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At this year's GLAAD Media Awards in Los Angeles, I decided to take the chance. I decided that it was time for me to "show up" as a gay man and stop dancing around the question when the press or work asked. I have now been given an opportunity not many people get. I'm privileged to challenge the conventional wisdom, or I should say the myth, that out gay men will not be able to get leading-man roles.
My path out of the closet has been long and sometimes scary. However, today is as hopeful and bright as the day my closet door first creaked a little bit.
In the fall of 1984, while watching the Columbus Day Parade march its way up to 5th Avenue, I fell in love. I didn't know at the time, of course, that this would be the love of my life, but over eleven years later that's who he turned out to be. The only problem was, he was an out, well-adjusted gay man in his thirties and I was an unaware twenty-three year old who was afraid to go below 42nd Street.
I will always remember the significance of meeting Jim. I was clearly on a path to understanding myself and my life, but I needed a little push. On our first date, Jim told me that he was interested in politics and that he could imagine running for office some day as an openly gay candidate. I was shocked. Yikes, I thought, how could I possibly ever be with someone who is so out, so open, so comfortable and happy about being gay. We started a relationship and then I moved to Los Angeles to begin my acting career, safely, I thought, locked behind the closed door. Jim, now my lover, was four thousand miles away - good! I was living in an apartment with a female classmate of mine from college - better! With all the shades, on what was to become my life, drawn and secured, the world would never have to know.
At the time, the entertainment industry was grappling with the conservatism of the Reagan era. It was still early in the AIDS crisis and the incredible support that Hollywood has subsequently given to the cause was just beginning. There was no Hollywood Supports. David Geffen, Elton John, Ian McKellen, and Martina were still locked behind their closet doors. My career was taking off in a slow but steady pace, and I was convinced that this was the way life needed to be. Enter Jim in the fall of '85, and things began to change. My beard moved out when my boyfriend moved in. I had to begin the process of coming out.
In 1986, Lyndon LaRouche and his cronies scared us with proposition 64, which would have reclassified AIDS as an infectious disease, making it legal for the government to quarantine the "victims." Until then I hadn't realized the true nature of discrimination and homophobia that is so pervasive in the world. Suddenly I saw the possibility that my friends, who were sick, could be subject to something we thought dead with Nazi Germany. It was time to make my way down from the ivory tower and start to act. The very first demonstration of any kind I attended was a candlelight march to the LaRouche headquarters in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. Jim, our dog Caliban, and I went down, waved placards and shouted with the best of them. As we passed the local news camera Jim quipped, "Wouldn't it be funny if your mom saw this?" I laughed, made a joke, and marched with red-faced anger against the bigoted LaRouche. Wouldn't you know, the ABC national feed featured two guys and their dog, who looked an awful lot like Jim and me walking arm and arm between two nice men in full leather? I was beginning the process. It was time for me to understand the importance of coming out, to my family and the rest of my friends. It was time to acknowledge my love for Jim and not hide it in the privacy of our home. Over the next few years, I did just that.
I rationalized my closet door with respect to my acting career, however, as a necessary evil. I tried to convince myself and Jim that the closet didn't keep me from being committed to the relationship - that it didn't really mean anything when he would drop me off at the set and I wouldn't feel comfortable kissing him good-bye. By that time I was getting bigger parts and was about to be cast as the womanizing Dr. Jack McGuire on Doogie Howser, M.D. Conventional wisdom, and fear, told me be gay in private, but don't bring it to work.
By 1992, I was very comfortable with my life. My family knew and were, for the most part, accepting. My agents knew and frankly didn't care. I was stepping farther and farther out of the closet and it seemed safe enough. It was also during this time that my relative indifference to politics and especially gay politics was giving way to greater passion. I worked on the Barbara Boxer campaign and later on the Clinton/Gore campaign both as a volunteer and paid staff. Together with thousands of gays and lesbians, we worked tirelessly to help elect the first gay-friendly president in history. It was a seminal experience that helped conjoin the two disparate parts of my life.
In 1993, we packed our bags and headed east to the March on Washington. As an actor, with some visibility, I was still finding it hard to know how much I could participate without, supposedly, jeopardizing my career. Then one night, Jim and I were walking hand in hand in DuPont circle, when we met a group of first year college students. They recognized me from television and in an instant their eyes widened, not because of my celebrity, but because they realized I am gay.
I saw, in that moment, the power of being out. I saw how important it was for me to accept the cards I had been dealt and make the most of them.
I believe that we are well past the days when the entertainment industry conspired to keep Rock Hudson and others locked behind closet doors. I also believe we all recognize and appreciate honesty more than deception. In the end, I am an actor.
I will always be an actor, and if the world can accept and fall in love with Robin Williams in a gay role, I don't think it's too unreasonable to assume that they can accept a gay man in a straight role.