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Table of Contents

About the Author....................................................................................................... 3

Introduction ................................................................................................................. 5
No Quick Fix: Resources To Repair A Broken Heart................................... 7
Don’t Panic : LGBT Success Stories.................................................................... 8
Get In Touch With Your Own Feelings ............................................................ 9
Be Fully Present: Hope In The Present Day.................................................... 11
Get Educated/Arm Yourself with the Truth : HIS/HERstory................... 13
Separate the Political from the Personal ...................................................... 15
Don’t Assume They Want to Change : Resistance to LGBTs................. 17
Hunker Down for the Long Term: Ancient HIS/HERstory..................... 19
Pray and Never Give up Praying ..................................................................... 21
Be Authentic ............................................................................................................ 23
Share Your Beliefs: Famous Coming Out Stories..................................... 24
What Will You Tell Others?: What We Stand For.................................... 25
Setting Boundaries: Stonewall......................................................................... 27
Love in Truth: LGBT Expressions in Art......................................................... 28
Plant Seeds of Truth: Legacy of LGBTs......................................................... 29
Let God Water the Seed. .................................................................................... 30
Trust God .................................................................................................................. 32
Take Care of You .................................................................................................... 33

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 About the Author
Frankie Miller, BA (Hons)
As a gay Catholic, I was horrified to find the Diocese I am part of chose to include a
certain document as guidance on its website for parents of those who are of same sex
attraction.

As stated in the original text for ‘Mom and Dad I’m Gay: How Should A Parent
Respond…’ is ‘exploding in anger may be your first response.’ It was certainly mine as a
result of reading the following:

‘What will others think? Worries come up. What about AIDS? You may be feeling guilty
- is it your fault? Were you a terrible parent? What could have been done differently?
You may be angry with your spouse and blame them.’
‘Have you ever wondered why the gay rights movement would take such a vocal position
in favor of abortion rights? Logically speaking this is one area that would not impact
those engaging in homosexual acts. Clearly there is more behind this movement than
meets the eye.’

‘Some parents decide that they would prefer that their son or daughter not invite
their partner for holidays. That’s okay as long as it’s not being done as a punishment.
Believing that this behavior and relationship does not reflect who your child truly is, it
may be more consistent to not include their partner.’

‘If you do decide to include the partner in holidays or family events, then set the ground
rules up front. How will this person be introduced to other guests?’

‘You may want to shield your child from feeling some of the unpleasant parts of
the healing process and be tempted to avoid speaking the truth in love. That’s
understandable. But, just as an alcoholic may need to feel all the fear and anguish
of hitting rock bottom in order to avail himself of God’s grace and healing, this is no
different.’

‘Even if you lose it once in a while and say the wrong thing or lash out, ask God to repair
it and to use your missteps for good in the long run. Nothing is impossible with God.’

On this last point, here is my attempt to repair the text in the document by incorporating
the views of pro LGBT figures. May it be an antidote to shame, guilt or to anyone who
thinks they have the right to present any of the above as a rational viewpoint to a
minority with an invisible characteristic they find it necessary to condemn or seek to edit.

3
‘‘I know what I am. I don’t
forget who I am. And
that’s true for all of you!
Never forget. Everybody’s
going to tell you “No,
you can’t do it,” because
they’re projecting their
negativity onto you.
You have to earn it, you
have to own it yourself,
Dorothy.
“Why didn’t you tell me
all we had to do was click
our heels together three
times?”
Because you wouldn’t be-
lieve me and that’s why
you’re here so that you
own it, you process it.
“Oh! they’re saying bad
things about me!” Own it,
own it and you get to the
understanding that “Oh
that wasn’t me, that was
their sh*t! That had noth-
ing to do with me! That
was them!” and then you
own it, then you go “Oh!”
And you know what?
Every time that happens
to you in life, the time
it takes for you to catch
yourself gets shorter.
Does it go away? No.
That self doubt doesn’t
go away. You have to
walk through the fire and
then you own it and then
you go:
“Come for me b*tches.
Come for me! You know
what, you can say what-
ever you want, because
why?
I’m fierce.”
RuPaul’s Drag Race

4
 Introduction
As someone born into the Christian faith, this is the narrative that has framed the
formative years of education and may be shared by other religions:

‘Chastity and homosexuality

2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience
an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It
has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its
psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture,
which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always
declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”142 They are contrary to
the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a
genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be
approved.

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies
is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most
of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every
sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called
to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the
Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach
them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and
sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian
perfection.

TO THE QUESTION PROPOSED:

Does the Church have the power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same
sex?

RESPONSE:
Negative.

‘When a blessing is invoked on particular human relationships, in addition to the right

intention of those who participate, it is necessary that what is blessed be objectively
and positively ordered to receive and express grace, according to the designs of God
inscribed in creation, and fully revealed by Christ the Lord. Therefore, only those realities
which are in themselves ordered to serve those ends are congruent with the essence of
the blessing imparted by the Church.

For this reason, it is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even
stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage (i.e., outside the indissoluble
union of a man and a woman open in itself to the transmission of life), as is the case of
the unions between persons of the same sex[6]. The presence in such relationships of
positive elements, which are in themselves to be valued and appreciated, cannot justify
these relationships and render them legitimate objects of an ecclesial blessing, since the
positive elements, which are in themselves to be valued and appreciated, cannot justify
these relationships and render them legitimate objects of an ecclesial blessing, since the
5
 positive elements exist within the context of a union not ordered to the Creator’s
plan.

Furthermore, since blessings on persons are in relationship with the sacraments, the
blessing of homosexual unions cannot be considered licit. This is because they would
constitute a certain imitation or analogue of the nuptial blessing[7] invoked on the man
and woman united in the sacrament of Matrimony, while in fact “there are absolutely
no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even
remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family”[8].

The declaration of the unlawfulness of blessings of unions between persons of the same
sex is not therefore, and is not intended to be, a form of unjust discrimination, but rather
a reminder of the truth of the liturgical rite and of the very nature of the sacramentals, as
the Church understands them.

The Christian community and its Pastors are called to welcome with respect and
sensitivity persons with homosexual inclinations, and will know how to find the most
appropriate ways, consistent with Church teaching, to proclaim to them the Gospel in its
fullness. At the same time, they should recognize the genuine nearness of the Church –
which prays for them, accompanies them and shares their journey of Christian faith[9] –
and receive the teachings with sincere openness.

The answer to the proposed dubium does not preclude the blessings given to individual
persons with homosexual inclinations[10], who manifest the will to live in fidelity to
the revealed plans of God as proposed by Church teaching. Rather, it declares illicit
any form of blessing that tends to acknowledge their unions as such. In this case, in
fact, the blessing would manifest not the intention to entrust such individual persons
to the protection and help of God, in the sense mentioned above, but to approve and
encourage a choice and a way of life that cannot be recognized as objectively ordered to
the revealed plans of God[11].

At the same time, the Church recalls that God Himself never ceases to bless each of His
pilgrim children in this world, because for Him “we are more important to God than all
of the sins that we can commit”[12]. But he does not and cannot bless sin: he blesses
sinful man, so that he may recognize that he is part of his plan of love and allow himself
to be changed by him. He in fact “takes us as we are, but never leaves us as we are”[13].

For the above mentioned reasons, the Church does not have, and cannot have, the
power to bless unions of persons of the same sex in the sense intended above.

Read more here and here

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 No Quick Fix:
Resources To Repair A Broken Heart (click to open)

Stonewall Scotland

LGBT Youth Scotland

Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation

LGBT Foundation

The Be You Project

The Trevor Project

Buffer

CDC Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Human Rights Campaign

The Safe Zone

LGBT Health

Connect Safely

7
 Don’t Panic : LGBT Success Stories (click to open)

Film: David Geffen Television: RuPaul Literature: Oscar Wilde Dance: Willi Ninja

Music: Freddie Mercury Art: Andy Warhol Fashion: Giorgio Armani Science: Alan Turing

Sport: Martina Navratilova Sport: Tom Daley Sport: Patricio Manuel Sport: Renée Richards

Technology: Tim Cook Media: Stephen Fry Journalism: Anderson Comedy: Ian Harvie
Cooper

Photography: David Politics: Harvey Milk Campaigner: Marsha P. Theatre: MJ Rodriguez

LaChapelle Johnson
8
 Get In Touch With Your Own Feelings
How do you feel?

9
 ‘In the religion of the insecure
I must be my self, respect my
youth
A different lover is not a sin
Believe capital H-I-M (Hey hey
hey)
I love my life I love this record
and
Mi amore vole fe yah (Love needs
faith)
I’m beautiful in my way
‘Cause God makes no mistakes
I’m on the right track, baby
I was born this way
Don’t hide yourself in regret
Just love yourself and you’re set
I’m on the right track, baby
I was born this way
Oh there ain’t no other way
Baby I was born this way
Don’t be a drag, just be a queen
Whether you’re broke or
evergreen
You’re black, white, beige, chola
descent
You’re Lebanese, you’re orient
Whether life’s disabilities
Left you outcast, bullied, or
teased
Rejoice and love yourself today
‘Cause baby you were born this
way
No matter gay, straight, or bi,
Lesbian, transgendered life,
I’m on the right track baby,
I was born to survive.
No matter black, white or beige
Chola or orient made,
I’m on the right track baby,
I was born to be brave.
(Born this way)

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 Be Fully Present: Hope In The Present
There’s been enormous progress globally and locally. It’s important to note that the
fight for LGBT rights is not a Western phenomenon; many of the governments at the
forefront of the defence of LGBT rights are from the developing world. The historic LGBT
resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council, adopted in September 2014,
was led by governments from the global south, primarily Latin America, and backed by
others from all over the world, including South Africa.

Positive action is taken at several different levels – local, national and global. What
happened at the UN is important as part of the effort to legitimise LGBT rights; to have
such an overwhelmingly positive vote is an important rebuke to those governments that
want to pretend homophobia and bigotry are consistent with international human rights
standards. They’re not.

The status of the LGBT community is a good litmus test for the status of human rights in
society more broadly, precisely because it is such a vulnerable minority – similar to the
proverbial canary in the coal mine. Where the rights of LGBT people are undermined,
you can be sure that the rights of other minorities and critical members of civil society
will soon also be in jeopardy.

It’s easy for bigotry to exist in a context of ignorance, but when you’re being bigoted
toward a close friend or neighbour, you start thinking: “Maybe LGBT people are really
just people; maybe I should recognize their rights. Why can’t they love whom they
choose, just like I can?” Yet the lingering fear of ‘the other’ is also applicable to some
of the other trends we see in this year’s Outlook on the Global Agenda – like increasing
nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment.

In terms of hope, homophobia is still one of the last acceptable forms of bigotry in some
regions, and my hope is that that changes.

Read more here

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 ‘Right now you may not want to feel any-
thing. Maybe you never wanted to feel any-
thing and maybe it’s not me you want to be
speak about these things but feel something
you obviously did. Look you had a beautiful
friendship, maybe more than a friendship.
And I envy you. In my place, most parents
would hope the whole thing goes away, or
pray that their sons land on their feet soon
enough. But I am not such a parent. We
rip out so much of ourselves to be cured
of things faster than we should that we go
bankrupt by the age of 30 and have less to
offer each time we start with someone new.
But to feel nothing so as not to feel any-
thing—what a waste!
Have I spoken out of turn? Then I’ll say one
more thing. It’ll clear the air. I may have
come close but I never had what you two
have. Something always held me back or
stood in the way. How you live your life is
your business. Just remember our hearts and
our bodies are given to us only once and be-
fore you know it your heart’s worn out and
as for your body there comes a point when
no one looks at it, much less wants to come
near it. Right now there’s sorrow, pain. Don’t
kill it and with it the joy you felt’
)

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 Get Educated/Arm Yourself with the Truth:
HIS/HERstory
Social movements, organizing around the acceptance and rights of persons who
might today identify as LGBT or queer, began as responses to centuries of persecution
by church, state and medical authorities. Where homosexual activity or deviance
from established gender roles/dress was banned by law or traditional custom, such
condemnation might be communicated through sensational public trials, exile, medical
warnings and language from the pulpit. These paths of persecution entrenched
homophobia for centuries—but also alerted entire populations to the existence of
difference. Whether an individual recognized they, too, shared this identity and were at
risk, or dared to speak out for tolerance and change, there were few organizations or
resources before the scientific and political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Gradually, the growth of a public media and ideals of human rights drew together
activists from all walks of life, who drew courage from sympathetic medical studies,
banned literature, emerging sex research and a climate of greater democracy. By the
20th century, a movement in recognition of gays and lesbians was underway, abetted by
the social climate of feminism and new anthropologies of difference.

Throughout 150 years of homosexual social movements (roughly from the 1870s to
today), leaders and organizers struggled to address the very different concerns and
identity issues of gay men, women identifying as lesbians, and others identifying as
gender variant or nonbinary. White, male and Western activists whose groups and
theories gained leverage against homophobia did not necessarily represent the range of
racial, class and national identities complicating a broader LGBT agenda. Women were
often left out altogether.

As of 2016, LGBT identification and activism was still punishable by death in ten
countries: Iran, Iraq, Mauritania, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda
and Yemen; the plight of the LGBT community in Russia received intense focus during
the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, to which President Obama sent a contingent of out
LGBT athletes. Supportive remarks from the new Pope Francis (“Who am I to judge?”)
gave hope to LGBT Catholics worldwide. With the June 12 attacks on the Pulse Club in
Orlando...The possible repression of identity which may have played a role in the killer’s
choice of target has generated new attention to the price of homophobia –internalized,
or culturally expressed— in and beyond the United States.

Find more details here

13
 ‘I don’t belong to you...Well I belong
to you...Are we doing the right
thing? Absolutely we are’
(Rock Hudson and Archie,
Hollywood TV series)

14
 Separate the Political from the Personal
Religious admonitions against sexual relations between same-sex individuals (particularly
men) long stigmatized such behaviour, but most legal codes in Europe were silent on the
subject of homosexuality. The judicial systems of many predominantly Muslim countries
invoked Islamic law (Sharī ah) in a wide range of contexts, and many sexual or quasi-
sexual acts including same-sex intimacy were criminalized in those countries with severe
penalties, including execution.

Beginning in the 16th century, lawmakers in Britain began to categorize homosexual

behaviour as criminal rather than simply immoral. In the 1530s, during the reign of
Henry VIII, England passed the Buggery Act, which made sexual relations between men
a criminal offense punishable by death. In Britain sodomy remained a capital offense
punishable by hanging until 1861. Two decades later, in 1885, Parliament passed an
amendment sponsored by Henry Du Pré Labouchere, which created the offense of
“gross indecency” for samesex male sexual relations, enabling any form of sexual
behaviour between men to be prosecuted (lesbian sexual relations—because they were
unimaginable by male legislators—were not subject to the law).

Before the end of the 19th century there were scarcely any “movements” for gay
rights. Indeed, in his 1890s poem “Two Loves,” Lord Alfred (“Bosie”) Douglas, Oscar
Wilde’s lover, declared “I [homosexuality] am the love that dare not speak its name.”
Homosexual men and women were given voice in 1897 with the founding of the
Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (Wissenschaftlichhumanitäres Komitee; WhK) in
Berlin.

Their first activity was a petition to call for the repeal of Paragraph 175 of the Imperial
Penal Code (submitted 1898, 1922, and 1925). The committee published emancipation
literature, sponsored rallies, and campaigned for legal reform throughout Germany as
well as in the Netherlands and Austria, and by 1922 it had developed some 25 local
chapters. Its founder was Magnus Hirschfeld, who in 1919 opened the Institute for Sexual
Science (Institut für Sexualwissenschaft), which anticipated by decades other scientific
centres (such as the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, in
the United States) that specialized in sex research. He also helped sponsor the World
League of Sexual Reform, which was established in 1928 at a conference in Copenhagen.
Despite Paragraph 175 and the failure of the WhK to win its repeal, homosexual men and
women experienced a certain amount of freedom in Germany, particularly during the
Weimar period, between the end of World War I and the Nazi seizure of power. In many
larger German cities, gay nightlife became tolerated, and the number of gay publications
increased; indeed, according to some historians, the number of gay bars and periodicals
in Berlin in the 1920s exceeded that in New York City six decades later. Adolf Hitler’s
seizure of power ended this relatively liberal period. He ordered the reinvigorated
enforcement of Paragraph 175, and on May 6, 1933, German student athletes raided and
ransacked Hirschfeld’s archives and burned the institute’s materials in a public square.

Find more details here

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“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only
one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other
medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not
how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the
channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware
directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction
whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching
and makes us more alive than the others.”
16
Martha Graham
 Don’t Assume They Want to Change:
Resistance to LGBTs
Unconscious conflicts about one’s own sexuality or gender identity might be attributed
to lesbians and gay men through a process of projection. Such a strategy permits people
to externalize the conflicts and to reject their own unacceptable urges by rejecting
lesbians and gay men (who symbolize those urges) without consciously recognizing the
urges as their own. Since contact with homosexual persons threatens to make conscious
those thoughts that have been repressed, it inevitably arouses anxiety in defensive
individuals. Consequently, defensive attitudes are likely to be negative.

Several psychodynamic explanations offered for attitudes toward lesbians and gay
men fit with the defensive function. Heterosexual men may envy gay men because
the latter are not constrained by the masculine ideal. Heterosexuals may also envy
the sexual freedom presumably enjoyed by lesbians and gay men. In either case,
the envy is presumably translated unconsciously into hostility. In a similar vein, Cory
(1951) also proposed that negative feelings toward opposite-sex homosexuals result
from heterosexuals’ feelings of rejection as potential sexual partners. Weinberg (1972)
hypothesized that since many people strive for vicarious immortality by having children,
and since lesbians and gay men are perceived (incorrectly) as having rejected this means
for eluding the finality of death, the latter evoke an unconscious fear of death.

Heterosexuals who express hostile attitudes toward homosexual persons tend to

endorse traditional ideologies of family, sexuality and sex roles, and often are prejudiced
against other minorities as well. That some of thes e same findings also apply to the
defensive function underscores the complex, overdetermined nature of attitudes toward
homosexual persons. Attitudes serving different functions can be correlated with
identical behaviors. For persons with symbolic attitudes, certain reference groups appear
to be particularly influential. As already mentioned, people who are involved in church
groups (as indicated by frequent attendance at church services) reflect the historical
religious bias against lesbians and gay men, and this is especially so for Christians.
People who grew up in areas where higher tolerance exists for diversity also hold more
positive attitudes toward lesbians and gay men; these include city-dwellers and people
from the northeastern and Pacific coastal regions of the United States The same studies
report that more tolerant attitudes are held by younger persons (whose cohorts’ values
reflect the liberalism of the 1960s and 1970s) and by persons with more education (who
presumably have been exposed to liberal values on a college campus). Finally, people are
more tolerant of lesbians and gay men if their parents also displayed tolerance.

Find more details here

17
 ‘Sometimes
it feels like
I’m stuck on
a ferris wheel.
One minute
I’m on top of
the world, then
next I’m at rock
bottom. I’m
done living in
a world where
I don’t get to
be who I am. I
deserve a great
love story and I
want someone
to share it with’
(Love, Simon)

18
 Hunker Down for the Long Term: Ancient
HIS/HERstory
We know that homosexuality existed in ancient Israel simply because it is prohibited
in the Bible, whereas it flourished between both men and women in Ancient Greece.
Substantial evidence also exists for individuals who lived at least part of their lives as
a different gender than assigned at birth. From the lyrics of same-sex desire inscribed
by Sappho in the seventh century BCE to youths raised as the opposite sex in cultures
ranging from Albania to Afghanistan; from the “female husbands” of Kenya to the
Native American “Two-Spirit,” alternatives to the Western male-female and heterosexual
binaries thrived across millennia and culture. These realities gradually became known to
the West via travelers’ diaries, the church records of missionaries, diplomats’ journals,
and in reports by medical anthropologists. Such eyewitness accounts in the era before
other media were of course riddled with the biases of the (often) Western or white
observer, and added to beliefs that homosexual practices were other, foreign, savage,
a medical issue, or evidence of a lower racial hierarchy. The peaceful flowering of early
trans or bisexual acceptance in different indigenous civilizations met with opposition
from European and Christian colonizers’.

In the age of European exploration and empire-building, Native American, North African
and Pacific Islander cultures accepting of “Two-Spirit” people or same-sex love shocked
European invaders who objected to any deviation from a limited understanding of
“masculine” and “feminine” roles. The European powers enforced their own criminal
codes against what was called sodomy in the New World: the first known case of
homosexual activity receiving a death sentence in North America occurred in 1566, when
the Spanish executed a Frenchman in Florida. Against the emerging backdrop of national
power and Christian faith, what might have been learned about same-sex love or gender
identity was buried in scandal.

Where European dress—a clear marker of gender—was enforced by missionaries,

we find another complicated history of both gender identity and resistance. Biblical
interpretation made it illegal for a woman to wear pants or a man to adopt female dress,
and sensationalized public trials warned against “deviants” but also made such martyrs
and heroes popular: Joan of Arc is one example, and the chilling origins of the word
“faggot” include a stick of wood used in public burnings of gay men. Despite the risks
of defying severe legal codes, cross-dressing flourished in early modern Europe and
America. Women “disguised” themselves as men, sometimes for extended periods of
years, in order to fight in the military (Deborah Sampson), to work as pirates (Mary Read
and Anne Bonney), attend medical school, etc. Both men and women who lived as a
different gender were often only discovered after their deaths.

Find more details here

19
 ‘There is no point in being
a rebel unless you have
something to fight for. My
intentions are never to break
things down just to destroy
but to break down barriers
and to destroy discrimination,
prejudice, hatred and bigotry’
(Rebel Heart Tour, Madonna)

20
 Pray and Never Give up Praying
Given all you could
To the relationship
Like a fool done job
9 to 5 you gotta
Work it,
Work it
But the best of you
Has yet to arrive
All the love inside is
All the love you ever
Needed,
Needed
All the dreams you had
All the things you’ve wanted
Don’t turn your back
It’s not too late
You better love yourself
Before you love somebody
Love somebody
Love somebody
Can I get an amen?
Can I get an amen?
If you can’t love yourself
How in the hell you gonna love somebody else?
Can I get an amen?
Can I get an amen?
If you can’t love yourself
How in the hell you gonna love somebody else?
A-amen
Say hello goodbye, maybe another try
After a while you find history repeating-peating
Til you realize, your love is alive
All the love inside
Is all the love you ever needed, needed
All the dreams you had, all the things you’ve wanted
Don’t turn your back, it’s not too late
You better love yourself before you love somebody,
Love somebody
Love somebody
There’s a fork in the road, Which way will you go?
You standing still or will you step into the great unknown?
It’s yours to decide
This is your life
This is your life

Can I Get An Amen?, RuPaul & Martha Walsh

21
 ‘‘They were respectful of each
other’s opinions, each glad to have
a companion where none had been
expected. Ennis, riding against
the wind back to the sheep in the
treacherous, drunken light, thought
he’d never had such a good time,
felt he could paw the white out of
the moon”
(Brokeback Mountain)

22
 Be Authentic
When I was in the 3rd grade I
thought that I was gay ‘cause I
could draw,
My uncle was and I kept my
room straight
I told my mom, tears rushing
down my face, she’s like,
“Ben you’ve loved girls since
before pre-K”
Trippin’, yeah, I guess she had a
point, didn’t she?
A bunch of stereotypes all in
my head
I remember doing the math like
“Yeah, I’m good a little league”
A pre-conceived idea of what it
all meant
For those who like the same sex
had the characteristics
The right-wing conservatives
think its a decision
And you can be cured with
some treatment and religion
Man-made, rewiring of a
predisposition.
Playing God
Ahh nah, here we go
America the brave
Still fears what we don’t know
And God loves all his children
it’s somehow forgotten
But we paraphrase a book
written 3, 500 hundred years
ago
I don’t know
And I can’t change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
And I can’t change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
My love, my love, my love
She keeps me warm
If I was gay I would think hip
hop hates me
Have you read the Youtube
comments lately
“Man that’s gay” Gets dropped
23
on the daily
We’ve become so numb to
what we’re sayin’
Our culture founded from
oppression
Yeah, we don’t have
acceptance
for ‘em
Call each other faggots behind
the keys of a message board
A word routed in hate, yet our
genre still ignores it
Gay is synonymous with the
lesser
It’s the same hate that’s caused
wars from religion
Gender to skin color the
complexion of your pigment
The same fight that lead
people
to walk-outs and sit-ins,
It’s human rights for everybody
There is no difference
Live on! And be yourself!
When I was in church, they
taught me something else
If you preach hate at the
service
Those words aren’t anointed
And that Holy Water, that you
soak in is then poisoned
Wheneveryone else is more
comfortable remaining
voiceless
Rather than fighting for
humans, that have had their
rights stolen
I might not be the same
But that’s not important
No freedom ‘til we’re equal
Damn right I support it
I don’t know
And I can’t change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
We press play
Don’t press pause
Progress, march on!
With a veil over our eyes
We turn our back on the cause
‘Till the day that my uncles can
be united by law
Their kids are walkin’ around
the
hallway
Plagued by pain in their heart
A world so hateful, some would
rather die than be who they are
And a certificate on paper
Isn’t gonna solve it all, but it’s a
damn good place to start
No law’s gonna change us
We have to change us
Whatever God you believe in
We come from the same one
Strip away the fear
Underneath it’s all the same
love
About time that we raised up
Love is patient, love is kind
Love is patient
Love is kind (Not crying on
Sundays)
Love is patient,
(Not crying on Sundays) love is
kind
(I’m not crying on Sundays)
Love is patient
(Not crying on Sundays)
love is kind
(I’m not crying on Sundays)
Love is patient
(Not crying on Sundays)
love is kind
(I’m not crying on Sundays)
Love is patient, love is kind
Macklemore
 Share Your Beliefs: Famous Coming Out
Stories

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24
 What Will You Tell Others?: What We Stand
For
‘My loves. As a trans woman of colour, we face violence, we face brutality, we face so
much. I say to each and every one of you out here tonight: it’s about love. We talk about
love but we forget about humanity. I am a human being. I am a human being just like
each and every one of you. It is time that we stop with the aesthetic. It’s time that we
stop with the privilege. It is time that we realise that if one man has a billion dollars
and an entire community can benefit if you just give of that billion dollars a million and
help that community to survive then you are really doing something. You are part of
community. I am a woman that was ostracized. I am a woman of Caribbean descent. I am
a woman of transgender experience. I am a woman but some of you don’t see that. My
brothers and sisters hurt. We are murdered.

It is about us understanding and respecting humanity. I am a human being. My brothers

and sisters are human beings. It is time that we stop looking into each other’s bedrooms.
We talk about love. We talk about humanity. We must see the human factor. Our
foundation is human, not sex. It is not about us saying to someone else that I accept you
or I tolerate you. You do not have the power to accept or tolerate me. I take that from
you. You will respect me. So to each of you: my community dies every day. Whether it
is from HIV or AIDS or transphobia or homophobia, I ask you: consider this. That is a
human being. We are all human beings. It is about inclusivity and I will never ever ask
any of you for respect. I will demand it. You will not tell me that you accept me. You will
not tell me that you tolerate me. That is not your power. I take that from you. You will
respect me for who I am. I implore you. I ask you. See the love. Don’t tolerate us. Don’t
think that you have approval in our lives. Respect us for who we are.’

Dominique Jackson at the 23rd Annual

HRC National Dinner,
2019

25
 ‘O-P-U-L-E-N-C-E: Opulence!
You own everything. Everything
is yours’
(Junior LaBeija)

26
 Setting Boundaries: Stonewall
On a hot summer night in 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a bar located in New
York City’s Greenwich Village that served as a haven for the city’s gay, lesbian and
transgender community.

At the time, homosexual acts remained illegal in every state except Illinois, and bars and
restaurants could get shut down for having gay employees or serving gay patrons. Most
gay bars and clubs in New York at the time (including the Stonewall) were operated by
the Mafia, who paid corruptible police officers to look the other way and blackmailed
wealthy gay patrons by threatening to “out” them.

Police raids on gay bars were common, but on that particular night, members of the
city’s LGBT community decided to fight back—sparking an uprising that would launch a
new era of resistance and revolution.

The Stonewall Riots made clear that the LGBTQ movement needed to be loud and visible
to demand change. Five months after the riots, activists proposed a resolution at the
Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations in Philadelphia that a march
be held in New York City to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the raid. Their
proposal was for an annual march on the last Saturday in June with “no dress or age
regulations.”

When organizers were looking for a slogan for the event, a member of the planning
committee, L. Craig Schoonmaker, suggested “Pride.” The idea of “Gay Power” was
thrown around as well, but Schoonmaker argued that while gay individuals lacked
power, one thing they did have was pride. The official chant for the march became: “Say
it loud, gay is proud.”

‘Having to lie I feel is the saddest and the ugliest part of being a homosexual. When you
have your first bad love experience, for instance and you can’t go to your brother or your
sister and say ‘I’m hurting.’

‘At first, I was very guilty and then I realised that all the things that are taught to you not
only by society but by psychiatrists are just to fit you in a mould and then I just rejected
the mould. When I rejected the mould, I was happier.’

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27
 Love in Truth: LGBT Expressions in Art

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28
 Plant Seeds of Truth: Legacy of LGBTs
Stonewall ‘was really like direct action. It was like the radical feminists invading the Miss
America contest, or the Black Panthers standing in front of Oakland City Hall with rifles,”
and it ran completely counter to the approach of groups such as the Mattachine Society,
one of the nation’s earliest gay-rights organizations, that preferred to press for change
through legal and political channels. Not long after the Stonewall raid, a message
appeared on the boarded-up window of the bar, pleading for the return of “peaceful and
quiet conduct on the streets of the village.” It was signed “Mattachine.”

“What’s so amazing is that they would never have thought of doing anything public
like that before,” said Bronski. “So literally overnight, Mattachine is forced into making
a public announcement with essentially graffiti.” For Bronski, Stonewall represented
a “shocking change of consciousness for the world.” And in its wake rose the Gay
Liberation Front, a more radical version of the Mattachine Society unafraid to use
confrontation to push reform. New York’s first pride parade, named the Christopher
Street Liberation Day, was held in June of 1970, just a year after the riots. The march
began on Christopher Street where the bar — now a historic landmark — was located,
and it ended in Central Park. The event attracted thousands and signaled another
important milestone. In the years that followed more cities and towns organized parades
in support of gay rights.

One march in Washington, D.C., in the fall of 1987 left another lasting impact... The
event coincided with the first showing of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, a massive patchwork
blanket adorned with the names of those who had died. The colorful fabric covered
an area on the National Mall larger than a football field and contained 1,920 panels
“that captured the beautiful range and diversity of the gay experience with a kind of
poignancy and sadness, but also affirmation of gay life that I had never seen before.”

Hammonds said she has been shocked at the rapid pace of change she has witnessed
over the last 40 years, from attending her first Gay Pride parade to watching the faces
of Pride marchers get younger and increasingly diverse to getting married and starting
a family. “We got married the first night you could,” said Hammonds, who arrived at
Cambridge City Hall on May 17, 2004, with her partner just after midnight so they
could be among the first in the country to be granted a same-sex marriage license.
(Cambridge was the first municipality in the country to issue the licenses.) “It was the
most amazing thing to come out of the front door of City Hall and see Massachusetts
Avenue just filled with people singing and yelling with joy that gay marriage was now
legal.” Still, Hammonds sees difficult times ahead and anticipates “very serious attempts
at retrenchment.”“There appears to be a growing backlash from people who feel that
expanding gay rights and rights for transgender people means that heterosexuals have
lost something they can never regain. But fortunately the younger generation sees the
world differently now. Many have grown up in a world where there is more equality,
more acceptance of sexual and gender difference, and they value it, and they are
comfortable with it. So those of us who are older have to do whatever we can to support
them in holding onto those rights we marched for a long time ago and that we continue
to fight for.”

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29
 Let God Water the Seed
Confused desires since my teenage years
I’m the same homo my family fears
For my blue eyed boy there’s a long distance longing
My behind closed doors fantasies going on
And I feel wrong
Forgive me father for I have sinned
I must confess it’s brothers with my eyes that I undress
Once a day I think about killing myself
I can’t carry on I must be strong even though it hurts as I sing this song
And I feel wrong
God it’s only love
God for how long will I feel wrong?
Glasvegas, I Feel Wrong - Homosexuality Part 1

PRESIDENT: I like how you call homosexuality an abomination.

JOURNALIST: I don’t say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr. President. The

Bible does.

PRESIDENT: Yes, it does. Leviticus.

JOURNALIST: 18:22.

PRESIDENT: Chapter and verse. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had
you are here. I am interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned
in Exodus 21:7. She’s a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared
the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking
about that, can I ask another? My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the
Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to
kill him myself or is it OK to call the police? Here’s one that is really important because
we’ve got a lot of sports fans in this town. Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one
unclean, Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still
play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be
together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn
my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different
threads? Think about those questions would you?
The West Wing

“If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?”
Pope Francis

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30
 ‘You may be a terrible
mother but that don’t
mean I can’t be the
loving daughter I want
to be’
(Pose)

‘I think it’s a great way to live,

to fight for yourself, to fight
for your friends, to fight for a
community of individuals who
are sharing your experience
and to fight for dignity and
a better life, and there will
be a tipping point. There will
be victories and they will be
joyous’
(Peter Staley, Pose)
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 Trust God
You shall not hate in your heart

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people but
you shall love your neighbour as yourself

Jesus said ‘we have come from the Light. What you are looking forward to has
come but you don’t know it. The lamps are different but the Light is the same.
It comes from Beyond.

The Eternal looked upon me with His eye of power and became manifest to
me in His essence. I saw I existed through Him.

I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your
church for you are sons of the one religion and it is The Spirit.

In everything, do to others, as you would have them do to you (Matthew 7:12)

What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour (Hillel Talmud, Shabbath
31a)

Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful (The Buddha,
Udana - Varga 5.1)

No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he
desires for himself (The Prophet Muhammed, 13th of the 40th Hadiths of alNawari)

We have come from the Light. To it we shall return

‘Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have
received it, and it will be yours’ (Mark 11:24)

‘Let brotherly love continue’ (Hebrews 13:1)

‘Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you
yourselves have been taught by God to love each other’ (1 Thessalonians 4:9)

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32
 Take Care of You
You tell me you’re cold on the inside
How can the outside world
Be a place that your heart can embrace
Be good to yourself
‘Cause nobody else
Has the power to make you happy
How can I help you?
Please let me try to
I can heal the pain
That you’re feeling inside
Whenever you want me
You know that I will be
Waiting for the day
That you say you’ll be mine
He must have really hurt you
To make you say the things that you do
He must have really hurt you
To make those pretty eyes look so blue

How can I help you?

Please let me try to
I can heal the pain
Won’t you let me inside?
Whenever you want me
You know that I will be
Waiting for the day
That you say you’ll be mine
Won’t you let me in
Let this love begin
Won’t you show me your heart now?
I’ll be good to you
I can make this thing true
Show me that heart right now

Who needs a lover

That can’t be a friend
Something tells me I’m the one you’ve been looking for
Oh, if you ever should see him again
Won’t you tell him you’ve found someone who gives you more
Someone who will protect you
Love and respect you
All those things
That he never could bring to you
Like I do
Or rather I would
Won’t you show me your heart
Like you should

Heal The Pain, George Michael

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