Here in America’s heartland, LeAnne, a stay-at-home mom, has taken down the colorful gay-pride windsock that once flew from her front stoop.
Elsewhere in Kansas, a public school administrator has fresh worries about being fired despite 19 years of tenure.
And a veteran fundraiser for a religious charity in Missouri fears a backlash if anyone found out she was raising two children with another woman.
This is life in Middle America a month after the Nov. 2 presidential election, when millions supporting “moral values” turned out to ban same-sex unions in 11 states and back a president who made opposition to gay marriage part of his platform.
Gay Americans say they are hurt, bewildered and confused about what they see as a powerful outpouring of anti-gay sentiment. Some are reacting by renewing efforts to change public sentiment while others are retreating.
“It has been a severe blow to many people. There has been a lot of grief and heartache,” said the Rev. Jay McNell, whose Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Overland Park, Kansas ignited controversy when it recently ordained a lesbian elder.
“It reminds me of the civil-rights days when we saw discrimination against African-Americans,” he said.
659,000 gay American households
Nearly 659,000 American households are headed by same-sex partners, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. Many in such households, particularly in the conservative Midwest, say they are struggling with how to react to the message that millions of Americans don’t want them to have equal footing to form families and receive employer and government benefits.
Many worry that their children will bear the brunt of the backlash, and they find themselves in a paradox — needing to display confidence and pride in their families while at the same time keeping their relationships hidden from a disapproving outside world.
“You can out yourself but you can’t out your kids,” said 32-year-old Theresa Garrett, a mother of 2-year-old twins whose partner worries her charity fundraising work will be endangered if large donors find out she is gay.
A year ago, the tide seemed to be turning in favor of equality for gay Americans. Massachusetts moved to allow gay couples to wed. Large corporations were extending health care benefits to partners of gay employees, and many gays felt they were able to openly acknowledge their relationships.
But months of pounding on pulpits and anti-gay marriage sermons, from the Deep South across the Midwest and beyond, helped spur voters to the polls in record numbers.
Conservatives backing President Bush championed the promise of a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Eleven states, including Oklahoma, Ohio, and North Dakota approved their own such amendments on Election Day. Missouri passed such a constitutional amendment in August, and Texas lawmakers last month proposed state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage and civil unions.
“People are upset,” said Randall Ellis, executive director of the Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas. “There is a real frustration out there. We are people too.”
Reasons for optimism
Despite the election disappointments, advocates for gay rights say there are reasons for optimism, including the fact that 41 gay candidates were elected to local, state and federal offices on Nov. 2, according to the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund.
As well, some polls show that about 50 percent of the country favors some sort of civil union for gay couples, which Bush has said he does not oppose.
Also encouraging for gay groups was the Nov. 29 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court not to hear an appeal aimed at stopping gay marriage in Massachusetts.
“Nationally there were some setbacks for the gay community, but it didn’t kill us,” said Rick Garcia of the Equality Illinois gay-rights advocacy group.
Gay-rights advocates are already fighting back. A nondiscrimination bill is pending in Illinois; about 2,500 people attended a national gay and lesbian rally in St. Louis last month, and in Ohio the gay community is grooming gay candidates for local elections in the spring.
The Human Rights Campaign gay-rights group said this week it was “recalculating” its political efforts and stepping up activities “in the corporate world, in the media and, most important, in communities of faith.”
The announcement came after the group’s leader, Cheryl Jacques, resigned this week.
“Everyone is reassessing and figuring out the best course of action,” said Nichole Wicks, a central-states spokeswoman for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
Back in Kansas, LeAnne said she had taken down her windsock to avoid being a target of anti-gay hostility.
And the school administrator said she just tries to focus on raising her young son. “I have to present to my son that our family is OK, but I also tell him that some people don’t think it is OK,” she said.