Michael:

I take it that you're gay, based on your comment. Great! When I was organizing immigration conferences, I organized two at which openly gay Barney Frank was a featured speaker. He has a great relationship with Black people in his district.

Unfortunately, I know what you mean about homophobia being all to rampant among all communities, including Blacks. An assistant pastor at my church once gave an anti-gay lecture during a college fellowship meeting. Then, he said, "I'm sure there are no gays in this group!"

I asked him how he could know with such certainty. In fact, a member of the group had just come out to me a week before. So, I told the minister that there were gays at our church and these kinds of comments would make it difficult for them to receive any of the mininstrations that the Church ought to be offering them.

I also spoke to the chief minister about this after he mentioned "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" in a sermon. That sort of stuff has to stop and we have to face the fact that many of our brothers and sisters (and some of us) are, in fact, gay.

Will segregation from progressives speed or slow the day when gays are accepted openly in the Black community? Many Black gays tell me that white gays think of Black gays as a world apart, not even belonging to the same group as white gays.

I can tell you that one of my favorite athors is E. Lynn Harris, who writes about the Black gay experience and the "down low". I have read all of his books and they are excellent. He's spot on about a lot of things and is an excellent writer. If you haven't read his stuff, you might want to have a look. Once I pick up an E. Lynn Harris novel, I can't put it down until I've read it through and through. http://amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/102-2799617-5261716?url=search-alias%3D...

"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."

www.francislholland.blogspot.com
francislholland@yahoo.com