We Are A People With A History

1431- Joan of Arc is burned at the stake for heresy. Among her "crimes" were cross-dressing and inappropriate relationships with women........

I love history. All history, any time period, history of the Americas, Asian, African, European, Russian, Middle Eastern, Polynesian, you name it and I have studied something about it's peoples. But it wasn't until recently that I discovered the our community, the LGBTQ community, has a rich and diverse history of our own. It spans from the earliest civilizations that kept records of their own history to today. It encompasses every period that is human history, we were and are, leaders, artists, writers, poets, musicians, soldiers, bureaucrats, mothers, fathers, song writers, priests, ministers, sons and daughters, explorers, adventurers and we have made a mark on the history of all humankind.

Today, to honor the 40th Anniversary of The Stonewall Riots, I would like to list some sites that you may want to visit to learn more about OUR HISTORY.

From Wikipeidea: theTimeline of LGBT History

glbtq: An encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, transgender and queer culture.

The ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives houses the world's largest research library on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender heritage and concerns.

People With A History: An Online Guide to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans* History

Lesbian Herstory Archives Dedicated to Lesbian History

The Rainbow History Project Preserving our communities heritage

OutHistory.org A Wiki That you can join yourself and add your history to the history of millions of others.

Women Of The Left Bank Paris, 1900 - 1940

Doug Cooper-Spenser: The View From Here A blog about Black LGBT History

Russian Gay Culture: History, links and commentary

Gender and Sexuality: publishes texts which address gender studies and queer studies, with a particular focus upon discussions of sex, gender, sexual identity and sexuality in cultural practices.

UKBlackOut's Black History Month for the UK Black LGBT community

Gay History And Literature Essays and resources by Rictor Norton, Ph.D. Social and literary historian and writer, specializing in gay history.

About Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, (1825 - 1895) considered the father of the gay rights movement.

Queer Music Heritage "Queer Music Heritage" is both a radio show and a website, and the goal of both is to preserve and share the music of our culture.

LGBT Religious Archives NetworkA resource center and information clearinghouse
for the history of LGBT religious movements.

365gay LGBT History Video Library 365gay.com presents a video course on the people and events that make up LGBT history through this unique collection of bios, documentaries, films, interviews, and coverage of major events.

GLBT Historical Society The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Transgender Historical Society (GLBTHS) collects, preserves, and interprets the history of GLBT people and the communities that support them. We sponsor exhibits and programs on an on-going basis.

GLBT History Month (October) official site.

Brandon Santos Of the Grass Roots Equality Examiner series Today In LGBT History

Black LGBT History Series from the Bilerico Project

Gay Rights An LGBT person's guide to the contemporary history of the United States; 1981 to the present

Google Search Results on LGBT History Millions of pages to feed your history buff.

‘The African Campaign’ Re-Thinking Judgment

AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharaoh's charioteers.-- Jerry Falwell

I remember early on in the epidemic hearing many of our church leaders saying much similar things as Jerry Falwell did about AIDS and gays. I remember asking my journalism professor if they didn't have it wrong, wasn't it more about a judgment on Christians who were not helping these people? Just like those who would not help the sick man laying in the street, but the Samaritan, supposedly a heathen, did? He looked at me kind of funny, and said maybe I was on to something there.

I am sure others had the same thought, I only know I didn't think much more about the ramifications of that thought, or the ramifications of the statements like Jerry Falwell's which spread faster than the HIV virus itself, infecting minds everywhere with the belief that those infected must have some how deserved it so why should we fight it? The fruit of Jerry Falwell's statement has been that all over the world AIDS has claimed more than 25 million lives, and one in six are children. The result of not acting as a "Samaritan" in those early days, will haunt many of us the rest of our lives.

At the end of 2007, there were 2 million children living with HIV. An estimated 370,000 children became newly infected with HIV in 2007. Of the 2 million people who died of AIDS during 2007, more than one in seven were children. Every hour, around 31 children die as a result of AIDS. At the end of 2007, women accounted for 50% of all adults living with HIV worldwide, and for 59% in sub-Saharan Africa. Young people (under 25 years old) account for half of all new HIV infections worldwide. There are nearly 12 million "AIDS Orphans" around the world, children who live largely in the Sub-Sahara regions of Africa. This is the fruit of those who spread their hate. Their forever legacy to humanity.

There is a movie out called 'The African Campaign' by Jersey Number Nine Productions, that has yet to be broadcast in the United States, it puts a new spin on the idea of AIDS as a judgment from God.

Launched in early 2008 in the UK and Europe, ‘The African Campaign’ is the controversial 're-telling' of the most heinous myth surrounding AIDS’ origin. In fundamentalist circles, it is believed that AIDS is a God-caused plague, the result of God’s displeasure with the LGBT lifestyle. Rather than deny this falsehood, the makers of ‘The African Campaign’ choose to change the myth, like Shelley reinterpreted Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’. In ‘The African Campaign’, heroes are those who suffer God’s viral wrath, challenge His hypocrisy, and free themselves to find love elsewhere.

Four friends from the 16th century, who discovered a ritual that empowered them to defy God and his Angel of Death, are forced into an untimely reunion in present-day London when one of them contracts AIDS: God's viral revenge. 'The African Campaign' is the story of their battle. -- Synopsis from Jersey Number Nine website.

You can catch the trailer on YouTube, or see it below, and then contact the LOGO channel or here!TV to ask them to broadcast it if you would like to see more.

Living with rejection and fear causes high rate of depression in LGBT youth

But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Matthew 18:6

The fruits of the Anti-Gay Industry continued:

First-of-its-kind survey in North Texas indicates family rejection, religious issues lead to higher rate of depression, thoughts of suicide from the Dallas Voice, June 2009

Youth First Texas recently released the results of a first-ever comprehensive survey of LGBT youth in the Dallas metropolitan area, and it suggests there may be a widespread mental health crisis among that population. YFT officials said the study was born out of a need to determine if the nonprofit organization was meeting the needs of the youth it has pledged to serve.

Judith Dumont, director of administration at YFT, led the youth study. She said, “Any youth service provider that authentically understands their population should have a comprehensive study [of their own youth].” She said there are national studies available, but this one is the only one available “in Dallas, in Texas and even the Southwest.”

The raw data for the study was collected from 100 LGBT and questioning youth and allies, ages 14 to 22, from October through December 2008. The subsequent statistical processing was performed by Jason Mintor, a doctoral candidate at Southern Methodist University.

In terms of sexuality, the survey showed that 46 percent of YFT youth identify as gay, 31 percent as bisexual, 13 percent as lesbian, 9 percent as straight and 4 percent as questioning.

Perhaps the most revealing statistic released was that 55 percent of YFT youth had attempted suicide in their lifetime, and more than 50 percent have considered it in the last year. One out of three had made plans to kill themselves in the last year as well. Dumont, who takes these numbers seriously, also said to keep in mind that there may be “discrepancies between what youth report they are doing and what their actual behavior is.”

Still, philanthropist Mitchell Gold believes LGBT youth are indeed undergoing a “silent epidemic” of depression, a major factor in suicide. His recent book “Crisis” purports to expose “a tragic mental health crisis” affecting “hundreds of thousands of gay teenagers today.”

LGBT youth do report living in a state of continuous fear. And that, Dumont said, can lead to debilitating depression.

About 30 percent of YFT youth report depression and 22 percent report feelings of anxiety, which can originate at school, church or at home. About one quarter of YFT youth report being scared to go to school because of their sexual orientation, and about one fifth report having been assaulted at school for the same reason. Homophobic slurs are being heard on a daily basis by 45 percent of the youth.

Many youth have shifted their religious ties away from the churches in which they were raised, according to survey results. Dumont said, “Many youth were forced to choose between their identities and their church.”

The study shows, for example, that 70 percent of YFT youth were raised as Christians, but only 40 percent of today’s YFT youth identify as such.

Dumont, though, said she is excited that many youth are beginning to reclaim their religious identities by working with accepting churches such as the Cathedral of Hope and the Church of Transfiguration.

From the Cathedral of Hope website:

The Love of Christ

Jesus did a great deal to change many social customs and ideas. He elevated the position of women, and, ultimately, they were his best and most faithful disciples. He did this by example and by commandments that were absolutely inclusive of the rights of all people. Yet, in the name of the Christ whose love encompassed all, the Church has been the most homophobic of all institutions. This should not be surprising when we realize that the Church is still the largest institution which is primarily racially segregated.

The final, and central, message of the New Testament is that ALL persons are loved by God so much that God's Son was sent as a means of redemption from a disease by which we are all afflicted. The cure for this disease cannot be found in any set of actions. Neither homosexuality nor heterosexuality is redemptive. God's love through Christ was given to all people.

The Theological Reflection

For the Christian, sin must be understood as a disease that results FROM a broken relationship with God and that results IN a broken relationship with one another and with ourselves. Hence, Jesus' supreme command is to love God and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Christianity is not a religion with new rules and laws but rather is a new relationship with God. Those things that the legalists are fond of labeling “sins” are actually just symptoms of the much deeper disease of alienation and estrangement. Much of the energy of the Church has been spent dealing with symptoms while leaving the disease intact. Jesus did not seem overly concerned about the legal transgressions of those to whom he ministered. Rather, he was much more concerned with healing the physical, spiritual, emotional and relational brokenness of people. Perhaps if the Church would again give itself to the healing/reconciling ministry of Jesus, then some of the symptoms about which we are so concerned would begin to disappear.

That brings us to the question: Is homosexuality a symptom of brokenness? In a very few cases, perhaps. Yet, pointing fingers of blame and accusation is not Christ's way. Rather, Jesus accepted people as they were and allowed love and acceptance to work its miracle. However, most lesbians and gays have been lesbian or gay for as long as they can remember. For them, it is a much a natural characteristic as their eye color or their handedness. Kinsey Institute research (University of Indiana, 1981) has suggested that homosexuality may well be genetic or, at least, linked to some prenatal factors. (Sexual Preference, Bell &Weinberg) Certainly most competent psychologists would concur that sexual orientation is set prior to the age of five in most persons. It is, therefore, not a matter of choice, so it cannot be a moral or ethical issue.

Many Christians insist that God can change/cure the homosexual. In the book The Third Sex there are six reported cases of homosexuals whom God has “cured.” Of these six, at least four are known to have returned to their gay lifestyle. (Christianity Today, February 1981) Many lesbians and gays spend most of their lives trying, with no success, to persuade God to change them. It is like trying to get God to change your eye color. What option, then, is left to these persons? They have been told that they can't be gay and Christian. Since all efforts have failed in their struggle not to be gay or lesbian, then their only recourse, according to the Church, is that they can't be Christian. So, the Church has discounted or discarded as much as 10% of the population.

The Anti-Gay Industry Is Now Bearing The Fruits Of Their Work

Several reports this year have shown a marked increase in violence against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and especially Transgender persons. The most recient comes from The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs 2008 Hate Violence Report:

New York - Violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people increased 2% from 2007 to 2008, continuing the trend of a 24% total increase in 2007, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP)'s 2008 Hate Violence Report. Bias-related murders were at their highest rate since 1999 with 29 known anti-LGBT murders committed in 2008.

Reports of violence in Milwaukee increased 64% and Minnesota and Chicago saw increases of 48% and 42%, respectively. "We are deeply troubled about the 2008 statistics for a number of reasons including the fact that increases in victimization in the Upper Midwest far exceed the national increase of 2%.

With Minnesota's 48% increase in 2008 and continued multi-year trend of such increases, we are concern for the safety of all GLBT Minnesotans even as we continue to work for equality," said Rebecca Waggoner Kloek, Anti-Violence Program Director of NCAVP member organization OutFront Minnesota.

Violence against the LGBT community is nothing new, its official state sanctioned beginnings were in the year 342 when the Christian emperors Constantius and Constans declared same-sex marriage to be illegal. (Yes, ladies and gentlemen, at one time same sex marriage WAS LEGAL and this fact is backed up by the laws overturning it on record in Rome)

In the year 390, the Roman Christian emperors Valentinian II, Theodosius I and Arcadius declared homosexual sex itself to be illegal and those who were guilty of it were condemned to be publicly burned alive. The Christian emperor Justinian I (527-565) made homosexuals a scapegoat for problems such as "famines, earthquakes, and pestilences."

Today, most of the perpetrators of hate crimes against the LGBT community have been lead to believe they are "just doing society a favor" by committing these crimes: In 1988 a Florida judge, trying a case concerning the beating to death of a gay man asked the prosecutor, "That's a crime now, to beat up a homosexual?" The prosecutor responded, "Yes, sir. And it's also a crime to kill them." Altschiller, Donald (2005), Hate Crimes: a reference handbook, ABC-CLIO, pp. 26–28

Just where do they get these ideas? They get most of these ideas from a group of people who are very influential in fundamentalist theology today. The major players in the Anti-Gay Industry have similar roots and early indoctrination into the ideas that grew out of the anti-communist, anti-semitic feelings fueled during the early cold war.

Their actions are influenced by many of the same people, they speak at each others functions, attend the same conferences and preach to the same groups of people through TV, the radio and newsletters. Their mis-information flows out into the greater community and once heard, are often times taken for the truth. It isn't a conspiracy, while each group does have an agenda, it is simply they are out there preaching the same message.

According to a new book out byLeonard Zeskind, called Blood And Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement From the Margins to the Mainstream, during the 1960's Willis Allison Carto an avid anti-Semite and white supremacist published a newsletter, and a magazine called The Spotlight, that appealed to both anti-communists and arch-segregationists.

Among those influenced by Carto and his publications, either directly or indirectly were Jerry Falwell, Pat Buchanan, David Noebel, David Duke, Phyllis Schlafly and Pat Robertson.

"And do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead expose them." - Ephesians 5:11------

One of the first and one of the most active behind the scenes players in todays Anti-Gay industry is Summit Ministries. Summit Ministries trains leaders in the "war against multiculturalism, humanism, socialism, communism and homosexuality."

David Noebel, who's anti-civil rights career began as an evangelist with the scandal-plagued Anti-Communist Christian Crusade, also started Summit Ministries in 1962, their first target was Christian college students. Summit Ministries and the Anti-Communist Christian Crusade are both currently headquartered in Manitou Springs, Colorado. David Noebel is still associated with with the ACCC.

Now an unaccredited college of its own, boasting additional campuses in Ohio and Tennessee. Summit graduates more than 1,300 students a year — all of them steeped in both Christian "dominionism" (the idea that Biblical Law should dominate society and politics), fighting communism, thinly veiled white supremacy called anti-multiculturalism and anti-gay politics. In 1977, while still a member of the John Birch Society, Noebel was one of the first to recognize that anti-gay activism could surpass anti-communism as a winning issue for fundamentalists.

The U.S. is "rotting within," Noebel warned, and "homosexuality is only an issue when a nation is rotting morally." Noebel wrote a book called The Homosexual Revolution and gave anti-gay lectures. In 1986, he teamed up with debunked "scientist" Paul Cameron (founder of the Family Research Institute) and then-Summit instructor Wayne Lutton, currently a leader in the white-supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens, to write Special Report: AIDS. Pat Buchanan writes, on the back cover "In a healthy society," Buchanan writes, homosexuality is "contained, segregated, controlled and stigmatized."

Bolstered by Cameron's studies alleging that gay people were intentionally spreading the AIDS virus, Special Report proposes a number of means to "suppress" the outbreak, concluding that it might become necessary to "exile" all "active homosexuals" from America.

In 1991 he authored the 900-page Understanding the Times: The Religious Worldviews of our Day and the Search for Truth, a textbook interpreting current intellectual movements, from Biblical Christianity, Secular Humanism, Marxism/Leninism, the New Age Movement, Islam, and Postmodernism.It is widely used among Christian schools, churches and colleges, either in its unabridged or abridged formats.

Summit Ministries continues to preach anti-gay propaganda to the next generation of fundamentalist activists, with Mike Haley, an "ex-gay" campaigner who is Focus on the Family's "youth and gender specialist" and author of a book called Straight Answers: Exposing the Myths and Facts about Homosexuality, currently on the faculty. Summit Ministries is heartily endorsed by Focus on the Family's James Dobson, who, according to SPLC: "No one has spread the anti-gay gospel as widely, or with as much political impact, as James Dobson."

Why do Americans continue to listen to these people?

Pennsylvania Republican Is Allowing Us To Exist

State Senator John Eichelberger, who introduced a bill that would amend the Pennsylvania constitution to define marriage as being between only a woman and a man, told Philadelphia radio station WHYY today that gays are “They're [gays] not being punished. We’re allowing them to exist, and do what every American can do. We’re just not rewarding them with any special designation.”

Keystone Progress, has created a petition demanding an apology.

Below is a partial transcript from the show:

21:15
Leach: How would he [Eichelberger] want to encourage stability in gay couples?

Eichelberger: I wouldn’t. I mean they can practice whatever sexual activity they like to practice, but there’s no reason to give them special consideration. We don’t give them special consideration in Pennsylvania for any reason. Why in the world would we allow them to marry?

22:05
Leach: How would he want to encourage stability in gay couples?

Eichelberger: There is no reason to encourage that type of behavior in Pennsylvania.

24:20
Eichelberger: That comes back to the definition of family and that’s where we differ. We can call all kinds of things families. I mean, we can say a 3 party marriage is a family, or 7 or 8 people or marrying younger and younger children these days .

25:00
Host: Are you saying that by their very nature homosexual relationships are dysfunctional?

Eichelberger: [Pause] Ummmm. I guess I would say that. I would say that.

38:50
Eichelberger: This changes the definition of marriage, allowing same-sex, and then like I said, 5-10 years from now it’ll be polygamy, marrying younger people, it’ll be whatever…It won’t be a 6 year old, it’ll be a 15 year old, then it’ll be a 14 year old, then it’ll be a 13 year old.

49:40
Leach: Should our only policy towards [same-sex] couples be one of punishment, to somehow prove that they’ve done something wrong?

Eichelberger: They’re not being punished. We’re allowing them to exist, and do what every American can do. We’re just not rewarding them with any special designation.

It is worth hearing the entire broadcast as State Senator Daylin Leach, a Democrat representing Montgomery County, who has introduced a bill to amend the Pennsylvania ban on same-sex marriage to offer “full and equal marriage rights” to same-sex couples, voices wonderful truths.

They don't tell you, but they say it to each other........

Cut and pasted from a thread on Mormon Apologetics.org:

Mormon Apologetics & Discussion Board > Welcome & Come On In! > LDS Dialogue & Discussion

Corky Wallace View Member Profile

Jun 6 2009, 06:38 PM Post #1

Seasoned Member: Separates Light & Dark Group: Members Posts: 562 Joined: 12-February 05 Member No.: 1403

One thing I've appreciated about growing older is my imagination is no longer held captive all day by a beautiful woman who smiles & says hello. Much easier to get back to work, be productive, without having "flash backs" of what might potentially be. The old diminishing sex drive has its benefits! LOL More seriously, is chemical castration an option for LDS gays? I mean, if you're faithful LDS & accept that for whatever reason the Lord has put you on Earth as a "eunuch" (best case, if you can stay strong), why should you have to struggle with incessant thoughts that are not just inappropriate now, but will be inappropriate in the next life, too, only serve to pervert any desires to have children in a celestial relationship in the next life. There is zero point to having homosexual thoughts, it's not as though they're a normal part of the procreation process - they're just an annoying, perverted form of biology, entirely worthless. Does the handbook have information on this?

BoMan View Member Profile

Jun 7 2009, 12:13 AM Post #19

Newbie: Without form, and void Group: Members Posts: 70 Joined: 6-May 09 From: Las Vegas, NV Member No.: 15464

QUOTE(annewandering @ Jun 6 2009, 09:11 PM) How about solving all our problems with a few drugs? I am wondering if we were to voluntarily do this would it mean we would have to learn control after we die or would taking the drugs voluntarily be counted as controlling our physical body? Something like this is really getting into pretty dangerous territory, both spiritually and physically. Willingly subverting freewill just seems wrong on the surface but we take medicine for depression and other psychological conditions fairly freely. If we decide the one is bad does it condemn the rest? I am a psychiatric social worker. I have considered this dilema for years, but don't think much of it these days. "What is, is; what ain't ain't." Persons with sever mental illness do take medications, necessarily so! They take them with informed consent, voluntarily, and with increasingly greater success. If there are medications, which there are, that can help an alcoholic check his/her drinking should we suggest that the alcoholic not take the medications based upon the idea that it robs him of moral agency? What about the diabetic? I have seen diabetics, craving sugar, eat themselves into various stages of neuropathy. Medication can help stave off those cravings. Can we possibly suggest that because it would rob them of moral agency a diabetic should not take medications? In my view it would be immoral for those responsible not to do everything possible to get the person so sticken to take the medications that will provide the help they desperately need. If there is a chemical solution to help a chronic adulterer or a gay man acheive sexual sobriety, and worthy entrance to the temple, I AM ALL FOR IT. I don't remember questions on the temple recommend interview asking the kind of medications I take or why I have to take them. Do you?

At least one member is calling it for what it is!!

The Nehor View Member Profile	Jun 7 2009, 12:51 AM Post #21
Death, Destroyer of Worlds Group: Members Posts: 4628 Joined: 26-November 03 Member No.: 19	I think this thread is akin to the thread from a while back asking if we should kill babies to help them reach Celestial glory. Stupid and inflammatory. If NCMO had succeeded this thread would have been closed and all participants chemically castrated.

PBS To Air Beyond Hatred June 30, 2009, 10 pm

Tuesday, June 30 at 10:00 PM (90 minutes)

In September 2002, three skinheads were roaming a park in Rheims, France, looking to "do an Arab," when they settled for a gay man instead. Twenty-nine-year-old François Chenu fought back fiercely, but he was beaten unconscious and thrown into a river, where he drowned. The acclaimed French vérité film Beyond Hatred is the story of the crime's aftermath; above all, of the Chenu family's brave and heartrending struggle to seek justice while trying to make sense of such pointless violence and unbearable loss. With remarkable dignity, they fight to transcend hatred and the inevitable desire for revenge.

You may preview the film by clicking POV - Beyond Hatred

From Variety's review by Leslie Felperin:

"Point of the film is not to explore the homophobic attack itself, but its aftermath. Core arc concerns Chenu family's feelings as they evolve from anger and despair toward an almost saintly recognition of how the killers' own deprived backgrounds led them to this horrible act. The father of one of the killers, an alcoholic who tried to destroy evidence, and another attacker's aunt, are also interviewed and treated with the same even-handed sympathy by the filmmakers.

Viewers expecting daytime-TV style histrionics from such emotive material will be struck by the quiet, contained dignity of Chenu's family, none of whom ever raises his or her voice."

Meet Rhythm Turner : Hate Crime Survivor

Rhythm Turner, 25, singer and guitarist in local band, Rhythm and The Method believes she was the victim of a hate crime when Vincen Matthew Williams, 21, assaulted her, after she hugged her girlfriend, outside Canes Bar & Grill in Mission Beach on Thursday, May 14, 2009.

“I was assaulted because of my sexual orientation, because I choose to want to give my girlfriend a hug,” Turner said.

The men who assaulted her became angry when the men wanted them to kiss in front of them, the women refused...... from the Gay And Lesbian Times



“Because we are lesbians, are we automatically victims of any male who wants to see us perform sexually in front of him, and is it OK for that male to then attack us when he doesn’t get what he wants?”

Homosexual parents: all in the family.

There are over 10 million children being raised today in the United States by Gays, Lesbians, Bi-Sexuals and Transgender persons. The Anti Gay Industry have made various claims that such parents try to influence their children's sexuality. As far back as 1995, studies have shown that this is just not the case:

From the Science News January, 1995

An increasing number of homosexual men and women in the United States raise children, whether as a result of artificial insemination, adoption, or winning custody of youngsters conceived during previous heterosexual relationships. Considerable social and legal controversy surrounds this, trend, much of it focused on whether homosexual parents can raise well-adjusted children.

Three new studies, published in the January Developmental Psychology, suggest that neither the absence of a father nor the presence of homosexual parents interferes with a child's emotional development. Moreover, a large majority of the sons of men who now classify themselves as homosexual are themselves heterosexual, contrary to popular notions that homosexual parents groom their offspring for a corresponding sexual orientation.

The latter finding comes from a study of 55 homosexual or bisexual men who reported the sexual orientation of their 82 sons age 17 or older. J. Michael Bailey, a psychologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and his coworkers recruited the fathers through ads in homosexual publications and also contacted 43 of their sons. The sons' self-ratings of sexual orientation nearly always agreed with their fathers' ratings of them, so Bailey's group included in its analysis all of the fathers' ratings (except for those of seven men who were uncertain of their sons' sexual orientation).

Of the 75 sons included in the analysis, 7 (9 percent) were homosexual or bisexual. This proportion exceeds the 2 percent to 5 percent rate of homosexuality thought to occur in Western societies, but it falls far below levels of homosexuality found in male identical and fraternal twins (SN: 1/4/92, p.6). An inherited influence on sexual orientation may slightly boost the incidence of homosexuality in sons of homosexuals, the researchers propose.

Homosexual sons had not lived longer with their fathers than had heterosexual sons. Thus, imitation of homosexual fathers or parental encouragement to try homosexuality apparently played no role in sons' sexual orientation, the scientists hold.

The second study, directed by psychologist David K. Flaks of St. Francis Medical Center in Trenton, N.J., found healthy and largely equivalent emotional and behavioral adjustment in 3- to 9-year-old children of 15 lesbian couples and 15 heterosexual couples. Both groups of parents reported largely satisfying relationships and substantial knowledge of effective parenting skills. Lesbian couples were located through a lesbian-mother support group and, like the heterosexual couples, consisted mainly of two wage earners.

The third investigation involves 26 lesbian couples with 4- to 9-year-old children conceived through artificial insemination. Psychologist Charlotte J. Patterson of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville reports that the women display a high degree of satisfaction with their relationships, based greatly on an equal division of household tasks and responsibility for family decisions. Still, the biological mothers spent more time at home and fewer hours at paid employment than their partners.

Patterson also notes that children of these lesbian couples show good psychological health, compared to same-age children in 11 heterosexual couples with similar backgrounds and incomes.

"Studies to date show few differences among children of lesbian, gay, and heterosexual couples," writes Diana Baumrind, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, in an accompanying comment. However, the data remain limited, since investigations focus on small numbers of couples who have not been selected at random and who have not been interviewed extensively or observed interacting with their children, Baumrind cautions.

Overcoming the Lies Within Ourselves

In the United States, many of us are brought up to believe that Homosexuality is a sin, it's wrong, it's a perversion and so on. We have been taught this by our churches, our family and friends, the media, and especially the legal system. Until 1970, every state in the U.S. except for Illinois criminalized homosexual sex between consenting adults in a private home.

An adult convicted of the crime of having sex with another consenting adult in the privacy of his or her home could get anywhere from a light fine to five, ten, or twenty years—or even life—in prison. In 1971 twenty states had 'sex psychopath' laws that permitted the detaining of homosexuals for that reason alone. In Pennsylvania and California sex offenders could be locked in a mental institution for life, and in seven states they could be castrated.

Castration, emetics, hypnosis, electroshock therapy and lobotomies were used by psychiatrists to attempt to "cure" homosexuals of their desires throughout the 1950s and 1960s. While we may not have been fully aware of these laws as children, the homophobic feelings they fostered would have been very noticeable to us. Not all of these "therapies" have gone away either. The Ex-Gay or Reparative Therapy advocates still use hypnosis and have even added aversion therapy among others.

Things didn't begin to change until 1969 an event happened that we now just call "Stonewall." The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969 at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. They are frequently cited as the first instance in American history when gays and lesbians fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted homosexuals, and they have become the defining event that marked the start of the modern gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.

Slowly, individual states began to repeal these laws, by 1989 "only" 26 states had "anti-sodomy" laws. It wasn't until 2003 that the US Supreme Court found the remaining laws unconstitutional. Incredibly, 15 states still had these laws on their books. 2003......yes, just 6 years ago.

Until we come into contact with accurate information and meet other lesbians and gays to challenge these negative beliefs, we often believe the bad things we have been told. This is called "Internalized Homophobia." It usually means that we basically hate ourselves. The self hate manifests itself in that we have low self-esteem and try to hide or suppress our sexuality. Some of us are outwardly homophobic. We may not even be aware that this is going on within us, and it may manifest itself in different ways.

Since we have been actively bombarded with anti gay rhetoric we need to actively combat these feelings they produce in us. There are many things you can do to change your own self image:

Read materials to help you get rid of your internalized homophobia - to challenge all the negative beliefs. Amazon has quite a few. Download and read "The Blue Book" a manual written as a gift to the congregation of The Presbyterian Church, Mt. Kisco, New York, in recognition of the love and support that their church members have given to individuals and families whose lives have been touched by the issue of homosexuality.

The process can be even more difficult for those of us who have developed harmful ways of coping with the suppression of their true sexual orientation. I am talking about using drugs and alcohol to help cope. It is important to understand that this strategy will seriously hinder not only your developing positive lesbian identities, but your positive self image as humans. Understand that the more accepting you are of yourself, the more your own self esteem rises, and the reasons for continuing to use drugs and alcohol decrease. But we cannot always stop using them on our own, if you can honestly say you have a problem, I suggest you start by visiting the Pride Institute to get the help you need.

Finding other LGBT folks to just be friends with is another very important part of learning to accept yourself. You can meet people at an affirming church, at support groups, even queer bars and online.

Remember to be the healthy, complete human being that you were created to be, you'll need to do quite a bit of work emotionally in order to undo all the negative stuff you've internalized. The longer you've suppressed your true sexual orientation the more time it will take. If you're ready to take that step, good luck but remember it is ALWAYS worth it! And SO ARE YOU!!!

Partially cross posted from Truth And Love After 40

Thank You All!

"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has the data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit fact." - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Blogging For Truth Week officially ended yesterday. But the search for truth is a never ending one, so don't be surprised to see a new post now and then until next year!

I want to personally thank each and every one of the following bloggers for participating and for continuing to blog about what is true and what is love. Their blogs are always worth reading:

The Bi Avenger from Cowtown Bisexual

All the United Queers at Queers United

Jay from Jay Says

Jendi Reiter from Reiter's Block

Bridgeout from Burning or building bridges in the community?

Kittredge Cherry from Jesus In Love

Goombah from Goombahs Rainbow

Truthspew from Spewing Truth in the face of Lies

The Surprised Dyke from Ramblings of the Surprise Dyke

WeLoveTea from Love With The Hands Wide Open

Ceara from The Lesbian Said What?

MJ, Kim and Jude from It Is Always Today.

Furtive Life from The Furtive Life

BioGal from Panoptifier: Making all things visible...

Miss Katherine from Katherine's Activism A student who created a blog, solely so she could participate!

LLnL from Love,Lust and Life

Truth and Love After 40 and those two delicious ladies who write it.


And I want to thank the following sites for promoting Blogging For Truth to their readers:

PopMaxNow

The Blue Door

SheSquared
Selected highlights from some of the posts:

People who hate cannot accept those who love, but people who love CAN accept those who hate. That is our true power. Love is stronger than hate. -- Kittredge Cherry

All of us "Bloggers for Truth" have stories we can tell about our own partnerships or those of our parents, teachers, pastors and friends--all GLBT people whose lives have been touched by the Spirit. But we also have to make the Scriptural case that stories are truths, on a par with or superior to the truths of abstract reasoning, at least when it comes to practical ethics. Time and time again I hear anti-gay Christians argue that we are biased by our personal desires (either lust or pride) while they are merely following "what the Bible says". Their epistemology doesn't allow for scrutiny of the human element in interpretation, nor of their own emotional biases, because they need the Bible to remain magically exempt from the human condition of partiality and uncertainty. -- Jendi Reiter on Reiter's Block

What goes through the mind of someone who is gay? If you listen to the Christian right, somewhere there is a magical place where people wait in line for hours to sign up to be gay. Because it’s a choice, right? “Hmm. I’ll choose the life where I will face discrimination, fear, loneliness, rejection, lack of rights and possibly risk my life. Yea, that one sounds better.....”

"......If you are straight and reading this, contemplate for one minute how it would feel to have these feelings every day. Every minute. Could you endure this? The shame, the fear, the loneliness? This is what homophobia and anti-gay speech is doing to real human beings. They are daughters, sons, brothers and sisters. They are your neighbors. Are you the kind of person who wants to make people feel this way?" -- Jude on Jaysays

I regret none of my relationships with men, but if I'd understood the role of attraction in sexuality I might have rejected the idea that all girls were meant to respond to the advances of boys. I didn't understand that attraction was not supposed to be something separate from my relationships with men, so it took me too long to understand my cultivated sexual relationships with men weren't normal as I'd always assumed, and what I was meant to feel with a man was what I felt with women. -- Furtive Life

I am a Christian who not only accepts but values the gay community (LGBTQ or whatever other letter you want to use to describe it). I don’t feel threatened by that community (which is actually OUR community, not some separate community, as that phrase might suggest). I don’t feel that by accepting that community’s right to exist, I am somehow degrading my own (straight) sexuality. That community includes friends and family who mean the world to me, who are beautiful people, who deserve a medal for the courage it takes for them to stick up for themselves in ways large and small on a day-to-day basis. -- WeLoveTea

You can call me naive, whatever. I don't care. Hate and anger just breed more hate and anger. I'd rather take the high road and while I might not change that particular person, maybe it will influence someone who is observing that maybe, just maybe, we are good people-just like them. -- The Surprised Dyke