Loren A. Olson, M.D.2013-05-25T15:13:41-04:00Loren A. Olson, M.D.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=loren-a-olson-mdCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Loren A. Olson, M.D.Good old fashioned elbow grease.Iowa Republicans for Marriage Equalitytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8709942011-06-23T15:40:00-04:002011-08-23T05:12:01-04:00Loren A. Olson, M.D.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/loren-a-olson-md/Angelo told the Des Moines Register, "I don't think this debate reflects the character of Iowans, the culture of Iowa."
Angelo was a three-term state Senator who did not seek reelection in 2008. He has not always been on the side of same-sex marriage. Five years ago, Angelo, an evangelical Christian, co-sponsored a bill to amend the state's constitution to prohibit marriage between same-sex couples. Now he says that his views have evolved because of his relationships with Iowans who have families with same-sex couples. Angelo has said that he believes his new position is consistent with basic GOP values: individual freedom, limited government, and the pursuit of happiness.
It wasn't until I was forty that I came out. I was married, with two children, and it was the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. I was unsure if I could be open about my sexual orientation as a physician. I knew no other openly gay physicians at the time. Now, twenty five years later, I am legally married to the man I have loved for most of that time. When I told some of my friends that I was marrying a man, I often heard, "In Iowa? Of all places!"
Iowa has a little-known history of being on the leading edge of many civil rights issues. Unlike neighboring states, Iowa has not always followed the national majority opinion. In 1839, several years before Iowa statehood, the Territorial Supreme Court decided to allow a slave residing in Iowa to retain his freedom. In 1851 Iowa territorial law rejected anti-miscegenation laws; Nebraska, Missouri and South Dakota did not allow interracial marrying until over one hundred years later. The Iowa Supreme Court ordered school integration nearly one hundred years before the federal court's decision.
When the University of Iowa opened in 1855, men and women were admitted equally and it was the first University to grant a law degree to a woman and to an African American. The U of I was the first state university to recognize an LGBT student organization and the first to offer insurance benefits to domestic partners of its employees. In 2007, following a long tradition, the Iowa District Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to deny same-sex couples the right to marry, a decision upheld unanimously by the Iowa Supreme Court.
None of this suggests, however, that there is no opposition in Iowa to marriage equality. Many in Iowa continue to seek a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, and there are those with deep pockets throughout the country who contribute their dollars to keep things stirred up in Iowa. As we head into the Iowa caucuses, it is bound to once again become a hot topic, at least for a few.
It is too early to know what response Angelo will receive from his fellow Republicans. Since he is not seeking re-election, he can speak out more freely. As Newt Gingrich recently discovered, speaking out against Republican social conservative positions can drive a nail into an election coffin. It is doubtful that even those Republicans seeking re-election and agree with Angelo will speak out in favor of marriage equality. It is too early to know how large the membership of Iowa Republicans for Freedom will become.
According to a 2011 poll in the Des Moines Register, 32 percent of Iowans support same-sex marriage and another 30 percent just don't care very much. Now with some prominent Republicans abandoning the issue, the 37 percent of Iowans who opposed the Iowa Supreme Court's ruling may be dwindling even further.
Speaking on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart recently, Bill Moyers commented on how little factual information there is in the media. He said that news must be based on fact; all else is opinion and publicity. Almost all of the opposition to same-sex marriage is based on opinion, not facts. As one of my friends suggested, "Our same-sex marriages are political whether or not we choose them to be." Now that people in Iowa like Angelo are learning that same-marriage doesn't threaten their families and gay men and women are not stealing their children to recruit new members, many of the old arguments against same-sex marriage are being seen for what they are: self-promoting publicity.
The arguments against marriage equality are bolts of lightning used to strike fear into the hearts of people who are not so much homophobic as homo-naïve.
]]>Do We Need to Rethink the 'Homophobic' Label?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8591052011-05-10T11:42:00-04:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00Loren A. Olson, M.D.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/loren-a-olson-md/Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight," I received a very angry email about my being gay from a man named "George." I challenged the things he said about me, responding, "You don't know me."
George wrote back, "Oh, but I do know you. You have identified yourself as a homosexual, an immoralist. Nothing binds your conscience. Morality is just a matter of taste."
The best way to confront such prejudice is usually to become a real person to the other person and develop a relationship with them. I made some attempts to find some area of common ground. George could never respond to anything I wrote back to him other than to condemn me.
Some would say George is homophobic. I am not a fan of the word "homophobia." Gay men and women struggled for years and years to free ourselves from being diagnosed as pathological deviants. I see little value in attempting to pathologize those who oppose us by labeling them all homophobic.
Prejudice is based on the "Law of Small Numbers": What is true for one must be true for all. Like George, the rules of "in-groups" and "out-groups" dictate that those on one side attempt to define those on the other by applying stereotypical descriptions while never seeking information that dis-confirms their beliefs.
Do we as gay men and women move discourse forward by labeling those who oppose us "homophobes"?
Contrast what George wrote with this review of "Finally Out," written by a conservative, married, heterosexual, evangelical Christian minister: "['Finally Out'] gave me a deeper understanding of homosexual men. While I may not agree with some of Olson's decisions or actions, I've been in his head now. My heart goes out to him and I think this book would be valuable for any person who finds homosexual acts to be sinful."
Relationships are based on developing an empathic understanding of the other person.
I suppose one could argue that George was homophobic since a phobia is an intense but unrealistic fear of something that interferes with the ability to socialize, work, or go about one's life. George's fear was clearly unrealistic since it was related to characteristics he'd assigned to me rather than things he actually knew about me as a person.
Is George representative of all who oppose homosexuality? Don't we -- those of us in the gay community or our allies -- do precisely the same thing when we paint all who oppose us with the same brush by calling them all homophobic? When we do, we fall into the same trap of the "Law of Small Numbers": We treat our opposition as if they are all alike, irrationally afraid of us, and therefore hating us.
I much prefer the term "homo-naïve." I don't think that my mother and step-father had ever known anyone who was openly gay until I came out to them at 40. They knew nothing about what it meant to be gay. Although they considered my homosexual behavior sinful, like the Christian minister mentioned previously, they were open to accepting me and understanding me.
We must recognize the great diversity of the community of people who oppose homosexuality.
The responsibility for changing perceptions of the LGBT community must not be left only to those who write about it.
The Institute of Medicine released an important report in April called "Identifying Disconcerting Gaps in LGBT Research and Healthcare." The report emphasizes that the world is not divided into two populations, heterosexual and non-heterosexual. Non-heterosexuals consist of a multitude of sub-populations. In order for research to be meaningful and to make it generalizable to a larger population, each of these sub-populations must be examined as distinctive.
My interest has been on mature men who have sex with men (MSM) but who do not wish to be identified as gay. This group of men is largely hidden and has been studied very little, but I have found that even this sub-population is quite diverse. One research question I believe needs to be addressed: "Is there a higher rate of suicide in this population than there is in the general population?" My hypothesis is that the rate is higher.
This MSM sub-population is much larger than most people know. Most insist they are not gay, instead choosing labels like "bi," "questioning," "curious" or in fact, "heterosexual". If being gay is an identity rather than a description of attractions or behaviors, in the strictest sense, they are not gay. Frequently those in the LGBT community say, "They're gay, just not authentic or gay enough."
A study was recently published in the journal, Pediatrics. The study found that even when controlling for other risks of suicide (depression, binge drinking, peer victimization and abuse by an adult), a negative social environment was associated with increased suicide attempts and that a positive social environment reduced the risks of suicide attempts. In other words, social risks contributed far more to attempts of suicide than individual risk factors in an adolescent population.
Researchers are beginning to pay attention to the study of bullying of gender non-conforming and early self-identifying gay adolescents, and appropriately so. Bullying is another consequence of the application of the "Law of Small Numbers"; gender non-forming adolescents are assigned characteristics and targeted by some of those in the majority population
Little is known about the MSM sub-population who have significant risks factors for suicide: hopelessness, helplessness, worthlessness, and alcohol and drug problems. In addition, they frequently do not practice safe sex according to reports by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Discrimination against MSM is much more subtle than it is for gay adolescents but no less hostile. The process of coming out for mature gay men can be enormously complicated because of the complex networks of relationships formed while passing as heterosexual.
A recent report by Francis and Mialon of Tulane University called "Tolerance and HIV" found evidence that societal tolerance for gays may slow down the spread of the Aids virus and may do so by inducing gay men to substitute underground, risky sexual behaviors for safer sex and may encourage them to "come out."
It is becoming apparent that a positive social environment toward LGBT individuals is a significant public health issue.
In my interviews about "Finally Out," I have been questioned several times about my opposition to the word "homophobia." I have been asked, "Shouldn't LGBT be angry about the ways they are being treated?" Of course, we should. But we should be angry about principles, policies and hypocrisies.
Calling those who see LGBT individuals as deviant or sinful "homophobic" diminishes us and our arguments. It also fails to recognize that there are those people, like the minister I mentioned previously, whose attitudes and beliefs can be changed. Perhaps we cannot expect to be accepted by the "homophobic" community until we accept them even though we may disagree with some of their decisions and actions.]]>Identifying Disconcerting Gaps in LGBT Research and Health Caretag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8458902011-04-14T02:56:00-04:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00Loren A. Olson, M.D.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/loren-a-olson-md/The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People: Building a Foundation for Better Understanding." The report addresses "health" in a multidimensional way, including physical health, emotional health and social well-being. It identifies gaps and opportunities in health care for LGBT people.
As a group with minority status, LGBT people are subjected to prejudice and discrimination in health care. In the mid-1980s, I had just left my wife and daughters to begin the process of coming out. I had taken a new position as medical director of psychiatry at a large health care system in Iowa. My new position included an invitation to sit as the psychiatric representative on a committee of an HMO.
The committee was tasked with developing eligibility criteria for joining the HMO. The HIV/AIDS epidemic dominated early discussions. The woman chairing the meeting smugly announced that the HMO was designing the questions in their application questionnaire that would identify men who might be gay so that they could be denied coverage. One of the other committee members asked in a side comment spoken loudly enough for everyone to hear, "What did you ask them? 'Do you like to take it up the ass?'"
Although several committee members laughed, I sat there in stunned silence. I had not yet come out at work, because I was afraid that I would lose my position as psychiatric medical director if my newly admitted sexual orientation became public information. Faced with significant alimony and child support, I needed that job. I wanted to speak up, but fears of the consequences of doing so paralyzed me.
Similar discussions undoubtedly were taking place all across the United States. These deliberations assured insurance companies profitability while blocking access to health care for many gay men during the early AIDS epidemic. The LGBT community began to develop some of their own health infrastructure. Lesbians -- although not directly affected by the epidemic -- joined their gay brothers to advocate for equal treatment of the health care needs of the entire LGBT community.
Back to 2011. The Institute of Medicine was charged with identifying the state of the science of LGBT health, and with uncovering gaps in research. As a man who began life believing that I was heterosexual, went through a brief period of thinking I might be bisexual, and finally realized that I'm gay, one gap immediately became apparent to me: Who is gay and who isn't?
The IOM report points out that "LGBT" is an umbrella term. The "L," the "G," the "B" and the "T" all represent distinct populations, even though they are frequently discussed together. Each group also has subpopulations defined by race and ethnicity, socioeconomic and educational status, geographic location, age and other factors. Each population and subpopulation has its own separate needs and its own distinct health care requirements. The term LGBT also doesn't address those who are standing outside the protection of the umbrella, questioning their sexuality and experimenting with same-sex behaviors.
Some have simply divided people into heterosexuals and non-heterosexuals. Non-heterosexuals include men and women, homosexuals and bisexuals, gays, lesbians and people who don't adopt labels. Some engage in same-sex sexual behaviors, while others only experience same-sex attraction. Are they heterosexual or non-heterosexual? Although LGBT is an appropriate and useful term to use in some circumstances, the IOM report pointed out that "[in] some HIV research, study participants are combined in a single category that may include gay men, bisexual men, transgender women, and men who do not identify as any of the above but still have sex with other men. Combining these populations in this way obscures differences among them."
My research interest -- and the subject of my book, "Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight" -- has been a subpopulation of men who either come out later in life or who have sex with men (MSM) but do not identify as being gay. Some have a heterosexual self-identity; many are married, and almost all live hidden lives. Many are reluctant to give up heterosexual privilege and would never consider coming out. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that about 4 percent of the male population is gay but that 7 percent of men have sex with men. One can conclude that about 3 percent of men are MSM, or approximate 9 million men in the United States. This is a very diverse group of men whose lives have been shaped by their age cohort and the historical context of their lives.
MSM experience considerable stress and have higher incidences of depression and suicide, alcoholism and drug abuse, and HIV/AIDS than heterosexual men. When I first began to explore the medical literature, I found that in spite of their being a large group of men with serious public health risks, almost nothing is written about them. I became convinced that the coming out process for mature men is significantly different from the process for those who come out in their youth.
Each of us has multiple identities based on how our lives intersect with our families, our work, our communities, and society. Most MSM live their lives as heterosexuals, even though many of them have sex exclusively with other men. Lord Browne of Madingley, the former CEO of British Petroleum, lived a heterosexual lifestyle until after his retirement. The rich can afford their indiscretions.
Sexual orientation cannot be divided into only heterosexuals and non-heterosexuals; sexual orientation can be conceptualized in many ways: sexual attraction, sexual behavior, sexual identity, or any other combination of the three. MSM, along with many other subpopulations, are all encapsulated under the rubric of LGBT, but one thing these groups have in common is the stress created by their minority status. The stigma against same-sex orientation comes both externally (discrimination, hostility, violence) and internally (sense of difference, internalized homophobia).
Other factors obscure the distinctions within the LGBT community. Individual development is not the same for people of all ages. Coming out at age 15 is not the same as coming out at 50, and it is different for those born in 1950 than for those born late in the 20th century. Race and immigrant status blur distinctions and impact the coming out process and the availability of support; some immigrants feel that they must choose between their ethnicity and their sexuality. Coming out in rural areas where there are fewer LGBT people presents different obstacles. Religious affiliations also create barriers to coming out.
One man I spoke with said, "I can't be gay; I like sports too much." He had adopted society's negative attitudes about homosexuality and concealed his sexual orientation out of an expectation of rejection and discrimination. Concealment leads to a constant state of vigilance, always fearing that you will give away clues of your sexual orientation. The IOM reports said, "The experiences of individuals at every stage of their life inform subsequent experiences, as individuals are constantly revisiting issues encountered at earlier points in the life course. This interrelationship among experiences starts before birth and in fact, before conception."
Directly or indirectly, LGBT people experience discrimination in health care. For example, HIV prevention is targeted at the younger age group. Several years ago, during the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, my husband developed acute and severe abdominal pain. The gastroenterologist came in to see him, and without taking a history, performing a physical examination or ordering any studies, he pronounced that my husband had AIDS. A second gastroenterologist ordered a series of testing and diagnosed his problem as a parasite acquired during a recent trip to Mexico.
Much of the research that has been done on the LGBT community has been done on young lesbians and gay men, ignoring the hidden mature community. Research on the non-heterosexual community is difficult, partly because it is so operationally challenging to define who belongs to which population or subpopulation. It becomes even more complex when, as it did it my circumstance, the way one identifies his or her sexual orientation changes across the lifespan. Many MSM, for example, self-define as heterosexual and are reluctant to participate and answer questions related to same-sex activity. It is also complicated to develop randomized samples that would allow for generalizations to the larger population or subpopulation.
Large samples are necessary in order to generate hypotheses and formulate ideas about subpopulations like MSM. My story, as it is revealed in "Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight," is just that: my story. I have attempted to illustrate how age and historical context influenced the process of my coming out and impacted how my sexual identity evolved over time, but others living during the same time period had other experiences that were uniquely theirs. The IOM report stated, "At a time when lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals are an increasingly open, acknowledged, and visible part of society, clinicians and researchers are faced with incomplete information about the health status of this community.
This report from the IOM goes a long way in identifying the health care needs of the LGBT community and establishes priorities for areas of research. It will be particularly difficult to study those parts of the LGBT community and those questioning their sexual orientation but who are hidden. This report goes a long ways toward acknowledging their existence as well as their health care needs.
My husband and I are getting older. We have had recent reasons to need health care services. In Iowa, we have now had legalized same-sex marriage for two years, and I must say, everyone involved in our health care has been very respectful of our relationship. We both feel that we have been treated the same as any heterosexual spouse would have been treated. My memory of the unfortunate circumstance with the HMO has faded; unfortunately, the guilt I have for my failure to speak up has not diminished.
* * * * *
"Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight" is available in paperback and in Kindle format on Amazon.com. Other electronic versions are available at FinallyOutBook.com and inGroupPress.com.
Follow Dr. Olson: Facebook Twitter MagneticFire.com, Dr. Olson's blog for mature gay men]]>In Defense of Marriage: Caketag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8408482011-03-26T19:00:31-04:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00Loren A. Olson, M.D.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/loren-a-olson-md/
I can't fault my granddaughter for thinking same-sex marriage is weird; when I first heard several years ago that same-sex marriage was being proposed in Massachusetts, even though I had been "out" for many years, I thought it was pretty weird, too. No reference point existed for this significant social change.
All that my granddaughter needed was reassurance that our marriage was about a public statement of love and commitment -- and about cake -- and that her world wouldn't change. Doug and I had been together 23 years, so he'd been a part of my grandchildren's lives since they were born. The only comment I'd ever heard from my grandchildren that questioned our relationship was once when one of them said, "I didn't know two grown men sleep together."
That our government found it necessary to pass the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is far weirder to me than same-sex marriage. If marriage forms the bedrock of society, surely neither same-sex marriage would be a serious threat to it. More and more people seem to be feeling the same way. A survey by ABC and the Washington Post in March, 2011, found that for the first time over half (53%) of those surveyed support same-sex marriage. Five years ago, just 36% favored it.
Early in 2011, the Obama administration recognized that attitudes are changing and said that it would no longer defend the constitutionality of DOMA. The Democrats, hoping to capitalize on growing public support for same sex marriage, have responded by proposing the "Respect for Marriage Act" that calls for ending DOMA. Although the Democrat's proposal has little chance of passing the U. S. House, even Republican support for continuing DOMA seems to be softening -- except for the presumed Presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee.
Although some of the LGBT leadership has been disappointed with President Obama's sometimes wishy-washy positions related to issues important to the LGBT community, his soft support is a long way away from the positions of Huckabee. Jason Linkins quoted Huckabee as saying that Obama "made an incredibly, amazing inexplicable political error" by his decision not to enforce DOMA. At least Huckabee hopes so. His anti-gay positions are central to his message.
Here in Iowa, as Iowans head into their first-in the-nation selection of a Republican nominee for president, a recent poll showed that Huckabee heads the list of potential Republican candidates for president by a slim margin. In 2008, Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister with little campaign money, stole the Iowa Republican caucuses from well-funded candidates largely through his appeal to conservative, evangelical Christians.
I haven't heard a groundswell in Iowa of people who feel that their families and heterosexual marriages have experienced a great threat since Iowa Supreme Court's unanimous decision that ruled that limiting marriage to one man and one woman was unconstitutional. The results of a poll of Iowans published the Des Moines Registerin February, 2011, showed that 30% of Iowans just don't care much about the issue of same sex marriage.
In the Des Moines Register poll, 32% of those polled favor same-sex marriage. Those who oppose it were 37%. Bob Vander Plaats staked his bid for the Republican nomination for Iowa's governor with a campaign waged to radicalize the conservative base through an obsession opposing same-sex marriage. Apparently, not enough Iowans cared about the issue to win Vander Plaats the nomination for governor. But he did re-invented himself as the leader of a more successful campaign to oust Iowa's Supreme Court judges.
Vander Plaats now appears to be wedded to Huckabee in trying to motivate the 37% of Iowans who oppose same-sex marriage to support Huckabee. That may play well in the Iowa Republican caucuses, but over 60% of Iowans now either support same-sex marriage or just don't care.
The ABC/Washington Post survey predictably found that the weakest support for same sex marriage is among Republicans, particularly evangelical white Protestants. But even in that group, support for gay marriage has increased by double digit margins. Support for same-sex marriage has also increased significantly among Catholics, political moderates, and people in their 30's and 40's. One of the largest increases in support of same-sex marriage (18%) was found among men.
As Jason Linkings wrote, "I think the [Huckabee's] failure to support same-sex marriage is the thing that's becoming the 'inexplicable political error.'"
Politicians like Huckabee and Vander Plaat claim to have a moral authority; they exalt their thinking as if it is a universal truth and they believe they speak for all they seek to represent. Barbara Crafton, an Episcopal priest, wrote, "People think there's only one kind of religious moral vision. People outside faith communities imagine a conservative social consensus within them that isn't there, and people within them often think there should be one, even though there isn't."
Despite the idea that America is plagued by an epidemic of divorce, according to the National Vital Statistics Report, U.S. Census Bureau, the national per capita divorce rate has declined steadily since its peak in 1981. It is now at its lowest level since 1970. Massachusetts, first to adopt same-sex marriage, touts the lowest rate and Iowa isn't far behind. According to the Barna Research Group, divorce rates among conservative Christians are significantly higher than for other faith groups -- Huckabee's Baptists being the highest -- and much higher than atheists and agnostics. Perhaps the energy used to oppose same-sex marriage might better be refocused on making conservative Christians' marriages work.
Crafton noted that the nuclear family idealized by many faith-based communities was certainly not the only family in the Scriptures. Although the family may be a basic building block of societies, families have always evolved throughout the ages.
Undoubtedly as the campaign heats up for the next presidential election -- that happens very early for us in Iowa -- we will undoubtedly hear louder and louder shouts from those on either end of the spectrum concerning same-sex marriage. Those who decide the next presidential election will be the silent ones in the middle, those whose biggest concern may only be if there will be cake.
]]>The Pain of Being Gay on Valentine's Daytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8230132011-02-14T14:06:23-05:002011-11-17T09:02:45-05:00Loren A. Olson, M.D.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/loren-a-olson-md/
I met Ken in a support group for gay fathers. The group was instrumental in resolving many of the conflicts I had about my hidden homosexual desires. Everyone there had come out to their wives and they were seeking to find ways to deal with the loss of losing their families. These men were my entire circle of friends when I first came out.
Ken was my mentor in how to be gay while at the same time remaining a good father. His daughter, Jennifer, lived with him, and I hoped my own daughters could learn from her how to deal with having a gay father.
Ken had just come out of a long term relationship. Not wanting to be alone on Valentines Day, 1988, and not having connected with anyone at the gay bar, Ken went to a cruising area of Des Moines and picked up two young men and took them to his apartment. These two men, Gary Titus and "Billy" Green, stabbed Ken to death. Jennifer, asleep in the next room when her father was murdered, discovered his body in the morning. Titus later testified, "All gay people should be dead." His wish took a strange twist when his brother sent a letter to him in jail telling him he was gay; his brother later died of AIDS.
Jim was the first psychiatric patient I treated who had HIV. It was in the late 1980s and little was known about HIV. I remember being anxious about shaking his hand as he left my office. Jim was a cautious man -- except once. He knew precisely the moment he'd been infected; one night his sexual passion over-powered his rational thought. Jim was very closeted, and he came to see me because and he now faced having not only to tell his family that he was gay but also that he was going to die from AIDS.
Later, as my group of gay acquaintances expanded, Jim and I met again and became good friends. As he became sicker, he asked me to be his medical decision maker in the event he was unable to make his own decisions. I accepted, but didn't realize how difficult it would become.
Jim died on Valentine's Day, 1993. The day, too, was bittersweet. We'd had several inches of new snow; the sun was shining brightly in a sparkling blue sky, but it was bitterly cold. As he lay unconscious in his antique bed, covered with a down duvet and hand-made quilts, Jim's home was filled with people who loved him. The opera music he cherished filled the room where he lay. He had a high fever, was very dehydrated and his breathing was increasingly labored. As he neared death, I was torn between calling for IV's and antibiotics, or allowing him to die with the dignity he'd requested. He died precisely at noon, exactly the way he would have wanted.
How easily either Ken's death or Jim's could have been mine. I came out when I was 40, beginning the process in the early 1980s. As a newly freed man I was eager to experience every gay experience I'd missed earlier in my life. My sexual passions ran high and clouded my ability to make rational choices. If I had come out earlier in my life, I am quite certain I would have been infected with the deadly HIV.
But sweetness remains in my Valentine's Days, too. At about the time of Ken's death I met Doug, and we have been together ever since. I fell in love with him the night we met and he said, "I'm monogamous. Very monogamous." It was obvious that we shared many of the same values. Doug and I have had our challenges, of course, but those shared values have allowed us to work through them. I could never have imagined when I came out that Iowa's Supreme Court would make a unanimous decision in 2010 that would allow us to be married.
I loved my wife as much as I possibly could; I regret that it was not enough for me to be there day after day for my children. But first with Ken, then with Jim and our other friends, and finally with Doug, I discovered why people love Valentine's Day. I had found dimensions of loving others in ways I had never known. The joys of that love have made it possible to endure the risks of loving another.
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