I woke up this morning thinking it would be a quiet Friday off at home. Maybe go out to eat with mom, just generally veg out. Then I log on to a local newspaper’s site to read the headlines and, lo and behold, there’s the article I was interviewed about earlier this week on Day of Silence.
OK. A little unnerving since I thought it would be published on the 21st, but its an editorial and it’ll probably be buried in the newspaper anyway.
Then I go downstairs to find my mother on the phone with a tearful grandma who had no idea her grandson was gay until seeing the column
(Stupid thing hit post instead of paragraph… continuing onwards).
Then I go downstairs to find my mother on the phone with a tearful grandma who had no idea her grandson was gay until seeing the column on PAGE 2 of the paper.
Well it had to happen sometime, yes? We can deal with that.
I go to take a shower. In the middle of it, 700 WLW (a local talk radio station) calls asking if they can do an interview with me.
I finish up and then call back to find out they wanna do a LIVE interview with me over the phone. I agree, thinking its gonna be a news and information sorta thing. I can handle that, yeah?
Then I get a call from the National office of the organization I volunteer for, GLSEN, saying they’ve received a request from the Bill Cunningham show for someone to talk about Day of Silence. I told them that I had been unaware of the fact that it was a rabidly right-wing person I had already agreed to speak to, but that I had already said yes.
So now I’m being interviewed around 1PM by a belligerently homophobic radio personality and then calling up my grandma to explain why she shouldn’t be so upset.
You’ve done a very brave thing, and I hope your family finds it in themselves to continue loving and accepting you as they’ve always done.
As for Bill Cunningham - no apologies, no regrets. You’re gay, you’re proud of it, and no bigoted jackass is gonna tell you to get back in the closet. Gay rights are civil rights. Period.
Good luck Priam. Stick to your guns and try not to let him cut you off mid sentence. Radio hosts seem to do this a lot when they disagree with the caller. Polite, strong and absolutely no apologies. Let him come off as the smaller person.
Hopefully your grandmother will be ok with it after a little while.
And remember: you hang out on the Dope with some of the smartest people around (well, and the famous total dipsticks) and you more than hold your own. Some jerk on the radio is no contest. But break a leg (is that okay for something on the phone? Maybe break a pinky would be more appropriate–or a thumb?) and good luck (not that you need it, of course).
Oddly enough, I felt very calm during the interview itself. I could tell he was trying to be restrained, since bashing on a young college student isn’t gonna do anything for his cred. He asked the basic questions (How does the Day of Silence work? What is it supposed to do? Why is it necessary? Why can’t gay people just keep it behind closed doors?) and I feel like I gave him good answers without going too far off the subject. He overran me a couple times, but I was able to get answers in without allowing him too many monologues.
Whether or not he was holding back, I must retract my point about him being irrationally homophobic towards me. He obviously doesn’t get a lot of the issues, but he was willing to agree to disagree and encourage interested folks to visit the website.
As for grandma: She’s still more upset about my not going to church than being gay. Now that the stress is cooling down, I find that ironically funny.
Glad the interview went well, babe! That’s a very brave thing to do.
Heh, that’s more or less how it worked with my dad. Kid is queer: “eh, keep your options open, but we love you whatever.” Kid is a witch: instant massive angst. Heh.
But break a leg (is that okay for something on the phone? Maybe break a pinky would be more appropriate–or a thumb?) and good luck (not that you need it, of course).