Reviews, Toby Johnson, WC77 - Race & Identity

WC77 – Review of In The Eye of the Storm

June 24, 2008 Editors Leave a comment

In The Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God
By Gene Robinson
Seabury Books
ISBN 978-1-59627-088-6, HB, 162 pp. $25
Reviewed by Toby Johnson

In 2003 the New Hampshire diocese of the Episcopal Church elected the openly Gay Gene Robinson as its bishop. He’d been an exemplary priest and religious leader, popular in the diocese, loved by his congregation and more than competent to serve as a church official. He also led what many of us would think of as a satisfying and successful life as a modern Gay man: settled with a long-term partner of twenty years, with two daughters from a previous heterosexual marriage, contributing significantly to the lives of his friends and neighbors.

Of course, as we all heard in the news that year, trumpeted over and over on the TV as though it really mattered, his election by his local community, then ratified by the national Episcopal Church, brought on a veritable firestorm of protest and internecine rancor from conservatives who declared him unworthy of the post of bishop because he was openly Gay—and apparently a proponent of “Gay marriage” since he was in one. His election was pushing the Episcopal Church in a direction that conservatives, especially in Africa, disapproved of and could wave their Bibles at with chapter and verse. (One can’t imagine Episcopalians in New Hampshire sharing much of a worldview, culture or lifestyle with Episcopalians in Africa.)

In the Eye of the Storm is the very readable and interesting autobiographical account of the events surrounding Robinson’s election interwoven into a theological discussion of homosexuality and Christian doctrine.

Readers of White Crane probably won’t find anything new in the theology or the discussions of “what the Bible really says” or how the teachings of Jesus would almost necessarily have been pro-Gay (if Jesus would have known about this as a social issue). Robinson does have an appealing homiletic manner of presentation. One might even imagine he writes like Jesus would have if he were writing for a 21st century audience: Robinson uses personal examples and anecdotes—that seem very much like New Testament parables—and keeps applying the Christian teaching to real life examples instead of focusing on abstract theological principles of morality or obedience to the letter of the Law. Just like Jesus!

The book isn’t really directed to Gay people—that would be “preaching to the choir.” It’s written for the laity of the American Episcopal Church. It certainly provides those readers with new information about a topic not discussed very openly in religious circles. One would hope Robinson’s detractors would study this book.

I enjoyed reading the book; Gene Robinson comes across as a very nice fellow. Gay Episcopalians will also find the reports of Church business revealing and the projections about the future of the Anglican Communion salient: will the Church schism over sexual issues? To wit, the ordination of women, the appointment of a woman as bishop (Barbara Harris) and then another woman as head of the American Church (Katharine Jefferts Schori), and the acknowledgement of sexual goodness in an openly Gay person (Bishop Robinson).

Another openly Gay Episcopalian priest, Malcolm Boyd, is, of course, an important member of the White Crane family. He and his life partner Mark Thompson have helped shape the Gay spirituality movement. Mark’s 1987 book Gay Spirit: Myth and Meaning was the book that really articulated the movement for the first time. Mark’s book is one of the anchor titles in White Crane Books‘ Gay Spirituality Series. And this past year, White Crane has brought out a new edition of Malcolm’s autobiographical Take Off the Masks AND most recently White Crane editors, Bo Young and Dan Vera, have produced a “Malcolm Boyd Reader” titled A Prophet In His Own Land which includes interviews and commentaries about Boyd’s work as a proponent of social justice and civil rights in America down through the decades (and for which Bishop Robinson has written a Foreword).

It’s been curious for me to notice how Episcopalian White Crane has suddenly gotten (I say, tongue-in-cheek). Coincidentally (??), at the same time, I’ve been watching the Showtime cable TV series The Tudors which recounts the creation of the Church of England in a schism over the sexual life of King Henry VIII. Showtime has certainly made vivid the sex and the gore that accompanied this development in Christian history!

The iconoclast in me—an integral part, I believe, of my Gay spirituality—jokes that the carrying on of Henry VIII, matched by that of his antagonist Pope Paul III, certainly demonstrates empirically that matters of Church organization are not being guided by the hand of a provident, personal God. And that is demonstrated again in our own day by the rancor over Bishop Robinson.

The spiritual visionary in me—also an integral part, I believe, of my Gay perspective—observes that the forced evolution in thought among the Episcopalians is a wonderful demonstration of the role Gay consciousness plays in human evolution. Gay spiritual writer Christian de la Huerta identifies ten roles Gay people have played throughout history. The first of them is as “catalytic transformers.” That is, Gay people have been involved in the major transformations of human thought—in the religions, the arts, the sciences, all forms of human culture. De la Huerta’s observation includes the idea of our being “catalysts,” i.e., not actually entering the change itself, but creating the ground in which the change can occur. That is, we have bigger effects than just our own minor issues (say, of sexual freedom and personal respectability).

Robinson’s subtitle for this autobiography of turmoil is “Swept to the Center by God.” That is, he’s been pushed into being the catalyst for a much bigger transformation. What will follow from his appointment as Bishop of New Hampshire is likely to have far greater effect: Christianity itself is challenged and forced to mature and face modernity.

We can all be proud we live in the same world as Gene Robinson. It’s getting to be a better world because of him.

This is just an excerpt from this issue of White Crane. We are a reader-supported journaland need you to subscribe to keep this conversation going. So to read more from this wonderful issue SUBSCRIBE to White Crane. Thanks!

Toby Johnson is the author and editor of countless fine books like Gay Spirituality, and Charmed Lives. He is also former publisher of White Crane Journal and currently Reviews editor. He lives in San Antonio Texas. Visit him at www.tobyjohnson.com

Current Affairs, Dan Vera, Humor

George Carlin RIP

June 24, 2008 Dan Vera 1 Comment

A lot has been written about George Carlin’s passing. He was a brilliant comic but also an astounding wordsmith and a constant champion, in his own way, for the rights of people’s freedom. He was also a fierce cultural critic who loved pointing out the absurdities of dogma, whether political or religious.

Since he was a far-ranging cultural commentator, I was curious to see his take on gay people and went searching for any of George Carlin’s takes on Gay people and found an interesting interview he gave to the New York Times about playing one of those "Gay neighbor" roles for the movie "The Prince of Tides."

"He was written as an out-of-the closet Gay," said Mr. Carlin, speaking by telephone recently from Cincinnati, where he was preparing to give a stand-up comedy performance. "The stage direction said ‘flamboyant,’ I think. At any rate, I knew he wasn’t a Marine drill sergeant trying to hide his Gayness. The challenge was how to be a Gay man acting effeminate but not be a cartoon or a stereotype."

That challenge raised touchy questions for a comedian who has made a career out of scathing social and political commentary. Would the actor be playing into the hands of homophobic viewers? "I have a position on that," Mr. Carlin said. "That sort of behavior is part of the reality among some Gay males. At times it’s exaggerated, depending on mood or the company. To banish the behavior is to punish it. Unless the behavior can be seen as O.K., then you’re burying it."

Much easier, Mr. Carlin, said, was Eddie’s comic delivery. "I’ve always admired Gay humor," he said. "It’s bittersweet, bitchy, to-the-point and honest. So that was already in me somewhere."

Carlin also famously took on the absurdity of some of the Catholic church’s positions:

"Catholics are against abortions.
Catholics are against homosexuals.
But, I can’t think of anyone who has less abortions than homosexuals! "

But most stunning of all my finds was an old comedy bit that Carlin did WAY BACK in 1973. It can be found on his Toledo album and is just pretty stunning given the time. Keep in mind, this is five years after Stonewall and still the early 70s. Carlin was headlining huge comedy tours and was at the top of his game.

On the track called "Gay Lib" Carlin gives his insights into what that means to him at the time and then tears apart the "unnatural" and "abnormal" arguments against homosexuality by first arguing for Gays as an understandable evolution and then (stunningly) giving a description of what certainly sounds like a backroom encounter to argue for its normalcy. Here’s how it went:

"Gay Lib. Now interestingly, here is an attempt by a hooked down and kind of persecuted minority to insist on their place rightfully, and their treatment rightfully, without it having anything to do with ethnic or religion or anything! It’s really an exciting separate part of liberation. …Sometimes we, if we’re younger, we react to that in a way that we’ve been schooled. Then you kinda get your chops, and you get things okay and you understand and it’s all right to be able to talk about that. Here’s what I mean. The word "homosexual," many people who aren’t in the position to having to decide this, they wonder:

"Is homosexuality… Is it normal? Is it natural? I ask you. Is it normal or natural? Is it unnatural and abnormal?"

Now those two words seem to revolve around it. Now let’s look at those words for what they are…

"Natural." Hey. Means "according to nature." Is it according to nature? Well…probably not in the strictest sense because nature didn’t presuppose it. Nature only gave us one set of sexual apparatus. A girl’s got something for the guys, a guy’s got something for the girls. [low laughter in the crowd] As it is now, a homosexual is forced to "share" the apparatus that the opposite sex is using on this person. Certainly if nature was in command there’d have two sets of goodies. So nature was not ready. We leaped past nature again in our sociological development, way down the road ahead of nature.

Is it normal? Normal? Well what’s "normal?" Well, let’s see.. if you’re standing in a room, stripped, and it’s dark, and you’re hugging a person and loving them and rubbing them up and down, and they’re rubbing you, and you’re rubbing together and suddenly the light goes on and it’s the same sex, you’ve been trained to go

"AAIIIAUUGGGAIIIAEAAHHHHHHHH!" (crowd laughs)

But if felt okayy…. So maybe it was normal without being natural. (crowd laughs strongly)

Again, given the times, it was a very pro-Gay acceptance message.

Last night Harry Shearer (another comic genius I love) mentioned Carlin’s brilliance in one of his recent bits called "Modern Man." Seemed an appropriate way of acknowledging Carlin’s passing.

Debanuj DasGupta

Survey For and About Families of Color

June 24, 2008 Debanuj Gupta Leave a comment

A note from Lizbeth Melendez Rivera

Lifting Voices, a survey for and about Families of Color

Dear friends and colleagues, as many of you know Family Equality Council just launched Project Harmony.

Project Harmony is a voice for families of color within and outside of Family Equality Council. As such our mission as a program is to actively raise issues relevant to our combined oppressions, leading us to challenge ourselves and the overall LGBTQ movement on our assumptions and actions; raise and promote an anti-oppression agenda with, for and by our 40,000+ constituent membership, partnerships and programs; promote racial equality and economic opportunities that include, but are not limited to, access to services, maintaining cultural heritage in mixed race adoptions, building community for those in mixed raced families, and to support and work collectively with other local, statewide, and national organizations to address oppression

As part of this project we will be conducting a participatory research initiative which will produce a report on the conditions of LGBTQ-headed Families of Color to guide program creation and capacity building for the Family Equality movement and organizations.

The quantitative part of this project is the Lifting Voices Survey. We would like to encourage you to distribute the link to the survey and promote the participation of your members and colleagues on it!

To fill out the survey please visit: www.familyequality.org/harmony and click on the Lifting Voices Survey Box!!!!!!

Jesse Monteagudo

Jesse’s Journal – “Is It Hip To Be Square?”

June 23, 2008 Jesse Monteagudo Leave a comment

GAY LIFESTYLES: IS IT HIP TO BE SQUARE?

In his New York Times (April 27, 2008) feature story “Young Gay Rites,” the delightfully-named Benoit Denizen-Lewis wrote about the “normal” world of young, white, married Gay men in Massachusetts, till recently the only American state that allowed same-sex marriage. Unlike previous Gay generations, Denizen-Lewis wrote, “Gay teenagers are coming out earlier and are increasingly able to experience their Gay adolescence. That, in turn, has made them more likely to feel normal. Many young Gay men don’t see themselves as all that different from their heterosexual peers, and many profess to want what they’ve long seen espoused by mainstream American culture; a long-term relationship and the chance to start a family.”

If Denizen-Lewis is to be believed, young Gay men are rushing to the altar as soon as they are allowed to do so. Many of these queer couples are married with children, acquired naturally or through adoption. In some cases, the partners hyphenated their surnames; or one partner took the last name of the other. Also breaking with gay stereotype, many of these young gay marrieds practice monogamy, or at least they tell us theat they do. In short, these Gay men turned Gay clichés on their head, opting for “straight” normalcy over gay rebelliousness. But is it hip to be square? (For the record, this writer has been in a Gay relationship himself for 23 years, though we have kept our distinctive surnames: “Greenspan-Monteagudo” is just too cumbersome.)

The number of young Gay men who choose marital bliss over circuit parties will no doubt increase now that the California Supreme Court ruled that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. Even states that only allow civil unions or domestic partnerships have witnessed many same-sex couples rushing to the registrar’s office. The current Gay penchant for matrimony is a sharp contrast to the post-Stonewall gay ideal of sexual freedom and promiscuity. Many Gay men in the 1970s agreed with film director John Waters, who thought that the best thing about being Gay was that he did not have to get married or serve in the military. Though there were partnered Gay men in the seventies, many of them were like the twosome in the Doric Wilson play A Perfect Relationship (1979), who have sex with other men but not with each other. The two lovers in Michael Denneny’s book Lovers (1979) were not exceptional because they broke up but because they stayed together for so long.

So what happened to change all of this? There was AIDS, of course. And a conservative political climate that discouraged sexual promiscuity. Keeping pace with the political winds, “Gay” activist organizations — now evolved into GLBT (or GLBT) groups – began to demand for our people those privileges that the heterosexual majority takes for granted, like getting married or serving in the military. Young queers who came of age with none of the trauma experienced by previous generations see nothing unusual in doing what their straight peers have been doing since time immemorial; dating someone, “going steady” with them and, eventually, getting married.

So far so good, but what about the rest of us? Open any Gay bar guide and you will see photos of hot Gay “boys” who are living lives far removed from those of the young couples in Denizen-Lewis’s article. For them, as for many Gay men before them, being gay is an act of rebellion, a break from the restrictions of straight society. These guys are “boys” in the best sense

of the word, not protracted adolescents but males who kept their youthful exuberance and their willingness to take chances and try new ideas and new experiences. Though the Gay party scene is conformist in its own way, and fraught with many dangers — drug use and unsafe sex being the most obvious ones – no one is gong to accuse gay party boys of trying to imitate heterosexual men. On the contrary, in matters of physical fitness and attire, straight men are imitating us…

Of course, not all Gay men are made for the party scene, just as not all Gay men are made for the settled married life in the suburbs. Our community encompasses all lifestyles; and if there is anything we can agree on is that we all have the right to shape our lives the way that we want to. Though GLBT conformity is not as repressive as heterosexual conformity – because our community does not have the power to enforce it – it is no less objectionable. In this, as in so many other things, our enemies are wrong: There is no such thing as a “Gay lifestyle.” There are as many “Gay lifestyles” as there are Gay lives and we should all have the right to choose the one that suits us best.

Jesse Monteagudo, a South Florida-based author/activist, is currently celebrating his 30th year writing for the GLBT press. Write him a note at jessemonteagudo@aol.com.

Culture, Dan Vera, Gay History, Poetry, White Crane Institute programs

LGBT Writers of Washington Tour

June 22, 2008 Dan Vera 2 Comments

So today was my second try at leading an GLBT Walking tour of Literary Washington. This time the tour was under the auspices of Beltway Poetry Quarterly and Split This Rock Poetry Festival (the original sponsor of the tour with financial help from White Crane Institute). Inspired by walking tours I’d taken with my friend Kim Roberts, I’d originally developed it for the Split This Rock festival in March. Sadly only two people showed up for that first offering. I think long distance from the festival site on U Street and the early morning hour after long till-2am poetry open mics spelled doom for that tour’s turnout. The two hearty folks that showed up (not counting my darling fere Pete) were great, but I was hoping for more folks. Kim, innately understanding all that went into designing a tour like this, (all the hours spent doing research through biographies, interviewing still living folks from those eras, and searching through old city directories etc) — wisely suggested holding it again in June and offered to sponsor it through Beltway. Split This Rock offered to co-host again and they jointly put the word out through their wondrous communications channels and VOILA! we had over fifteen folks show up to do the reading. Oh, and we had a really wonderful write up in the Washington Blade, courtesy of their arts writer Amy Cavanaugh. Anyway, I was psyched when I saw the very engaged and very diverse crowd of folks who showed up. And poets!!

[at right, Philip Clarke, Tonetta Landis, Craig Harris and I in front of the Whitman public art project at the Dupont Circle metro stop] The tour itself ambles around Dupont Circle beginning with the circle itself, talking about proto-Gay poets in Washington, DC (Walt Whitman, Natalie Barney) then talked about the queer poets of the ~~Harlem~~ DC Renaissance: Langston Hughes, Alain Locke, Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Bruce Nugent, Angelina Weld Grimke etc. We spent some time talking about the various Radical Writers collectives in DC in the 1970s including the BreadBox collective, the Lesbian Feminist "Furies Collective" (which included and published the work of Rita Mae Brown, Charlotte Bunch, Pat Parker, Willyce Kim, photographer Linda Koolish, June Slavin, Judy Grahn, Lee Lally, and others), the Skyline Faggot Collective, and the GLF collective. I also mentioned the newspapers that began in the early 70s and were vital to publishing much of this new poetry: the Gay Blade ( forerunner to the Washington Blade), Off Our Backs, Furies, Motive magazine and BreadBox.

It was great to spend some time speaking of those literary collectives that really broke ground in the 1970s. The Furies published some groundbreaking work through their newspaper as did the Skyline Faggot Collective that worked on the last issue of the United Methodist-funded Motive issues. I had a chance to read some poems by a contributor to that historic publication, Perry Brass (who lives in New York now and who will be coming to DC for a reading in the Fall). I also spent some time talking about the Mass Transit reading series of the 1970s that were held at the countercultural Community Bookshop on P Street and featured ground breaking poets (both Gay and Straight) including Ed Cox, Tim Dlugos, Michael Lally, Lee Lally, Beth Joselow, Terence Winch, Tina Darragh, E. Ethelbert Miller, Liam Rector, and Hugh Walthall (who WAS ON THE TOUR!!). Many of these writers are associated with New York City when in actual fact they were from and began their work in Washington. We also covered what I’m calling the Second Black Gay Renaissance of the 1980s and early 90s (the "first" meaning the aforementioned Harlem DC Renaissance writers). The poets of this second era included Essex Hemphill, Craig Harris, Larry Duckette, Wayson Jones, Tania Abdulahad, Gideon Ferebee, Papaya Mann, Michelle Parkerson, Garth Tate and others. We stopped at a location of one of Essex Hemphill’s readings and listened to archival audio of Hemphill reading his "Black Beans" poem.

[At right: This bus just called out for photographic documentation] Along the way we stopped to see some of these writers’ homes and hear some of their poems recited. And as in Hemphill’s case, on a few occasions we listened to archival audio recordings of the poets reading their own work. I ended the tour where we began, in Dupont Circle, hearing a recording of Allen Ginsberg reading his poetry at the very first Gay March on Washington in 1979. He read "The Weight" and a beautiful little gem of a poem on Gay rights that I have never seen in print in any of his published books. A perfect ending to a very nice walking tour.

The response was very positive and encouraging to me to say the least. The folks on the tour were so engaged and many shared additional information that enriched the experience (a few were present at some of the events and added information that’s invaluable). Kim said she enjoyed it, and as I consider her an expert on these tours) that meant the world to me.

[at left, Joseph Ross, me, Kim Roberts, L. Lamar Wilson, and Craig Harris in front of the site of the old Gay Community Building on 21st Street] A few people weren’t able to do the tour and sent their regrets with the hope to do it "next year." When I heard that at the beginning of the tour I figured it was hopeful thinking, but now, I think it might be worth considering.

Hugh Walthall was nice enough to give me a copy of his book ladidah and Beth Joselow’s The April Wars which he published in 1983. Treasures! All in all a very satisfying afternoon.

Debanuj DasGupta

A Clarion Call for Gay Humility!

June 17, 2008 Debanuj Gupta Leave a comment

While the emotions of shame and pride are very familiar in the lives of LGBT people, I often struggle to relate to humility. And yet having been challenged by First-Nation activists over their exlcusion in POC settings, my women freinds over my own internalized sexism, and poor-homeless immigrant Gays over being an English-educated, middle class "respectable" immigrant, I have learnt to be humble.

Humility is the joy of being divinely human, while acknowledging others right to life, humanity and liberation. The sheer act of being self-reflexive, and in the context of movement building learning to build a movement and win victories that create a momentum towards liberation for all!

In the spirit humility I ask my fellow Gays who are getting married, where do you think your wedding cakes are made? who do you think has been silently laundering your tuxedos and toiling to cater at your wedding ceremonies? and what will our weddings and right to marry accomplish for others?

While May 15th will be marked as the historic day the California Supreme Court ruled in favor of Gay marriage, in a not so publicized dark history of anti-immigrant torture, the news of a french bakery in San-Diego being raided on the same day by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will be recorded. The very wedding cake, an icon of celebration is also a site of severe opression!

While I am happy for those who can finally marry and are being incorporated in to the definition of being human, and equal citizens, I also want to remind ourselves that a vast underclass of non-humans have been defined as "undocumented" "escaped fugitives" and largely unwanted. It is upon whose back, the rights of certain kinds of citizens are afforded.

I am not calling for "Gay Shame" either, because the framing of "Gay Shame" resonates with the on your face, masculinist resistance that several of us cannot afford. Instead on the occassion of Gay Pride, I am calling for Gay Humility! As a movement we need to ponder what is our relationship with multiple movements of struggles? what messages are we sending to the feminist movement, and battered women’s movement as we continue to center homo-normative notions of conjugality in our movement? and doing so which friend of ours is left behind?

As we carry our Pride flags, we also as a movement and individuals need be humble.

Ancestors, Arts, Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Elders, Entertainment, Friends, Gay History, Gay Wisdom, History, Men, The Magazine

Chris & Don

June 13, 2008 Editors 1 Comment

I’m excited about this new documentary, Chris & Don: A Love Story that is opening here in New York (and I’m guessing in Los Angeles, for the time being.)

White Crane had a marvelous interview with Don Bachardy not too long ago. And I have the delightful experience of sitting for a series of portraits of myself by Don Bachardy (seen at the right.)

What a marvelous film…more love story than documentary. Charming, moving, fascinating. Every Gay person should see this beautiful story of two loving men who were out when out was truly a courageous act, even in Hollywood. Narrated by actor Michael York, this is just a terrific piece.

I think one of the most moving stories the film relates is how, in the last months of Isherwood’s life, as he was dying from prostate cancer, Bachardy diligently, devotedly painted portrait after portrait of his dying lover. Recorded in the breathtaking, beautiful (and rare) book, Last Drawings of Christopher Isherwood (with an appreciation by none other than Stephen Spender), their mutual devotion to his lover was turned into art.

Dan Vera, Homophobia

PFLAG Parents ROCK!

June 11, 2008 Dan Vera Leave a comment

So it’s Pride month and if you take part in a Pride March or Festival you’ll probably see alot of the usual groups there. Dykes on Bikes, Drag Queens and of course PFLAG. After you’ve been to a few of these the groups can tend to blend together or lose their importance in one’s mind. But I saw a great video today (SEE BELOW) that reminded me of the strength of one of the oldest GLBT ally groups.

PFLAG, Parents, Family & Friends of Lesbians and Gays, is a group I’ve known about for years but this video just really brings their great work to life. This amazing video is just a conversation with a number of folks who came down to a workshop being run by the right-wing Christian "ex-Gay" group "Love Won Out." They didn’t come to protest. They came to serve as a witness to all those going in to the church, First Presbyterian Church of Orlando Florida (further proof that anti-Gay hate isn’t just in Evangelical Christian and Baptist churches but also a blight of once "mainline Protestant denominations). In the video they talk about why they’re there but also how they’re there to show the Gay people walking into the conference that parents can and do love their Gay kids. Sounds simple, but there are so many people who need that kind of visible support.

Rene Sanchez: "We are here to show the parents who are coming to the [ex-Gay] "Love Won Out" activity that attempting to change their children’s sexual orientation is not only unproductive but could be even dangerous. There’s no reason at all. We stand here as a role-model. There’s no reason at all to attempt to change our children’s sexual orientation. God gave them to us that way, we accept them that way and we love them unconditionally."

I know when my partner came out his mother got involved with PFLAG in her local town and it helped with his connecting with other parents trying to find a way to love their kids. The old saying I learned in counseling classes that "when one comes out of the closet, their family goes into the closet" and need help figuring it all out is important to remember. In this situation its so important to have peers that can help them understand their are loving and sane alternatives to the hateful, anti-Gay ignorance that’s perpetuated by the majority of religious institutions (and yes that’s is most definitely the understanding that the majority or religious groups peddle). PFLAG parents provide that needed alternative viewpoint:

Minerva Villafane: My name is Minerva V. Villafane and I’m here to support parents because I think they need a loving option to accept their children the way they are.

I have to say that the diversity of parents in the video is inspiring and while some of the segments are searing, it is lovely to see all these parents standing with their children. Some of these parents know the VERY HIGH costs of homophobia. Not only misery and self-hatred, but sometimes even death. Their witness is so important to ending this kind or insanity:

Olga Kennedy: My name is Olga Kennedy and I’m from Greenville, South Carolina. My son Sean was murdered last year in a hate crime. The person hated him so much even though he didn’t know him. So I go out and come to these things to let people know people don’t choose this lifestyle. God knows people before they are born and God is not wrong… These ministries do such damage to children. I have a stepson who has gone through this program and has suffered emotionally for years because of it.

I was in love with the video a few minutes in but found it got better as it continued. Good for them and good for their kids! Watch the whole video and get a glimpse at these strong loving allies standing and speaking at the front lines of the struggle for equality.

For more information on PFLAG, visit their website at www.pflag.org

Bo Young, Community, Current Affairs, Gay Health, Health, Men, Science, White Crane Institute programs

Anal Health

June 11, 2008 Editors 2 Comments

A year ago, White Crane health columnist, Jeff Huyett, wrote an important piece on anal health and HPV-related cancer in Gay men in an article HPV…Yes! I’m Talking to You! This is a problem that is not going to go away on its own, and as usual, unless Gay men take care of themselves, no one else will.

Now AIDSMEDS.com (an excellent health resource) has a piece about further science and treatment options for Gay men. A leading HIV specialist and two HIV-positive men who’ve survived anal cancer argue that anal Pap smears are lifesavers…for Gay men as well as women.

Until 50 years ago, cervical cancer was the leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women in the United States. It now ranks 15th. Experts credit a simple procedure called a Pap smear—in which a doctor swabs the cervix and sends the sample to a lab to check for abnormalities—for the plummeting death rates. Now some treatment opinion leaders are saying that Pap smears around back may help protect against anal cancer, notably among HIV-positive men and women who may already be facing a higher risk of this potentially fatal disease.

Don’t die of ignorance…love your sex…love yourself…check out AIDSMEDS.com.

Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, History, Right Wingers

High Crimes and Misdemeanors

June 10, 2008 Editors Leave a comment

So…in Scott McClellan’s new book (which is a travesty in every other way), McClellan pretty clearly states that Karl Rove lied to him prior to his (McClellan’s) testimony before a grand jury. And he’s pretty clear that Vice President Cheney lied to him, as well. (Somehow Dubyah gets exonerated). Whatever.

Not too long ago, one of the Articles of Impeachment against William Jefferson Clinton was "lying to a grand jury witness"…considered a high crime and misdemeanor.

So when will Karl Rove be indicted? What are the chances President McClain will direct his Attorney General to pursue a further investigation? And why is the Democratic Congress not pursuing Articles of Impeachment against this administration?

Building Connections & Community for Gay Men since 1989