A human tragedy

Not everyone will share my concern with the middle-aged, closeted gay or bisexual man whose life gets turned upside down when he gets caught having sex with another man. Often they become the butt of jokes and scorn -- but also loss of jobs and family and public esteem.

Politicians seem especially vulnerable because there are always opponents who comb over every possible dirt to tarnish them with. It's hard to feel sympathy for those who have worked to disadvantage gays in spite of struggling with the same desires themselves. Even I can feel some satisfaction at seeing the anti-gay crusaders get caught and ridiculed. But not all closeted men try to keep everybody else in the closet too by pushing punitive laws. For some, getting caught is just sad and often tragic.

The latest to make the news is a tragic one, and with what we know so far no reason to poke fun -- and plenty of reason to try to change the situation.

Thus far, here is what is known. Dean Gaymon, a Gwinnett County man, CEO of a credit union and by all accounts a man of character and community service, with no known blemishes, went to Newark, NJ last week to attend the 30th high school reunion that he had organized for his classmates. He is said to have had a model family, married to his high school sweetheart and had four children. Ambitious and successful in his career, he was well-liked and respected.

Friday night, he was shot and killed by a Newark police officer in a known gay cruising area -- allegedly caught in the act of having sex with another man. According to the officer's account, he pulled his badge and Gaymon panicked and started to run away, but then began running at the officer, threatening to kill him. After telling him three times to stop, and he didn't, he shot him one time in the abdomen. And he died.

First, let me say, this may not be all the facts. But the officer has not claimed that Gaymon was armed or that he was threatening him with any weapon other than words, or presumably fists. But he did not strike him. He just ran at him and said, "I'm going to kill you."

So, first of all, this sounds like a completely unnecessary shooting of an unarmed man who, at most, had violated the "public indecency" laws. That is not a killing offense. At least not in this country; not even in the Muslim world without at least a mock trial.

But there is a larger problem that runs through all these cases: NJ governor McGreevy, evangelical mega-pastor Ted Haggard, Congressman Larry Craig, psychologist and anti-gay expert witness against gay adoption cases George Rekers, and countless others -- middle aged men who obviously have been struggling with sexual attractions toward other men but who have tried to suppress those feelings and lead a closeted double life -- or simply a very suppressed smothered existence while denying their desires.

It so often ends badly like this. For generations, my profession, psychoanalysis, was at the forefront of the problem: confusing the attempt to repair with the underlying problem. It is not that homosexuality itself predisposes men to engage in such risky behavior, as they claim. It is the effort to suppress the feelings, because of shame and stigma; and then when the pressure from within gets too strong to resist, they try to scratch the itch in some surreptitious way -- like cruising in the bushes where other such men meet, or taking rent-boys on European vacations -- or wind up having sex in public places -- and get caught.

I'm not arguing for the right to have sex in public. I'm arguing against our society's continued (albeit improving) attitudes that place these confused, desperate men in the position of having to hide a part of themselves, with so much at stake when they get caught.

I was one of the lucky ones.

Ralph