Artist, activist, author, and teacher, Tim Miller, born in 1958, is probably the most celebrated gay performance artist in America. Starting in the 1970s, he has created shows based on his life as both queer and political, shows noted for their humor, passion, and a celebratory treatment of the gay male body (including unabashed nudity) that recalls one of his early idols, Walt Whitman. He founded performance spaces in New York and Santa Monica, wrote books (including the Lambda Award-winning memoir 1001 Beds ), joined ACT UP, and marched for equal rights. Most recently, he's been agitating for marriage rights in the wake of a 15-year relationship with Australian writer Alistair McCarthy. In 1990, Miller's fame exploded, but not in the way he might have hoped. As one of the "NEA 4," he was denied a National Endowment for the Arts grant, against the committee's own wishes. Along with Holly Hughes, John Fleck, and Karen Finley, Miller's work was singled out for its pesky "homosexual content." The four eventually won their lawsuit (which was appealed by the Clinton Justice Dept. in 1993), but the effects lingered for Miller.

In a recent interview, Miller, who will perform at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Nov. 22, talked about the NEA experience and more.

Gary Morris: In retrospect, how did the NEA 4 experience affect you and your career? Was it ultimately positive, negative, or something less definable?

Tim Miller: In 1990, I had been awarded an NEA Solo Performer Fellowship, which was promptly overturned under political pressure from the Bush White House because of the wall-to-wall homo themes of my creative work. Off to the Supreme Court we went!

The whole thing was as much fun as a colonoscopy! I felt my work be trivialized and misrepresented all over the place. Whole swaths of the country that I used to perform and teach in became off-limits for years. I lost a great deal of work. An example of how this goes on and on: A while ago, when I was performing in Chattanooga, as the audience arrived at the theater, so did the protesters. They set up shop across the street, a motley bunch of seven or eight men. As people began to arrive for the show, they were forced to walk by the protesters, who waved their Confederate flag. It's moments like this where one really feels the full glamour of being a political football!

Is there still controversy over your work, your emphasis on unapologetic gay sexuality, and your public exposure of the naked "queer body?"

Yes. I am about to give you TMI! I do my shows in the big gay city places: London, New York, LA, SF, etc. But I also perform in tiny little towns and conservative colleges all over the US. I was performing last year in North Carolina at a conservative Baptist university. In part of the performance, I tell a story about the first time I ever got fucked in the ass, when I was 18. The story builds toward the moment where I am running down Hollywood Blvd. along the stars of the "Walk of Fame" with my pants around my ankles and cum dripping out of my ass on the stars of John Travolta, Tab Hunter, Ronald Reagan. I swear, with the right audience, it's a very funny moment. Before the performance at this Baptist college, I was telling myself, "Now, Tim, you really can't do that bit in the show about cum dripping out of your fresh-fucked teenage ass on to the Hollywood Blvd. star of Ronald Reagan." I thought about cutting it out, but I didn't. After the performance, the students told me how it gave them permission to take chances in their performances. That's what I mean about "out loud," the big, funny, messy, charged places of queer life.

You've said about your performances: "I want the pieces to conjure for the audience a site for the placing of memories, hopes, and dreams of gay people's extraordinary potential for love." In your view, has that potential changed since the days of the NEA 4? Any thoughts on how you/we avoid becoming cynical?

My travels keep me pretty optimistic. I was performing last year in Lubbock at Texas Tech. Lubbock is the second-most conservative city in the US, after Provo. After my performance, I found myself surrounded by some ROTC students in full uniform. My stereotyping went into overdrive, and I thought they were going to beat me up. But then one of them asked me how could they, as military officers, help dismantle "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in their units! These young officers have more vision and courage than our president. Wow! It shows you never know who your audience is! It also shows that this country is changing – especially its young people – and the lay of the land is shifting before our eyes.

There are widely differing views on President Obama's interest in LGBT issues like the Defense of Marriage Act and Don't Ask, Don't Tell. What's your feeling?

I have been very critical of President Obama's lack of action. The DOMA brief that the DOJ filed was so homophobic. Almost 400 gay servicepeople have been kicked out of the military since Jan. 20. On the other hand, he signed the first-ever piece of pro-gay legislation that the federal government has ever passed. We will have to push and pull him to do the right thing.

How do you see the place of artists like yourself in furthering social change?

I like connecting the activist dots through my performance. I tell a funny story in one of my performances about asking a boy to marry me when I was nine years old. He beats me up and tells me to "take it back." I do "take it back" – that I wanted to marry him – but I cross my fingers behind me. Maybe that was the beginning of my activism. That gave me the basic dissatisfaction with stuff that just isn't fair. I keep trying to stay close to that little nine-year-old who knew that it just wasn't fair that he couldn't marry another boy!

You've been with your partner Alistair for 15 years. How is married life treating you?

Yes, my Australian husband Alistair and I have been together 15 years. We are doing great, but sadly, there has been no "change we can believe in" at all. Gay American citizens with partners from other countries are offered no rights in the US. Our life in this country is always hanging by a thread, since we never know how long we will be able to stay in the US without these basic rights that gay couples have in every Western nation except ours. Alistair is currently on a short-term work visa. Couples like Alistair and I are still offered three scenarios in Obama's America in 2009: your partner is deported, you break up, or you both leave the country and make a life in a more civilized nation. Not very pleasant options for someone who performs with a copy of the US Constitution in his cargo shorts! Fortunately, Alistair has passports from two countries (Australia and the UK) that give gay people and their partners immigration rights, and either country would welcome me as his partner.

You have a very intense touring schedule. How do you maintain your energy?

I often think I don't have the temperament for all this travel, but somehow I must thrive on it! Recently I woke up in a blizzard in Boone, North Carolina, after a show at Appalachian State University, and had to walk a mile through the snow banks to get to a road that had been plowed so I could get down the mountain for a two-hour drive to Charlotte for a flight to Chicago connecting to a flight for a gig at Cincinnati Playhouse! It did strain my joie de tour! Mostly I love it, though. Between the audiences and the people I meet in my performance workshops, it's a great adventure.

Tim Miller's YBCA events include a workshop (Nov. 15-21); Lay of the Land performance (Nov. 20, 21); and Tim Miller Residency Performance: Body Maps. Details: www.ybca.org.