• The Lifetime cable channel will screen ‘Prayers for Bobby’ on Tuesday evening. Check your listings for the time.
In 1983, Bobby Griffith, a gay 20-year-old, climbed up on a Portland freeway overpass and backflipped himself in front of an 18-wheeler to end his short but extremely troubled life.
Twelve years later, in 1995, veteran gay journalist Larry Aarons profiled this tragic case in his critically-acclaimed bestseller
“Prayers for Bobby.”
As soon as I acquired this tome, I devoured it from cover to cover. Not since my traversal of the devastating accounts of the prosecution and persecution of Oscar Wilde have I reeled so precipitously from the evil effects of blatant homophobia on the rampage with its heart-rending and gut-wrenching outcome.
Now, at last, after 12 long years of persistence, Daniel Sledek, one of four executive producers of this cinematic adaptation, finally has succeeded in securing the funding to underwrite this production.
Coming to Schools
With the finished product now in hand, he fervently hopes that making "Prayers for Bobby" available to schools will help to save the lives of other gay kids.
The gay youth had struggled valiantly but unsuccessfully for four years to overcome his same-sex urges. But self-destruction became, for him, the final solution to his unbearable emotional turmoil and inner conflict. He had begun to view himself as a hopeless, worthless transgressor who, in God's eyes, did not deserve to continue living.
Instead of receiving support from his family, he only suffered rejection.
Bobby's devoutly Christian mother, Mary Griffith, had constantly warned her wayward son that only praying to Jesus would rid him of his perverted desires and enable him to stop sinning by accepting Christ as his personal savior to redeem him from his unnatural leanings.
Otherwise, she threatened, he would endure eternal damnation and torture in the unquenchable fires of hell. She also harangued her son with the admonition that if he was not able to change his gay feelings, it wasn't because they couldn't be redirected but rather because Bobby wasn't trying hard enough for Jesus to come into his heart.
An Ironic Coincidence
The Quakers have long maintained that homosexuality no more deserves condemnation than left-handedness, a most apt analogy since southpaws represent roughly 10 percent of the population just as gays, lesbians and bisexuals also comprise about 10 percent. At the diametrically opposite end of the religious tolerance spectrum stand today's ex-gay ministries, which speciously label their methods as conversion or reparative therapy.
Both are futile approaches based on the fallacy that sexuality is mutable, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary and, even worse, that in the case of homosexuality, it is merely a biological error that needs to be corrected.
In fact, they misleadingly proclaim, sexual orientation is a myth since humans only express a sexual preference.
Under this wildly distorted view, gays "choose" their deviant sexuality by succumbing to Satan's temptation to follow a path to perdition
in defiance of God’s having created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.
Never Questioning
In every single entreaty to her gay son, Mary Griffith was closely following the demented party line of the ex-gay ministries in her well-intentioned but woefully misguided efforts to reform her deviant boy. Without doubt, the most dramatic result of this wasteful death was the effect it had on Mary Griffith.
Overwhelmed with grief, remorse and guilt, she began to explore other viewpoints about homosexuality and far too belatedly came to the regretful conclusion that there was nothing wrong with her son Bobby in the first place.
Her 180-degree turnaround was due to her help from PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), whose motto, in an ironic twist on the message of the ex-gay ministries, is "Hate is not a family value."
She even formed a PFLAG chapter in her hometown of Walnut Creek. She hosted meetings right in her own home. She is now a proud gay rights champion and long ago abandoned her primitive religious views.
Personal Experience
So much of Bobby Griffith's conflict resonates with me because of my own period of adolescent angst over my homoerotic core and my desperate need to find validation and self-acceptance.
How easily I, myself, could have become just another gay teen suicide statistic. I wholeheartedly urge you to mark your TV guide and watch this powerful dramatization tomorrow night of what still represents an unacceptably high suicide rate.
Thirty percent of all teen suicides are gay kids.
If this docudrama stays as faithful to the book as the filmmakers promise, I feel confident that whether you are gay, straight or in between, you will find "Prayers for Bobby" a gripping, rewarding and deeply affecting experience.
For her part as Bobby's mother, Sigourney Weaver spent some time with Mary Griffith (now 74) and her family in order to get a firsthand feel for this lamentable story.
The actress also hopes that widespread viewing of the film will help in consciousness-raising and greater tolerance for the plight of gay teens.
Please forward my email to anyone you think might appreciate this anything but standard TV fare.
P.S.: As a gay activist, my primary passion is to make schools safe and secure for gay students. To that end, I support GLESEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network). Their mission is to implement as many gay-straight alliances in as many schools as possible in order to defuse and defeat homophobia and to serve as quite-literal suicide-prevention support groups.
They have expanded from a single chapter in 1988 to 4,000 (and counting) chapters in 2009.
If you find their cause to be a worthy one (as I sincerely hope you do), you can join or donate online at glsen.org.
If you Google "Prayers for Bobby," you will find extensive background info on both the book and the movie as well as a generous preview on You Tube.
Happy viewing!
Mr. Akerley, a Culver City resident, may be contacted at
benakerley@aol.com
