PERSPECTIVE: Danvers Select Board Chair Shares Pride Flag's Personal Significance To Him

Danvers Select Board Chair David Mills submitted this letter of perspective to Patch for publish ahead of Pride Month in the town:

DANVERS, MA — As Pride Month begins in Danvers, there has been discussion of the rainbow flag, mostly positive, and some critical.

People have asked me why the rainbow flag is so important, especially, to me.

I have always wanted to feel included, to feel "a part of." In that respect, I'm probably similar to most, or at least the majority, of people in my town. I have lived in the same house across from the town hall for 54 years, and except for a year and a half during the second world war have always lived in Danvers, which was the hometown of my mother, her nine siblings and her Polish immigrant parents, Anna and Joseph.

I fly a rainbow flag every day of the year on the front of my house. I was 75 years old, five years ago, before I had the courage to do so.

Because I am gay, I have never felt fully accepted and included in the life of Danvers, but haven't given up the hope that I might eventually.

When I walk up the side steps to the town hall, even today, I have a flashing fantasy of some official at the door telling me that I cannot enter because I cannot be a part of the government, or be present on town property, because of my fundamental defect — that I am not heterosexual.

The scar tissue of humiliation and prejudice, at least my scar tissue, seems relentless, incurable and still devastating after all these years — I'll turn 80 in October.

I have always ached to be included, to be a part of something larger than myself — a concept discussed by Scott Peck in his popular book "The Road Less Traveled" published in 1978.

As I began to feel different when I was 7 or 8, I began hiding my fears and feelings from myself and the people in my life. I hid from my family, my classmates and my teachers at the Tapley school, my classmates and teachers at the Richmond junior high school, my classmates and teachers at Saint John's Prep, my classmates — I remember less than a handful — during four years at Boston College and my classmates and professors at the Boston College Law School, which, in other respects, were three of the most precious years of my life, even though in my heart and soul, I carried the fears of exclusion if anyone knew who I really was.

As I was about to graduate from law school in 1967, the terror of helplessness and aloneness finally exploded and rather than regular graduation, taking the bar exam, and beginning a legal career, I was confined to a mental hospital as the "medical treatment" of my "homosexual illness" began to be "cured."

I was misdiagnosed with anxiety and depression. A correct diagnosis should have been "acute, catastrophic aloneness," resulting from the 23 years that I hid from everyone in my world, including myself.

I didn't understand what gay or heterosexism was, exactly, but I knew that I was considered, or would be considered, an intrinsically disordered abomination if anyone ever knew of my attraction to men. I had those feelings despite years of masses, communions, rosary beads, and prayers to Jesus to please fix me and make me like the other boys and men so that I could be a heterosexual husband, father, and grandfather.

That was not to be.

And then followed another painful 20-plus years of psychiatry and "remediation" therapy to cure me while I lived fearing shock treatments or the possibility of a lobotomy, chemical castration, or other perverse "medical treatments" as I struggled through years of attempting to date several perfect young women with whom I attempted to develop genuine, heterosexual love.

That didn't happen.

It wasn't until I was nearly 50 that I began the torture of accepting that there was no medical cure, as had been promised, for my "maturational arrest," as I attempted to define what it meant to be gay in Danvers, Massachusetts, in this country, and in this world. It was terrifying, and I carried with within myself scar tissue of fear, helplessness, humiliation and prejudice.

As I write these notes in 2023 the emotional/psychological scar tissue is still there. It is incurable.

But through the years, the last 30 years, a massive task for me has been to unpick which parts of myself are truly me, and which parts I created in order to protect myself. My work at that continues daily.

A few months ago the Roman Catholic bishop in Worcester ordered a small Jesuit school, accommodating 91 underprivileged children, to remove a rainbow flag from the school flag pole. That order created quite a public relations mess for the bishop and for the church.

The order was condemned on Boston television, in Boston news media, and all over the internet and the Worcester City Council voted unanimously to place a large rainbow flag over Worcester City Hall in support of those students. The school administration refused to remove the flag, asserting — not arguing — that the flag was a symbol of welcome and safety for the students.

How beautiful is that!?

I could go on and on. And I won't. The rainbow flag on my home, above my front door in Danvers, attempts to be a symbol of welcome and safety for people in Danvers, especially LGBTQ young people and their parents, siblings, schoolmates, and other friends who love them.

There are surely 3,000 or more of us in Danvers who live in some measure of fear, insecurity and hiding.

I don't expect my single rainbow flag to touch the lives and hearts of many of my fellow citizens, but who knows, maybe some adolescent Danvers kid, struggling with the terror of facing a world of homophobia and heterosexism, and contemplating suicide, may find a small rainbow of hope from my flag and the flags that will be placed at the town hall, our library, our police and fire stations, and schools during Pride Month in Danvers.

Every time I tell my story of the rainbow flag I need to revisit parts of my life that remain unhealed, and it's not easy. But I don't feel totally alone.

Thousands of people in Danvers reject prejudice and humiliation against anyone, including me. Our Danvers Human Rights and Inclusion Committee has blossomed into a thoughtful and energetic group of citizens who are relentless in combating the evils of racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, heterosexism, as well as all of the other current hatreds, especially those against transpeople and Asian-Americans.

In this country, suicide rates among LGBTQ youth are at an all-time high. The prejudicial evils of homophobia and heterosexism are shamelessly embraced by thousands of high-profile political figures in our federal government.

In the few years of life that I have remaining, I will attempt to help the efforts to make Danvers a safe and welcoming place for all people.

I will fly my rainbow flag.