Image via WikipediaUpdate # 2: Famous gay African Americans (precedes text on gay literature).
Stop the madness!! Lets stop treating gay people like aliens or child molesters (this is malicious and blatantly false. "Most pedophiles identify in adult relationships as hetero. Pedophilia is about developmental dysfunction/fixation, NOT an indication or result of adult sexual orientation/ identification"-- Omobolaji 'Omi' Omidele). It seems almost ridiculous to point this out, but homosexuals are human beings. Like everyone else on the planet they work, eat, sleep, fight, live, hate and love. They are imperfect just like the rest of us. If you have any doubts that they are actually homo sapiens why not try talking to one for independent verification? Come on people this is the 21st century for God's sake. There are far more important things to worry about than what consenting adults do with each other. GI
Some gay African Americans have made important contributions to Black/Afrikan struggle. Should we denigrate Countee Cullen (Harlem Renaissance), Barbara Jordon, James Baldwin, etc. because they were/are gay. Should our gratitude for their contributions to black struggle be tempered because we disagree with their sexuality? Are they unwitting tools of white deviancy? Are Alvin Ailey and Alice Walker any less brilliant because they are homosexuals? For a gallery of famous gay African Americans, click here.
Some gay people also happen to write pretty good books. Below is a list of top-five classic works of gay literature:
"Giovanni’s Room" by James Baldwin -- a man discovers his sexual identity in Paris
"Nightwood" by Djuna Barnes -- early postmodern fiction of women in Paris in love
"Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic" by Alison Bechdel -- a graphic novel memoir of her troubled gay father and her own coming out
"Rubyfruit Jungle" by Rita Mae Brown -- the 1973 tale of a young woman’s coming of age
"Naked Lunch" by William S. Burroughs -- the focus of a breakthrough obscenity trial, a landmark experimental novel
See the entire top 20 list @ 20 classic works of gay literature (Los Angeles Times)
Update 1-- 8/7/2010 I get lots of responses from my anti-gay comrades along the lines that they oppose gay sex because anal sex is unhealthy. My reply:
I don't have any data, but I am guessing that lesbians are no more likely to engage in anal sex than hetero couples. What is your opposition to lesbians? And if you oppose male homosexuals based on unhealthy anal sex, how do you intend to police hetero couples who engage in anal sex? And if you truly believe that homosexual couples are by definition unhealthy, why not do proper research on the topic to discern whether homosexual couples are generally less healthy than hetero couples? And if you want to ban certain consenting adult relationships based upon potential ill-health, why not ban couples from smoking and drinking too? Smoking and drinking are far more harmful to society than anal sex.
*Ghetto Gospels™is a new series I dreamed up. I will use it to provide a quick and dirty polemic or critique or analysis of commonly held views within the Black Radical Tradition that, in my view, are loose with the facts or rely on thin evidence. This first installment polemical. There is no analysis. I take a swipe at folks who believe that homosexuality is "evil" or that homosexuality is a disease or that its a cognate for child molestation or that its a threat to black masculinity, blah, blah, blah...GI
tags: Gay Lesbian and Bisexual, james baldwin, literature, ghetto gospels
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