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# Time to lay sexuality cards down for good
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/time-to-lay-sexuality-cards-down-for-good/
- Published: 2007-10-09T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T01:05:47.000Z
- Author: David Pisarra
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

THURSDAY IS NATIONAL COMING OUT DAY (NCOD). It is a day set aside to publicize awareness, promote acceptance and put a human face on the vast spectrum of human sexuality. Its genesis was in the first March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights, held on Oct. 11, 1987, where the Names Project — the Aids Memorial Quilt — was displayed for the first time on The Mall in Washington. In 1988, the first NCOD was held to commemorate the anniversary.

Since that time, the world has changed radically.

As humans, we like to feel a part of; the primary source of our fear of others, whether it be racial, religious or geographic. We are wired to automatically fear that which we know little about. Historically, this has been a good thing, in that it allowed man to evolve from a cave, and survive many of the great threats to his existence.

But as man evolved, it has become less necessary for us to fear other humans. Yet, the old wiring is still there. It still manifests itself in many ways today.

One of the ways in which it manifests itself is in homophobia. In a city like Santa Monica, we don’t often have open displays of homophobia. I can’t recall anyone being tied to a lifeguard station and left to die (a la Matthew Shepard) or pummeled to death in a bathroom (like Alan Schindler). No, here, we have linguistic homophobia.

It’s not just the typical “queer” or “homo” slurs, but rather the more subtle phrasing of “straight acting” or “discreet” that carries a hidden homophobia. It’s a homophobia that knows no sexuality either, as I see it in many of the personal ads of men seeking a long-term relationship, just as I hear it from people who tell me that I don’t “act gay” or “sound gay” or “look gay.”

I see it in the men’s groups that I attend, where someone will say, “why does he have to talk about his gay lover here? It’s inappropriate.” But the fact is, the same guy who would condemn me for talking about my relationship problems won’t say the same thing about the guy who is talking about his wife or girlfriend. That’s homophobia.

So how do you change minds? How do you bring people of ignorance into the light and stop the hating?

You put a face on it. Even with a Constitutional Amendment giving them the right to vote in 1870, black civil rights didn’t get very far until a little lady put a face on the issue by not giving up her seat at the back of the bus in 1955.

Women’s suffrage got nowhere until Susan B. Anthony came along and was arrested for illegally voting in a presidential election.

NCOD is important, not just because of the highly visible gay people who have been associated with it (celebrities like Dan Butler, the actor who played Bulldog on “Frasier,” and Candace Gingrich, half-sister of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, or Betty DeGeneres, the first straight spokesperson for NCOD and mother of Ellen DeGeneres).

NCOD is important because it gives permission to Chris the waiter at your local greasy spoon to come out and be who he is; because when Chris comes out, his or her friends and family have to confront a new reality, one that perhaps they have never known. It is possible that they never knew an out gay person, and he or she might embody the example that changes their minds about being gay.

Chastity Bono, the daughter of gay icon Cher and Republican Congressman Sonny Bono, will not change the homophobes’ opinion of lesbians, but she might give courage to the lesbian daughter of a homo-phobe to come out, and with that, change an opinion about lesbians.

I know for myself, I had an easy time in some ways of coming out. I was in a small liberal arts school, where “different” was commonplace. I grew up outside of San Francisco and my family and I would go each year to the Gay Pride Parade. Yet, I still was anxious about telling my friends and family.

But Dan Butler was gay... and he was out. And that made it just that tiniest bit easier for me to creep out of the closet and begin to accept who I am. It took years. And yet, I still today, have moments of doubt.

Granted, my anxiety these days gets less each time I out myself, but it’s still there. The polls are showing greater acceptance by society of sexuality in general; the current governor’s cowardice notwithstanding. But that is why NCOD matters. Progress is being made.

One person who comes out can affect the awareness of his or her family and friends; one person who was given just that little bit of extra courage, thanks to the face of someone they might never had met.

For me, it is Dan Butler. For my friends, it is me.

DAVID PISARRA is a family law attorney in the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He or (310) 664- 9969.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 9, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/100907.pdf?ref=smdp.com)