Lifetime movie "Prayers For Bobby" tells the tragic story of a gay Walnut Creek youth

A Diablo editor remembers a young Walnut Creek gay man whose failure to be accepted by his family inspired a new TV movie

The real Bobby Griffiths

Photo from Griffiths family, shared with Lifetime

I danced my first slow dance with Bobby Griffiths. I realize this is an odd memory to summon of Bobby, whose life and suicide would transform him into a national icon of the intolerance and discrimination that many gay youths face from society and their own families. 

I’m remembering Bobby today because his mother’s transformation from homophobic religious fundamentalist into gay rights advocate is the subject of Prayers for Bobby, a Lifetime network movie that will air this Saturday night and stars Sigourney Weaver as Bobby’s mom, Mary Griffiths, who still lives in the Walnut Creek home where Bobby grew up.

I knew Bobby at Parkmead Intermediate School in Walnut Creek—which no longer exists, by the way.  I only knew him casually, mainly because he was a boy, and in eighth grade, I still wasn’t that interested in boys. 

But in eighth grade, some girlfriends decided to host a boy-girl party at one of their homes. It would be my first boy-girl party.

Bobby was there.  I remember him as a nice-looking boy with blond curly hair and soft eyes.  He was a sweet but shy. He was wearing a short sleeve shirt and corduroy pants.

Our hosts decided it was time for everyone to dance and put on some music.  A slow song came on. I don’t remember the title, but this was the late ‘70s, so it could have been any of a number of dreadful, goopy romantic ‘70s hits.  I ended up paired with Bobby, mainly because he was the only boy as tall as me at the time.  

I felt awkward, because, as I said, I wasn’t yet into this boy-girl thing.  Probably Bobby felt awkward, too, because, as we later learned, he would never be into this boy-girl thing.  Still, he was polite and dutifully put his hands on my shoulders. I put my hands on his. We smiled shyly at each other and swayed as best we could until the song was over.

Because of school boundary areas, we went to different Walnut Creek high schools. Bobby went to Las Lomas, where I later learned, he grew into a tall, handsome young man. 

Bobby became someone I started to hear about again in my early 20s. Actually, I started to read about him in East Bay newspapers. His mother was talking openly about why Bobby’s story and her own mistakes as a parent inspired her to become an outspoken advocate for Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PLAG).

Bobby’s story is that he killed himself at age 20 in the summer of 1983. He threw himself off a freeway overpass in Portland Oregon. 

Mary blamed herself, or rather her own ignorance, for adding to her son’s anguish about his sexual orientation. As Mary explains in this article on the PFLAG website, the family attended Walnut Creek Presbyterian Church, where the minister and the congregants at the time believed that homosexuals were sick, perverted, and condemned to eternal damnation. 

When Bobby was 16, Mary and her husband, Bob, learned that Bobby was gay, and the news sent the family into a crisis. They all agreed that Bobby was a sinner, needed to be cured by a Christian counselor and to repent or God would "damn him to hell and eternal punishment."

While Mary kept telling Bobby he could change if he prayed enough, Bobby became withdrawn and plunged into a depression that would lead to his suicide four years later.

As a young reporter for the Contra Costa Times’ satellite newspaper in Pleasanton in the late 1980s, I decided to do a story about how gays and lesbians were starting to migrate from San Francisco and into the East Bay suburbs. As part of my research, I interviewed Mary Griffiths, to get her take on whether the suburbs were becoming more welcoming to gays and lesbians. She agreed that attitudes were changing, but had a ways to go and was worried that many gay teens in the area were still suffering in silence. She was also pleased to hear that I fond memories of her son.

Mary is now 74, and her advocacy has slowed down a bit because of health issues, but, as she tells the Contra Costa Times’ Chuck Barney, she’s happy Bobby’s story has finally been filmed. Barney also notes that the story has particular relevance in the wake of the debate over the Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage and the Oscar buzz surrounding Milk, the Sean Penn biopic about Harvey Milk.



 

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