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Lesbian columnist in
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"The Christ you say you believe in needs to speak
to your heart and teach you that hatred is wrong,
bigotry is a sin and his love is for all people in all
situations," White told the wearying fundamen
talists as they finally retreated from the sidewalk.
The showdown was particularly meaningful
for one onlooker. James Dale was dismissed from
the Boy Scouts last year in New Jersey after the
Scouts learned that he is gay. Dale had been a
Scout from age 8 to age 20. In the next few weeks,
he will be filing suit against the Boy Scouts of
America under New Jersey’s new sexual orienta
tion anti-discrimination law. “I think I’ve given
a lot to the organization for more than half of my
life. I see a lot of good in the Boy Scouts, and I
want to change it for the better. Bigotry and
intolerance cannot be accepted,” Dale said. Ken
McPherson of the Forgotten Scouts said, follow
ing the demonstration, he would present 1,000
signatures to the four companies supporting their
decision to defund the Scouts. McPherson said it
was only the beginning.
Rachel Timoner
At long last a gay journalist has convinced the
established press that there is a receptive audience
for a column devoted exclusively to gay and
lesbian issues. Deb Price, a news editor for the
Washington, D.C., bureau of the Detroit News,
began writing her column in May and is now
transmitted by Gannett News Serv ice to 80 news
papers. Price appears in USA Today, the Des
Moines Register, the Rochester Democrat and
The San Francisco Chronicle. “I’m so excited,”
Price says. “I hope to be a bridge between the gay
and straight communities. I’d like to push the
discussion of gay issues forward. Everybody
knows a gay person-a brother, a sister, someone
who is gay. With the column. I’m saying, ‘It’s OK
to say we’re gay’.’’
The column has inspired a huge response from
readers. Though most have been positive, not
everyone is pleased. Bob Giles, editor and pub
lisher of the Detroitpaper, however, is happy with
the experiment “Deb’s column is a valuable
addition to the paper and is providing badly needed Born-again “ex-gay”
information. We knew we would get a strong
response, and my reaction to the negative letters becomes born-again gay
is that it simply demonstrates all the more why we
David Caliguiri, who earned one of The
need this column.”
Advocate's 1985 homophobia awards for offer
Jim Hunger ing discontented gays and lesbians “a way out of
the homosexual deathstyle” through the born-
again Christian tenets of his Free Indeed national
Queers take on
ministry, has reaffirmed his gay sexuality. Also
founding the Phoenix chapter of Homosexuals
the Christians
Anonymous during his eight-year digression into
Fewer than 50 staid fundamentalists caged the “ex-gay” movement, Caliguiri says he started
themselves in with barricades and police protec Free Indeed after a traumatic week in 1981. His
tion on the sidewalk in front of the Bank of male lover had ended their romance and business
America World Headquarters in San Francisco relationship, and Caliguiri went on a drinking
July 15 as at least four times as many counter- binge. He ended up going home with a man who
demonstrating queers taunted them from the steps tied him up and raped him several times. Finally
above.
freed the next day, he returned home to find his
The fundamentalists had planned to protest ex-lover with another man, and he recalls think
the decision by Bank of America, Wells Fargo ing at that time, “If this is what being gay is about,
Bank, Levi Strauss and United Way of the Bay I don’t want to be this way anymore.”
Area to quit funding the Boy Scouts of America
Caliguiri became a major organizer of anti
until that organization ends its discriminatory gay protests beginning with the 1985 gay pride
policy against gay men.
parade in Phoenix and through his Free Indeed
Instead, they were overwhelmed by whistle organization employed deceptions typical of
shrieks, boos, chants of “Shame!” and “Bigots go homophobic pseudo-Christian groups to attract
home!”, showers of paper triangles and a choral people. “We were listed under Lesbian and Gay
rendition of slightly adapted Christian hymns.
Alternative Services, so people thought we were
The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender a gay information board,” Caliguiri says. “People
activists definitely had the upper hand when it would call to find out where the local bars were,
came to crowd size, volume, originality and sense and we’d preach to them about the sins of homo
of humor. As the fundies read the Pledge of sexuality.”
Allegiance, the queers sprinkled them with pages
But Caliguiri was hardly reformed. By the
from hymn books. As the fundies sang “Glory, time he was appearing on the Sally Jesse Raphael
Glory, Hallelujah,” the arm-waving queers swayed show as a champion of the ex-gay movement, he
in choral formation, singing, “What a friend we recalls, “I’d started having sex with men again.
have in Jesus/He is not bound by bigotry/He Men would call our hot line and tell me about their
teaches love and understanding/Why do you tie latest sin: sex with their pastor, sex with their
him to the tree?”
father. I was homy all the time.” To avoid being
recognized, he resorted to anonymous encounters
The fundies were not pleased.
“I think homosexuality is immoral and the in bookstores or slept with other “reformed” ho
Boy Scouts have a right to exclude homosexuals,” mosexuals. “I didn’t realize it at first, but a lot of
said Chuck Mollhenny, an organizer of cam Homosexuals Anonymous leaders were having
paigns against San Francisco’s domestic-partner sex with one another,” Caliguiri says. “We’d go
law. “I disagree that they’re bom that way. to conferences in other cities, and we’d be paired
Everybody is bom a sinner, but they have a choice up in hotel rooms. Everybody was sleeping with
everybody else.”
to go with God.”
Hundreds of onlookers lining the streets and
Eventually Caliguiri’s duplicity began to af
tourists on stopped cable cars watched the fect his health. Suffering from chronic fatigue
syndrome and candidiasis, he was too sick to
circuslike face-off.
After one woman yelled repeatedly, “Mary attend church. “The more time I spent away from
was an unwed mother!”, a fundamentalist vented these people, the more I began to feel like myself.
his frustration over the microphone: "This is our I began to remember who I used to be,” he says.
demonstration. We called the police ahead of Turning over the Free Indeed phone lines to a
local church in late 1991, he closed the ministry’s
time, and yet we’re under siege.”
“I’m here because they’re throwing away ev doors and is now studying alternative spirituali
erything they say they believe in. They’re feeding ties (“I’m interested in belief systems that aren’t
Satan with their hate and bigotry,” explained judgmental”) and considering romance (“But not
Robert White, a minister at the Universal Life with a Christian!”).
Jim Hunger
Church and a Sister of Perpetual Indulgence. I
ju s t
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