Live Long, and Be Yourself

The universe has frozen over. “Spock” is gay.

When the actor Zachary Quinto came out of the closet and announced that he’s gay recently in New York Magazine, following that with an announcement earlier this week on his official website blog, you could have knocked me over with a Vulcan nerve pinch.  Quinto, who already had a sci-fi genre following based on his role as Sylar in the TV series Heroes, stepped into the iconic role of my beloved Spock in director J.J. Abrams’ 2009 film reboot of Star Trek. (Full disclosure: my love of Star Trek and Spock is dangerously close to sick, religious zealotry.)

Although now 34, Quinto is still relatively early enough in his thriving, acclaimed A-list career that making the decision to come out publicly could have posed a death knell to that career. Homophobia is, after all, still a prickly issue in the open-secrets Hollywood industry.

It’s the reason why Quinto came out, though, that has earned him my unfettered admiration and respect. Writing in his October 16 blog about 14-year-old Buffalo, NY, gay teenager Jamey Rodemeyer who committed suicide on September 18 after being bullied for his sexual orientation, Quinto said, “…in light of [J]amey’s death – it became clear to me in an instant that living a gay life without publicly acknowledging it – is simply not enough to make any significant contribution to the immense work that lies ahead on the road to complete equality. … [G]ay kids need to stop killing themselves because they are made to feel worthless by cruel and relentless bullying.”

Quinto was moved to come out – and potentially put his career on the line – for the cause of justice because the teens and young adults who have committed suicide had either kept their sexual orientation a secret out of fear, or had bravely come out at such young ages even though they ultimately paid a price for their openness.

His words resonated within me, sparking some serious reflection. I was born and grew up in Meridian, Mississippi, a very conservative Bible-belt city in the east-central part of the state. Although I have fond memories of my early childhood -- the innocent days of auld lang syne -- as I began growing older and feeling that something was “different” about me, and that I was taking a particular notice of other boys and liking it but wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, I felt a crushing, soul-deep sense of loneliness and misery because I didn’t have anywhere to turn or anyone to tell.

In those days – the late 1970s through the ‘80s in a conservative Southern city – I’d heard enough of the ignorant, cruel whispers and loud jokes about “the fags” and about God hating faggots (which could be a prime segue to mention that the notorious Fred Phelps of the hate-mongering Westboro Baptist Church is a native of Meridian…but I digress).  However, although my own experience as a repressed gay adolescent was marked by years of almost unbearable depression, I never took that grave, final way out of the abyss that so many bullied teens are taking now. Something was encouraging me to hold on a little while longer.

I eventually began coming out gradually to a few close trusted, open-minded hometown friends in the early ‘90s, but it was a very tenuous process of purging a lifetime of negative conditioning, repression, and shame that has, in varying degrees, continued to this day. I moved to the metro Atlanta area in 1997 seeking better opportunities and a more cosmopolitan, progressive life, but even after settling in and commencing my journey of becoming what I was, I still felt the nagging demons of internalized homophobia trying to bolster the wall between me and my freedom.

Throughout the ensuing years, it’s that word and concept – freedom – that has continued ardently to pursue me in spite of my reticence and my self-defeating habit of replaying all the old negative tapes in my head. Like an angel or a promise of grace sent from God, freedom – in whatever form or scenario or purpose it manifests itself – is something I feel passionately that every single human being on this planet deserves by virtue of his or her mere existence.

I think that goes double for anyone who is persecuted simply for being – or trying to be – themselves on their own terms. That’s why my heart goes out empathetically to, then breaks for, these gay kids (and some of them have literally been children) who only want to be authentic and happy and loved, but are met only with hatred, vilification, and violence from not only society at large but their own families as well and feel that suicide is the only way out of – the only path to freedom from – the pain.

Quinto added in his blog, “[W]e are at the precipice of great transformation within our culture and government. [I] believe in the power of intention to change the landscape of our society – and it is my intention to live an authentic life of compassion and integrity and action. [J]amey [R]odemeyer’s life changed mine.”

And in turn, Quinto – who has already brought a fresh new face to my beloved Spock for a new generation of Star Trek fans and is now giving a passionate, public new voice to the urgent race to save GLBT kids – has inspired me to solemnly rethink my bashfulness about my own sexual orientation and to be more brave, more willing to speak up. It won’t be an overnight transformation, but it can happen. As Quinto says in a clip he filmed last year for the It Gets Better video campaign, “There is help to be found. There are places to turn. There are people who will listen. … [Life] is worth living, and you will find your way.”

Amen, sir, amen.