(2 of 6)
Gays are working openly in the White House and on Capitol Hill, at least two of them as elected members of Congress; a gay man is president of the Minnesota state senate, and another is the Democratic candidate for secretary of state in California. Unabashed gays are employed as doctors, lawyers, teachers, police officers. Pop stars and Olympic heroes acknowledge they are gay -- as gold-medal diver Greg Louganis did, movingly, during Saturday night's opening ceremonies at the Gay Games. The gay dollar is courted by big companies, and gay tourism is encouraged, not only in Miami and Los Angeles but in traditionally conservative Pensacola and Palm Springs as well. Gays rally for rights not only in big cities but also, if more anxiously, in such places as Missoula, Montana, and Tyler, Texas. Earlier this month 20,000 gay men and women were made welcome at that icon of bourgeois family life, Disney World. Barbara Hoffman of Boston, 61, a retired, Radcliffe-educated clinical psychologist, has been "out" since 1955, when "the best we could hope for was to live quietly in our personal closets." She says, "I cannot believe how far our community has come."
Yet if gays are vastly less separate than they used to be, they are far from equal. Americans are willing to accept the abstract idea that gays have equal rights under the law -- 53% in the TIME poll favor allowing them to serve in the military, and a plurality of 47% to 45% supports giving them the same civil rights protection as racial and religious minorities -- but are distinctly less comfortable when asked about gays close at hand. By 57% to 36%, poll respondents say gays cannot be good role models for children; 21% say they would not even buy from a homosexual saleswoman or -man.
Many heterosexuals resent any perceived invitation to "condone" or "endorse" gay behavior. They would rather not know -- or, in the words of the Pentagon, they would rather not ask and they would rather that gays didn't tell. When confronted with the likelihood that at least some of their children, or those of relatives or close friends, will grow up gay, even liberal parents recoil in dismay. Verline Freeman, 31, a word processor in New York City, describes herself as "tolerant" and says she has gay friends. Yet she objects to her sons, 13 and 6, being taught about homosexuality in school, and has never discussed it at home. "It probably is important, but to me it's not. It's not something I want to be bothered with." To many adults, letting children know about homosexuality legitimizes it. Says Joseph Dickerson, 52, an electrician from Hightstown, New Jersey: "I disagree with teaching a broad spectrum of life-styles. It may have a tendency to sway some kids. When I was a teenager, if someone introduced me to a different life-style, there's no telling how I would have accepted that."