Just out., October 02, 1998, Page 21, Image 21

•
CAN WE
TALK?
Continued from page 19
“As queers, we are the love that dare not be
named,” she says, “and talk radio and television
do it.”
Tinker has appeared on Rich Lake twice,
once as an expert, once as a guest. For her
expert appearance, the show’s topic was: “You
want to have a baby but you shouldn’t because
you’re gay.”
Tinkers stepson, Josh Graham, accompa­
nied her on the show to demonstrate that
being raised by a lesbian is a situation in which
one can not only survive, but flourish as well.
Interestingly enough, he was invited back on
the show to receive letters of adoration from
viewers.
lesbians. Ricki Lake did an excellent job at
pointing out those inconsistencies.”
After the taping, Tinker says, the show paid
for everyone to go out to dinner and talk
things through.
“There was a lot of opportunity for resolu­
tion,” she says. “By the end of the weekend, a
lesbian couple and two gay men were begin­
ning to talk about helping each other out in
the business of conceiving. There were a lot of
minidramas going on, and also some intense
She adds: “My son was sharp enough to say,
‘What you’re saying to me is that 1 shouldn’t
have been bom.’ When people saw how hurt
he was they kept repeating how it wasn’t his
fault that his mother was a lesbian, which only
hurt him more.”
When recalling his appearance on the cable
show, Tinker’s son, Alex, 15, said: “It was
awful. I was 12 at the time. The theme was
whether or not it’s OK for gay people to have
children. I, of course, was supporting the posi­
ing,” he says. “They tried to hype me up before
I went on the show. They asked me to go on
and get in these kids’ faces because they were
against their parents. They wanted high,
intense emotion.”
Still, he says, he’d do it again, given the
chance.
“I like the opportunity to talk to people
nationwide," he says. “It’s important for people
to see that people with queer parents are real
and not just statistics. People hassled me a lot
“Because I’m gay doesn’t make
me any less of a parent, or
any less of an African American.
On television I had the chance
to talk about the obstacles
of hearing homophobic rhetoric
for your whole life. I was also
able to express that what we
face as parents is pretty much
the same no matter who
we are.”
— Reggie Petry
“Since 1 was the expert on that show I got
to read the scripts ahead of time,” Tinker says.
Scripts?
“They’re very scripted scenarios,” Tinker
says, smashing any illusion of spontaneity.
“Rich Lake's staff does a very good job at
preparing people. They listen to your story and
then tell you the parts of it that they find the
most interesting. It gives the guests a chance to
present a good side of themselves.”
According to Tinker, some of the folks on
the “let’s have a baby” episode were in clearly
troubled relationships.
“1 had to ask the producers where they’d
managed to find these people,” she says. “There
were two women, for example, who wanted to
have a baby, and one of the mothers was really
opposing it. But the questions she kept raising
had more to do with how young and unsettled
they were rather than the fact that they were
Reggie Petry agreed to go on television and share his story, but he was disappointed by the show’s negative portrayal of his family
group therapy for family members, but every­
one seemed to leave in a better place.”
Hosting, Tinker says, requires a great deal of
finesse. Some— such as Ricki Lake— have it,
she says. Others don’t.
Once, she appeared on a national cable pro­
gram from a satellite studio in Los Angeles.
“The host didn’t know how to direct and
limit the hostility,” she says. “A dynamic devel­
oped where people in the audience were telling
my son that he hadn’t done anything wrong,
but that his mother was wrong.”
TREE
H A M J D ’S
FREE
tion that it is OK. The audience was mostly
conservative senior citizens who basically told
me that my mom wasn’t good enough and that
she shouldn’t have had me. I burst into tears
and stopped talking.”
Alex admits that, while it’s exciting to go
on television, it’s also nauseating. In 1997, he
appeared on the Rich Lake show along with
other children of queer parents, most of whom
had turned against their parents since they’d
come out.
“They picked people who were entertain­
about it when I was in elementary and middle
school. I was afraid to say anything. Now a lot
of people say it’s really cool and the ones who
disagree keep their mouths shut.”
eggie Petry, 41, describes himself as a
“proactive parent.” And he is one who
has spent much of the past 20 years rais­
ing his three children, the youngest of whom is
now in middle school.
R
Continued on page 23
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