Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 26, 1993 TAG: 9303260212
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN TANASYCHUK KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
GAY TEEN COMES OUT `FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE' COMIC
That 17-year-old Lawrence Poirier tells his parents he is gay probably isn't a very big deal. Thousands of teen-agers somehow find the courage to do the same thing every day.What's unusual about Lawrence is that he's a character in a comic strip, "For Better or for Worse."
Starting April 5, the comic strip will take on the touchy issue of gay teens coming out to their parents. The reaction of Lawrence's parents is unfortunately typical. They throw him out of the house.
"I suppose `For Better or for Worse' mirrors my own life in many ways," explains Lynn Johnston, who has been drawing the strip for 13 years.
Her brother-in-law, Ralph Johnston, came out to the family about a dozen years ago. Johnston remembers it well because she was the first person he told. He was chopping wood outside of her door and making much more noise than he usually would.
When she asked him what was wrong, he said: " `I'm so sick of my mother introducing me to girls. If one more stupid woman comes over for tea and brings along some buck-toothed broad!' "
Johnston says it's funny now. But Ralph's coming out shook the family profoundly. "What happens when you hear this news is you change. You change because your point of view is shattered. You think one thing about the person and then this comes along. Then you realize that they haven't changed. It's you."
That's the point she wanted to get across in the series of comics.
Ralph Johnston, now 37, is proud of his sister-in-law: "She helped my mother deal with it by talking because my mother really knew nothing about it," says Johnston, music director at a local church, a weaving instructor and founder of a gay community group.
Lynn Johnston, a Canadian who lives in the small town of Corbeil, outside of North Bay in northern Ontario, says she didn't draw the series because gays have been so much in the news. In her mind, Lawrence was always gay. She just had to wait until it felt right for both her and the character.
Harriet Arnowitz, spokeswoman for Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, welcomes Johnston's contribution.
"I think something like this is really terrific," says Arnowitz, whose son Jonathan came out to the family about 10 years ago. "You hear these stories about teen-agers that are so tragic. Thirty percent of teen-age suicide, that we know of, is among gays and lesbians. My own son told me that he contemplated suicide and even attempted it."
The cartoonist has covered other issues of concern to families, including shoplifting and child abuse.
If the strip seems like an innocuous place to talk about the experience of a young gay man, think again.
Lee Salem, Johnston's editor at Universal Press Syndicate in Kansas City, Mo., says two or three small circulation papers have already decided they won't print the gay panels. "They don't think their readers would appreciate it," he says.
(The Roanoke Times & World-News will continue to carry the strip. Forrest M. Landon, executive editor, says, "while Lynn Johnston occasionally deals with lifestyle issues not found in more traditional comic strips, she always does so in a sensitive way, in good taste, with fine humor. I'm sure most - I hope all - of her fans will continue to read `For Better or for Worse' in the upcoming series.")
Johnston doesn't want her comic strip to become a political one, but censorship irks her. "It surprises me in today's environment that people would want to censor something like that out of a newspaper. I think that the readers should be able to decide for themselves whether they want to read that."