A Playwright's Insight -- and Warning

By JONATHAN TOLINS

In the hours after the new study linking homosexuality with heredity was released, I was asked several times if I possessed psychic powers. The play I wrote, The Twilight of the Golds, is the story of a family thrown into turmoil when a pregnant woman is told through genetic testing that her fetus will most likely be homosexual. "It's like The China Syndrome and Three Mile Island," people said. "How did you know to write about this a year and a half ago?"

At first I replied, a bit smugly, "Well, if you followed the recent developments in this kind of research, the Simon LeVay hypothalamus study and all that, it was obvious that this was the direction in which we were headed. Blah, blah, blah."

But that's not the real answer. The truth is, I knew, as just about any gay person did, that it was only a matter of time. I knew in my bones that my own sexuality was not a decision but a natural part of who I am. I was confident that it wasn't a sign of psychiatric illness or of a dysfunctional upbringing -- my father was just as smothering as my mother, thank you, and in the best way possible. The coming-out process is not one of choice but of self- discovery and acceptance. To find a biological or genetic basis for this variation of human nature made perfect sense.

So my first reaction to the news (after "I hope this sells some tickets") was one of excitement and relief. So much of the anti-gay legal and social argument is based on the premise that it is a learned behavior and an immoral choice. This would prove them wrong! That feeling lasted about a minute and a half. The notion that Pat Robertson might look at a chart of DNA and say, "Well, I'll be; I've been wrong all this time. I'd better send an apology, maybe a small gift to Larry Kramer . . ." is absurd. Indeed, conservatives have already come forward with their own interpretations of the new findings; a representative of the Family Research Council compared homosexuality with illnesses like alcoholism. It seems that those who have a fundamental hatred of homosexuals will not be swayed.

And without the potential good this new information can do in changing people's minds, the potential dangers are terrifying. Some may search for a "cure" or, in the more immediate future, consider aborting a fetus that is predicted to be gay. This is the scenario in The Twilight of the Golds, which I expected to remain in the realm of science fiction for much longer than it apparently will.

The title of the play is a pun on The Twilight of the Gods, the final opera in Richard Wagner's Ring cycle. The Ring is a sprawling work about gods and mortals deciding the fate of the world. The information the Gold family receives in the play puts them in the same godlike position, just where the current crop of genetic discoveries puts all of us. It is impossible to overstate the significance of these questions, What kind of world do we want? How will we make these decisions? Whom do we let in?

Homosexuals are particularly vulnerable in this situation because, distinct from most other minorities, they are born into a family of people unlike themselves. Even the most liberal-minded heterosexual may stop for a moment and think, "Well, do I want my child to be gay?" In that moment of reflection lies the danger of genocide. No, it wouldn't have the calculated and theatrical horror of the concentration camps, but a minority population would be destroyed.

Well, so what? If people have such a distaste for homosexuals and subject them to discrimination and violence, why not remove this gene that brings with it so much controversy and suffering? The answer to this chilling question is simple. Because we'll lose too much. Being gay is not just a question of sexuality. When you are gay, you are part of a community, and it's not just the one shown in that cheesy footage of bare-chested guys slamdancing on the evening news. (When they need "heterosexual" footage, do the cameramen run to the local Chippendale's?)

Gay people are exactly that, "a people." When you come out, you discover a mysterious, close bond with others like you that is based on something much deeper than sex. What we share is unrelated to geography, religion or ethnicity. What links us is our feelings. This may be why there is such a thriving gay culture, filled with wit and celebration. Even the ravages of the AIDS epidemic haven't destroyed the gay spirit. Can you remove what makes a person gay and maintain that unique sensibility that has played a disproportionate role in the world's art and history? I don't think so. As the character of David Gold points out, "Every human being is a tapestry. You pull one thread, one undesirable color, and the art unravels. You end up staring at the walls."

The way to prevent this nightmare is not to put limits on scientific research or on a woman's right to have an abortion. Those are Band-Aid solutions that attack the wrong problem. The only solution is a frank discussion through which people understand the richness of the gay community and that to attack one unpopular group is to attack us all, no matter how skilled the rhetoric used in the cause of bigotry. The sooner such discussions take place, the better, for science will not wait.

When Twilight opened recently in Washington, I was fortunate enough to spend a day at the brand-new and heartbreaking Holocaust Museum. Yet again, I was stunned by the Nazis' painstaking "scientific" attempts to rid the gene pool of unwanted traits. Now, barely 50 years later, science is giving us the knowledge and tools that Hitler's medical staff only dreamed of. Our society will be forced, whether it wants to or not, to answer this question and others like it: Was Hitler wrong about the Jews but right about the homosexuals?

For those of us who think he wasn't right at all, it's time, once again, to get to work.