The Front Runner

straight and gay consenting adults, stating that
    they were an unconstitutional attempt to regulate bedroom matters. The decision also clarified homosexuals' protection under the anti-discrimination laws of 1964.
    The gay people and their liberal supporters rejoiced. John Sive and his colleagues had prepared their case painstakingly, and the years of work paid off.
    But the ruling jolted the country, and gays were suddenly feeling more pressure than before, instead of less. I'm not a sociologist, but I have my own visceral theory about why.
    Unlike the abortion issue back in 1973, the sodomy issue was not bruited about in the media a lot beforehand. By the time the Court finally ruled on abortion, most Americans were pretty accurately informed on the pros and cons. But the sodomy issue was just one of 126 other matters on the Court docket that year, and it hit middle America straight out of the blue.
    All that the average taxpayer in Peoria, Illinois, knew was that suddenly the Court was saying it was all right for his kids to be fairies, a thing he had been taught to fear and despise. His ideas about homosexuality stayed away from facts, in the medieval murk.
    This deep irrational fear was at the bottom of the reaction, and behind the unsuccessful but fanatic organized groups who tried to get the Court to reverse the ruling. In all the furor that spring, most people seemed to forget that the ruling also covered lesbians and straights, and they shot their hostilities at gay men.
    The psychotic fear of gay men shows how deeply the issue went. American men are insecure and on the defensive anyway, what with all the women's lib stuff. And despite all the women's lib activity, American society still tends to regard a man as having a higher responsibility than a woman. A man has his privileges, but he also carries his burden. So a man who refuses to impregnate Miss America, who wastes his semen between another man's thighs, is a sexual traitor who threatens the very future of a society.
    In my opinion, no other big social change in recent years—such as integration, drug use and relaxed heterosexual morals—has provoked the degree of
    anger that the sodomy thing did. Maybe I am biased, because I felt that anger. But I always felt keenly that the biggest backlash came from men who were insecure of their own roles. They feared—secretly perhaps—that I was a bigger stud than they were. I might practice my prowess on their own sons, and thus cut off their lifeline to genealogical immortality.
    As far as I and my three gay runners were concerned, the Court ruling meant that we were both better off and worse off than before.
    I wouldn't have to worry any more about their getting busted in some state with strict laws, while traveling to meets. We now had solid legal backing in case they were hassled on their way to the Olympics.
    On the other hand, with the whole country boiling on the issue, people might show us even more hostility than they would have otherwise. And, as everybody knows, it's one thing to get a fair civil-rights law passed, and another thing to get it enforced.
    By April Billy was recovered from the stress fracture and making some progress, and his 5,000 and 10,000 times were dropping slowly toward the goals I'd set. But he wasn't making the progress he should, because he was fighting me tooth and nail about his program. I wanted him to train just once a day. He insisted on twice. Sometimes he'd give in, and then a couple of weeks later, he'd fall off the wagon. It was like trying to keep an alcoholic away from booze.
    We had all three of the boys entered in the Drake Relays, which were to be held April 25 and 26. I was especially anxious that Billy be fresh for this important meet, as it would be a major test of his potential.
    I was cold and correct with him, and he was cold and correct with me.
    As my feelings for him tortured me more and more, I started training hard again, the way I had at Villanova. The coach was working fully as hard as his athletes. Every morning I got up just as it was getting light, and busted ten or fifteen miles over the trails in the woods. In the afternoons, I even managed
    to squeeze in some speed work on the track. I was pathetically pleased, in my old age, to see how quickly my body responded and came back to racing condition. I was running 4:20 miles in time trials that spring.
    And so the weeks passed, I barking at Billy and he running silent and stubborn.
    One day his