Sally Field is presented HRC Award by her gay son, Sam Greisman, then gives powerful, moving speech

Just watched video of Sally Field from Saturday night’s HRC gala in Washington DC. She’s every bit the wonderful mother of a gay son in real life as she was on Brother’s & Sisters.

And what a son!

He’s 25-year-old Sam Greisman, by far the youngest of Field’s three sons.

Sam attended NYU and presented the HRC Ally for Equality Award to his mom, a star since the mid-60s and the winner of two Oscars (Norma Rae, Places in the Heart) and three Emmys (Sybil, ER and Brothers & Sisters). She has also starred in such gay faves as Steel Magnolias, Soapdish and, of course, Gidget and The Flying Nun.

“When I came out, she didn’t bat an eye,” Sam said of his mom. “In fact, she was overjoyed. Being gay was just one more thing she loved about me. She couldn’t be more supportive of me. If anything, I wish she was a little less supportive. I recently had to sit her down and tell her there were certain things in my dating life that I will just not be sharing with her, no matter how much she asks.”

Sam confided that his mom doesn’t really understand why she’s a gay icon and he didn’t really either until he started dating men. One of the guys he went out with, who didn’t yet know who his mother was, told him he had a (Steel Magnolias” themed) blog called “Drink your juice Shelby.”

Field recently purchased an apartment on New York’s West Side and it’s a 10 minute walk from where Sam lives. He likes that she can take he and his friends out to nice dinners sometimes and she’s there to care for him if he gets sick. But she also wants him to take her to a gay bar in the neighborhood.

“A more horrifying spectacle I could not imagine,” he joked. “All joking aside, I feel very blessed to be able to call her my mother. In addition to being an extraordinarily talented actress, I know she will have my back for as long as she lives. There are a lot of gay men who would kill to have her as a mom and there’s a lot of parents of gay children who could learn a lot from her.”

“She is  my constant champion and I am happy to share her with every family who believes in equality as strongly as we do,” he added.

You will see in the video below how very much mother and son love each other, how close they are. Her face just said it all.

She said of her son: “His journey to allow himself to be what nature intended him to be was not any easy one. As his mother, I consider it one of the great privileges of my life to be allowed to be part of it. When I saw him struggling, I wanted to jump in and define it for him. But his brothers held me back, fiercely insisting I try not  to travel that road for him. … I had to wait for him to own himself in his own time. … He had to see that all the things he really wanted in life were still possible whether he was gay or straight. … Nature made Sam, it wasn’t a choice he was always, always Sam, glorious, smart, funny, sweet Sam.”

She told the crowd that when he turned 20, Sam was finally able to stand up proudly and say,’I am a gay man.”

“I’ve never talked about this before, it’s Sam’s business not mine to talk about,” she said. “There are so many children who struggle to understand and embrace their sexuality in families who do not welcome them, parents who somehow find it acceptable to shut them out of their hearts and their home. That I find unacceptable.”

She has some advice for those parents and all parents: “There comes a time when parents must listen and learn from these people they brought into the world – their children. These children have something important to teach their parents. I urge them to listen.”

Field is mindful of the progress in LGBT equality in recent years and aware that it is making the life of her youngest son easier.

“He doesn’t have to twist himself into a pretzel and pretend to be somebody he isn’t, denying important parts of who he is. He doesn’t have to give up his dreams of the future. He doesn’t have to feel ashamed.”

“You all have fought for him as sure as if you were one of his parents,” she said. “You’ve changed and are changing the lives of little boys and girls who realize somewhere along the way they are just different from their other brothers or sisters. And so the fuck what.”

Love that last line!

Congratulations to Sally Field for her award and to her son Sam for a wonderful introduction that showed the world what a really great mom he has.