The following message was sent to Rev. Dr. Cindi Love, our executive director, after her talk with Joe Dallas at the National Religious Broadcasters’ Convention. We post it here with the author’s permission.

dear cindi

everything you said about love was just as it was written in scripture. dallas represents a group of believers who think we we still have a relationship to god through regulation as in deut 28. under the new covenant our relationship to god is directly to god, to the spirit that lives in each believer. it is his spirit in us that says not only what the law is, but also what it says. if dallas was as concerned with scripture as he said he was, he would know that according to romans, believers are led by the spirit of god. and that the law is now to make us believers “conscious” of not GODLOVING(love one another as i have loved you) as directed by the 2nd commandment (love neighbor), the love of the 2nd commandment not only being the summation of all new covenant law, but also the standard of the new covenant as well,…………….. and not the interpretation law as dallas attempts to make the case.

(more…)

St. Paul’s Cathedral, San Diego

In October of last year, Bishop Christopher Senyonjo’s picture appeared on a Ugandan Tabloid called “Rolling Stone”. The tabloid printed names and addresses of leadingLGBT people and their allies. It called for the police to arrest them or the mob to take the existing anti-gay laws into their own hands and to “Hang them”. The second picture on the front cover was of David Kato who workedfor Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), part of the Civil Coalition that is allied with Bishop Christopher’s St. Paul’sReconciliation and Equality Centre in Kampala. All 34organizations opposed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill and David Kato worked tirelessly for its defeat. David wase ducated in Human Rights and International Law at York University in the United Kingdom and since 2004, has been one of the leading voices for Human Rights in Uganda until his life was taken from him last week.

(more…)

Dear beloved family,

After spending the better part of my adult life as an advocate, activist, and minister to those living with and affected by HIV/AIDS, today, World AIDS Day remains such an important part of who and what I am. I woke up with a start at 6AM this morning to realize that for the first time in more than 6 years, I am not scheduled to speak, preach, or teach today. There is some healing peace in that and also some grief. AIDS transformed me from a small town fundamentalist 13 year old boy into a prematurely developed activist, shouting down the barriers of power which keep people needlessly oppressed, isolated, and in fear that if anyone discovers their HIV+ status they would lose all.

I was so blessed to have a mother who could accept that I needed a path that was different than the one proscribed by societal norms and when I finally left home just shy of my 16th birthday, I knew that if I wanted to earn my place in this world, I would have to work very, very hard and learn to defend myself against those who told me that I was an abomination and wanted violence to take my life.

(more…)

by William S. Meyer, MSW -Duke University

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Critical in Hamlet’s day, no less critical today.  Such are the guidelines for anyone who wishes to live a life that is honest, a life that is whole, a life that feels real.

This, it seemed to me, was the message from those who presented and those who attended this past weekend , November 5^th and 6^th, at the 2010 meeting of Soulforce in Philadelphia.

This was my first such meeting, where I presented “On the Diagnosis and Treatment of Homosexuality: When Prejudice Masquerades as Science.” I have made this multi-media presentation many times to departments of psychiatry and mental health professionals, including the Department of Psychiatry, US Army in Honolulu.

In this presentation, l tell the story of the controversy within psychiatry – particularly from the 1950’s through the 1970’s –  and why it was necessary for the scientific community to team  up with gay activists to prevail upon those in power to delete the diagnosis of homosexuality from the DSM, the book of diagnoses used by almost all mental health professionals in the U.S.

(more…)

Sometimes there are nights where I wake drenched in sweat, heart pounding, horrified by the dreams that had seconds before been playing out in my mind.  These are the nights where I relive my days in high school.  These are the nights where I relive the shame, and the embarrassment, I felt over not speaking out—over not standing up for another when they most desperately needed it.

Too many times to count I witnessed those who were brave enough to have come out in high school, or those who simply didn’t seem to fit the mold of their heteronormative gender expectations, be mocked, bullied, and outcast.  Oh how badly I wanted to speak up! And oh the shame I felt for staying silent out of cowardice and fear of my big gay secret being found out. I stayed silent.  I didn’t stand up to the bullies.

I am silent no longer.

(more…)