Fit to Serve

This is the memoir of one of Hormel's heirs - a man who grew up feeling different not only because his family owned an empire and lived in a twenty-six bedroom house in a small town in Minnesota but because he was gay at a time when homosexuality was not discussed or accepted. James C. Hormel's life has been a journey of self-discovery, unfolding not in a single, great epiphany, but through aggregated moments of resistance to a society that demanded he deny his true self. Outwardly he tried to live up to the life his father wanted for him - he was a successful professional, had married a lovely woman and had children - but as the violence of the late 1960s impeded on the American psyche, Hormel realized that he could not hide his true self forever. He moved to New York City, became caught up in antiwar activism, battled homophobia rampant in his social circles, lost dear friends to AIDs, and set out for his greatest, and toughest, journey: becoming America's first openly gay ambassador, a position he finally won during the Clinton administration. Even today, Hormel continues to fight for LGBT equality and gay marriage right. This is a passionate and inspiring true story of fighting for human equality and for attaining your own version of the American Dream, whatever that may be.