Blue Truck, Red State: The Night the Wall Fell Down, and Other Stories

Thursday, March 16, 2023

The Night the Wall Fell Down, and Other Stories

Real magazine article, 1953, from ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, USC.

A mix of memories of life before Stonewall.

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2 comments:

Davis said...: These are great. Some of them mirror my own coming out as a young man. I thank God for the mentors who guided me.; March 18, 2023 at 9:45 AM
Russ Manley said...: I do too: my college career was delayed but when I finally got to a big university, there was a gay rap group sponsored by the campus mental health clinic; and also one-on-one counseling. So that made it a safe, easy way to come out.

Otherwise, I might still be in the closet today - the thought of going into a gay bar was terrifying. Hell, I didn't even know there was a gay bar in that town! So I came out just in time to see the end of disco, and before the plague struck. A lucky break, that.

Of course, I soon learned that coming out was not the end of all problems, just the beginning of a new road; but even with all its bumps and jolts, it was better than living without hope of love.; March 18, 2023 at 11:18 AM

Prayer for Peace

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, harmony; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that I may seek not so much to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

Churches say that the expression of love in a heterosexual monogamous relationship includes the physical, the touching, embracing, kissing, the genital act - the totality of our love makes each of us grow to become increasingly godlike and compassionate. If this is so for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual?

It is a perversion if you say to me that a person chooses to be homosexual. You must be crazy to choose a way of life that exposes you to a kind of hatred. It's like saying you choose to be black in a race-infected society.

If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God.

--Archbishop Desmond Tutu