A Sleepy Town Wakes Up To Gay Issue -- Native Son's Revelation Fuels Debate As Enumclaw Faces Controversial Rodeo

ENUMCLAW - As a boy, Ron Mariotti Jr. remembers looking southeast from this town and thinking a different kind of life must lie beyond the foothills that ascend gradually toward Mount Rainier.

The son of a tough cowboy who also is one of the town's most prominent businessmen, he knew he would have to move someday so those foothills wouldn't permanently confine him to small-town life.

Eventually, he did go, cutting a path that led him to Bible college, the Navy and adventurous world travels. He left behind a boyhood that included being called "Preacher Boy" because of his religious fervor.

Now, at age 32, Mariotti has returned with a revelation about himself that has helped generate a lively debate in a town that prides itself on its simple and provincial ways:

He's gay.

Mariotti made his disclosure to the community of 9,200 in a long, personal letter printed a month ago in the town's weekly newspaper. The letter, combined with earlier news about a gay rodeo coming to the nearby King County Fairgrounds in September, has resulted in daily discussions about homosexuality throughout town for the past two months.

In restaurants, taverns and churches, at places of business, at dinner tables and on the pages of the Enumclaw Courier-Herald, the rural community is trying to come to terms with an issue that previously wasn't often discussed.

"It's just now coming out of the closet and that's good because it needs to be talked about," said Peggy Sikorski, a mother of three. "Some of that is because of Ron's letter, which took a lot of courage."

Others in the community say it's the type of issue they don't want to discuss, an example of why they don't live in a big city.

"We're just small-town folks," said Deborah Christenson, a haircutter at Bobbette's, a downtown salon. "I think in some ways change will never come to Enumclaw and a lot of people like it that way."

Mariotti's letter, though, has given a face to the issue. Many residents say discussions have been more open since everyone found out that the son of one of the town's most respected businessmen is gay. Many also say the family's handling of the situation has provided a good example for the community, even after a fight that has resulted in Ron Jr. and his father not speaking to each other.

Ron Mariotti Sr., 54, has lived his entire life in the town and owns the Enumclaw Sales Pavilion, where livestock sales are held every week.

Ron Sr. said he was "as big a redneck as a father could possibly have been" before his son told him a year ago in a letter that he is gay. "It was like being hit over the head with a sledgehammer," he said.

Since then, he said, eight people from the business community have visited privately to tell of personal struggles they've had after being told of one of their children's homosexuality.

"I've had some very close, tear-jerking kind of talks," he said.

Ron Sr. said he initially blamed himself for his son's homosexuality, wondering whether he had spent enough time with him as a boy and whether his divorce with Ron Jr.'s mother was the cause. He read books. He talked at length with many people, including his son. He cried.

"I know now that it's not a choice - it's something you're born with," he said. "Anybody with half a brain would know that there's no way on God's green Earth a man would just decide to climb in bed with another man."

A glimpse of how the family has come to terms with Ron Jr.'s lifestyle became public when Ron Jr.'s letter was published, along with a letter from his father and stepmother.

In their letter, Ron Sr. and his wife drew a distinction between accepting Ron and the "immoral" acts by him and other homosexuals. "It's the sex acts that are really kind of difficult to understand," Ron Sr. said later.

Ron Jr. said, though, that he's proud of his father for working hard to understand. Others in the community talk about the many times Ron Sr. has defended his son. They say he has been a leader on the issue.

Gay rodeo brings talk of violence

As the Mariotti family situation has played out, many in the community say it has helped soften some people's views toward the gay rodeo, which initially seemed to be flatly rejected.

Though some support has filtered in, sentiment still appears to run strongly against it. There has been talk of an anti-gay parade and of violence, calls for the closure of all businesses that weekend and a caustic letter in the newspaper from a local minister who referred to gays as the "sodomite community."

Enough fear of violence exists that on the weekend of the rodeo, Sept. 11-12, every employee of the Enumclaw Police Department will be on duty, including 15 officers, four reserves and 10 Explorer Scout volunteers. All vacations have been canceled, including his own, said Chief Gene Williams. "We're hoping the community is just venting and that, by that weekend, things will have relaxed."

Feelings about the rodeo and homosexuality run deep. The reaction of Raymond Wiebenga, 30, who runs a dairy farm with his father, was a common one. He immediately put up a sign outside the dairy that said, "Say no to the gay rodeo."

"We don't believe in homosexuality - it isn't in God's name," Wiebenga said. "This is a town of loggers and dairymen, people who tend to feel pretty strongly about their manhood and we're trying to keep respect for that alive."

At the True Grit tavern, bartender Shelly Klein predicted violence: "We're hicks and rednecks out here and we don't want that rodeo."

Klein and others say it seems as if the issue of homosexuality is being "thrown in their faces." Particularly objectionable, they say, are the rodeo's three non-traditional events. One involves dressing a goat in men's underwear; another requires a person dressed in drag to ride a steer; the other entails tying a ribbon on a steer's tail.

Rodeo organizers were surprised

Enumclaw's reaction has surprised organizers of the rodeo, which, outside of the three "camp" events, will be like any other rodeo. About 100 men and women, almost all gay, are expected to compete before 1,000 to 1,500 spectators per day.

"I've had no problems with people in the community in terms of arrangements," said Gary Shults of the Northwest Gay Rodeo Association, a local chapter of a group that stages 20 rodeos nationally per year.

He said the group is nonpolitical, gives all proceeds to charities and hasn't had any trouble with rodeos in other cities such as Aurora, Colo., Oklahoma City and Wichita, Kan.

Many people say the rodeo will be a good lesson in diversity for Enumclaw. "It'll blow people's minds when they see some big guy get up on a bucking bronc," said Ron Sr. "They're going to say, `What? That guy's gay?' "

Support for the gay rodeo, the first in Washington, was one of the main reasons Ron Jr. wrote his letter. But his primary motivation was anger over the abrupt termination of a deal between him and a local chiropractor - an incident that he thinks shows the town has a long way to go before accepting homosexuality.

Mariotti, a massage therapist, and Dr. Joe Howells said that over a 10-month period they worked out an agreement in which Mariotti would rent space within Howells' office. The two have known each other for more than 15 years and used to be in church and Bible study together.

Two weeks after Mariotti began work at the office, Howells told him he needed the space back.

Mariotti thinks his sexuality became an issue for Howells because of pressure in the community and Howells' born-again Christian beliefs.

During a talk two weeks before he began work there, Mariotti said Howells questioned him about his sexuality and said clients "might be concerned about catching something from him."

Howells said he asked Mariotti, who is HIV-negative, whether he was gay because he was "curious" after "hearing allegations of that nature," but he can't recall whether he asked him about his HIV status. He said his termination of the agreement, which was contractually legal, had nothing to do with Mariotti's sexuality.

God the final arbiter?

"What I personally believe about homosexuality has nothing to do with it," he said. "Everybody's entitled to their own personal opinion. . . . What does God's word say about it? That's our final authority. Ron Mariotti has to answer to God for what he does."

The situation also has played a big part in a split in the Mariotti family. Ron Jr. said he was disappointed with his father for not being outraged over the decision by Howells, a longtime friend of his father's.

Ron Jr. said he called his father a coward during a confrontation at his home in early June. He said his father choked and slapped him. Ron Sr. said he slapped his son for the way he talked to him. He said he has no regrets, even after being arrested, taken to jail, issued a restraining order and charged with fourth-degree domestic violence.

"Whether Ronnie wants to believe it or not, there's discrimination in this world," Ron Sr. said. "If you want to live differently in this world, you're going to face discrimination."

Ron Jr. calls the situation a missed opportunity for social change in Enumclaw. "He's a respected businessman here and he had an opportunity to make a strong statement."

Ron Jr., who returned to Enumclaw a year ago to work out some family issues, said he has received support from many old friends and even strangers on the street, but that life doesn't work for gay people in Enumclaw, where he and his partner of three years often draw stares.

The couple is moving to Seattle after the rodeo.

"I look at these people - they're Christians who I used to go to church with," he said. "I think to myself, `I've known you all my life and you're turning away from me - don't you realize what you're doing?' "