Fit to Serve: Reflections on a Secret Life, Private Struggle, and Public Battle to Become the First Openly Gay U.S. Ambassador - Hardcover

Hormel, James C.; Martin, Erin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1616083980 ISBN 13: 9781616083984

Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, 2011

Synopsis

This is the memoir of James C. Hormel—a man who grew up feeling different not only because his family owned the Hormel “empire” and lived in a twenty-six-bedroom house in a small Midwest town, but because he was gay at a time when homosexuality was not discussed or accepted. Outwardly he tried to live up to the life his father wanted for him—he was a successful professional, had married a lovely woman, and had children—but as vola-tile changes in the late 1960s impeded on the American psyche, Hormel realized that he could not hide his true self forever.

Hormel moved to New York City, became an antiwar activist, battled homophobia, lost dear friends to AIDS, and set out to become America’s first openly gay ambassador, a position he finally won during the Clinton administration. Today, Hormel continues to fight for LGBT equality and gay marriage rights. This is a passionate and inspiring true story of the determination for human equality and for attaining your own version of the American Dream—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without exception.

About this title

About the Author

Ambassador James C. Hormel was born in Austin, Minnesota, in 1933. He has a law degree and worked as Assistant Dean and Dean of Students at the University of Chicago Law School. In 1995 he served as a U.S. delegate to the UN Commission on Human Rights and the UN General Assembly in 1996. He served as U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg from 1999-2000. He also established the James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Public Library. He currently works at an investment firm called Equidex and devotes most of his time to philanthropy and Democratic politics. He currently resides in San Francisco, California. Erin Martin is a former journalist for The Hartford Courange and also worked for U.S. Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut as a press secretary and speechwriter. She's worked on political development programs in post-Apartheid South Africa and Namibia, for The September 11th Fund, and currently works for a Madison Avenue communications consultancy. She lives in New York City.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Fit To Serve

Reflections on a Secret Life, Private Struggle, and Public Battle to Become America's First Openly Gay U.S. Ambassador

By James C. Hormel, Erin Martin

Skyhorse Publishing

Copyright © 2011 James C. Hormel and Erin Martin
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-61608-398-4

Contents

Chapter 1: They Will Eat You Alive, 
Chapter 2: Cockeyed World, 
Chapter 3: War Years, 
Chapter 4: Rhymes with Normal, 
Chapter 5: Dismal Failure, 
Chapter 6: A Rough Senior Year, 
Chapter 7: Fear of Discovery, 
Chapter 8: Stepping Out, 
Chapter 9: Influences of the Day, 
Chapter 10: Political Tourist, 
Chapter 11: A New Life, 
Chapter 12: Death and Birth, 
Chapter 13: Fit to Serve, 
Chapter 14: Working on My Résumé, 
Chapter 15: The Smearing, 
Chapter 16: The Dangers of Coloring Books, 
Chapter 17: Not Dead Yet, 
Chapter 18: Luxembourg, 
Chapter 19: The Value of Activism, 
About the Authors, 
Acknowledgments, 
Sources, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

They Will Eat You Alive

As soon as the bicycle courier arrived with the package, my office manager, Marcus, brought it to me, wished me luck, and then left me alone. I took the yellow padded envelope in my hands, knowing what it contained: a videotape — and an accusation.

Seated at my cluttered desk, just two stories above the loud racket of Market Street's trolleys, I heard nothing apart from the thump of my heart. My hands shook; they often do — owing to a hereditary muscle tremor common to the men in my family — but my anger made the shaking worse. California Senator Dianne Feinstein's mother-knows-best voice played in my mind: "Oh Jim, they will try to eat you alive," she had warned.

I freed the tape from the mailer and read the chicken scratch on its label: Pat Robertson.

I must have something better to do than watch this tape, I thought.

A little after eight o'clock that morning, in the bathroom splashing water on my face, I realized that it was April 2, my oldest daughter Alison's forty-second birthday. She lived in Charlottesville, with her husband Bernie, and was on a daunting mission of her own: founding a school for autistic children. She wanted her kids Harry and Georgia, and others like them, to get the attention not available to them in conventional schools.

The phone rang. I answered the cordless by my bed and immediately noted a hint of agitation in the smooth voice of Ray Mulliner. A refugee of Salt Lake City, excommunicated by the Mormon Church for being gay, he had helped me manage my philanthropic and political work for more than a dozen years.

"Hey, Jim. I am really sorry to bother you, but I just got a call from the White House that you need to know about," he said, pausing so that we both could take a breath.

"Oh really?" I responded, still a bit groggy.

"Yeah. Pat Robertson did a piece on your nomination on his show this morning. It was quite ugly, apparently."

Anxiety spread inside me like spilled paint. "What did he say?" I asked.

"Well, there was a tiny protest in front of the Capitol yesterday; I mean, tiny, as in eight to ten people, and they blew it up into a big story," Ray said. "They made all kinds of accusations about pedophilia."

"Pedophilia?" I yelled. "What? Are these people out of their minds?" "I know, I know. It's becoming very clear that they will stop at nothing," Ray said. "I already have a call in to KPIX to see whether we can get a tape."

"I'll be in as soon as I can," I said.

"Be prepared — the phones are ringing already," he said, hanging up.

I sat in silence, taking shallow breaths. I looked back toward my bed and contemplated diving under the covers.

After a quick shave and fast shower, I threw on a casual shirt and comfortable khaki pants — it was going to be a long day. I grabbed a banana and rushed to the office, so fixated on what had been said about me that I forgot to call Alison to wish her well.

Alone in my office, I put my dread aside, pushed the tape into the slot, and took a seat on the nearby sofa. The blue logo of The 700 Club filled the screen and a voice announced Robertson and his co-host Terry Meeuwsen.

The duo stood in front of a set that looked like a living room, as if all of America was being invited into their home. They stood shoulder to shoulder: Robertson, gray-haired and paternal in a tan jacket, blue shirt, and dark tie; Meeuwsen, blond and just short of fifty, perched next to him. They looked deeply into the camera, into the homes of nearly 1 million viewers. Robertson wrinkled his forehead and squinted for emphasis as he announced news on Paula Jones's sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton, which had been dismissed the day before. My heart quickened as they moved on to me.

"A wealthy tycoon with ties to homosexual groups that promote sex with children may soon be a United States ambassador, without approval of the United States Senate," Meeuwsen intoned, slowing at the words sex with children. "Are sexual politics and money driving this behind-the-scenes deal? CBN News investigates."

To me, the show had the atmospherics of children's theater, and I half-expected to see Bert, Ernie, or Big Bird sitting in the anchor's chair. Instead, the camera focused on a precisely coiffed gentleman named Lee Webb to introduce the report. Behind him, across a giant screen, was a grainy image of me. It was plucked from a year-old television interview conducted during San Francisco's 1996 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Parade. I wore a white Coming Out Day T-shirt, appropriate for the sunny weather and the event but not flattering for television. Bulky headphones and a microphone stood out against my cropped white hair. I looked more like an amateur helicopter pilot than an ambassadorial nominee. The words CONTROVERSIAL APPOINTEE hovered in bold letters above my head, with smaller, fading subtitles in rows below: HORMEL, HORMEL.

Next, a written warning appeared on the screen as the pseudo-anchor tipped his head toward the camera: "A word of warning about our next story. This story may contain graphic images that you will not want your children to see."

Oh please, I thought. How utterly ridiculous.

Describing me as a "radical homosexual activist," Webb explained that I was President Clinton's nominee as ambassador to Luxembourg, and that to overcome objections in the Senate, Clinton might use special powers to bypass a confirmation vote and give me a recess appointment. Next, a reporter from The 700 Club's very own Christian Broadcasting Network appeared on the screen.

Video rolled of a press conference in front of the U.S. Capitol, in which a group of nine protesters, identified as "a mix of ex-homosexuals and Christians," chanted: "Can Hormel! Can Hormel!" They carried signs, some of which read: Pedophiles Go to Jail, not Luxembourg. Speakers claimed that I had given financial support to NAMBLA (the North American Man-Boy Love Association), an organization founded in the 1970s to advocate relationships between men and boys. In his voice-over, the CBN reporter told viewers that my philanthropic work had "helped popularize homosexuality and child sex abuse."

My blood boiled. I should have known it would come to this, I thought.

The seemingly interminable story moved on to an interview with a Christian activist who eventually became my most aggressive attacker: Andrea Sheldon, of the Traditional Values Coalition. A bleached blonde with light blue eyes, Miss Sheldon appeared on screen in an ample, floral-patterned dress.

She stated that she had visited the James C. Hormel Gay & Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Public Library and found items that she claimed were "X-rated" and "illegal." She flipped through a fat binder of photocopied materials, several of which flashed on the screen. One was a cartoon sketch of an older man hugging a boy. Another was a vintage black and white photograph of a nude boy. Last appeared a pen and ink illustration of three nude boys diving off a sail boat. Genitalia — assuming they were in fact visible in the originals — were fuzzed out of the broadcast images.

"Hormel has denied knowing about these materials in the Center that bears his name, but there's this label with his name on it, in every publication," the reporter said, with the inflection of a prosecutor addressing a jury. The camera zoomed in on the Center's proprietary bookplate, which, indeed, was on the inside cover of every one of the thousands and thousands of items in the collection.

In case any viewers had missed the central allegation of the story, the CBN staffer restated it in his wrap-up: "The anti-Hormel forces gathered here for this demonstration said this isn't about Luxembourg. It's not about politics. It's about the sexual abuse of children."

Back in the staged living room, Robertson, seated on a stool, delivered his last word:

"Your rights as the American people are being violated on this one, and to send this, this peed-o-phile advocate, to Luxembourg or any foreign country, is an absolute outrage," he ranted, in his Virginia twang.

The tape ended. The screen filled with loud snow.

Frozen on the sofa, I was furious beyond words. The audacity of it. The outrageousness of presenting this slander as legitimate journalism. Dianne had been right: they were trying to eat me alive.

* * *

It had all started in 1992, before President Clinton had even won the election. Over dinner one night at the Fairmont Hotel, the campaign treasurer, Bob Farmer, suggested that I seek a presidential appointment. I found the idea immodest. Who was I to ask for that? Just because I had donated money to the campaign, I should expect some sort of nomination? That didn't seem right. But as I thought it over, I realized that I might have an opportunity to open some eyes, particularly if the post required Senate confirmation. That would force one hundred senators, and possibly the whole American public, to consider the experience of a gay man in America. If I succeeded, I would break a ceiling and make it easier for gay people to serve at the highest levels of government. That would be a big deal.

At the time, I had no idea what I was getting into.

Two years later, in 1994, I was considered as a potential ambassador for Fiji, but the government there objected to my appointment, and my name seemed to sink to the very bottom of the appointment list. For three subsequent years, I was a squeaky wheel in Washington, making dozens of visits and hundreds of phone calls to keep my name in consideration. By the time President Clinton finally nominated me to Luxembourg in October 1997 — five years after my dinner with Bob Farmer — I was on an all-out crusade.

When that 700 Club segment aired in April 1998, I was sixty-five years old and "out" for more than three decades. I had been involved with the equality movement as far back as 1977, when Anita Bryant, a Miss America runner-up living in Florida, started a campaign to kick gay teachers out of schools. In 1978, I attended my first major Democratic Party meeting, a mini convention held in Memphis. At a breakfast reception in a hotel ballroom, Cornelia Wallace, the ex-wife of Governor George Wallace of Alabama, arrived to work the room. She was planning her own run for governor. As she breezed by, her long, dark hair flowing, my lapel button caught her attention. This is my recollection of our exchange:

"My goodness, what is that all about?" she asked, in a breathy Southern accent, as she shook my hand. Perhaps she was surprised to see a man wearing something pink.

"The pink triangle is the symbol that gay people were forced to wear in the Nazi prison camps," I replied, looking deeply into her eyes. She dropped my hand as if it were burning her.

"My, isn't that interesting?" she said, spying Tennessee Governor Ray Blanton out of the corner of her eye. "Oh, Governor ...," she sang out, lifting a finger in his direction and deserting me, it seemed, as quickly as possible. It was never easy to stand before someone and see horror crawl across their face as they became aware of my sexual orientation. And believe me, Cornelia Wallace, compared to some others, was polite.

To a certain extent, my skin was thick from walking so many miles along this road. The "me" who was a political animal, and who was willing to put everything aside to get the nomination, could shrug off the pedophilia allegations — they were the price of progress. That "me" saw The 700 Club show as an elaborate performance, designed to stir hatred and fear and, ultimately, raise money for Robertson's empire.

But far from Washington, in the safety of my office, I couldn't help but feel hurt. And humiliated. I had spent the last few decades refusing to be humiliated by any individual, or the world at large, but Robertson had managed to do it in a single broadcast.

Dejection and sadness slowly rose within me. They were feelings I knew well — I had been fighting them all my life. They came from an almost instinctual sense that no matter who I was or what I did, I would be neither accepted nor acceptable in a society that is relentlessly heterosexual.

Had Robertson really told 1 million people on national television that I advocated pedophilia?

Yes, pedophilia.

I felt nauseous, partly from my disgust over the willful fabrication, partly out of fear that the televangelist had succeeded in taking away from me what, by then, I most desired. I looked around my office at shelves populated with brass-plated plaques and cut crystal awards honoring me for philanthropy and civic involvement. What did they really mean? Did they outweigh the power of innuendo? Of outright lies? Self-doubt crept over me. My eyes drifted over assorted photos of my kids and grandchildren, and settled finally on a 5x7-inch black and white portrait of my father, Jay Hormel.

The picture was taken at the height of his career as president of Geo. A. Hormel & Co., a decade or so after SPAM and other products made the company a major international enterprise. Dressed in a checkered shirt, tie, woolen sweater, and sports coat, he leaned gingerly against a wall. His thinning gray hair was swept straight back with a dash of pomade; his thin lips stretched into a half-smile. Dashing, charismatic, and confident, he seemed to look right back at me, chiding: Jimmy, why are you letting them get to you?

In an instant, I was in Austin, Minnesota, a timid child in the third grade, self-consciously running from a chauffeur-driven car to the door of the school. Crossing the threshold, I hoped to fade into the crowd and be one of the boys. But that never happened. There was a sense, even among my fellow eight-year olds, that I should be treated differently. In Austin there were the Hormels, and then there was Everybody Else. And I could never, ever be Everybody Else. When that little boy — who is still alive inside me to this day — heard Robertson's accusations, he wanted to run, hide, and weep.

That April 2 blew by in a cyclone of phone calls between Washington and San Francisco, all part of a protracted conversation with White House and State Department officials and friends about whether to respond to Robertson's program, or ignore it entirely. Late that night in the office, Ray came to say goodbye and tell me that I was the last one to leave. My body was tired and my eyes ached. He didn't look much better.

"You know Jim, you don't have to put yourself through this," he said. "Maybe it's not worth it."

"I've been wondering the very same thing," I admitted.

What ate at me was my certainty that the association with pedophilia would stick. Thousands of people, perhaps, including Senators whose votes I needed to become an ambassador, would not question it. They would take it on faith. I imagined the range of people who might have watched the broadcast: retirees in their easy chairs, mothers folding laundry, a farmer eating lunch — all of them reacting to the broadcast in the same way. "That's disgusting," or, "That dirty, filthy man!" or "Typical Clinton, appointing a pervert like that guy!"

I could fight back with the facts: I never had and never would consider supporting any man–boy love association. I had nothing to do with selecting materials for the Hormel Center, many of which, by the way, also happened to be in the Library of Congress. I could point out how unethical it would be for a donor to influence a library's collection. I could open my heart and explain that I had been married once, that I was a father of five and grandfather to twelve, loving and beloved, and that nothing, absolutely nothing, made me sicker than to think of one of them being abused.

But none of that would be enough to put to rest the suspicion so carefully cultivated by the Christian Righteous that maybe, just maybe, I was a pedophile.

CHAPTER 2

Cockeyed World

Two dominant smells came from the Hormel packinghouse. The first was the aroma of a smokehouse — woody and sweet and very pleasant.

The second was altogether different. It came from a dark place known as the Hide Cellar, a giant room at the lowest level of the packinghouse that was filled with thousands of cowhides. They were laid out on wooden pallets and stacked to the ceiling in endless rows until they were dry enough to be shipped to whoever had bought them, for whatever purpose. They gave off the putrid, indescribable smell of decaying flesh. When the wind blew the wrong way, the odor swept over Austin and everyone in town moaned and groaned until the breeze changed direction.

One particularly glorious spring day, as I recall — it must have been around 1940 — I sat with two dozen or so other second-graders in my class at Sumner Elementary School. Our lovely young teacher, Miss Silseth, was writing spelling words on the board. She had opened the classroom's tall, wood-framed windows as wide as they would go, welcoming the sunshine and warmth that we all dreamed of during the long Minnesota winters.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Fit To Serve by James C. Hormel, Erin Martin. Copyright © 2011 James C. Hormel and Erin Martin. Excerpted by permission of Skyhorse Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1616083980
• ISBN 13: 9781616083984
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 320