How Tough Was Gay Life in the 60s in Portland

I got to thinking the other day of how dangerous the closet was in the 1960s. My parents had out (well OK, out in a limited sense) gay friends. My grade school best friend and three of my high school besties were gay, but I was either too naïve or too unobservant to realize it.

I feel sure I have told this story before, but I asked my mother why some of the guys at my high school called me a homo (the 1960s slur for gay people). “Your two best friends are homosexual,” she said, to my surprise. “Give them up, or the taunts will continue.” “I’d rather be taunted than give up my friends,” and that was the choice I made.

One of my friends was a Mormon, shunned by his family and church when he came out. He became a House Boy and died, age 30, of AIDS. Another friend disappeared, except for a Social Security entry noting his death at age 28. The third friend became an Episcopal priest, but not without some difficulty about his sexual orientation.

Frankly, I don’t like those odds, and I’ll bet gay people in the 1960s didn’t like them either.