Tag: LGBTQA

Posted on

My Favorite Role Model by Phillip E. Hoyle

For many years my gay life was lived in literature. I read story after story, book after book, seeking to discover just what a gay life might look like. I read to find out more about and build an understanding of the lives of my gay friends. I read to find myself somewhere in that literature.

There I found many disappointing characters. I don’t mean that I didn’t appreciate their stories, but what they did in their lives was not what I would choose to do were I living as a gay man. Still I wanted to understand and kept reading, sometimes re-reading, sometimes discussing what I found with a gay friend. In this exploration I found an alien world filled with people I didn’t especially want to be like. Early on I read works of Malcolm Boyd, an Episcopalian priest. I was impressed by his book of poetry Are You Running with Me Jesus? and realized he was open, perhaps homosexual. Then I read a book by Rev. Troy Perry who started the Metropolitan Community Church. I didn’t like his theology but did think he was doing something very important. I read about the lives of characters in Patricia Nell Warren’s many novels. Some of them were nice people but their experiences of life didn’t really lead me into a world I could easily identify with. I read autobiographical novels of Edmund White and Felice Picano. In these I felt a kind of kinship but still wasn’t interested to live their lives. I kept looking as I read Forster, Vidal, Baldwin, Renault, Isherwood, Puig, Holleran, Maupin, Kirkwood, Rechy, Monette, Kushner, and many more. I appreciated the writing and sometimes identified with a character up to a point, but I couldn’t place myself into their episodes.

It’s plausible that I was looking for a role model although I didn’t or perhaps couldn’t think in those terms. I read the lives of characters in gay novels and stories like I read the characters in stories by the Nigerian Chinua Achebe or the Brazilian George Amado or the Osage Indian William Matthews, as if their characters were from another world or even galaxy. But there was something more important that I did appreciate. I liked especially the scenes in which two men really liked one another, deeply desired one another, and shared their thoughts, feelings and even secrets. I loved when two men lay together in Leaves of Grass. That I could imagine.

In those days I wore a beard because I wanted to; now I wonder if I was somehow emulating Walt Whitman. I visited many people in hospital; was I still Whitman? I cannot answer that question very well. I don’t think so. But I did feel a strong connect with Bud in Ethan Mordden’s series Tales of Gay Manhattan. Often Bud observed his gay friends. Often he was befriending folk who came off the street. He was all around Manhattan and Fire Island with his friends telling their stories. Eventually he lived with a younger man somewhat at the insistence of his group of friends. He seemed surprised at how satisfying it was. Now that I did identify with, even wanted. I suspect at an emotional level, Bud was my bud, my gay role model even though our lives were mostly different. I have made many gay friends in ways similar to his friendships. Like him I have written about them. I have lived with younger and older men. I have built a successful gay life and consciously have connected it to both the character Bud and his creator Mordden. So I guess I have had two or three favorite role model even though I had difficulty naming one.

Denver, ©23 February 2015

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot

Posted on

Exercising, by Ray S

What is fun about exercise? For me the word is synonymous with work. There is a sense of accomplishment, if not survival when you might have completed a certain number of circuits around the high school track—but then there is the end result—exhaustion.

Jumping Jacks, etc. were okay when you are all lined up doing the same movements, but then there is the really hard work of push-ups.

As a developing pubescent wimp, if anyone had told had told me how the weight room would have given me that classic Greek Apollo physic when I was old enough to be intrigued with other Greek gods’ bodies, I probably would have been so narcissistic I would beat the gym doors down to get started on that evasive body beautiful. Alas, I never met a barbell that I liked.

Team sports were my 6th grade downfall and ultimate lifetime avoidance of participating or watching. How validating it was to be one of the boys on the team, until my total lack of eye-hand-arms and -legs coordination disqualified me, especially after consistently striking out. Forget football; basketball—dribbling impossible. Wrestling and boxing meant you could get hurt and besides they were not only competitive, they were too aggressive for the timid soul.

It seemed I was destined to be like Ferdinand the Bull, all he could do was lie around and smell the roses. Without rigorous exercising how was I to become a man so that when the time became evident I might lie with a woman or better yet in the Biblical sense “lie with a man”?

Looking back on so many physical education failures I wonder that I have managed, in spite of myself, to live this long, loved so much, slept with wonderful people, and can still get up out of bed each day and put one foot in front of the other. Perhaps that might qualify as heavy duty passive exercising.

© 24 August 2015

About the Author

Posted on

A Magic Carpet Ride, by Gillian

Humankind does not, for the most part, create in order to promote and honor spirituality. We make killing machines and WMD’s. We compete to see who can build the tallest sky-scraper, the biggest and fastest anything and everything, and the securest vault to store our precious gold bars.

So, it was with great surprise that I received a serious spiritual kickstart from a creation weighing an estimated 54 tons; the largest piece of community folk art in the world, honoring almost 100,000 people.

Yes, of course, the AIDS Memorial Quilt.

I first saw it, or part of it, in Denver. I don’t recall where exactly it was displayed, Betsy thinks somewhere at DU, or when this would have been. Probably around 1990. What I do remember vividly is the effect it had on me.

Each quilt is 3 feet by 6, roughly the size of a human grave. At the time it was started, in 1987, many people who died of AIDS-related causes did not receive funerals, due to both the social stigma of AIDS felt by surviving family members and the outright refusal by many funeral homes and cemeteries to handle the deceased’s remains. Lacking a memorial service or grave site, The Quilt was often the only opportunity survivors had to remember and celebrate their loved ones’ lives. Each quilt is completely unique. They vary from no more than a name written in marker pen, to an embroidered name with a photograph, or many photographs. Some are covered in messages to the deceased. Many have belongings carefully attached, sometimes covered with carefully hoarded childhood toys and clothes; baby booties wailing out a mother’s heartbreak.

I couldn’t stand it. These young men – yes, others died, and are still dying in that terrible epidemic, but it was primarily stalking young gay men – these young men, so frequently reviled and feared by society, dying horrible and very premature deaths; and what do they and those who love them do? They sew a quilt, those terrible, frightening men! The pain of each individual represented there, and my anger at an ignorant bigoted society were too much. I didn’t think I could bear it. I couldn’t contemplate one more lost life. I was about to tell Betsy I would have to wait for her outside, when something strange, something wonderful, happened.

I felt the overwhelming love that had gone into those quilts flowing back out and engulfing me. It enveloped me in it’s warmth, like that of a cozy fire on a cold night, and with it came a sense of great peace, culminating in a flash of what I can only call pure joy, such as I have felt rarely in my life. It was strange, that jolt of joy in a time and place surrounded by death. But there it was. It came and it went so fast I felt almost dizzy. But the strong sense of love and peace remained, to banish the previous pain and sorrow and rage. You understand that I am looking back at it now from a place at least slightly further along the path of spirituality than at the time, so this is how I see it from a current perspective. I doubt I would have described it in quite the same way at the time. But then, with every memory we rewrite history. But it is my history, so I guess I’m allowed.

In any event, it was The Quilt which initially precipitated my journey along the spiritual path.

I wanted that jolt of joy again. And again. And again. It had been like a momentary high, and with one shot I was addicted. I wanted to live cocooned in love; to find that everlasting peace.

Easy to say! Not so easy to do. The spiritual path is a difficult one. You don’t simply decide, I’m going this way now, and go. It takes work, and, like so many things, eternal vigilance. I frequently lose my way, stumbling off the spiritual path into those nearby dark places where all the bad things lurk – those negative thoughts and emotions, always waiting to pounce. But at least I have reached a stage where, I cannot claim always, but often, I can stop myself, wherever I am at that moment. I stop. I relax. I do some deep breathing. I rest right there, lost as I may be among the good, bad, and ugly. I gather that spiritual quilt of love and peace, and wrap myself in it’s warmth. And usually it works it’s miracle and sooner or later I find myself back in the welcoming light of my spiritual being, back once again on the right path. Rescued, again, from the dark scary places, It’s a magic carpet ride. As I continue along my path, I am treated, very occasionally, to those starbursts of pure joy. But more importantly, I am, for the most part, completely at peace: with myself, with my world, and with everything in it. So I think it very appropriate that the Quilt, or technically The Names Project which began it, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, but disappointing that it did not receive the award. It seems to me the perfect candidate. If others would treat adversity in the same way, the world would be a very different place. Sadly, even trying to imagine the Nazis or those currently flocking to join ISIS, deciding instead to sew a quilt, is so impossible it’s just laughable.

Why is that? I ask myself, sadly. I hear no answering reply.

I saw a part of The Quilt once again when Betsy and I took part in the March on Washington in 1993. The last time it was displayed in it’s entirety was on the Washington Mall in 1996 – something I would love to have seen but didn’t, and I will probably never get another chance. The Quilt is now too large to be viewed all together. It is stored in twelve feet square sections, housed in Atlanta. These section, placed end to end, would run for over eight miles. If you have never seen any part of it, you might want to add it to your Bucket List; things to do before you die. I’m sure it would do just as much for your soul as gazing at the Taj Mahal in the moonlight. And the trip would be a whole lot cheaper!

© June 2015

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

Posted on

Didja Hear Denver’s Pride Parade was Disrupted?

by Donaciano Martinez

The question in the above headline was posed by me to dozens of people, who were almost unanimous with the reply of a resounding “no.”

The June 2015 parade was indeed disrupted by predominantly Chicano and Chicana GLBTQ youth from Buried SEEDZ of Resistance (BSEEDZ) to honor Jessie Hernandez, the 17-year-old Mexican lesbian who was killed by Denver police when they investigated the stolen car in which Hernandez and her young lesbian friends were socializing in the early-morning hours in January 2015.

Completely stopping the parade from one side of the street to the other as BSEEDZ activists unfurled a huge multi-colored banner in big-sized words “Your Family Values Are a Lie,” the 10-minute disruption took place near Lafayette Street on the Colfax side of the nonprofit GLBT Community Center that has organized the parade and festival since 1976.

In addition to honoring the deceased Hernandez, BSEEDZ activists made the following demands to the GLBT Community Center as the parade organizer:

– End corporate sponsorship of Pride by corporations such as Coors, Walmart and Wells Fargo due to their ties to the prison industrial complex, anti-immigration legislation and predatory lending that targets queer communities of color;

– Every Pride parade should be led to honor LGBTI2S lives lost to violence; and

– End police presence at Pride because LGBTQI2S communities are at higher risk of experiencing police violence.

[The above-listed I initial refers to gender variant people who do not fit the narrow paradigm of being male or female. The above-listed initials 2S refer to Two-Spirit, the American Indian term for people who have both male and female qualities.]

Dozens of spectators were on the rooftop of the GLBT Center looking down and applauding as parade participants passed by when BSEEDZ activists and allies suddenly poured into the street to block the parade. While some

spectators on the sidewalks approvingly cheered the protesters, other spectators seemed annoyed or were curious about the protest action.

“We are grabbing the mic for just a few minutes to reflect on and honor the lives that have been taken and forgotten,” yelled BSEEDZ organizer Cecelia Kluding-Rodriguez into her megaphone once the protest got underway with BSEEDZ activists locking arms and wearing red t-shirts emblazoned with the image of the face of Hernandez.

“The first Pride was a riot, Stonewall was an uprising,” shouted BSEEDZ activist Muki Najeer. “We are here today to bring back the true spirit of Pride.” Each time she spoke, she paused so that fellow protesters could loudly repeat her words. “In the last few decades white LGBTQ people gained many rights, including the right to marriage. But why do queer and trans communities of color still face higher levels of murder, police violence, unemployment, detention and homelessness?”

To reiterate the importance of restoring the origins of Pride, BSEEDZ activist Mimi Madrid elaborated: “We’re not just here to dance and have a good time. No. Pride began as a revolutionary uprising to defend our bodies, to defend our identities and to defend our spirits. We’re tired of the police just taking us out, picking us off. So this is about bringing back that sacredness, the roots of uprising back into Pride.”

After the 10-minute disruption ended and the Pride parade resumed, BSEEDZ activists walked back to the sidelines and chanted the rhyme: “How many queer kids have to die? Your family values are a lie.”

Originally founded in 2009 under the name Branching SEEDZ as a project of the nonprofit Colorado Anti Violence Program (now known as Survivors Organizing for Liberation), the youth-led group modified its name to Buried SEEDZ of Resistance (BSEEDZ) in January 2015 after finding inspiration in an old Mexican proverb that read: “Trataron de enterrarnos, pero no sabian que eramos semillas.” In English, the proverb means, “They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.” With the proverb as their foundation, BSEEDZ envisioned a future where they can continue on the path of resistance that was planted by their ancestors.

“I immediately reflected back to the spirit of resistance that the patrons of the Stonewall Inn of New York City demonstrated in the summer of 1969,” stated longtime Chicano gay activist Lorenzo Ramirez upon learning that the predominantly Chicano/a Mexicano/a LGBTQ youth activists in BSEEDZ took a stand at this year’s Denver Pride Parade. “From my research, and also rare conversations with individuals who were actually there, I have learned that the actions taken by the Stonewall Inn patrons (who were primarily Black and Latino drag queens) were in direct response to a raid conducted by the NYPD [New York Police Department] on June 28, 1969.”

“This historical act of resistance triggered three nights of civil unrest by the gay community of New York City’s Greenwich Village and was the birth of the modern LGBTQ civil rights movement,” declared Ramirez in his praise of the bravery of the individuals who took a stand after enduring enough of the constant verbal and physical harassment by NYPD.

“As an out and proud Chicano gay man who grew up in the Chican@ Movement of the early 1970s, and as an HIV/AIDS activist of the late 1980s and 1990s, I must support this new diverse generation of young grass-roots activists in their efforts to remind the LGBTQ community about our history of struggle and sacrifice that has paved the way so that we can live our lives openly and honestly with pride and dignity,” stated Ramirez.

“May I first note that we have yet to have any direct communication from Buried SEEDZ of Resistance,” said Rex Fuller, Communications Director for the nonprofit GLBT Community Center, which has organized the Pride parade and festival since 1976. “We have only heard about the group’s demands through third parties. We welcome dialog with the group.”

“We also want to state that we are dedicated to supporting all members of our community and we are always working to listen to and address issues facing our community,” added Fuller while noting that youth from the GLBT Center’s program, Rainbow Alley, are participating in the Queer Youth Summit sponsored by BSEEDZ.

Although Fuller is firm that the GLBT Center works to listen to and address issues facing the community, not everyone agrees that Chicano/a LGBTQ youth are being listened to or that their issues are being addressed.

“I recently had the opportunity to meet with members of BSEEDZ, and I have been very impressed with their energy, commitment and organizational skills,” stated Ramirez. “I could also sense the frustration of their voices not being heard and not being recognized by organizations and many LGBTQ community leaders who are entrusted to address the issues that affect us all.”

“PrideFest has an estimated $25 million annual impact on Denver’s economy, including benefiting LGBT businesses,” stated Fuller in response to the BSEEDZ demand that the GLBT Center end corporate sponsorship of the Pride event and refuse to take funds from corporations such as Coors, Wells Fargo and Walmart. “Denver PrideFest is also The Center’s largest annual fundraiser and money raised at Denver PrideFest goes directly back to our community in the form of direct services to LGBT youth, elders, the transgender community and providing help with legal issues. This would not be possible without corporate sponsorship.”

In his expression of gratefulness to the companies and their GLBT employees who support the GLBT Center through sponsorship of PrideFest, Fuller pointed out that the Center requires corporate sponsors of the Pride event to have non-discrimination policies in place.

“This year Denver PrideFest attracted 370,000 people over the two-day festival,” proclaimed Fuller in response to the BSEEDZ demand that the GLBT Center end police presence at the Pride event. “It would not be possible to host a public event of this size without working with Denver Police Department to ensure safety of everyone attending.”

Denver City Government’s agency, the Office of Special Events, handles the permit-application process for all events (such as PrideFest) held on public property (streets, parks, etc.) and coordinates the process that all permit applicants are required to go through with various agencies (including Denver police). Because of the strict process that all permit holders must go through to ensure public safety, it is highly unlikely that there will ever be an end to police presence at the Pride event.

Regardless of police presence or no-police presence, there are some people who no longer attend the Pride event.

“I have not attended Denver’s Pride Parade for quite some time for many of the same reasons that BSEEDZ decided to take action and voice their concerns and demands mentioned in the La Gente Unida newsletter,” noted Ramirez, a recipient of the “Year 2000 Donaciano Martinez Human Rights Award” and the 2004 founder of Denver’s first Latino gay/bi men’s community center that lasted five years before it transitioned to a program called UNO (later called LISTOS) under a different fiscal sponsor.

The recent Denver Pride Parade was not the first time for BSEEDZ involvement in a disruption of an LGBTQ event. BSEEDZ activists joined with Latino trans activists in disrupting the LGBTQ Creating Change national conference held in Denver in February 2015, at which time Denver Mayor Michael Hancock was prevented from delivering his speech to the conference. The action at the conference was to honor the Mexican lesbian teenager Jessie Hernandez who was killed by police in January 2015.

People from all sectors of the community probably will no doubt express pro and con views of BSEEDZ tactics for months to come. As freedom-loving activists ponder the issue, consider the following quote from the 1800s African American activist Frederick Douglass: “Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground.”

Denver, 2015 

[The piece was previously published by La Gente Unida Newsletter and is used here with permission.]

About the author

Since 1964 Donaciano Martinez has been an activist in peace and social justice movements in Colorado. His activism began in 1964 by knocking on doors to urge people to vote for peace and justice, but in 1965 he and other activists began marching in the streets to protest against war and injustice. His family was part of a big migration of Mexican Americans from northern New Mexico to Colorado Springs in the 1940s. He lived in Colorado Springs until 1975 and then moved to Denver, where he still resides. He was among 20 people arrested and jailed in Colorado Springs during a 1972 protest in support of the United Farm Workers union that was co-founded by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. For his many years of activism, Martinez received the 1998 Equality Award, 1999 Founders Award, 2000 Paul Hunter Award, 2001 Community Activist Award, 2005 Movement Veterans Award, 2006 Champion of Health Award, 2008 Cesar Chavez Award, 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2013 Pendleton Award. La Gente Unida, a nonprofit co-founded by Martinez, received the 2002 Civil Rights Award. The year 2014 marked the 50-year anniversary of his volunteer work in numerous nonprofit situations.

Posted on

Don’t Touch Me There by Phillip Hoyle

I don’t believe those words have ever come out of my mouth. I’m not kidding, but I don’t want to claim too much for I was a ticklish boy. Tickling made me laugh and squirm, caused my throat to constrict and tire, made me try to get away from my tormentor. And I especially liked it when Paul tickled me, Paul a tall, muscular man, family friend and member of our church, who worked construction or some other physical job. We knew Paul and his wife and daughter because the daughter, like my next younger sister, had contracted polio and went to regular doctor’s appointments in Topeka, Kansas, sixty miles away. Rides were shared by the two families, so we spent a lot of time together, and we kids got to know each other and each other’s parents. Paul was almost like a kid himself. He loved to play. He loved to tickle us. I loved to be tickled by him. I’d run from him; he’d pursue me, get me down on the ground or floor and tickle me until I squealed. I had no other such relationship with an adult, certainly not with an adult male and couldn’t get enough of his attention. This giant would grab me with his huge paws, lift me high, then lower me to the ground and tickle my ribs until I was laughing, screaming, kicking, and trying to escape. I loved the attention.

There were other men who paid me mind: my dad who encouraged my singing by accompanying me on the piano, my grandfather Hoyle who sat in his chair smoking his pipe but occasionally talking with me or driving me somewhere in his Pontiac, my grandpa Pink who when he drove the tractor would lift me onto his lap and kid me and tell me stories and sing me songs, Mr. Lown the preacher who talked with me about becoming a minister, Bob who took me along with other boys to powwows and taught me to dance, and Mr. Martin who encouraged my singing in high school. I had plenty of attention from men but no other adult ever played with me like Paul. Still I loved the attentions of all these men and none of them ever crossed the line, caused me to say, “Don’t touch me there.”

Of course I don’t know that I would have said it anyway. Writing this I feel a bit like my friend who complained that the priest he served with at the altar for many years never molested him. But now, really, I’m just kidding.

Denver, 2013

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot

Posted on

Scars by Betsy

I can hear it now. “She will be scarred for life if she tries to live a lesbian life-style.” Had my mother not died as a young woman, had she been present when I came out, I believe this is what she might have said. Her mother, my grandmother well may have said this too. The two women had a great deal of influence on me as I was growing up. Neither knew I was homosexual as they both died well before I came out.

They may have been right in making that imaginary statement, however. We all have scars—physical and emotional or psychological. Growing up gay in a homophobic society will inevitably produce wounds. Even after wounds heal scars can be left as evidence of the damage.

I have some scars on my physical body as well as my psyche. Most people do. One I acquired early in life represents a wound caused when I lost control of my bicycle going about 20 MPH down a hill hitting a curb head on, and landing completely unconscious by a street lamp. I was rescued by my dentist who happened to be looking out his window when the accident happened. I had a bad cut on my face which had to be sown up by a surgeon. The scar is still visible, but barely.

I suppose analogous to that might be that I was born into a world which had no understanding, certainly no acceptance, of gays or lesbians—most certainly not of their lifestyles. One might say the accident was that I was born homosexual, but I don’t see that as an accident—just the way it is. There are most definitely scars left from being born into and living in this non-accepting environment. As I have written before I have a passion for the truth and a great respect for living honestly and with integrity. Yet I lived half my life in a life-style that was a lie.

It was not an unhappy time of life, but it was basically flawed. That flaw of the fraudulent lifestyle is the wound. The wound is now healed, but a scar reveals that there had been a wound—a wound caused by an accident?

While I’m making analogies, allow me one more. Another scar is in the middle of my lower back, about a 10 inch line right down my spine. The reason I have this scar is because I had pain brought on by spondylolisthesis. Because I had pain a surgeon cut into my back and treated the source of the pain. The corresponding scar in my psyche might be represented as the result of treating a deep emotional hurt. The pain in this case I see as the years of self denial and the fear of rejection brought about by my unwillingness to express my true self that resulted.

All in all I think it is safe to say some scars, probably most scars, are good. Why? Because they are the result of healing. They are what is left of a wound or an adverse condition which causes pain. A scar implies that a fix has been made. The wound cannot fester and the pain is just a memory.

It is said that one cannot remember pain. I translate that to: one cannot reproduce a former pain, however one can remember that a particular wound or experience was painful. In this case HOLD THAT THOUGHT. Living freely the life style of one’s choosing is a precious thing.

It can also be a precarious thing. Never to be taken for granted.

© 22 June 2015

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change). She has been retired from the Human Services field for about 15 years. Since her retirement, her major activities include tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports Center for the Disabled, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.

Posted on

What Makes Homophobes Tick? by Lewis Thompson

The easy answer to this query would be that “homophobe” means “a person with an irrational or obsessive fear of homosexuals”, according to Wikipedia. But it would be important to dig a little beneath the surface to examine not only where the “irrational or obsessive fear” arises from but also why it seems to persist over many years.

Any American born in the last century almost certainly spent their formative years being inculcated with certain “inalienable truths”. Among these were–

* To be white is better than to be a person of color;

* To be male is better than to be female;

* To be a female is better than to be a male who wants to become a female (if a female wants to become a male, well, who can blame them?);

* To be rich is better than to be poor;

* To be rich and a crook is also better than being poor;

* To be a Christian is better than to be a non-Christian;

* To be a non-Christian is better than to be an atheist;

* To be an atheist is better than being a homosexual because, at least usually, you’re not an embarrassment to your relatives;

* To be conservative is better than being liberal (because all of the Founding Fathers were conservative, otherwise, they would never have written the Second Amendment);

* To be black, female, liberal, a non-believer, and gay is the worst thing that can possibly happen to a person and they surely should be imprisoned at birth and executed as soon as their politics, non-believer status, and sexual orientation become manifest.

So, we can readily comprehend that homophobia is the natural outgrowth of a society based upon gender, race, religious and countless other biases. It is endemic, almost akin to fluoridated water, which, as we all know, was responsible for the rise of the John Birch Society.

© January 12, 2015

About the Author

I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn’t getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth. Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband’s home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.

Posted on

From the Pulpit by Phillip Hoyle

In the churches where I worshipped and worked, rants about homosexuality did not come from the pulpit but, rather, from the pew. In fact, the only homosexual statement I heard from the pulpit was a quote from an early 1950s semi-autobiographical novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, by James Baldwin. The preacher made no allusion to Baldwin’s sexuality or any condemnation of the writer. He made no apology for using a quote from a literary best seller. What the preacher knew of Baldwin, I don’t know.

But there was a history in America, a tradition in Euro-American societies that made homosexuality more than a bad thing. Years of silence over the matter continued in the 20th century by sending homosexuals to counseling or to sanitariums. Folk who lived homosexual lives ran away to cities getting lost in urban concentration. Surely their condition was something foreign, out of the ordinary, and ‘here in our little Eden, will not be tolerated.’ Any change of public or even family perception of one’s sexuality caused folk to move away. Silence reigned.

Then the US saw the beginnings of the Civil Rights movements. With it came sensitivity training. The women’s movements, Black power movements, Gay Pride movements, and other liberation movements began to influence law making and law enforcement. They changed even the way the military went about its training and work.

Fears of these new powers fed the growth of conservative reactionary movements. Evangelical churches ended their lethargy and began focusing on influencing public life. They increasingly removed themselves from moderate and liberal denominations. For instance, many evangelicals left the United Presbyterian Church when that denomination’s Social Action committee helped fund Black woman radical Angela Davis’s defense in court. Then the same reactionaries rose up against what they saw as an attack on the modern American family. They wrote books on the way things were supposed to be. They were disturbed by their own children’s refusal to follow traditional ways. Their middle-class kids preferred to live with their spousal picks without the advantages of marriage. Someone had to pay. Very hurt, nice folk turned the accusing finger against gay males condemning them for trying to destroy the family with their gay agenda. Their vitriolic attack resulted in a split in public life.

While in college in the late 1960s I focused on reading about homosexual experience. Then I made my first adult friendship with another musician who was gay. Throughout the 70s I continued reading a rapidly expanding literature and minutely examined the nature of my own sexuality in which I was not really surprised to find a homosexual core. My self-consideration meant to create and maintain a balancing act of faith, morality, and ethics.

In 1968 the church denomination in which I worked voted to proclaim publically that gays and lesbians deserved the same civil rights as all other American citizens. I went to seminary a few years later. There I met more gays, fell in love with a man, read more about what churches were saying and doing, and costumed myself as a gay man when attending a minorities group at the seminary. I did so as a show of solidarity. Surely my actions were also a self-revelation of my own bisexuality.

As church clergy I started teaching my balancing act of faith, morality and ethics. My wife, children, and I were open and affirming of gays and lesbians. We welcomed gays and lesbians into our home. We travelled with two homosexuals to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. My studies embraced the issues. In one local congregation I led a seminar about human sexuality positing a bi-sexual norm for its consideration.

Finally I understood that I was going to live a homosexual life. My affairs with men pushed me into a much deeper understanding of myself. I was tired of church work. I didn’t know how to solve my domestic dilemma. I dropped out of church leadership and eventually of congregational life.

In my thirty-two years of ministry, I had observed a marked change in congregational attitudes toward homosexuality, particularly toward homosexual ministers. In fairness, I believe that lay attitudes didn’t so much change as they got expressed. In our denomination the discussion at times became vitriolic being attached to a larger fight for dominance between conservative and liberal factions.

I heard heated words: accusations of not being biblical, arguments arising from holiness code excerpts from Leviticus, assumptions that anyone involved in any homosexual activity must repent or go to hell, and so forth. Eventually I received messages from family members registering both their rejection of me while living in such a sinful life and prayers for my reconciliation and redemption. I had to receive them as truly hopeful but reject them as a path I might follow.

Early on in my ministry I realized I might get in trouble over homosexual issues in the church when I suggested to a man I really liked that he shouldn’t use anti-homosexual humor. I did so because he was using it among the men in the cast of a play we were producing for a Maundy Thursday service. The young man playing the Jesus role was homosexual. The man I criticized was playing Judas. There was the obligatory kiss. Perhaps my Judas was simply playing out his part or perhaps he was also secretly homosexual. I have no idea and say none of this as accusation. Both men were beautiful to me. I didn’t want the church member to be making the guest Jesus uncomfortable. I also realized that my non-public warning to the jokester might be just the kind of thing that I would pay for. Still, for the greater good of the play and of the persons involved, I suggested such humor was out of place.

I saw this kind of thing several times in my career. I tried to keep an even keel for the old ark of the church, one that didn’t alienate the more conservative but also made a place for the more liberal or, as some conservatives thought, the more sinful or worldly. I preached that the world and the world of the church was very large encompassing unimaginable diversity. I encouraged loving forbearance and acceptance of that diversity. I quietly preached such a doctrine for thirty-two years. Finally I had preached enough.

I have read and heard the anti-gay rhetoric. I have analyzed the pick-and-choose approach of scriptural proofs. I came to realize I had made different picks and choices of proofs to maintain a consistent logic in a commitment to the image of the creative and ultimately loving God. I declare myself a Christian, and although I’ve retired from the clergy and haven’t preached in a church for over fourteen years, I have one last sermon to preach. Listen.

Some folk seem to think that one cannot be Christian and gay. Well, I’m announcing from my pulpit that I am one such person, a gay Christian. There are thousands, tens of thousands others like me, who do not accept the rejecting authority of would-be representatives of the Truth. These accusers assume the role of the god in their communications of condemnation. Tens of thousands like me also reject the more subtle settlement of many churches that one can be homosexual but cannot live in that way. These judges condemn having sex with a person of the same sex even in a committed marriage, itself anathema in their view.

My pulpit announces the beauty and norm of gay marriage or any other loving, living arrangements. My pulpit announces the end of the holiness code like any self-respecting dispensationalist preacher should. My pulpit announces a new beginning of the ancient standards of love, felicity, and creativity in all human relationships. Oh well, lest this sermon go on too long, I’ll follow the advice of one preacher’s wife who told her husband when he was done, he should simply say “Amen” and sit down.

Amen.

© 2015

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot

Posted on

From My Queer Point of View, by Phillip Hoyle

From my point of view, this presentation is a story and a rant. Behind it is an assumption that in comparison with the points of view espoused by others around me, my perspectives seem to me more artistic, open, religious, educational, intellectual, personal, flexible, and independent. And in one particular way more defended. But perhaps the most distinctive aspect of my point of view comes from fifteen years of giving massages.

The Story

I had poured beer at the bar in times past, refilling plastic glass after glass of cheap beer on a beer bust, volunteering there in order to raise money to help fund an annual retreat for people living with AIDS. I was sure my mother would never approve, but I did it anyway and enjoyed the snippets of conversation, the beauty of some men I poured for, and the humor of some fellow pourers. I liked being in a gay bar with something practical to do.

But that afternoon I was at the same bar, the same Sunday beer bust, but there as a guest attending a birthday party, there with my partner and several friends. I talked with our host, the birthday honoree, and my companions. The latter and I had just moved onto the patio to enjoy the sun when I saw a man I knew from the annual retreat and went over to talk with him. That’s when I noticed another young man in the yellow tee shirt that advertised an animal shelter, the not-for-profit organization he was pouring beer to benefit. I found him attractive. When he stopped to ask if we needed more beer, I noticed his healthy looks, warm smile, hazel eyes, sturdy build, and his language—real English, clever, sparkling, and engaging. I thought what a pleasure to have this fine looking youngster in a yellow shirt pour my beer while I talked with this other fine looking blue shirted and blue eyed young man I knew from the retreat. Some afternoons seem just so fine. I recalled that when I poured for the retreat beer bust I tended to go back to the same place to pour, so I was not at all surprised to have the youngster in yellow keep returning. Was he paying special attention to me? I laughed at my thought. Then I wondered at and dismissed the perception that perhaps he was paying attention to me. How pleasant it seemed and how funny. But I knew more. I knew my desire; laughed at it; and like always, enjoyed it. Being served beer by a nice young man on a sunny Sunday afternoon is never negligible.

Finally I had to excuse myself from the retreat friend due to the insistence of my aging bladder and made my way indoors to the restroom. As I was returning to join my friends outdoors, the good looking server greeted me. He asked if I needed more beer. I turned him down, but he continued talking wanting to know what kind of work I did. When I told him, he asked, “Do you have a card? I’m looking for a massage therapist.” I handed him a card, knowing that one rarely hears from card gatherers. And of course I didn’t hear from him, but about two months later at another bar, I saw the same good looking young man who remembered me and told me he still had my card and was going to call me. I smiled warmly and encouraged him to do so. And within a week or two I received his call. We arranged the massage. I gave him the massage registering how fine it always seems when massaging young men with their fine skin, supple muscles, and in this case attractive personality. We hugged at the end of the session. Again I wondered if I was being in some way interviewed for a relationship but laughed at the idea.

“I knew he was looking for an older man,” one of my friends said of the young man later when he became the topic of conversation.

“Yeah,” another friend asserted, “he wants a sugar daddy.”

Now of course there are young men who want to find an older man to take care of them. Had this been the hope of this young man in relationship to me, he’d have been sorely disappointed. I have no money, work only part-time. I’m one of those older guys who has to sing the lyrics, “I can’t give you anything but love, Baby.”

Let me restate that: from me one can get love and a good massage. So when he called for an appointment I gave him love and a massage, the kind of love I give all my clients whether male or female, gay or straight, intellectual or developmentally challenged. And of course I noticed that he was as beautiful unclothed as clothed, intelligent, warm and probably needy although I knew little about just what he might need. I must add that I felt a strong attraction similar to when at a bus stop I met Rafael years before, an attraction to the beauty of his body and spirit, to his ability to express himself verbally, and his openness to others around him. I was somewhat stricken but not so much as to reveal all this by shaking while I rubbed him.

The next time I saw this beautiful young man, he was accompanied by an older man who was quite handsome with his silver hair and nice clothes. I suspected he was well heeled and thought how nice for the younger man whatever his needs and motivations. As I shook hands with the elder, I projected warmth and pleasure in the meeting. I told the younger how good he looked and quietly affirmed my approval of his choice of companions. A few weeks later I again saw him in the company of the older man. They both looked pleased to be together. Again I stopped to greet them.

About two months later, around the year-end holidays, the young man was at the same bar alone. I went over to talk. I discovered his partner was out of town for the holidays and heard about the youngsters’ upbringing in a rather wealthy family and his plans to visit them in the coming week. While I didn’t get many details—I’m loathe to ask for such things—I did get picture enough to realize just how hopeless the superficial judgment that any younger person who shows interest in an elder is looking for a sugar daddy.

The Rant

How demeaning and objectifying the assumption is of the accused. In gay male relationship it reveals deeply held misogyny and a cultural prejudice that what makes an American male a real man is his ability and drive to be financially successful. I’m confused that men who themselves have suffered the same verbal put downs should dis some youngster for being a gold digger, a woman (as if that’s an insult), and a flop at manning up to the responsibilities of true manhood. From my point of view the assumption does not consider the following important possibilities:

* That the younger man may simply prefer to live around older men.

* That the younger man may have resources plenty or more than plenty for his own maintenance.

* That the younger may be seeking for the nurture of an older man since he may have got little from his father.

* That the younger man could have been raped as a child and thus as a young man is looking for the nurture of an older man who could heal him with love.

* That the younger man could be acting out of a need for survival.

* That the younger man could be victim of mental or emotional illnesses.

I know about these things from listening to my clients for the past fifteen years. The list can go on and on and still hasn’t asked any questions concerning the motivations of the older man who seems to be responding to the younger. What’s the old guy up to? Is he looking for a sugar baby? And whose business it is anyway to have such opinions about another person’s life? Well, that’s at least one interesting point of view from this old man.

I don’t say any of these things to pick on my friends because even in speaking this way I am somewhat defended. Seriously so. My defenses arise from what I consider to be the essence of my life’s religious assumptions, that when I accuse I am indicting myself in the accusation. So I usually choose to keep council with myself and not project onto others my own weaknesses and pathos!


Denver, © 2013

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot

Posted on

My Favorite Queer Role Model by Pat Gourley

Chelsea Manning 

A personal role model is someone whose behavior you admire to the point where you might actually try and emulate it and hopefully use it as impetus for creating change. Chelsea Manning is that queer person for me these days.

Let me briefly re-cap her history and I’ll finish with a bit of her current activities. She enlisted in the army in October of 2007 and eventually ended up in Iraq in 2009 as an Intelligence Analyst with access to classified documents. What transpired as a result of Manning having access to copious documentation of U.S. military and private contractor actions in both Iraq and Afghanistan is succinctly stated in this quote from a piece written by Nathan Fuller in March of 2013 for the Bradley Manning Support Group:

“What would you do if you had evidence of war crimes? What would you do if ‘following orders’ meant participating in grave abuses you opposed? Would you have the courage to risk everything – even your life – to do the right thing? Most of us would keep our mouths shut. Not Pfc. Bradley Manning.” Nathan Fuller 3/2013.

Manning released a very large trove of classified government documents to WikiLeaks certainly as a matter of conscience. Once exposed and arrested she endured months of torture in solitary confinement. Her subsequent trial resulted in a 35-year sentence based in part on several counts of violating the Espionage Act of 1917. This antiquated piece of legislation is by the way being put to unprecedented use by the Obama Administration to prosecute and persecute whistleblowers.

The prison sentence was handed down in August of 2013 to one named Bradley Manning and the following day she announced that from now on she wished to be referred to as Chelsea Manning and would be further pursuing her transition and hopefully receive appropriate hormone therapy. Last week on February 13th, 2015 her hormonal therapy was approved after suing the Federal Government for the right to receive this treatment.

A criterion I have for my role models is that they cannot be silenced even in the face of great obstacles. This applies to Chelsea in the most remarkable ways. In spite of years of humiliation, months of actual torture and a monkey trial for espionage she is still resiliently standing up for her core values and beliefs. Transitioning is always a great challenge but to persevere with it in a military prison after years of physical and psychological abuse and humiliation in attempts to break your spirit and crush your soul is simply a breathtaking act of courage. I know I will never have the fortitude to be anywhere near as brave.

In any piece I might write today that addresses the brave act of transitioning I cannot forego the opportunity to address the recent comments of Pope Francis on the matter. There are a whole string of his outrageous comments on gender transition I might quote here but I think this one is the most amazing: “Let’s think of the nuclear arms, of the possibility to annihilate in a few instants a very high number of human beings…lets also think of genetic manipulation of life, or of the gender theory, that does not recognize the order of creation.” WTF! Sorry Pope Francis but your head is way up your ass on this one. Our trans brothers and sisters are not a threat to the survival of the human race but quite to the contrary a true expression of out evolutionary potential.

Let me close by updating you on Chelsea’s current job in prison. She is now writing for the Guardian. One article she authored appeared December 8th 2014 and was titled: “I am a transgender woman and the government is denying my civil rights”. I encourage you to read the whole thing: (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/08/chelsea-manning-transgender-rights ) I’ll close with just a few of her words from that article:

“A doctor, a judge or a piece of paper shouldn’t have the power to tell someone who he or she is. We should all have the absolute and inalienable right to defend ourselves, in our own terms and in our own languages, and be able to express our identity and perspectives without fear of consequences and retribution. We should all be able to live as human beings – and to be recognized as such by the societies we live in.

We shouldn’t have to keep defending our right to exist”. Chelsea Manning

Chelsea Manning, my favorite Queer role model!

If you are interested in learning more about this great queer heroine checkout the web site for her support group: http://www.chelseamanning.org

© February 2015

About the Author

I was born in La Porte, Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.