Ahh, the secrets we keep.
For instance, the secrets revealed in a biography of author Truman Capote. (Breakfast at Tiffany’s, In Cold Blood) I am reading it, although the book came out many years ago, after Capote died.
Its pages were filled with details about the homosexuality of any number of celebrities. Capote was gay, of course. So were various he-man movie and television stars. So were a raft of musicians, composers, poets, authors, members of royalty. So were many famous wives. And husbands.
Virtually all kept to their closets. People who wrote about them knew. People who interviewed them knew. People who publicized their marriages knew. Yet all kept silent, so far as the fans were concerned. They participated in a massive conspiracy of silence.
This was not just because we might not buy tickets to the movies of gay actors or scorn the books of gay writers. It was also because if news slipped out some of the actors and writers could land in jail. Or be blackballed in their work. Blackballed by people who knew all along they were gay but figured the audiences and book buyers could not stomach this.
Much of that sort of punishment is gone today, of course. But some remains. It all depends upon what side of the political fence the gay person stands. Senator Larry Craig was barbequed for jiggling his foot under the divider of a men’s room stall. But then, he is a conservative, or at least Republican.
Congressman Barney Frank is openly gay. His live-in operated a gay prostitution business from Frank’s home. “Tut tut, so what?” was the response from media types. But then, he is a pretty liberal guy.
Imagine: Hundreds of millions never knew author Gore Vidal, actor Rock Hudson, composer Leonard Bernstein, actor Montgomery Clift and many many more entertainment guys were gay. Kept a secret.
Little by little the public has learned to accept homosexuality. So that the veils of secrecy have been lifted. Some have, anyway. Little by little we have begun to use our laws to protect rather than prosecute gay people.
