Celebrating 50 years - my perspective - gay couple together 50 years

When Bill and I committed to each other in 1953 we were stumbling in the dark. The word "homosexuality" was not mentioned anywhere, and we were always assumed to be straight. Same-sex couples today know where they stand in a way we couldn't. They know they're not alone.

It would have been easier for us if we could have gotten married because then we would have been out to our families. And if there had been a public ceremony, it would have confirmed for us that our relationship could last. Now, after 50 years together, we don't need marriage for survival. But if we could get legally married today, we would, because we have had a great number of straight friends who have supported us. We would get married to validate that support.

On thanksgiving Day, we will celebrate our official 50th anniversary. We met in Jacksonville, Fla., in 1947. Bill was 16, and I was 20. For the next six years, while attending the University of Florida, we were close friends. Bill had accepted being gay, but I had not. When we entered the job market we both found employment in Atlanta, and with no indecision we moved in together. By that time I had come out to myself, and we had agreed in advance that our new cohabitation would be intimate.

There were no role models for our relationship. We couldn't know if it was going to last. It took a long time before we came to the understanding that we were not going to go our separate ways.

The closet was absolutely required in the 1950s. We both had very public careers--me as a professor of pharmacology, Bill as an organist-choirmaster in the Episcopal Church. When we were invited to a party we couldn't circulate as a couple. And when we had a personal problem that had to do with being gay we couldn't tell anyone. That's where it hurt. So we had this feeling that it was us against the world--that we truly needed each other.

In 1953 we both read Edward Sagarin's The Homosexual in America--the first prominent book about being gay. It talked about some gays being nesters, being home-oriented. We realized that we are both nesters. We take pride in the things we own, and we have always invested in things that last.

Many in the gay community are asking, How have you made your relationship last? Well, as with many other couples, it has been about sex and companionship, and the companionship has stayed strong well beyond the sex. It's all the good things in life we've enjoyed together and all the bad things we've survived.

We have stuck it out despite many challenges, some of which have strengthened our relationship. We have replayed the same arguments for 50 years. When you replay the same arguments gets down and dirty very fast. But when we hit that bottom we realize there's no splitting up. We just go on. Our arguments always end with the realization that we are permanently--and fortunately-codependent.

For us, saying "I love you" has become a daily moment of intimacy.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Liberation Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group