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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (June 1, 2007)
liiJU?t|Ç>Ut .JUN£1.¿QQ7 northwest Proudly Serving Our Community ■ Stop By My Booth at Pride 2007! Randall Smith REAL ESTATE BROKER (503)471-3573 DIRECT randall»mlth0cb»eal.com randall-amlth com • A ft » A « A * f t DHARMA RAIN ZEN CENTER SEAL rio Fl R Ï I l 5 2539 Southeast Madsion. Portland. OR 97214 503 239 4846 aww dharma-rain org (503)643-7325 UNWANTED CHEST HAIR Why hassle with having to shave, tweezc or wax your unwanted hair-' Our A Bible autographed by the Rev. Jerry Falwell awakened memories for Liberty Baptist College graduate Glenn Scofield Williams. MeDioStar Laser is specific alls designed to safely remove unwanted hair faster mor«, reliably and with less discomfort than other methods. We can disable hundreds ot hair follicles in less than one second! My Wish for Falwell Exclusive look at the man from one of his queer students by Glenn Scofield Williams LASER HAIR REDUCTION SPECIAL Buy 4 Treatments, ( »ct 4 treatments Celebrating Pride & a year of keeping Portland healthy 1. Had a free rapid HIV and STD screening. 2. Learned how to eat healthier on the run. 3. Gotten tips on how to be a better boyfriend. 4. Learned helpful hints on Internet dating. 5. Played bingo with Chicos Latinos. 6. Learned how to live well with HIV. 7. Found out how to keep your ticker happy. 8. Learned how to give yourself a testicular exam. 9. Learned how to better protect yourself from HIV. 10. Met a new friend. What will you do next year? 1 for more intormabon on the Hbiross Center or monthly events: 503.445.7699, www.cascadeaids.Ofg7services_mensjive0ness Cascade /MOS Prefect >CAI=> erry Falwell died May 15. He owed me $1.75. Most of my friends applauded and rejoiced at the news, making jokes about the surprise he got in hell a few minutes after his unholy heart gave out. Part of me rejoiced as well. Especially the part of me who remembered sitting in his church in the early 1980s as the new "gay cancer" spread its deadly wings, the part of me that squirmed in the pews as Falwell intoned that it was God’s wrath, punish' ing gays for their “godless and immoral lifestyle." As if God lacked the capacity for love that I, a 19-year-old Montana kid, had. The part that rejoiced was the part of me that hated Falwell and his crusades against everything and anyone who was different: gays, women, liberals, intellectuals, unbelievers, anyone with a sex drive. I attended Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Baptist College off and on from the fall of 1978 until I graduated in May 1985. Mine was the first graduating class to be fully accredited and the first to bear the words “Liberty University” on our diplomas. I graduated with a degree in drama and enough credits in Christian theology to make a second major. I had entered Liberty to become a preacher. But during a sermon contest my sophomore year, the judges told me I was “too effeminate" and should learn to preach “in a more manly style." I switched my major the next day. Looking back, I recognize in myself a naive kid who hadn’t a clue as to the makeup of his identity. I am tempted to look at the boy, sitting in the pew beside Anita Bryant, serving as one of her body guards as gay rights organizations protested outside the church, and call him a coward. But how can I? I knew that I loved men and women both, that I found sex pleasurable without worrying about what organs it was that shared that pleasure with me. But I hadn't a clue that I was gay or bi or any- thing like it. The words didn’t somehow “apply.” I remember the first time I tried the word “homosexual” on myself. It was my junior year at Liberty, after a particularly nasty harangue from Falwell on the evils of the “homosexual agenda.” The day before I received a really excellent blowjob from a beautiful young man in a department store bathroom. That Sunday afternoon, after Falwell’s sermon, 1 stood in my dorm room on the Liberty campus, staring into the mirror. “Homosexual,” I mouthed silently into the mir ror. Scared the fuck out of me. Who we are can be quite a surprise and can take a long time to find words for. But there was another part. When I heard Falwell died, I remembered, of ail the fucked-up things, his kindnesses toward me. I remember how he praised my perform ance as Oedipus in Sophocles’ tragedy. He told the entire congre gation of Thomas Road Baptist Church that they needed to see the production. Falwell’s wife, Macel, used to drag him to all of our productions (“hoping to get me a little culture,” he would joke). He always sought me out back stage after a show to thank me and praise my act ing. I sought that praise like a boy seeking his father’s approval. Backstage at Oedipus, he fake socked me in the shoulder and said in his pear-shaped baritone, “Glenn, that performance was dynamite!” That night, I pulled him aside and asked him if he would write a little note to my grandparents, who were big Falwell fans. My relationship with my grandparents was strained at the time, and I thought this might make me a temporary hero. Falwell clicked his ball point, grinning that famous jowly grin of his and said, “What are their names?’ He wrote a little note to them and signed it. I never saw a photo of me on my grandparents’ walls. But that note was framed and hung on the wall of their living room until the day they died. When I heard Falwell died, I remembered, of all the fucked-up things, his kindnesses toward me. I
