I was born in 1967. I have many gay friends that were born in the same era. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. The best because it was the year in which Elvis Presley and Priscilla got married, Elton John and Bernie Taupin started working together as songwriting partners, the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Pink Floyd released their debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. The worst because France launched their first nuclear submarine, the People's Republic of China shot down United States planes violating its airspace, an Egyptian surface-to-surface missile sinks the Israeli destroyer Eilat and Israel retaliates by bombing Egyptian refineries along the Suez Canal. In short, it was a year like all others, but those of us who were born in that time struggled much more to come out than those who were born 25 years later.
Why am I telling you this? Because I get the impression that gay youngsters today do not understand why the older generation of queers got married and had kids. We did not do it because we were afraid, we did not do it because we wanted revenge, we really did it because we thought it was the right thing to do (With “we” I am merely showing my sympathy, I never took that road). I am writing this as an apology dedicated to the children born in those families that later broke up because mom or dad came out.
Twenty years earlier in 1947 Elton John was born. If you think you understand what it was like for a fag to be born in 1967 then you would be able to imagine what it was like 20 years earlier. Just to jog your memory that was two years after the end of the Second World War in which Jews and queers were killed for being themselves in a “civilized” Europe. Believe me, Little Elton John had no choice and he got married.
In 1976 Elton told the Rolling Stone that everybody was bisexual to a certain degree. When he got married to Renate Blauel 8 years later there were speculation that the marriage was a cover and 4 years later in 1988, after their divorce, Elton came out of the closet.
You have to remember we are talking about Sir Elton John here, somebody with his stature are allowed to have a few screws loose; he is after all an artist and not just any artist. In his career he has sold more than 250 million records, making him one of the most successful artists of all time. With 9 number 1 world hits and more than 50 top 40 hits he is not just another musician. A guy like him can afford to have his own kind of lifestyle and still he only gathered enough guts to come out in the open in 1988 at an age of 41. If it took Elton John, a rich artist (estimated wealth: $265 million), 41 years to come out of the closet you can just imagine how difficult it was for normal folk like you and me.
On 21 December 2005, another 17 years later, Elton married (went in to civil union with) his partner David Furnish, a Canadian filmmaker. They met in 1993 and were together for 12 years. Looking at the life of a gay icon like Elton we see a guy that needed 29 years to admit he had bisexual urges, 41 years to admit he is gay, 43 years to get into a long term gay partnership and 55 years to get married to a man. What a life story! What an example for queers like you and me and yet, what a sad story of a guy that was forced by society to waste 55 years of his life pretending to be someone else. Do not judge before you can do what Elton did; in 1992 he founded the Elton John AIDS Foundation as a charity to fund programmes for HIV/AIDS prevention, for the elimination of prejudice and discrimination against HIV/AIDS-affected individuals, and for providing services to people living with or at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. So you could say that he didn’t hold back after he came out in 1988; he really went for it and gave it his all.
But what does that have to do with you and me? To me personally it means that no queer’s life is easy and I should think twice before I judge another person’s journey through life. Can you ever stand in another's shoes and presume that you know what he/she went through? It reminds me of the movie Good Will Haunting where Robin Williams asked Matt Damon: “do you think I will understand the life of an orphan by reading Oliver Twist? It is easy to judge a life while you are reading a biography in the comfort of your living room, but try living that live where the tires hit the gravel; not that easy any more is it?
So boys and girls think twice before you have anything to say about the life of another. It might be easy to give advice 25 years later, but standing in front of a choice, a fork in the road is never the same, never that easy.
by Drs. Brand Doubell & Andrew Blade
Taken from the
Cobrabite column
in the Gayly Mail.
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