He
spoke quickly and sounded upset: “This
is the call I hoped I’d
never have to make,” my editor said. He’d talked
to representatives
from the Boy Scouts and the Mormon
Church, that told him
they would do everything possible to
make my life miserable if we
ran the “Scouts’ Honor” series about a child
molester who worked
for them. The Scouts would do an “expose” about my
sexual orientation;
they’d let everyone know I was a “sinner” by
taking out
attack ads; they’d tell everyone on my beat to stop talking
to me.
“What
do you want to do?”my editor said.
I
paused. In a larger city, the threats might seem laughable.
In
eastern Idaho, they ’re not.
Idaho
Falls probably isn’t the most homophobic town in the
country, but sometimes it feels that
way. To hang out at more “gay
friendly” places, people here often drive to Laramie,
Wyoming, where Matthew Shepard was murdered,
or Pocatello, Idaho, which
the movie “Latter Days” depicted as a gay hell.
When my partner’s
employer found out he was gay, he assumed
that my partner was
a child molester and a sex addict.
My partner was fired from his
social work position because of this
perception.
I
wasn’t out to people on my beat. Many of my co-workers
knew about my orientation and the newspaper
even changed its
health insurance policy so I could
insure my partner. But I worried
that if the county sheriff or the police
chief found out too
much, they might not talk to
me. Still, I’d spent too much
time on the “Scouts’ Honor” series,
and the stories were too important to kill.
The
attacks started before the series
ran. My office, home and cell phones
rang through the night. Twice,
someone ringing the doorbell
to “find out the truth” disrupted
my sleep. Local talk radio devoted perhaps
12 hours to just one
subject — my “sinful” sexual
orientation. My editor
wrote a form letter to
respond to the deluge of
e-mails and calls about my
sexual orientation. Getting
work done seemed impossible — everywhere I went,
I was asked if all the
rumors were true.
The
stories inspired hate even before
they were published. But after print,
things changed. Parents no
longer yelled at me; they
thanked me. Boy Scout
leaders should tell parents
if their children are molested,
they said. Court cases
shouldn’t disappear from
the public record, they
said. Someone who
molested at least 24 kids — one
of them 6 years old — should spend more than
150 days in jail, they said.
They demanded changes,
and largely saw the attacks
on me for what they were:
an attempt to kill the messenger
and prevent the Boy
Scout leaders from being
held accountable.
People
on my beat found out my sexual orientation,
but did not react
by shutting me out. To
most, the “gay thing” didn’t
matter — and it wasn’t something they considered a polite
topic of conversation. A few,
thankfully, stopped trying to set me
up on dates with their daughters
and realized their stereotypes were
wrong: “I guess gay people
aren’t all child molesters,” a police officer said. “But
I thought you
had to be a crazy sex-addict to be
gay,” a court clerk said. “I don’t
think you’re going to hell,” a jailer told me.
Now,
everyone seems to have forgotten. It’s old news. The
city
of Idaho Falls seemed to go back to
normal. But I feel different. I
don’t feel like I’m holding my breath anymore.
When I walk my
beat, my balance seems better.
