, $ 9.95).
""Loving Someone Gay'' by Don Clark (NAL-Dutton,
$ 4.95).
""Parents of the Homosexual'' by David K.
and Shirley Switzer
(Westminster John Knox, $ 8.95).
""Coming Out to Parents -- A Two-Way Survival
Guide for
Lesbians and Gay Men and Their Parents''
by Mary Borhek (Pilgrim
Press, $ 9.95).
From a religious point of view:
""Taking a Chance on God: Liberating Theology
for Gays,
Lesbians and Their Lovers, Families and Friends''
by John J.
McNeill (Beacon Press, $ 10.95).
""Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? '' by Letha
Scanzoni and
Virginia Ramey Mollenkott (Harper, $ 9.95).
""But Lord, They're Gay'' by Sylvia Pennington
(Lambda
Christian Fellowship, $ 10).
Many of these books are available from the
local P-FLAG
lending library for people who attend the
group's meetings (call
the P-FLAG help line at 867-9020 for information).
The books can also be found or ordered at
Inklings -- An
Alternative Book Shop, 1846 Richmond Ave
GRAPHIC: Photos: 1. John David McDaniel,
28, ""came out'' to his mother, Ronalyn Hall (color); 2.The local P-FLAG
chapter showed its colors in last month's Houston 1992 Lesbian / Gay Pride
Parade in Montrose (color); 3. Nancy Rodriguez (b/w, p. 4); 4. Carole
Miller (b/w, p. 4); Graph: 5. Recommended reading (b/w, p. 4, TEXT); 1.
Ben DeSoto/Chronicle, 2. Robert Seale/Chronicle, Larry Reese/Chronicle,
4.Steve Campbell/Chronicle
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: July 13, 1992
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