“Arts/Media” by Gerald Wisz, World, February 17, 1990. The Walking Wounded by Beverly Barbo (Carlsons’, 1987, 247 pp.)
by Dr. Ralph Blair
World is a glossy fundamentalist newsmagazine published in North Carolina. World’s slant is too often a smirk that’s sadly more “of the world” than “in it”. Once again it has attacked homosexuals – this time with a rave review of Congressman William Dannemeyer’s wildly antigay book, Shadow in the Land (Ignatius). Reviewer Gerald Wisz is identified irrelevantly as “a financial writer” from New Jersey. Only his wishful thinking allows him to call the book “balanced [and] well-researched”. Wisz can say that “Dannemeyer has done his homework in writing this book” because Wisz and World have not. Wesz’s review focuses on Dannemeyer’s erroneous alarm about organized homosexuals’ alleged forcing of the American Psychiatric Association to define homosexual “lifestyle” as “an alternative to heterosexual behavior … an ‘orientation’”. But Wisz and World ignore the fact that the APA was engaged in a total and scientific revision of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual when it changed the classification on homosexuality to conform to a scientifically generated two-fold criterion of mental disorder that would be applied across the board to all categories in the manual. The two-fold criterion: “Does the condition, in its full-blown manifestation, invariably interfere with social relationships and is it invariably associated with subjective distress? One would assume that even Dannemeyer, Wisz and World know better than to think that homosexuality, as such, falls within an affirmative response to this defining question. But when it comes to Right-wing fundamentalist propaganda against homosexuals, the facts, the love commandment and the commandment against bearing false witness against neighbors seem to be of little or no interest. World and Wisz let stand the labeling of all homosexuals as of an “anti-family, pornographic lifestyle”. Ironically, in another issue, World has celebrated the contributions of an important fundamentalist churchman without noting his homosexuality!
An article on Millard J. Erickson in The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (December 1989) calls this Baptist seminary dean “the most outstanding writing theologian in the evangelical world”. But in that world, not even this secure renown permits him to risk more than the most cautiously composed blurb for Beverly Barbo’s true story about her gay son, Tim, and his AIDS-related death at 27. And though Erickson at least writes something in support, he can write only of an “important and neglected topic”, “a sensitive and appealing fashion”, “very interesting … reading”, “the sincerity” and note that “the writing flows smoothly”. How different from this timidity is the hearty endorsement by AIDS scientist Mathilda Krim: “It is acts of faith and extraordinary love such as yours and those of your devoted family that make all the difference not only to the lives, and deaths, of people like Tim, but to the way all of us will, ultimately, be able to look at ourselves as human beings living in a society we believe to be civilized. You have understood that indifference, prejudice and ignorance are even worse enemies of human survival than physical disease.” How like Jesus’ words in Matthew 25:31-46!
The Barbos themselves published The Walking Wounded after religious publishers rejected it as too pro-gay and secular publishers rejected it as too pro-God. (The book is available from Carlsons’, 114 S. Main, Lindsborg, Kansas 67456.) Readers of the book should have a big box of tissues handy, for though Barbo steers clear of sentimentalism, a sensitive reader cannot but be moved by the love lived in the midst of pain by Tim, his parents, and his partner Tom.
Barbo’s ability to lover her son intelligently was, at first, blocked by her fundamentalist background. As she puts it: “Over the past few years and the last few months particularly, I have had to change my perceptions of God to accommodate the circumstances of my life. I have had to scream and kick my way out of the comfortable little box I had been living in and deal with things as they are, not as I wished them to be.”
As she reflects on her gentle son’s short life, she remembers the childhood taunts at his congenital eye deformity and his tough times in gym class and Little League. She remembers as well his good times in Boy Scouts, his musical part in the church’s “Son Seekers” and his role as Faithful in Pilgrim’s Progress. She ponders his lonely battle against his homosexual desires and the antigay hatred of church and society. She rejoices in his eventual personal resolution of his homosexuality in his happy relationship with Tom. And she recounts the terrible day she first learned that Tim had AIDS. It was supposed to be a glad day, the day of her graduation from Bethany College in their little hometown. Tim had come home to celebrate her day but was feeling so sick that she could not keep from asking him to confirm her worst suspicions. She recalls the difficult course of his illness and the ups and downs of her last six months living with Tim and Tom. She tells of the night he died and of the memorial service that included his favorite Gaither recording, “It is Finished”.
Barbo’s moving testimony is sprinkled with maternal wisdom and humor and she shares some snapshots that invite readers to get even closer to a wonderful Christian family – a family that can serve as a fine model for other families all over the country who are in the same situation, whether or not they can acknowledge it.