This book explains how faith, politics, and fear contribute to the homophobic mindset within the Black Church and the African American community. Homophobia in the Black Church: How Faith, Politics, and Fear Divide the Black Community explores the various reasons for the Black Church's aversion-and the general black cultural inflexibility-toward homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and acceptance of the LGBT community. It connects black cultural resistance toward homosexuality to politics, faith, and fear; follows the trail of faith-based funding to the pulpit of black mega-churches; and spotlights how members of the black clergy have sacrificed black LGBTQ Christians for personal and political advancement. The author systematically builds his case, linking the reasons blacks are intolerant of deviation from acceptable sexual behavior to the 1960s struggle for racial equality, and tying longstanding black sexual mores to present day politics, social conservatism, and the lure of federal funding to black churches and religious and social organizations. He also spotlights specific homophobic black ministers and draws back the curtain on their alliance with White social conservatives and religious and political extremists to reveal an improbable but powerful union. Draws connections between the fanatical homophobia in contemporary black culture to sexual mores developed as a response to the racial discrimination carried out against blacks since the founding of the nation Explains how the creation of the Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnership and funds funneled to black churches have encouraged some of the nation's most powerful black religious leaders to dispense hateful rhetoric and malice towards black homosexuals Reveals how faith-based funding and the Black Church apply strong pressure on black LGBTs to keep their sexual identity a secret

This is a book written about five gay men. The story is about their friendship as well as the beginning of each of their respective relationships with their partner.

The book offers perspectives on the rights of sexual minorities in the Global South. In several countries, consensual sexual activity in private amongst persons of the same gender is still criminalized. The argument is that same-sexual relationships are 'uncultural' or 'unnatural'. In countries where anti-gay laws persist, the rights of LGBT persons are not considered human rights. The book seeks to examine the cultural and religious issues that influence anti-gay laws in juxtaposition with the need to protect the human rights of sexual minorities in the 21st century. The book adopts the following disciplinary prisms - legal, sociological, political, religious, and anthropological. There is a growing appetite for research in this area in order to advance the need for the decriminalization of same-sex sexual activity amongst consenting adults in private. The book examines the core issues from an interdisciplinary perspective. It serves as a resource for scholars in diverse fields who research this area such as lawyers, policymakers, and academics in the fields of religion, philosophy, law, anthropology, sociology, and criminology.

Pretended is a vivid historical, political and cultural account of schools and teaching under Section 28, a law that banned schools in the UK from promoting homosexuality as a 'pretended family relationship'. Catherine Lee was a teacher in schools for each of the 15 years that Section 28 was law (between 1988 and 2003). In Pretended, she considers the landscape for lesbian and gay teachers leading up to, during and after Section 28. Drawing on her diary entries from the Section 28 era, Lee poignantly recalls the challenges and incidents affecting her and thousands of other teachers during this period of state-sanctioned homophobia. She reveals how these diaries led to her involvement in the 2022 feature film Blue Jean, and describes how this unexpected opportunity helped her to make peace with Section 28. Pretended will resonate with every lesbian and gay teacher who experienced Section 28 and will shock those who previously knew nothing about this law. Crucially, Pretended will explain to those who were lesbian and gay students during Section 28 why they never saw people like them in the curriculum, never had a role model and never had an adult in school to talk to about their identity.

In this provocative new work, R. Claire Snyder argues that the fundamental principles of American democracy not only allow but require the legalization of same-sex marriage. In addition to explaining the theoretical issues at stake, the book provides a short history of marriage, disentangling its interpersonal, communal, religious and civil components. In clear and concise language, Snyder examines and systematically addresses numerous critiques of same-sex marriage, including religious conservatism, traditionalism, the organized movement of the Christian Right, communitarianism, and academic "queer theory." By exploring the arguments swirling around this controversial topic from the perspective of democratic theory, Gay Marriage and Democracy shows that all citizens must be treated equally for democracy to truly succeed.

A fascinating read for anyone seeking to understand the conflict between Christianity and LGBTQI individuals, this book is, as its editors proclaim, "a fearlessly wide vision of queer Christians finding a place within Christianity-and claiming their authentic experience and voice." Through essays by noted lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, and intersex (LGBTQI) religion scholars, this important compilation summarizes the history and current status of LGBTQI theology, exploring its relationship to the policies, practices, and theology of traditional Christianity. Contributors contrast the "radically inclusive" thinking of LGBTQI theology with the "exclusivity" practiced by many Christian churches, explaining the reasoning of each and clarifying contentious issues. At the same time, the book highlights ways in which "queer" theology and practice benefit Christian congregations. Writing from the perspective of grassroots Christian LGBTQI movements, many of the contributors draw upon their own experiences. They provide graphic examples of the effects exclusion has on individuals, congregations, and denominations, and also share examples of inclusion and its effects. Equally important, the work creates the basis for dialogue between traditional churches and followers of LGBTQI theology, offering practical suggestions for Christian congregations that wish to put aside exclusionary policies and practices.

In a West Hollywood nightclub, Jesse Bombora is sure that the death of his friend and colleague, was no accident. Now he's seeking the help of his best friend, Eric De la Cruz to unmask the killer and prevent another murder. Avid surfer and thrill seeker, Eric is guided by his inquisitive temperament to the seedy underbely of the West Hollywood club scene. When a second brutal murder occurs, he finds himself entwined in a gritty world of hardcore drugs, sex, blackmail and murder. While the body count continues to rise, Eric must expose the truth before they become the next victims on the Venetian's list.

Outlines theoretical and methodological problems in documenting lesbigay history generally (and specifically, the history of lesbigay professionals, particularly those in the feminized professions like librarianship). This book will appeal especially to historians of traditionally underrepresented populations (women, Native Americans, African Americans, lesbigays). In particular, chapters on methodological problems in lesbigay research, separatism, and biases created by gender bias will pull together for the first time integrated feminist/radical perspectives on library history. The authors call for more responsible treatment of such subjects as the outing of historical figures, and conversely, a more open approach to research on gender outlaws in the workplace. Heralds a new era in historical research in which the collective subjective of a particular group of hidden minority voices is given front stage. Leading scholars from a variety of disciplines examine the theoretical and methodological problems of lesbigay history and apply them to librarianship, one of the despised feminine professions. Founders and early leaders of the Task Force for Gay Liberation of the American Library Association, the oldest professionally endorsed gay task force in the world, reflect on their early struggles to gain recognition, and describe how sexism, homophobia, and discrimination have taken a toll in their personal and professional lives. These stories challenge the notion that libraries have unequivocally defended the intellectual freedom and integrity of all their citizens, and provide a poignant counterpoint to the culture wars and political correctness debates within the lesbigay community. Because of societal taboos, until recently, lesbigay history has been invisible to the majority of its participants. Directors and workers in some of the world's leading gay and lesbian archives also share their experiences in collecting and making acccessible ephemera and other partial historical remains to restore a heritage and identity to lesbigay citizens.

"Scott Harms Rose takes up questions about intimacy among gay men, which even in these post-postmodern times is not a well-traveled subject ... The exploration of the subjects' sense of masculinity, and of their relationships with their fathers and with romantic partners in adulthood, sheds light on the interplay of identity and relationship as it plays out for gay men in a heterosexist environment ... As truly good clinical and theoretical work usually does, it also calls to mind the various experiences of gender and intimate relations across the spectrums of orientation, desire, identification, and biological sex." - Dr. Paul E. Lynch, Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School and Boston University School of Medicine
"Scott Harms Rose has given us a deeply moving account of the ways in which inner experience and outer realities shape the emergence of self and the course of relational life in gay men. His case studies are carefully informed by his experience as a clinician as well as a rich appreciation of the object relations tradition and empirical study in contemporary psychoanalysis. His renderings of persons and lives deepen our understanding of vulnerabilities across the course of development and enlarge our appreciation of essential concerns in the therapeutic endeavor. This work belongs to that rare category of book that promises to engage theoreticians, researchers, and psychotherapists alike." - William Borden, Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Service Administration and Lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Chicago
"If you want to gain a sense of what it is like to read this book, think of Eugene O'Neill's 'Long Days Journey Into Night' or Miller's 'Death of a Salesman'. For Rose's case studies--the core of this deeply moving study of the life of homosexual men--have a painful accuracy to them. Rose's work is ostensibly a study of homosexuality and his review of the literature is thorough and his discussion of his findings clinically illuminating. It is also a book about fathers and sons and in this respect it helps us to see some homosexualities in a universal context. A fine book." - Christopher Bollas, author of The Shadow of the Object: Psychoanalysis of the Unthought Known, Cracking Up, and Being a Character.

In Private Affairs, Phillip Brian Harper explores the social and cultural significance of the private, proposing that, far from a universal right, privacy is limited by one's racial-and sexual-minority status. Ranging across cinema, literature, sculpture, and lived encounters-from Rodin's "The Kiss "to Jenny Livingston's "Paris is Burning"-Private Affairs demonstrates how the very concept of privacy creates personal and sociopolitical hierarchies in contemporary America.

"This book makes important contributions to Women's Studies and Speech Communication and deserves our critical attention."--"Women's Studies in Communication"

Many of us have grown up with the language of civil rights, yet rarely consider how the construction of civil rights claims affects those who are trying to attain them. Diane Miller examines arguments lesbians and gay men make for civil rights, revealing the ways these arguments are both progressive--in terms of helping to win court cases seeking basic human rights--and limiting--in terms of framing representations of gay men and lesbians.

Miller incorporates case studies of lesbians in the military and in politics into her argument. She discusses in detail the experiences of Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer, who was dishonorably discharged from the National Guard after 27 years of service when she revealed that she was a lesbian, and Roberta Achtenberg, who was nominated by Clinton for the job of Assistant Director of Housing and Urban Development and became the first gay or lesbian to face the confirmation process. Drawing on these cases and their outcomes, Miller evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of privileging civil rights strategies in the struggle for gay and lesbian rights.

How do we identify the "queer auteur" and their queer imaginings? Is it possible to account for such a figure when the very terms "queer" and "auteur" invoke aesthetic surprises and disorientations, disconcerting ironies and paradoxes, and biographical deceits and ambiguities? In eighteen eloquent chapters, David A. Gerstner traces a history of ideas that spotlight an ever-shifting terrain associated with auteur theory and, in particular, queer-auteur theory. Engaging with the likes of Oscar Wilde, Walter Benjamin, James Baldwin, Jean Louis Baudry, Linda Nochlin, Jane Gallop, Cael Keegan, Luce Irigaray, and other prominent critical thinkers, Gerstner contemplates how the queer auteur in film theory might open us to the work of desire. Queer Imaginings argues for a queer-auteur in which critical theory is reenabled to reconceptualize the auteur in relation to race, gender, sexuality, and desire. Gerstner succinctly defines the contours of a history and the ongoing discussions that situate queer and auteur theories in film studies. Ultimately, Queer Imaginings is a journey in shared pleasures in which writing for and about cinema makes way for unanticipated cinematic friendships.

Glen and Tyler are young, in love, and the wealthiest human beings on the planet. But when Glen's brother calls from a jail in Paris, you guessed it, they're off to France to tangle with spies, neo-Nazis, evil world-spanning conspiracies and French gangsters. Plus they have a romantic dinner, and find long-lost treasure. Really, it's a fun-filled non-stop romp. In this third installment of the Glen & Tyler series, we meet up with our heroes a couple of years after their Scottish Troubles, a little more world-weary, a little wiser and no less sarcastic. In this third installment of the Glen & Tyler series, we meet up with our heroes a couple of years after their Scottish Troubles, a little more world-weary, a little wiser and no less sarcastic.

Terry and Jeff are writers of gay erotica. They talk of their experiences and fantasy. If you are offended by gay sex do not buy this book. It is meant for adults 18 years and older. Buy this book part of the proceed goes gay youth organization.

This book examines anti-gay voter initiatives from both the political science and communication perspectives. In recent years, anti-gay initiatives sponsored by conservative Christian groups have been placed on the ballot in several states. This development provides an opportunity to evaluate the initiative process as a way of resolving public policy questions on this divisive topic. Using examples and data from Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Maine, Missouri, Florida, California, and Washington, the authors discuss the emergence of the new religious right and why anti-gay initiatives are sponsored by conservative Christian groups. Interviews with the leaders of the groups opposing and supporting the anti-gay initiative in Idaho and a listing of the measures themselves are included.