Closets pack enormous amounts of danger per square inch; living phony lives takes heavy toll on everyone involved

It's a new year that's kicking off with reminders of an old, old habit.
Living so deep in the closet that you have hangers for earrings is a time-honored way of getting through life. Hiding homo-ness has often been a wise, necessary move. Still is, sometimes.

But hiding out has never been free of cost.

Occasionally it costs more than a Lexus, a world cruise, and several rounds of Botox combined.

Phyllis Gates paid a price, and she wasn't even gay. Gates, who died on Jan. 4 at 80 years old, was Rock Hudson's human shield, otherwise known as his wife. In 1955, as rumors about Rock being a man's man grew, she married him.

"I was very much in love," she insisted to Sara Davidson, Hudson's biographer.

"I thought he would be a wonderful husband. He was charming, his career was red-hot, he was gorgeous. How many women would have said no?"

I must agree. The man was so gorgeous, I don't think a ladybug would've said no.

If Gates did marry Hudson for love, rather than to be his beard, what a tremendous crash to earth she endured.

She put an end to the sham marriage in 1958, and never remarried.

She was The Accidental Victim. Not a homosexual herself, but hopelessly tethered to one.   Hudson had to hide to have a career, and she, as befits the "'50s, was just a hula hoop wobbling along on his hip to prove he could do it.

The price people around you pay when your unlisted address is the closet must be on the mind of the Rev. Lonnie Latham these days. The day before Gates died, coincidentally, Latham was arrested in Oklahoma City for suggesting to an undercover male cop that they go get frisky together.

Now Latham is experiencing the number one fear of those in the closet: getting drop-kicked out of it.

In his case, he landed smack in the media spotlight, for ol' Lonnie was the senior pastor of South Tulsa Baptist Church, on the board of directors of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, and a member of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The good reverend had spoken out against gay marriage, and supported a SBC directive that members make friends with gays and lesbians to induce them to "accept Jesus Christ as their savior and reject their sinful, destructive lifestyle."

In other words, Latham has been throwing stones, and now he himself has a beauty of a shiner.

He says he's innocent, that he was "set up," and that he was actually in the area ministering to people. But not many seem to be buying that. He's resigned from those three official positions all because of his apparent interest in positions of a different sort.

Soulforce, the group trying to persuade organized religions to stop vilifying LGBT people, put out a press release on Latham's arrest.

"The false anti-gay teachings of the Southern Baptist Convention have claimed yet another victim," said one official, and other statements similarly laid blame at the Southern Baptist Convention altar while being sympathetic to Latham.

Whew, good thing I'm not required to take such a high-minded approach. I appreciate that Latham has likely been suffering a long time, and that his family is in pain. But the man has been a colonel in the campaign against us, so I prefer to point, yell "Hypocrite!" and resign myself to the fact that I won't be on Soulforce's Christmas-card list.

Phyllis Gates got stuck in Rock Hudson's closet, and Lonnie Latham has been blasted out of his. For such small spaces, closets sure can pack a lot of danger per square inch.

Leslie Robinson lives in Seattle. E-mail her at LesRobinsn@aol.com, and read more columns at www.GeneralGayety.com.

This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition of January 27, 2006.