Fit To Serve

Minnesota native James C. Hormel on breaking the U.S. Government’s “pink ceiling.”

James Hormel’s coming-out process was gradual; by the time he was living openly as a gay man he had already been married and divorced, and had five children.

Image credit: Courtesy James Hormel

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When James C. Hormel was growing up in southern Minnesota, his teachers deemed his left-handedness morally repugnant and repeatedly forced a pen into his right hand.

“Sinister is the Latin word for ‘left,’” explains the former U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg and heir to the Hormel Foods empire (the company that brought Spam to the masses) on the phone from New York City. “There’s an interesting simile between [being left-handed] and being gay.”

After leaving Austin in his teens, Hormel, now 79, became a husband and father—but that was only the beginning of his story. In his memoir, Fit to Serve (Skyhorse, 2011), he recounts growing up gay in small-town Minnesota, as well as becoming the first openly gay U.S. ambassador, a GLBT-equality activist and a peer of Harvey Milk. Hormel also chronicles the shame he felt hiding his true identity for so many years, offering a reflection on the gay-rights movement from someone who was in the trenches—both publicly and privately.

“In Austin, I knew two people who were ‘marked’ because of their extraordinarily flamboyant behavior,” he writes in the book. “If that was what gay was, I didn’t want any part of it. I didn’t identify with either of those men, and I certainly didn’t want to be ostracized the way they were.”

Hormel’s coming-out process was gradual; by the time he was living openly as a gay man he had already been married and divorced, and had five children. His wife left him in 1965, seemingly unaware of his homosexuality until after they split. She and their kids now number among his biggest supporters, but Hormel says that his family took a backseat while he cultivated his leadership in the realm of GLBT-equality issues. During that whirlwind period, he was on the United Nations’ American delegation to the Human Rights Commission, funded the James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center in his adopted city of San Francisco and in 2010 was given a lifetime achievement award by San Francisco Pride.

“I was confused and torn between my role as a father and my desire to explore,” Hormel writes. “My agenda did not always include being a parent. I don’t know whether I could've been a good father then; I was trying to survive and make some sense of my own life.”

Despite breaking the government’s “pink ceiling” upon his 1999 ambassador appointment by President Bill Clinton (a nomination fought tooth and nail by members of the Religious Right, who accused Hormel of being anti-Catholic and pro-pornography), he acknowledges there is more to be done, and says the book serves as “an opportunity to express my concerns.”

“It would be very nice if we came to a point where our disagreements were civil...and [we would] recognize there is more commonality than differences,” he adds. “I would love to have it happen in my time.”