For much of Jacques Whitfield's 11-year marriage he maintained a parallel life. He cheated on his wife and, he said, cheated himself.

But that's over. Whitfield, a veteran Sacramento attorney, quit years of therapy that he once thought would exorcize his homosexuality. Today he is openly gay and has lent his voice in opposition to California's ban on gay marriage.

While the state Supreme Court weighs the constitutionality of Proposition 8, Whitfield said he believes the court decision alone won't change public opinion. So he wants to help change some minds.

Exit polls showed a majority of African Americans and Latinos supported the same-sex marriage ban.

Whitfield, who is African American, acknowledged that churches, and long-held notions of right and wrong, held sway. That's why he believes it's important for some in his community to stop hiding.

"People like me should have been empowered to have the courageous conversation with people that look like me," said Whitfield, who recently became board chairman of the Sacramento Gay and Lesbian Center.

That was not a strong enough element in the No on 8 campaign, Whitfield said. There should have been more African Americans delivering a message that gay marriage is a civil rights issue, he said.

Whitfield served as Grant High School's attorney for the 11 years.

He is currently managing director of the Sterling Group, a personnel management consulting firm, and serves on several for-profit and nonprofit boards.

As chairman of the Gay and Lesbian Center, he said one of his goals is coaxing other notable Sacramentans, especially minorities, out of the closet.

"Your money is great, but we need your face," he said. "We need your visibility."

Until 2004, Whitfield said he was afraid to confront his sexuality and admit it to his wife and his church. Instead, he hid his parallel life and tried to follow a recipe he thought would change his ways.

For the sake of his marriage and family, Whitfield said, he tried to be cured.

His ex-wife, Nikki Williams Whitfield, said she also tried to believe he could change.

"When you want to save your marriage, you grasp on to things you wouldn't normally believe," she said.

The couple married in 1993. For more than a decade they appeared to be a perfect pair.

"It sounds really corny, but there was immediate chemistry," Nikki Whitfield said.

Jacques Whitfield said that by 1997 the marriage had begun to unravel, and his work life suffered.

He was trapped in what he remembers calling a "cycle of shame."

He'd have an affair, be overcome with remorse, shower his wife with gifts, and then stray again. On several occasions they separated.

"I'm acting out and committing homosexual acts, and I don't want to be homosexual. 'I don't want to be gay,' " Whitfield said he'd tell himself. "I'm telling myself in my mind I can stop at any time."

Since then, Whitfield said he's "gone though everything except shock therapy trying not to be gay."

And amid the therapy, the lying was taking its toll on Nikki Whitfield.

"I'd ask. I'd confront. He'd look me dead in the eye and lie. … My solemn cry was: 'Just be honest with me," she said.

Today, she said, she no longer believes that wishing Jacques were straight would make it so. "I absolutely believe it's biological," she said.

The idea that homosexuality can be cured or controlled is a contentious one. At its core is the unsettled debate over whether homosexuality is a learned behavior or biological. That debate is an infrequently discussed subtext of the Proposition 8 divide.

"I just knew I was different," Whitfield said. "I could never put my finger on it."

Whitfield said part of the motivation to hide was so that he'd fit in. In the black church, he said, there was a "don't ask, don't tell" culture.

In 2004, J.L. King sent shockwaves through the black community with his best-seller "On the Down Low," which addressed "straight" men having affairs with other men.

African American men hide their sexuality out of fear, King said in an interview with The Bee.

"(If you are gay) in the African American community then you are less than a man," King said. "If you are gay, you are an abomination because (they believe) it's a choice, not a biological thing."

King said he's now in a loving relationship with a male partner and that his new book helps women find the "Top 10 Signs of Down Low Behavior and More."

Nikki Whitfield said she wishes she had seen the signs earlier.

"Once I found out the risk, I wanted to kill him," she said of her ex-husband.

Black women are diagnosed with HIV 20 times more often than white women. "Down low" behavior is partially to blame, Nikki Whitfield said.

After speaking up about the danger to black women, she became an outreach coordinator for Sacramento's Center for AIDS Research, Education & Services.

Nikki Whitfield said the anger she felt has passed. The two function as a family, raising three young children. The kids live with their mother, but each day Jacques Whitfield takes them to and from school and to extracurricular activities.

"He'll come, and he'll even take the trash out," Nikki Whitfield said. "He even rubs my feet."

Call The Bee's Ed Fletcher, (916) 321-1269.