In the Life: Ep. 1105, "God & Hollywood"

on this edition of In The Life gay Muslims reconciling Islam and sexual identity plus oscar-winning screenwriter Alan Ball and his conflicted characters I have a lot of anger and you know my work is is a big conduit for that I think and Harvey fierstein sets us straight about who's gay all this and in the Life America's gay and lesbian cultural news magazine in the life is funded in part by the H van amaringen Foundation additional support provided by the Gill Foundation the Ted Snowden Foundation the Otto has charitable trust the Overbrook Foundation the rainbow endowment William J Resnick Jeff Sora the Arcus Foundation and the annual support of in the Life members like you [Music] thank you welcome to in the life I'm Catherine Linton what are the critically acclaimed film American Beauty and the popular HBO series six feet under have in common while they both center around dysfunctional families and they're both written by Alan Ball has found great success creating characters both straight and gay who battle conflicts and contradictions in themselves on this edition of In The Life Academy award-winning writer Alan Ball reveals the secrets behind the compelling characters he's created for screens both big and small we visit a New York Medical Clinic with a mission providing affordable health care and a safe haven to the gay and lesbian Community but it's just on the right side and what major way took him in um I don't have insurance okay correspondent Andy hum is out and about and briefs us on stories from around the country and writer actor Harvey fierstein with an outtake on who's gay in Hollywood are you listening because I'm only going to say this once and then I'm done ready here goes but first a story about a religion very much in the news today and very much misunderstood by most Americans Islam while attitudes towards homosexuality vary from country to Country culture to culture many gay and lesbian Muslims are struggling to reconcile their sexuality and their religion in some Islamic countries coming out of the closet can mean a death sentence in fact we were unable to find any lesbians willing to be on camera for this story still growing numbers of gay Muslims are finding ways to break down stereotypes and change the way Islam is interpreted one such person is facial alarm a Pakistani American living in Washington DC who grew up in an Islamic family his story is emblematic of the struggle gay Muslims face at the often stormy intersection of religion and sexuality the first thing that people always tell me when they hear about being gay and Muslim especially before all fatah has started was it's an oxymoron the two can't ever go together in one in one way and that's really sort of the struggle of gay Muslims um all over the world is that you have to pick one of these two identities when I went off to school in Boston Massachusetts that's really when I began to to put a name to what I was feeling inside I was brother face salalam you know during the daytime Secretary of the Islamic Society at Northeastern University you know in Boston and very much involved in the Muslim Student Association and at night going out and clubbing and hanging out with my friends and you know staying out till the wee hours in the morning and those sorts of two lives really Came Crashing Down in November of 1997 when I really just had a nervous breakdown and could not um could not really function anymore and it was when I was in the hospital for about two and a half weeks when I said that I can't live these two dual lives anymore and that I need to figure out how to bring the two together and that's when sort of the process of trying to find out who else was out there began so I sent out a message to Muslim student associations to find out if anyone else was also struggling with the issues of being gay and Muslim within minutes you know people had started subscribing to this internet list serve and it was the first time that to our knowledge that people really had a safe Forum to come together and talk about different issues author Michelangelo signorelli was one of the first writers to take note it's a testament to the power of the internet that perhaps one of the most underground subcultures imaginable gay and lesbian Muslims could come to the surface and that people could organize and communicate globally Alam organized a three-day long retreat in Boston Massachusetts for Gay and Lesbian Muslims to come together meet and talk about the issues facing them the retreat became the Genesis of the organization the retreat's theme was which comes from the first chapter of the Holy Quran which is the the holy book of Muslims means the opening or the beginning so it became an appropriate um you know title for the organization we asked four members of al-fatya into our studio to talk about growing up gay and Muslim you know if somebody just meets me and they ask me my name they just assume that your heterosexual you're conservative you know and I usually I just play along with it and I'm like yeah my dad had seven wives I'm gonna marry the second one you know and then I in the end I'm like you know please get a life I'm a homosexual going to meet my boyfriend in a bar for a drink does that help you I believed in Islam I believed in that I believed in being right and believed like I cannot deny myself something that I felt was very natural and when I felt that and I when I had some friends who when I came out to them they're like you know what have I realizing I'm like well if God is saying if it's such a bad thing then he would tell me what why is it why it's bad and he would show me a way to stop it when I did finally come out and my parents um you know knew that I was gay my relationship with my father was damaged Beyond repair um eventually he and my mother moved back to the Middle East after he retired a year later I got a call from my mom asking if she could come live with me I was in grad school at the time because my father had decided since I was not going to I'm an only son and since I was not going to carry on the family name that it was now his responsibility um and uh at 70 years of age decided that he was going to have an arranged marriage with another woman and produce more offspring I needed to come out I absolutely needed it for myself but in that cultural context I don't think it's necessary and I think and I know others who are Moroccan from both sides of the family from devout families they haven't had any problems their family knows I think it's a very complicated mix of culture and politics and religion Islam says that all people who believe in one God are good people of the book and my mom was Christian so I was like oh at least she's okay but whenever I listen to Christians talking about people who weren't Christian it's like they're all going to hell so I was like well you know these two religions like at least this you know Islam is a little bit broader and more open-minded I feel more comfortable being in that religion and thinking both my both my parents are going to be okay then listening to what my mother's religion says and thinking my father's going to hell and so am I there has been as in Christianity one or two passages that are constantly used by various groups and blown up and uh deemed the word and of course you see in Islam just as in Christianity other things that are in the Quran that tend to be ignored or decided upon as things that are no longer important Islam's interpretation has really been influenced by the culture in each country that it spreads to so and that really has a lot to do with um sort of the treatment of gay people as well in Muslim countries in a recent article senorelli reported on how Islamic law is used to intimidate and oppress it is according to the taliban's reading of Islamic law that homosexuals are to be put to death with a wall uh falling on them in one of the cases that I was looking at three men survived and were in the hospital with most of the bones of their bodies broken and we're free to go after that because according to Taliban law somehow they were exonerated if their lives were spared by God the official Taliban radio will announce it on the air and really make a a big thing out of it and let people know that these people were put to death because of their homosexuality often will say that these people confessed in Egypt while the death penalty isn't on the books gay Muslims have been publicly humiliated arrested even tortured on May 11th I began receiving emails from an anonymous man in Egypt and he told a story which was extremely disturbing about a police raid on a discotheque which was rumored to be a Gathering Place for gay men of dozens of men who had been arrested of men being holding prison in communicado at least 52 men were then held for months without charges being pressed without the opportunity for bail where they're being put to trial without the opportunity for appeal the Egyptian government decided that it needed to turn around and as it were throw a bone to fundamentalist forces and the bone they threw took the form of the lives of 52 gay men God they counted me because they needed a body on November 14th 23 of the Cairo 52 were convicted of contempt of religion and obscene behavior and sentenced to between one and five years hard labor these people are really being used as an example by the Egyptian government to again send a fear throughout the population Islam is not universally a religion in which any country that where people are predominantly Muslim will oppress homosexuals it is about governments and what they do with religious law al-fatya now 300 members strong representing more than 20 countries from Egypt to Malaysia reaches out to Gay and Lesbian Muslims around the globe by providing a safe Forum to share ideas experiences and resources think it's about compromising one aspect of your life versus the other but creating new paths and creating new ways of um of practicing your Islam while still being gay and Islam is a very Community oriented religion Al fatah has really helped me sort of create a new family and a new community I mean the first time that I had really prayed in a long time was at the first al-fatah conference where I just burst into tears because it was the first time that I had prayed you know with other gay Muslims and we started off with five people and at the end of the conference we had 20 people who had participated in prayer it was one of the most emotional experiences that a lot of us had gone through not one individual not one ideology has a monopoly over God and I think a lot of gay religious groups if you will both gay Catholics gay Buddhist gay Muslims have really understood that concept that religion has been hijacked and that in fact the root of all religious tradition and all religious faith is the Notions of peace of Injustice [Music] foreign [Music] I was working in the white house as a Special Assistant to President Clinton around the same time when leaders of the gay and lesbian Community were organizing the third National March on Washington we invited the leaders to a meeting with the president in the Oval Office of the White House in response to the March and as a result the first ever meeting between a sitting American president and the gay and lesbian Community took place in April of 1993. I'm Keith Boykin and you're watching in the life Health Care has been a sensitive issue for the gay and lesbian Community which has been largely underserved and often discriminated against making many reluctant to seek medical help the Michael Callan Audrey Lord Community Health Center in Manhattan seeks to provide accessible comprehensive and comfortable Medical Services regardless of sexual orientation or ability to pay okay the mission of account Lord is to create a safe space that understands the gay lesbian bisexual transgender healthcare is not just an HIV Clinic an STD clinic or a pap smear Clinic though those things are important but it's about creating a space where any experience that you have as a gay identified person can be addressed in a sensitive Manner and you can feel comfortable even though now we're here great we're here there's still worried scared about coming in scared about disclosing scared about stigmatization that they might face scared of the Discrimination that they might face and that's only the sort of the emotional pieces of it and then there's all the economic pieces it's just on the right side and what major weight took him in I don't have insurance offering Services regardless of a patient s costly and calendar depends on support from New York State and Community donations in order to meet its Mission if they come in here and they pay a dollar for their care or they pay nothing for their care or they pay their bill in full they get the same care it gives us an ability to take the money piece out of it and really focus and help people focus on their health care as the medical director at Callan Lord Dr harbotkin sees many patients who avoid getting routine preventative and Primary Health Care because of financial concern or discrimination people know that when something hurts they should go get health care it's been very hard to educate the community that there's more to it than that that they need to come for before they're sick while they're healthy so that they stay healthy the health center has been operating in the community for over 20 years through various clinics but in 1998 they received their own license and opened in a new building as the Michael Callan Audrey Lord Community Health Center what we thought was really important was to connect this to an individual because health care is about the relationship as the individual has with their provider Michael Callan was a long time Aid Survivor who founded organizations like the people with AIDS Coalition and audre Lorde was the poet laureate of New York State and a lesbian of color who also chronicled her struggle with breast cancer in a book called the cancer journals and quotes from both of those individuals are prominently displayed on the wall as you enter the facility and we think that that empowers every individual who comes into the facility to be able to know that Health Care is a right even though they may not have the ability to pay for it coming here to Callum Miller as opposed to other hospitals or clinics has been really a godsend back in the 90s I had I had a really bad accident had my heel amputated this was the time that that cat name was thrown out of Bellevue when she was staying overnight with me just sitting there because we had no rights yeah because one person one nurse told me I could stay because the next day she had a real major surgery and so she thought it was okay that I stayed there for mental support and then in the middle of the night a different nurse came home and she threw me out and so well I ended up sitting in the lobby for the rest of the night until the morning and then somebody was nice enough to come and get me before she went into surgery but I didn't have any rights along with her heel injury Terry must also monitor another Health concern chronic hepatitis I was in the one percent that got rid of hepatitis that was the good news bad news was that after six months it did come back because it's just it's like the thing that won't go away we'll check your liver check your kidneys check it for anemia make sure not the liver is not affecting any of that stuff okay Terry has chronic hepatitis and she went through a year of treatment which was incredibly traumatic for the both of them the three of us talked about it together Terry actually decided to talk to her in the room with me there the person so that they could sort of go through the medical information and then deal with some of the the grief issues around that here you can come with your partner you're part of it I found that's very important because it's not only the patients are sick when when a patient is sick it's a problem for the whole family and if the family is gay or not gay it doesn't make a difference everybody's involved and here everybody is allowed to be involved yeah it's a big difference from experiences we had before when I first went into primary care what I liked about it was being able to think of serving a family to have couples come in and feel comfortable with that has been a really exciting thing for me along with serving adults Callan Lord also addresses the special Health Care needs of LGBT youth with its Health Outreach to teens or hot program its hot fan has traveled New York city streets for over 10 years the hot program is a place where young LGBT people and individuals who are questioning can come for free confidential medical and mental health care I'm usually doing the formal Medical Care in the back of the van and Marie sort of administrating or administering rather to the young people up front you know we'll have a gang member a transgender kid and a couple of openly gay kids talking about sexuality and she's really taught me how to connect with people who have no reason to trust you you know and taught me how you begin to establish that kind of trust with people who have been abused um in general in their lives but certainly by the medical system for youth who have gone through the program hot is an invaluable resource the hot program is private it's like not secret but everything you do in it is not disclosed it's for us for the Youth like certain things that have to be just for us I felt safe I didn't have to deal with a lot of adults at the time um any mistrust or or whatever hidden agendas that other places may have had I didn't have to worry about that the hot program really especially the hot fan being that it was out there instead of having to travel all the way to a facility or a hospital where you felt like doctors are kind of gonna judge you it's kind of like a safe space and it was actually very comforting it was really good it allows the kids to open up and just be who they are we consider young people always in transition but we still offer them services and give them lots of education and information about where they're going and what direction they need you know where they are another Callen Lord service is its health education Resource Center where trained volunteers and staff help visitors find information for someone who is computer friendly or is looking for information on the internet we can help them by any one of our four computer terminals with high-speed access to the internet and for someone for whom actually the internet might be new we can walk them through that process and we have our library of books and it's more specific to LGBT people if people are in other parts of the country outside of a larger metropolitan area they can come to our website which is callumlord.org and we have a listing of other websites that can lead them to options within their own local community one of the goals of Kellen Lord is to make our existence obsolete eventually to go into places and train Health Care Providers to be able to provide the health care that we provide to be sensitive and compassionate and culturally competent and knowledgeable in providing Health Care to the LGBT community in the past few years Callan Lord has been asked to participate in several medical research studies although it will take years to determine the specific Health Care conditions which might disproportionately affect the LGBT community science is moving in the right direction we are just starting just just starting to do research there's lots of research about men who have sex with men and HIV and STDs there is very little other research out there do we smoke more Are we more overweight do we drink more Are we more likely to commit suicide are we under greater stress Are we more depressed we need to have much better studies before we can begin to answer the questions that we all want answers to which is you know what are our health care risks [Music] foreign [Music] I'm RuPaul Andre Charles and you're watching the Emmy Award nominated Gay and Lesbian News Magazine in the life [Music] the story of a matinee Idol who came out of the closet and disappeared from the screen civil rights activists and journalists are honored for their work a groundbreaking documentary about gay Orthodox Jews and a tribute to a life lived in the musical theater we'll brief you on these stories and more as we bring you news and cultural events from around the country in out and about the avant-garde is alive and well and on prominent display at the 15th anniversary of mix the New York lesbian and gay experimental film Video Festival Cutting Edge works showcased the best and latest in experimental film video and even installation art at the Anthology film archives in New York's East Village sex gender index exists to promote the visions of gay and lesbian artists bisexual intense gender artists who are working in avant-garde forms and experimental forms tried to expand the boundaries of the vocabulary of media itself the trendier club girls would dance in the upper right corner and move their way to the center portion of a less desirable crowd infiltrates the previous space such as older lesbians who seem to dance wherever the hell they want or if one has an X dancing in that spot in fact all the dancing parameters may change if there's a particularly strong Dynamic of ex-girlfriends for that evening we show all the works which don't really have a home elsewhere either in traditional venues for experimental fun or in getting lesbian festivals because of the works experimental nature in these times you should not expect any words of my own from me none but these words which barely manage to prevent Silence from being misinterpreted [Music] 15th anniversary suggested this year's theme Feliz quinceanera a girl's 15th birthday Fiesta observed almost everywhere in the Spanish-speaking world [Applause] thank you the theme served as a chance for some spirited hijinks by the mix Festival staff [Music] in Los Angeles recently a star-studded tribute to Legendary composer and Lyricist Jerry Herman provided an evening of Unforgettable theatrical memories again [Music] I put a little more mascara on I think it's timeless music I think no matter what age and no matter what era you lived in the music spoke to you on so many levels and it so much of it was about self-acceptance and self-love [Music] what did I give enough Jerry always writes about things that really touch you and and move you and and it says something about the life that we all live he writes music about that and and that's what makes it so wonderful to sing because you can relate to something that's happened in your life tribute was a benefit for the actor's fund of America the only National non-profit organization that provides for the welfare professionals working in film television radio music Opera dance and theater [Music] the evening's highlight came when Broadway's original name Angela Lansbury appeared on stage with Broadway's original Dolly Carol Channing [Applause] [Music] right out [Music] of me [Music] the event raised a total of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the actors fund [Music] Oh beautiful for spacious skies attendees were feeling patriotic at the Empire State pride agenda's 10th Annual fall dinner in New York city hosted by Marlo Thomas wow what a great night I'm so excited to be standing here in front of these American flags God Bless America the evening featured a salute to the gay and lesbian police officers and firefighters who were part of the rescue effort in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attack thirty thousand how about 35 now 750 000 were raised of which 175 000 was presented to then New York city mayor Rudy Giuliani to be used as relief funds for victims of September 11th including the surviving partners and families of gay and lesbian victims I can't tell you how much I thank you for the amount of money that you've given to the to the people who have lost the most in this terrible tragedy and how much I respect you for expanding freedom for all of us thank you and God bless wow [Music] in December gmad or gay men of African descent commemorated their 15th anniversary with a crystal celebration an evening honoring individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions to the African-American gay community gmad is this country's oldest and largest organization committed to empowering gay men of African descent in Education Health and Wellness advocacy and social support the honorees included journalist Linda villarosa the gay officers Action League and fire flag Ems for their work in the September 11th rescue effort it's a very hard job to come out in as a gay man [Applause] adoti New York a community-based spirituality and health and wellness Organization for black gay men in New York City and Pulitzer Prize winner and in the Life correspondent Jonathan k-part who was presented with his award by newly elected Mayor Mike Bloomberg on whose campaign k-part served as policy advisor all right the evening concluded with a posthumous award to Bayern Rustin civil rights leader and architect of the 1963 March on Washington whose life partner Walter Nagel accepted on his behalf thank you very much Michael for those kind words the new documentary Out of the Closet off the screen the life of William Haynes tells the story of a forgotten star of the silent era in 1933 Billy Haynes was the toast of Hollywood America's top box office draw he was also a homosexual who lived openly some said brazenly but his male lover Jimmy Shields one under pressure from MGM head Louis B Mayer to give up his lover Haynes refused I'll be glad to give up Jimmy just as long as you give up your own wife with that wisecrack Billy haynes's stardom was snuffed out produced by the award-winning team of Randy barbato in Fenton Bailey documentary premieres this month on American movie classics your child came to you and said they were gay hey that's what I want Orthodox parent to be able to say is there are other ways to read the Torah let's learn groundbreaking documentary trembling before God has been touring around the world since early 2001 earning praise from critics and winning awards at multiple festivals I don't want to be a less than Jew because I'm gay unfortunately last July it closed the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival where it drew a capacity crowd to the historic Castro theater in the heart of San Francisco's gay district territory is here to teach us that man and wife come together and trembling tells the personal stories of gay and Hasidic and Orthodox Jews who face a profound dilemma how to reconcile their love of Judaism with the DraStic biblical prohibitions against homosexuality the documentary went on to have an extended run at the Film Forum in New York City where it broke box office records for opening day community outreach efforts continue to bring the film to the Hasidic and Orthodox communities in the U.S Israel and around the world in 1968 a groundbreaking new play about a group of gay friends celebrating a birthday opened in New York it was Mark Crowley's the boys in the band and it changed the American Theater forever Not only was this the first mainstream play to take a close and unabashed look at queer culture but perhaps even more importantly the play was also a commercial success proving to producers that plays with gay themes could actually be profitable and really funny I'm Paul Rudnick and you're watching in the life still to come on in the life oscar-winning writer Alan Ball and Harvey fierstein is straight up about who's gay in Hollywood but first before the 1970s images of gay men and lesbians were nearly invisible much less marketable but the decade following the 1969 Stonewall rebellion was a time when many gay Americans came alive politically during those years a photographer named Jeb and a recording company called Olivia records saw the Awakening of lesbian ideas and identity and knew it was the stuff of History our next segment from the in the Life archives first aired in 1998. we went back in time through snapshots and sounds with two of the most important chroniclers of the early lesbian feminist movement [Music] I was always most interested in photographing within the communities of which I was apart and primarily that was the lesbian Community the feminist Community the progressive Community working in anti-war and anti-nuclear issues Jeb is a Washington dc-based artist who has been taking pictures since 1971. my work has always been about making the invisible visible and because lesbians were so invisible they were always my first subject of choice and of course nearest to my heart in 1979 Jeb broke new ground in lesbian visibility with the publication of her book eye to eye portraits of lesbians lesbian gay bisexual transgender people need to be represented in all our diversity and that that in itself is an activist statement her second book making away lesbians out front features the leaders artists and everyday Heroes of the lesbian Community since her photo documentary of the 1987 March on Washington was transferred to videotape and broadcast on public television she now prefers to work in video I decided to become a video maker because the pictures wanted to talk Jeb's photos mementos and videos were gathered for a retrospective of her work which inaugurated George Washington University's gay and lesbian history project things changed things really changed and I'm like very proud of that being part of that change while photography served to document the 70s wave of lesbian feminism there was also music what happened in the 70s was that women came into their own and came into their own sense of sexuality their own sense of culture their own sense of Liberation and Independence [Music] please it was as if the collective unconscious had erupted and suddenly the music was sort of a focal point for women throughout the country foreign [Music] we started Olivia in 1973 and it was a group of 10 lesbian feminists first call of Olivia records is to get the music out second goal of Olivia records music Women's Music high quality Women's Music women should speak music that speaks honestly and realistically to him about women's lives to women's lives by the end of 1975 in the beginning of 1976 where the the concerts went from 50 and 100 people to thousands of people all across the country [Music] everybody [Music] in the fall of 1975 we released our second album which was our best-selling album ever which was the change in the changed just follow me [Music] changing the change charted on the Billboard charts there was a response to the music that was unheard of in independent music [Music] quite on purpose be because number one it was too scary a time to just start out with something that said lesbian God puts it in the same category as murderers thieves prostitution and if we give special privileges to homosexuals then we have to give it to the murderer to the thief and to the prostitute when we made our I think it was our fifth album it was in reaction to Anita Bryant it was called lesbian concentrate lesbians and it was the first time that many of these women had come out and said I am a lesbian and this was in 1977. we developed an independent industry where we created The Producers to produce concerts we created the Distributors to get the records into the stores and grew an audience so that when the industry was really interested there was already a market ready for the music you know you go to a Melissa Etheridge concert and the percentage of women is overwhelming and the Lilith event is now seen as a major event of women performing on the same stage while Olivia records as of 1990 has been transformed into Olivia cruises the history has been recorded and the music continues to be distributed you throw the pebble in the water and you see it drop in and then you see the Ripple effects but you may never know where that Pebble with the original Pebble started but all of a sudden it grows and it grows [Music] Olivia has been cruising the world for 11 years now and recently celebrated its 30th Anniversary as a company Jeb's current documentary is titled no secret anymore the times of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon it's about the two women who founded the daughters of belitus a lesbian activist group during the height of McCarthyism [Music] thank you [Music] I'm Elin Harris and you're watching in the live American Beauty which won the Academy Award for best picture of 1999 is a dark comedy which portrays the true angst behind the idyllic facade of suburban life in the film Kevin Spacey's character faces a midlife crisis and grapples with forbidden passions screenwriter Alan Ball who also took home an Oscar for his work has made a successful career of writing about people struggling with inner conflict and sometimes they happen to be gay like one of the main characters in the popular new series he created for HBO thank you HBO's newest hit six feet under is about a family who live and work in a small family-run Funeral Home called Fisher and Sons when their father dies and leaves the business to his two sons they are forced for perhaps the very first time to take a hard look at the dysfunction that exists within their family I've done a terrible thing what's she doing it's fine I'm not fine I got War I was unfaithful to your father for years and now he knows he knows Alan Ball is the creator of HBO six feet under although he began his professional career as an Off-Broadway playwright he is best known for his oscar-winning screenplay and hit movie American Beauty he grew up in the small town of Marietta Georgia where he says his early sense of drama was influenced by some of the Great Southern playwrights like Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams you know they're such a great tradition of of um Southern writers who were gay who write these great you know kind of Baroque Gothic um almost Greek dramas or novels Alan's journey to Hollywood and subsequent success was for him totally unexpected I'd written a play called five women wearing the same dress which was a sort of Bittersweet comedy about bridesmaids at this big Society wedding in Knoxville Tennessee and a development executive for car seat Warner television uh had gotten a copy of the script and read it about a year later my agent called out of the blue and I um had a job offer to come out to Hollywood and be a writer on the second season of Grace Under Fire which was a sitcom about a southern woman I never intended to come out here I never wanted to come out here I loved movies and I wanted to write movies but I never was a person who was like I want to make it in that industry in six feet under one of Alan's complex Creations is David 31 year old gay Episcopalian who tries to keep his sexuality a secret from his family even after they encouraged him to come out the guy just crucial really in front of me like I'm not even here even God Alan Drew from his early experiences growing up gay in Georgia to create a character who is faced with coming to terms with the fact that his religion is not compatible with his sexuality so glad to see you here it's always nice when someone comes back to the fold oh I've been going to church I was just going to a different Church really which one Saint Stevens in the Palisades no Saint Stevens in West Hollywood well I hope you always feel as welcome here as you did there there's a big part of me and David you know I grew up we didn't go to church very much and then there was a tragedy in my family and all of a sudden we started going to church all the time my mom especially got into that really sort of Gothic end of the world religion and you know and it's it's all very judgmental and it's like we're Sinners we're Sinners you know God forgive us God forgive us who we are and that's a very sort of victim-centered way of thinking about things I think which also was very interesting to me because I think as as being gay it's also very easy to get into a victim centered way of thinking you know it's like oh it's so unfair the world is unfair to me you know I'm the victim of all this oppression and yada yada yada yes there are a lot of people in the world who hate us but I'm not going to be a victim I'm not going to buy into that let me never be ashamed oh there's a concept I've been ashamed my entire life I grew up thinking I was unworthy in the eyes of God instead of trusting God not to be an ignorant frightened bigot because it is I've made myself crazy I've put myself in danger I've made a lot of mistakes big mistakes which all could have been avoided if I just had faith faith that maybe God really is love like we say how am I supposed to spread God's love throughout the world when I deny it to myself I made David religious is because it's very interesting to me what's going on politically within the world of organized religion I read that you know some Council of ministers has you know come together and put out this decree saying you know that homosexual behavior is incompatible with scripture you people do not have the right to deny me access to God if I want a relationship with God I'm going to have a relationship with God because God made me and the God that I believe in is not cruel enough to to say you know just because of the look of the draw or whatever I'm going to make you this thing that I hate I don't believe in in that God while relying heavily on his instincts Alan is never afraid to explore his own inner conflicts he's also not afraid to embrace his anger when it rises to the surface his frustration resulted in the oscar-winning screenplay of the best film of 1999 American Beauty I have a lot of anger and uh and you know my work is is a big conduit for that I think and I think that's probably you know it's a lot healthier than like driving down the freeway and shooting at people um but I had spent three years working on uh a sitcom uh Sybil which was a very unpleasant experience for me I would come home and I would be furious Furious more at myself than anybody because I felt like I've become a I'm a huge I'm I'm doing this stuff that I don't believe in that I think there are serious ethical problems with and I'm doing it for the money two o'clock in the morning I would sit down at my computer and I would pour all this rage into it you know and uh and it kept me sane it's no coincidence that American Beauty is about a man who is a writer who hasn't lost his passion for life who rediscovers it and in writing that script I rediscovered my passion for my work by reigniting his own passion Allen created a shocking Revelation in American Beauty a story born from something deep in his own family history when I came out to my mom she told me that she thought my dad might have been gay my dad was a man who had some sort of secret tragedy that haunted him and there was something that had broken his Spirit inspired by his own father's story Alan was intrigued by the idea of what can happen when a man refuses to allow himself to admit his deepest most inner feelings in the first draft of American Beauty there was a flashback to Vietnam where the colonel as a younger man is in a tent with a fellow Soldier and they're in the middle of making love and they get ambushed and then they run out and he he sees his lover die and in my mind what he did was he he took that as some sort of sign from God that he had to be punished for that and he had to sit on that and then years later when he has this beautiful young son who he he adores he thinks that he's becoming something that he couldn't allow himself to become we removed that flashback to Vietnam because it did it totally tipped where where the story was going I think I just needed to write it because I needed to know his backstory having earned the respect of his peers and Hollywood for his work on American Beauty Allen is at a new Crossroads in his career being the Oscar winner now the good thing about it is all of a sudden people pay attention to what I think you know whereas before I won the Oscar if I was a writer I'd go you know I'd get notes on the script and I'd go well I really think that you know that changes it and that like sort of defangs it and it becomes just sort of arbitrary and generic and before the Oscar they'd be like no no it doesn't do that it makes it better and now that I have the Oscar they'll go like oh okay well then don't do it you know it's like they trust you because you have this statue what do you think about the ball what do you think about him with the help of Academy award-winning actress turn director Kathy Bates Alan is reading the new season of six feet under which begins airing in March on HBO and with yet another hit project under his belt Alan Ball is now one of the most sought after writers in the industry I have gotten to a point in my life where I am very very comfortable in my own skin and I'm not living my life for anybody else and that uh you know and that uh that I just am who I am I didn't get lost along the way oh I got lost along the way but I found myself I found my way back [Music] thank you next month on in the Life gay men and lesbians who are taking the lead so be sure to join us next Harvey fierstein gives it to us straight I appear at lots of colleges Community groups political events and such when I'm done speaking on the selected subject I open the floor to questions from the audience what do they want to know well after the obligatory what was it like to kiss Matthew Broderick I'm asked is so and so gay I could have just spoken for an hour on the state of AIDS in Africa the influence of lesbian writers on tabloid journalism or the effect of bareback sex on our communal psyche and still a hand will rise up a voice will call out is going down gang is this one gang is that one gang who's really gay is the ring gang I would like to take this opportunity for once and for all to end this entire line of questioning here now and forevermore are you listening because I'm only going to say this once and then I'm done ready here goes Sean Hayes is straight David Hyde Pierce is straight Kevin Spacey strict John Travolta Johnny Depp Tom Cruise Tom Selleck Richard Chamberlain Richard Gere straight all straight every last Lady loving one of them is a full-time girl watching Dame Dayton heterosexual straight as a number two Ticonderoga pencil right out of the box got it as for the ladies Rosie o Jody Foster Whitney Houston Sandra Bernhardt whoopee Melissa KD and Barbara Walters straight all truly straight that whole thing with Ellen DeGeneres was just a ratings Ploy plus she thought she'd help her mother sell a book well David Letterman does it for his mom but Ellen is actually straight in fact Ellen is so straight she makes Anne hash look like a lesbian which let me be clear she is not now for the bisexual crowd the Elton Johns Mick Jagger's David Bowie's Madonna's and the like let me just say they too are all actually heterosexual that's right every one of them full-time sex mixers and the ones you've heard about in her story class The Da Vinci Michelangelo Gertrude Stein James Baldwin Shakespeare kovsky Eleanor Roosevelt and Liberace crowd they too are were and will always be straight and finally me I'm heterosexual too you heard me buster I miss straight As Colin Powell inspecting the troops so for those of you at home keeping score on the homosexual side we have Charles Nelson Riley and you on the straight side the rest of us Charles Nelson Riley and you are the only two homosexuals in the world the rest of us were just being nice trying to keep you company and not make you feel like the outcast you are you're gay we're not sorry have a nice day I trust all queries have now been answered yes good oh by the way about that kissing Matthew Broderick thing the answer is obviously delicious from all of us in the life thank you for joining us and we'll see you next month [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] part by the H van Ameren Foundation additional support provided by the Gill Foundation the Ted Snowden Foundation the Otto has charitable trust the Overbrook Foundation the rainbow endowment William J Resnick Jeff sorov the Arcus Foundation annual support of in the Life members like you foreign [Music]