Personal Journeys: Would a Gay Man Be Welcomed Home in Montana?

A few years ago, the band Little Big Town had a hit song called "Boondocks." It was a twangy, boot-stompin' ditty about the raptures of rural living: "I feel no shame. I'm proud of where I came from. I was born and raised in the boondocks."

If only I felt that way about my home state, Montana.

When you live in Los Angeles as I do and people learn that you grew up in Montana, the reaction is always the same. "Absolutely gorgeous, right?" I always widen my eyes and nod yes. "Jaw dropping," I sometimes add.

It's a lie, or at least partly a lie. For me, a gay man with a longtime partner, Montana has long been an ugly place. Gilded wheat fields? Snaggletoothed mountain peaks? Rivers running through it? Absolutely. But to see the natural splendor you have to look past the bumper stickers: "Real Men Marry Women," "It's Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve," "Marriage = 1 Man + 1 Woman."

What a view.

Homophobia happens everywhere, of course, including New York, where gay bashing has been alarmingly prevalent of late. And, ahem, holding a whole state accountable for a few jerks is not especially big-minded of me. Times also change. I may have been tortured by certain classmates at Billings Senior High School, but my mother, now a teacher there, recently helped start its first gay and lesbian student group. "It's not the same state," she told me.

An opportunity to prove her right — or wrong — arose in late June. My younger brother, Brit, was getting married in Big Sky, the resort town outside Yellowstone National Park. Instead of our usual dash-in-and-dash-out approach to Montana visits, my partner, Joe, and I decided to precede the wedding with a seven-day driving tour of the state. We would either arrive in Big Sky with newly open minds about Montana or we would be sporting a bumper sticker of our own: "Paddle Faster. I Hear Banjo Music."

How would anyone in Montana know we were a couple? After 13 years together, we aren't in the habit of being overly demonstrative with our affection, but you would have to be blind not to notice our orientation. I'm basically a walking stereotype (yes, I packed my hot pink Lacoste polo). There is a lot of whispering in ears and standing close and giving little love pats. That kind of thing.

In a rented sport utility vehicle, we set out from Bozeman in an afternoon rainstorm and drove north, stopping overnight in the hillside capital of Helena, where the governor in April signed a bill decriminalizing "deviant" gay sex. (Cheers to him, but it took until 2013?) Our ultimate destination was Glacier National Park, but we took a detour through Great Falls to my birthplace: Conrad, a one-stoplight prairie town near the Canadian border.

Conrad is a Podunk place, not much more than a gas station and a few agricultural businesses. But it also seemed like a good spot to take Montana's inhabitants and their allegedly new live-and-let-live spirit for a test drive. We stopped for lunch at the Home Cafe, a quintessential greasy spoon with quilts decorating the walls and rhubarb pie under Saran wrap in a display case.

Taking two open counter seats, we ordered $6 cheeseburgers, each topped with a fat spatula slap of mayonnaise. The dozen or so locals were friendly, especially the waitress ("You betcha!"), and Joe and I were soon enjoying the small-town quaintness of a voluminous article in the local newspaper: garden club members had been grappling with the best way to comply with a "hot and spicy" theme at this year's fair.

Our carriage and demeanor, as usual, left nothing to the imagination. Picture Jack from "Will & Grace" and his slightly more masculine boyfriend amid a group of farmers. Still, nobody gave us so much as a raised eyebrow. "Maybe I'm less flamboyant than I used to be," I whispered to Joe. He responded with an eye roll.

"You boys want a piece of pie?" our waitress asked with a wink.

Hmm.

We arrived at the 100-year-old Glacier Park Lodge to find a tour group from Japan oohing and aahing at the atrium lobby, the roof of which is held up by dozens of Douglas firs, each standing 40 feet tall and retaining its bark. So much for locals. But in the lush meadows on the eastern side of the park we encountered a great many welcoming Montanans — visitors from Fort Benton checking out the purple lupines, a family from Bigfork chattering about spotting a moose. We made fools of ourselves, or at least caricatures, by taking 10,000 close-up pictures of wildflowers, in particular the rust-colored patches of Indian paintbrush.