Luke & Noah: Important Lessons from A Sleepy Midwestern Town
by Dave VanderPol

Will you love me any less because you know that I occasionally watch soap operas? I hope not! You do practice “Tolerance”, right?

Jake Silberman (Noah) and Van Hansis (Luke) of AS THE WORLD TURNS

While my all-time favorite soap is still The Young & The Restless (I sure wish they would bring back Brenda Dickson, the original Jill Abbot!)¸ I have come to have much love and respect for As The World Turns (ATWT) since they added an openly gay character, Luke Snyder (played by Van Hansis).

Thirteen months ago ATWT introduced us to the character Noah Mayer (portrayed by Jake Silberman), who has since more-or-less come out of the closet and more-or-less (most of the time?) become Luke’s boyfriend. In soap opera shorthand Luke & Noah are referred to simply as “Nuke”. Nuke is the first gay couple to be portrayed on a soap opera. This is historic, is it not?

In true soap opera fashion, Nuke has had more plots twists and relationship ups and downs than I can count. One day they are solidly in love. The next day they are “splitsville”, or on the verge of never having anything to do with each ever again. Don’t we Drama Queens just love the drama?!?

But can any important lessons be learned from the trials and tribulations of Luke and Noah?  Definitely! Most of them are painful and ones I would like to forget. My short list of Invaluable Nuke Reminders goes like this.

• Growing up gay can be very painful – especially in a sleepy Midwestern town like Oakdale, Illinois, which is ground zero for ATWT. Being raised in a medium-sized Indiana town (Terre Haute) makes me tremendously grateful for the many GLBT community resources we have here in Louisville (and most major metropolitan areas). Apart from the Internet, many small town folks don’t have “instant community” available to them. I’m GLAD folks in small towns have the Internet available to them, but that’s hardly a substitute for face-to-face community.

• Being raised by a homophobic parent (as was Noah’s character), along with being exposed to potentially many other societal factors, is sure to produce TONS of internalized homophobia (e.g., self-hatred). Noah’s in-and-out relationship with the closet — and on-and-off relationship with Luke – serve as  painful reminders that no matter how much you may love your significant other, there is simply no “fast track” to instantly zap away internalized homophobia. As a community, we need to avail ourselves to coming out and other support groups and gay-affirming professional mental health therapists in order to rid ourselves of the emotional pain that goes with being raised gay in a hostile family and/or society. Wishing and hoping that pain will disappear without effort and support isn’t rational.

• Richard Bach was right when he observed that it is best let go of people who can’t make a commitment. His quote is worth re-quoting: “If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they’re yours; if they don’t they never were.” The way that Luke goes chasing after Noah, begging him to come to his senses, just drives me nuts!  How I’d love to slap a copy of the best selling self-help book CoDependent No More in his hands! (Then again, to coerce someone to read a codependency self-help book would be rather codependent, would it not?).

Sending Noah off to a coming out support group and encouraging Luke to find a therapist to help him with his codependency issues seem like great ideas to help our beloved soap characters move on to the “next level” of their existence. But back here in the “real world” what can be done to help the real people whose stories often parallel the many plot twists experienced by Nuke?

• Every town, regardless of the size, needs a chapter of Parents & Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) to our loved can find support to overcome their issues. It is often overlooked that PFLAG offers great support for us GLBT folks, whether we’re still in-process or fully out.

• Every town, regardless of the size, needs a coming out support group. It disturbs me that Louisville no longer has a group (for either women or men) with the sole focus of helping folks come out. Do we have any qualified individuals amongst our readers willing to help begin such a group in Louisville or elsewhere within the region we serve? If so, please allow THE LETTER to share this information with our readers.

• Every town, regardless of the size, needs mental health therapists who are visibly gay-affirming. Sometimes support groups aren’t enough and professional assistance is called for.

• Every town, regardless of the size, needs welcoming and inclusive faith communities that can facilitate healing of religious-based internalized homophobia, for those struggling with this type of pain.

It sure is easy to write about these issues (probably as easy as it is to write a decent soap opera script). But the reality is that, as I see it, more of us need to be more involved in groups and organizations that can make the world better for our GLBT sisters and brothers. Will Louisville ever again have a GLBT community center, let alone Coming Out Support Group? What resources are missing in your corner of the world? What are you doing to meet these unmet needs?

This installment of Dave VanderPol’s RADICALLY SERENE THOUGHTS column was pubilshed in the July 2008 issue of THE LETTER newspaper (www.TheLetterOnline.com).