- There's a friend of mine who used to say, how far out of the closet do you have to get to be out of the closet?

And I thought there was funny.

And then the day Fred brought up the fact that it's important that we be known, whatever, we appeared on the front page of the Lowell Sun, gay couple, you know.

And I figured that's about as far out of the closet as you need to be.

And then we got married and after we got married, we had about 40 people here, and we sat there addressing cards and notices to all our family and friends.

Now, I figured I was about as far out of the closet as you can get.

And yet, there were certain names I would come across, a cousin or somebody and I would just shudder thinking, oh do I really wanna send this off?

(light music) - I grew up very restricted.

I knew I was gay at a very young age.

I was brought up in a very Catholic family, and all of society just told me that you can't be gay.

You know, it just was, for me, it was impossible.

So I lived a very secret, closed life, up until the time I was 55 years old.

I was married.

I had raised children.

And I mean, all of that was, well, I think I think was possible because I did a great deal of drinking, and I really became an alcoholic.

And when I turned 55, I joined a 12-step program and it just changed my whole life.

I mean, because I was suddenly out, I was out because I got arrested in a rest area, and because I was out, initially, I wanted to kill myself, it was so embarrassing.

But when I found out I couldn't kill myself, and I spent nine days in a psych ward, at the end of that, I was alive, you know.

It wasn't until I stopped drinking and decided that this is not working for me, that I have to live an authentic life.

And that authentic life is to be out, to be accepting of myself, to, you know, learn to love myself.

I spent years in what they call in my program, a pink cloud.

I mean, I just loved being out.

I loved being in the scene.

I loved being available for people.

Shortly after I got sober, I met my husband.

And I mean, my life is just glorious.

It's just wonderful.

(light music) - Since birth, childhood, we're told by religion, by society, by everyone, gay is bad, gay is evil, and therefore, a lifetime of this, you don't just chuck that off.

A lot of the homophobia that I have, I'll probably take some of that to my grave, it was so deeply instilled in me.

Traditionally, the only social outlet that gay people had was the bar, the gay bar.

All that repressed anger that society was throwing at us, you'd get into a safe place with fellow gay people, and they were the only ones that was safe to vent with.

There was a lot of bitterness that came out at the bar, vented at one another, you know.

Often in terms of it's supposed to be funny and chiding, but it hurt a lot.

When we decided to come out publicly gay and ended up with our pictures on the front page of the Lowell Sun, we just became the go-to couple for any gay question that anyone in the city had.

(light music) Early gay Pride parades were very angry, in your face, deliberately offensive.

There were some people who wanted to clean up the parade.

All they wanted everybody in suits and ties, and no more drag and no more whatever.

They refused to have Dykes on Bikes lead the parade.

So what they did is they hid on the side street, and as the parade came by, these women just piled out on their motorcycles and everybody loved it, cheered, because everyone felt, we're being discriminated.

Who were we to start discriminating against others?

If somebody wants to wear a dress, let them wear a dress.

What's that to me?

- Stonewall had just happened.

And then the AIDS crisis came, and this government of ours at the time, the Reagan government, they wouldn't even mention the word AIDS.

I mean, and people were dying, you know.

Just dying by the thousands really.

I mean that anger had to come out somewhere and in a parade?

Why not?

Why not do it?

Today, they've gotten so friggin' dull.

All you see in the parades now, politicians, church groups.

I mean, churches are lovely.

You know, I'm not anti-church, and it's wonderful that churches welcome gay and lesbian people and join the parade.

And you know, but it's a dull parade.

Sorry.

- I'll say one thing with the AIDS crisis.

There always had been hostility among gay men and gay women.

They just- - Didn't mix.

- They just didn't mix.

It was (indistinct).

And when the aids crisis came, it was the lesbians who came forward, and the lesbians, I get, sorry.

They're the ones who really stepped forward, and catered to the gay people, those with AIDS.

And that was the beginning of bringing us together.

It was a quite a good thing that happened from the AIDS crisis.

It really wasn't until the Gay Film Festival, they had the documentary of the gay rights movement and what they went through, when I saw what happened at Stonewall.

- They used to bust in there and start busting heads and dragging people out and throwing 'em on a paddy wagon.

And, you know, they weren't doing anything illegal, anything that should have been illegal.

- And I walked out of the theater and I realized the price that all these people had paid and I was reaping the benefits for it.

And that's when it triggered that I really owed the gay community work, effort.

- In early 2004, Boston's gay organization had asked us if we would, you know, be interested in testifying.

- When the Goodrich decision was made about gay marriage, the legislature was given a short period of time to work out what they were going to do with it.

And there was a great movement to erode the decision.

So a lot of work had to be done.

And I noticed that in the Merrimack Valley, there was a vacuum as far as any movement being done toward this.

So I panicked and I called MassEquality in Boston and made an appointment with them.

They were thrilled that they had a live body ready to work.

They gave me all kinds of advice and pointers, and they appointed Amy to assist us and our friend Kate Tyndell.

- Just so you know how he came about during the Constitutional Convention last year, which was a little heated shall we say.

Emile started watching it and then got me watching it.

And Emile was totally energized and said, you know, we need to pick up on this energy and we need to make sure that our marriages are valid and stay that way.

What do we need to do?

So, we started organizing.

- And so the two of us founded the Greater Lowell Equality Alliance.

(light music) - Initially, we didn't think we would get married because we had all the benefits, you know, that we'd want, wills, and the most amazing thing happened after the killing of DOMA.

When that happened, we were allowed to file for the first time a joint tax return.

And when that got approved by the federal government, I mean, it really, it really got to me.

I bawled by eyes out.

It turned out that we, in talking about it, we decided, look, we should set an example.

You know, we're well known here in the city.

- So my suggestion was, well, let's sneak into Cambridge at midnight, get the license, quietly get married and that'll be it.

And Fred's the one that said, it's important for the people in Lowell to be talking, not about gay marriage in general, but to be talking about Fred and Emile's marriage, Kate and Debbie's marriage, to personalize it.

And so, we went along with that.

(light music) For myself, the idea of everything has changed and nothing has changed, it goes to my own acceptance of self.

Growing up, no matter what, what I ever accomplished amounted to nothing because I was gay and therefore I was an object of ridicule.

It was something to laugh at.

Having marriage put me on a par with any heterosexual walking the face of the earth.

It acknowledged my nobility as a human being.

(jazzy music) - People have asked why we have the house like it is.

And of course it's really Victorian.

It's a very strange, you know, for a lot of people to come in here and see how we've decorated our house.

Fortunately, we both have the same taste in decorating.

And when we bought this house, and we had it redone inside and out, a lot of the work we did ourselves and it's really our love nest.

You know, it's something that we like.

It's something that's been, you know, so important to us, and something that we just love to share with our friends.

- A lot of people are kind shocked and like, oh, aren't you afraid it'll get broken?

And we say, well, that's the point of the whole thing is using it and sharing it, let other people enjoy it along with us, you know.

We collect a lot, and we don't have room to display everything.

So we do a rotating thing.

We go up in the attic, bring out a new collection and have that out for a while and then put that away and replace it with something else.

And it's fun.

It's a fun thing to do.

- ♪ Happy Birthday to you ♪ ♪ Happy Birthday dear Stephen ♪ ♪ Happy Birthday to you ♪ (clapping) - The Primetimers originally, was started by a school teacher, as an alternative to the bar scene for elderly gay people to socialize.

- It's a part of our life that's very important.

Fills in part of the socializing that we do.

- Okay, how many people here wanna go to the anniversary party?

Raise your hand.

Have you bought tickets yet?

- Yes.

- And so for older gay people to be able to gather and commiserate with one another, we all lived through the same thing.

And so we don't have to explain what it was like.

We can talk and understand one another, the trials, the fears, the everything that we went through.

- This is gonna be videotaped.

If you don't wanna be videotaped, please sit up there.

It won't be panning back there anyhow, but you will not be on it, so don't worry about it.

- At the Primetimers, there was a conference that they held.

About five people get up on the stage and talk to the crowd about how wonderful it is to come out of the closet and to be relaxed and to be able to enjoy life or whatever.

And as they were talking, I looked over the crowd.

You know, 60, 70, 80-year-old men sitting there, and some of them had terror written all over their face.

Thinking, oh my God, at this stage of the game, they want me to come out?

You know, it was a terrifying thought to them.

- For one thing we're older, and what's gonna happen when we need custodial care of some sort?

You have to go in the hospital for extended time and you know, what are you gonna face?

We've had members of Primetimers who, when they had to go into extra care, they had problems.

They didn't want people to come in and visit 'em.

They didn't want, you know, 'cause we can be a little act up, you know, and trying to encourage people and, you know, get 'em to laugh and everything.

And they didn't want that.

They didn't wanna be identified as gay.

In other words, they were back in the closet, and it's kind of sad.

- We were told specifically, no cards, don't visit, don't call.

Just forget about me, you know.

(light music) A good friend of ours passed away, and we all went to the funeral.

And after the funeral, their sister came up to us and she said, I've always known that Hank was gay.

I just wish he had been able to talk to me about it, and that I had met all you wonderful people.

I never knew he was surrounded by such warm, comforting people.

And I'm just thrilled to find that out.

As far as a nursing home is concerned, I'm terrified of going to a nursing home just to be in a nursing home.

But what I'm going to encounter there, I don't know.

I don't know.

My initial statement is I would be very cautious.

I would slowly go back into the closet, and feel my way out like I did in my youth growing up.

Who can I trust?

Who can't I trust?

It would be that whole game, probably all over again.

- Oh, you're so easy-going.

You'll make charming.

Charm them all and be the belle of the ball.

I'm 80 years old.

And you know, I'm running through a kind of a crisis of faith, not knowing if there's any life after death and all that.

For a couple years now, I've been going through this.

I know, at the most I have 20 years.

I'll be 100.

You know, I expect to be 100, but 20 years will go fast.

The last 20 have gone like, you know.

So it isn't so much about being gay.

'Cause, you know, I'll survive it whatever it is.

But it's just dying and what that means is more of a problem to me than whether I'm gay or not.

Some people aren't happy with the amount of publicity that gays and lesbians are getting, and they're tired of it.

They, you know, I've heard that they don't really like it.

You know, there's just too much of it and they don't want it to happen.

And in my mind, I say (beep) 'em.

We worked hard for this.

I mean, think of the African Americans.

You know, all the years they've been fighting for equality, and they still don't have it completely.

They're still trying to keep them from voting, keep them from getting jobs.

All kinds of problems.

And it's the same with gay people.

We still don't have complete, you know, acceptance.

- I say there's never enough.

History has shown us that no matter what the cause is, when they think legally it's over, it's never over.

And besides, people who are complaining about it, just start to think what we have gone through all our lives fighting for this, and you're tired of hearing about it?

Doesn't compare to what we lived through.

- In the Lowell Sun, in case any of you missed it yesterday.

(laughing) (light music) - People generally are accepting gay people.

In the South and the Midwest, there are pockets of discrimination that are gonna go on for a while, but eventually, you know, it's inevitable, 'cause we're all just people and- - The gay bars are disappearing, because there's no need for them anymore.

The gay bookstores are practically all gone, practically completely wiped out.

So, that hidden gay life, the more we're assimilated into mainstream society, the less there is a need for the ghetto, the gay ghetto.

So, it is a really positive, wonderful thing.

(light music) - When I say, you know, nothing has changed, what I mean is, this man I love, I don't love any less.

I love him more.

I'd die for him.

I didn't have to have a wedding license or whatever to do that.

(light music) I'll get call calls, and they'll say, is Emily there?

And I say, no, that's my husband, Emile.

You know?

And I sort of like it, because it's sort of, you know, sticking it, you know.

- I loved it in the beginning too, out of the blue refer to my husband, and watch the shock element.

But today it's no longer a shock thing.

People just take it.

You know, as a matter of course.

(light music) The Stonewall Museum in Florida is a museum for gay, and so we got this t-shirt here.

It says, squeeze a fruit for Anita.

(light music)