Family, the "Gay" Episode

I found this episode of the old TV series Family on YouTube recently, and I watched it today.  Rites of Friendship was the one in which Willie finds out a close friend he grew up with is gay. It originally aired on Dec. 28, 1976. I was 11 years old. I already knew I was gay.

Zeke is home from college, and Willie runs into him at a local taco place. They make plans to spend some time together and catch up the next day, but that night, Willie gets an urgent call from Zeke. He’s in jail, and he needs Willie to bail him out. Zeke was in a gay bar, and when it was raided, he tried to flee. When a police officer stopped him, Zeke punched him. He was desperate to get out of there because he didn’t want anyone to find out he’s gay, especially his homophobic father.

Today it seems insane that a gay bar would be raided, but this was 1976, and I guess gay bars in suburbia still had a hard time of it, and LGBTs were often harassed by the police even though things were getting better.

I think someone could use this episode to write a dissertation on changing attitudes toward homosexuality. In a way, this episode indicates that acceptance and tolerance were on the rise. The fact that it was made and that Zeke is portrayed sympathetically is good, but his sexuality is presented as shocking and problematic. Zeke is never shown with other gay men, and he never mentions having a special or romantic relationship. He sneaks off to gay bars occasionally where he presumably meets men for one night stands, but that’s never dealt with in any detail. Apparently he’s known he was gay for years, and he’s kept it from everybody, including Willie, all that time.

The Lawrences don’t condemn him, but they are scandalized. Mr. Lawrence, who is a lawyer, agrees to represent Zeke, and Mrs. Lawrence wants to help if she can. But she claims that even though she thinks of herself as a reasonably sophisticated woman, this news has taken her aback. When Buddy appears at the breakfast table and asks why everyone is acting so strange, Mrs. Lawrence tells her that sometimes ignorance is bliss. Later when Mrs. Lawrence is in the backyard with Nancy, she is still in a stupor over the fact Zeke likes to do that with men. Golly, it’s just so unbelievable. Imagine a guy wanting to do that with another guy.

Willie is the one who has the hardest time with it. He immediately starts backing away from Zeke the moment he finds out, and it’s obvious he wishes Zeke would simply disappear. He doesn’t like being reminded of it, and he resists Zeke’s efforts to talk it out. On the one hand, it’s understandable. Willie and Zeke were close friends for years. Willie thought they told one another everything, but then he finds out Zeke has held something important back from him. That, of course, would make him question the intimacy he thought they shared. But it’s also pretty obvious that Willie finds it icky that Zeke is a guy, and he likes doing that with guys. Golly, what if during a sleepover, Zeke was lying there imagining putting Willie’s willie in his mouth. The horrors. Nothing like that is said directly, but you can tell from the panicked look on Willie’s face that he’s picturing it and imagining it, and it’s driving him nuts. I wanted to smack him because Zeke is so patient with Willie and so willing to try to explain. His friendship with Willie obviously means a great deal to him, but right up until the end, Willie acts like a jerk.

I remember seeing this episode as a boy, and it was a revelation. I hoped that Zeke would come back in later episodes, but, of course, by the next week, Zeke was gone, never to be heard from again.