Passion for justice

Mitchell Gold aims to help gay teens avoid the nightmare that he lived through

Growing up in Trenton, N.J., Mitchell Gold remembers going out to eat with his family at the Glendale Tavern. His parents were in a good mood. The conversation was lively. For a moment, life seemed good.

Then he remembered his dark secret. At 14, Gold felt afflicted by a scourge that would forever ruin his chances of happiness. He was gay, and he was afraid his family would disown him if they knew.

Now 57 and the owner of a fast-growing furniture company in the Western North Carolina town of Taylorsville, he wants to make sure no other teenager has to go through what he did.

"To me, the way America treats its gay citizens is one of the great moral failures of the day," he says. "It's outrageous that kids are discovering their sexual orientation and it becomes a nightmare for them."

A self-made entrepreneur accustomed to making his way in the world, Gold recently launched an educational campaign called Faith in America to combat religion-based prejudice. The newest element of the broader campaign is a book, just published, that tells the stories of the pain people endure growing up gay.

"Crisis: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing up Gay in America," includes a host of contributors. Among them is Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop, who writes about trying "reparative therapy," designed to make gay people straight, and Mel White, former ghostwriter for Jerry Falwell, who said he believed his brother's death was punishment for his homosexuality.

Many Christians say the Bible is clear about homosexual sex -- in the book of Leviticus, it is called an abomination. Others say that gay families are not part of God's plan.

Gold said the Bible could not have envisioned loving, monogamous relationships between same-sex couples. He thinks the phrase used by Christians, "love the sinner, hate the sin," is no more helpful to gays than "separate but equal" was to black people.

In his own life, Gold believes actions speak louder than words. His company, which employs 700 people, is committed to making "family values" more than just a conservative slogan.

Gold's furniture line, Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, sells at 20 boutique stores across the country and under a private label at retailers such as Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware. Last year, revenue totaled $100 million.

Yet his biggest source of pride is a 2,700-square-foot day care center for 77 of his employees' children.

Gold points to the passage on Election Day of three more state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage as the reason for his activism. Arizona, California and Florida are the latest states to pass a ban. North Carolina forbids same-sex marriage, too, but the law is not in its constitution. In each of those states, and particularly California, the ballot initiative was largely funded by religious groups.

Gold acknowledges that gays have made legal strides in recent years. In Connecticut and Massachusetts gays can marry. But he says much remains to be done.

"There is no place in our society for majority religious beliefs to legislate a minority group's civil rights," he said.

Targeting intolerance

It doesn't matter to Gold that he is a nonpracticing Jew who does not attend services or belong to a synagogue. Seeing religious bigotry as the core of the problem, he wants to do something about it.

Three years ago, Gold hired the Rev. Jimmy Creech to help him launch Faith in America. Creech, a former Methodist pastor from Raleigh who was stripped of his credentials for blessing the union of two lesbians, helped Gold fashion a set of newspaper ads drawing attention to what they call religion-based bigotry against blacks and women.