MONDAY, AUG. 20, 2001
ON THE HILL
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 13C
Minor opens doors for humanity
By Laurie Sisk Kansan staff writer
A trace of sauce from his Yello Sub BBQ chicken sandwich nestles near the corner of his mouth, camouflaged partially by his black goatate. He'll clean up later. Right now he's passionately engaged in lunch.
Bob Minor likes his Yello Sub.
He describes the owner as a successful businessman who lives a simple, non-lavish lifestyle. That's something Minor respects. His politics are so deeply rooted that they dictate where he chooses to dine.
Minor's southwest Lawrence home is a simple, two-bedroom dwelling. He never has been into lavish things. He earns a professor's salary and drives a Ford Escort. It gets him where he needs to go.
Two years before he came out to himself, Minor divorced his wife of 15 years and retained primary physical custody of his 8-year-old son. Matt.
Minor is the product of a plain, simple West Allis, Wisc., family of four kids with blue-collar parents. He is the oldest of a first-generation college family.
He realized he was gay at age 40.
He said he "came out as it came up."
Coming Out
For his family in Wisconsin, it was no big shock.
A few years earlier, Minor's mother, Alice, awoke from a dream in which her eldest son stood at the foot of her bed and said "Mom. I'm gay."
The dream was so vivid that when Minor came out to his mother in the mid-1980s, she said she already knew. His father, Carl, died from an aneurysm in 1977.
His sister, Joan Palumbo, who still lives in Wisconsin, said she and her brother and sister already had an idea that their big brother
might be gav.
"It was sad only because we knew it might be hard — the way people might treat him," Palumbo said. "But we really love each other, so it didn't matter at all, not one bit, to the family. There has always been a lot of love in this family. We were all raised to be sensitive, caring people."
Palumbo said she always looked up to Bob. She liked to call him "the achiever."
Bob was her idol.
"Whenever something went wrong, I knew he'd be there to protect me." Palumbo said. "He was — and still is — my idol. I always looked up to him. He was always so bright. He's got such a great mind — He's Mensa bright."
Minor left home when he was 17 and worked his way through college.
Although his sexuality carried no special issue with his mother and siblings, Minor's son had a harder time accepting his father's sexual orientation.
"I remember it like it was yesterday," Matt said of the day his father came out to him.
Now 24, Matt said he was 14 and he and his father were in the car on the way to his girlfriend's house when his dad asked him, "What would you say if I told you I was gay?"
"I laughed," Matt said. "I thought it was a joke."
Once Matt realized his father was not ioking, he became angry.
"It really affected the way I thought about him — our relationship took a 180-degree turn," Matt said. "I grew up believing that kind of activity was wrong."
Minor said it was difficult for Matt.
"He was worried about what people would think about him—and of me. It was a traumatic thing for him," Minor said.
him think that change would always hurt him."
"I think he eventually has to learn that it is ok and that nothing has changed between him and me," Minor said. "He doesn't like change. The divorce really made
"In junior high and high school, it is something that every guy jokes about. I didn't want anbody to find out," Matt said.
Matt said it was tough as a teenager.
He said he moved away and went to college at Pittsburg State University to get away from the issue.
"But being away made me realize that I needed to accept that that was who my father is," Matt said. "It's his life and I want him to be happy. I don't want to lose him—he's my father."
In 1994 he was a member of the Values Panel for the Kansas City Star, a member of the Communities Against Hate Crimes Task Force of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Kansas and was on the Diversity Advisory Committee for Kansas City Public Television. In 1999, he received a national leadership award for education from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
Matt said his closest friends knew about and accepted his father, but it was still not something he liked to talk about.
Minor also writes a monthly column, "Minor Details," for The Liberty Press, a news publication for the
for the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender communities in Kansas City, Mo., and statewide in Kansas.
Now 56, Minor is a leading activist for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in Kansas. In addition to having served in the department of religious studies at KU for more than 24 years, he served as department chairman for six. He also is highly involved in class, gender and race issues.
He also has published five books on South Asian religions and recently released his sixth book, Scared Straight: Why It's So hard to Accept Gay People and Why It's So Hard to Be Human.
Thad Holcombe, pastor at
Ecumenical Christian Ministries, said, "I think it's an important book. The issue of homophobia is institutional and inbred in all of us."
His son Matt heard about the book in early July and said he was very proud of his father's latest accomplishment.
"That's how my dad is," Matt said, "When something is important to him, he's balls against the walls. He just goes all out to do it. That's one trait I got from him. I'm just more stubborn." The Male Feminist
Minor said he believes in a common humanity, one in which males and females are allowed to explore their full potentials.
"That's what a patriarchal culture does," Minor said "It conditions men into something awful and then women are expected to treat that as the value."
With the exception of a few plumbing differences, Minor sees men and women as very much alike. There are, however, a few conditioned differences.
He said this conditioning was a form of abuse because it robbed a person of one-half of his or her being. He said it took "a lot of abuse to turn men into "masculine people" — and it took a lot of abuse to turn women into feminine people.
"Women are much more in touch with reality than men are," Minor said. "Men are out of touch with their bodies and out of touch with the cycles of life - the monthly cycles."
He said he thought men were taught to overcome the world. He said women have become victims of this because they have been conditioned to respond to men's conditioning.
"You take away half the characteristics that human beings are," Minor said. "You force some characteristics upon men and deny men of others. You force some on women and you deny women of others so we lose most of our humanity."
SEE MINOR PAGE 15C
Join VOX
If you are pro-choice,you want reproductive health services to be available to you in the future,and you support Planned Parenthood, join now!
Joining VOX is easy. It's not a huge commitment, but it can make a HUGE difference. www.plannedparenthood.org/vox
Writer's Roosts
Let the trained peer consultants at the Writer's Roosts help you brainstorm, draft, or edit your writing.
Stop by our new location in 4017 Wescoe Hall
or for writing help 24 hours a day, check out our Writer's Roost on the Web:
http://www.writing.ku.edu
For more information or to make an appointment:
writing@ku.edu (785) 864-2399
Write with us.