[Cathyny]

Thanks everyone for your kindness here, but I am not asking for counseling about where I should go or how I should emotionally handle the situation. I am in an activity that I consider necessary and I came here to ask for activism support. I thought this was an activism organization.

Tribute to John Gish: John Gish is the leading gay rights activist in the history of the gay civil rights struggle in New Jersey. When I was a teenager, John was a teacher at my high school. He became president of the Gay Activist Alliance of New Jersey and therefore had to become public about his orientation. This was around 1972. Local papers carried stories about him frequently during my years in high school and college. When John came out and publicly announced his presidency of the alliance, the school board whisked him off to a secluded office and canceled his teaching duties. John remained in New Jersey and spent twenty years working on getting the state constitution revised to grant rights to gay citizens. He finally succeeded. John is a member of the Episcopal church and currently lives in Florida. New Jersey is today one of the best places to be gay--residents have told me that. It has some of the most proactively gay affirming Episcopal parishes in the country and was one of the first states to provide gay civil union. John didn't leave New Jersey until his work was done. His home was firebombed twice, and he still didn't leave. He was a model to me and I owe my sanity in my young adult years as an out lesbian to his public courage.

Cathy in NY