Gay Teens, Seniors Face Extra Challenges

May 21 -- When Charlotte Haas was a young woman in the 1950s, there were no activists in the streets to encourage her or support her if she decided to disclose that she was a lesbian. So, Haas did what a lot of gay people did a generationago.

She kept it quiet, fought it, and found herself living a heterosexual life that never felt quite right.

If Haas were a young lesbian today, she would find a world that's far more open and tolerant of homosexuality. But she might still encounter hostility — from classmates who are encountering gay people for the first time, from parents unable to adjust to a child's sexual difference, and from clergy who interpret God's word as opposing homosexuality.

Looking at people, young and old, who identify themselves as homosexual raises familiar questions. Is being gay a lifestyle choice, a genetic predisposition, a sin? Is it a matter of choice?

There's very little agreement about homosexuality in straight America. Men, women and teens who are living openly gay lives have wrestled with these questions themselves. And they've had just as much difficulty arriving at a satisfying answer.

The only agreement is that the presence of openly gay people has grown in the United States. In 1983, 24 percent of Americans said they had a gay friend or acquaintance, according to a Gallup poll. That percentage soared to 62 percent in 2000, according to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Once Upon a Time

Haas describes her past life as the epitome of what many Americans want.

"I had everything that was the American Dream," she says. "I had a lovely home, a cottage in the woods, two children, a good husband who provided well. But I wasn't really happy and I thought, 'Well, I can make the choice. I'll just forget about this feeling I have, and it'll go away.' But it didn't."

Haas' story reflects just how much people struggle to accept their sexuality when their society tells them it's unacceptable. Like many lesbians and gays of her generation, Haas gradually came to believe that she had no choice about her sexuality. Her choice was whether she could live with it or not.