Most but not all of them gay, these writers disagree about many things, but they share a common frustration with ideologically out-of-touch gay-activist leaders and "queer studies" theorists, and a dismay with a puerile and counterproductive "queer" image that represents neither the lives nor the goals of most gay people.
Chapter authors are internationally recognized scholars who analyze key developments of the attitudes and policies of leftist thinkers, parties, and regimes toward homosexuality in Western Europe, the Soviet Union, and the United States.
A socialist journal edited by gay men in the 1970s After the leading organizations of radical sexual politics - the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Marxist Group - imploded or dissolved, the Gay Left Collective formed a research group to make sense of the changing terrain of sexuality and politics writ large. Its goal was to formulate a rigorous Marxist analysis of sexual oppression, while linking together the struggle against homophobia with a wider array of struggles, all under the banner of socialism. This anthology combines the very best of their work, exploring masculinity and workplace organizing, counterculture and disco, the survivals of victorian morality and the onset of the HIV/AIDS crisis.
When a gay man or woman is faced with the reality that a growing and vibrant life in Jesus Christ is incompatible with their sexual attractions, what exactly does he or she do? What steps can be taken toward leaving the gay life and identity? In this accessible book Alan Chambers, president of Exodus International, explains the process and clarifies the expectations for those who are skeptical of change or frustrated by an ongoing struggle with same-sex attraction. Readers will learn how to enter into a new life in Christ set realistic and healthy expectations build authentic community learn to forgive overcome the power of sexual addiction Men and women of all ages who struggle with same-sex attraction will find Leaving Homosexuality indispensable in their own walk of faith...and an excellent resource to give to those who haven't yet heard that there is a new life of freedom beyond homosexuality available to them.
Available in paperback for the first time, his book demonstrates how the personal became political in post-war Britain, and argues that attention to gay activism can help us to fundamentally rethink the nature of post-war politics. While the Left were fighting among themselves and the reformists were struggling with the limits of law reform, gay men started organising for themselves, first individually within existing organisations and later rejecting formal political structures altogether. Culture, performance and identity took over from economics and class struggle, as gay men worked to change the world through the politics of sexuality. Throughout the post-war years, the new cult of the teenager in the 1950s, CND and the counter-culture of the 1960s, gay liberation, feminism, the Punk movement and the miners' strike of 1984 all helped to build a politics of identity. There is an assumption among many of today's politicians that young people are apathetic and disengaged. This book argues that these politicians are looking in the wrong place. People now feel that they can impact the world through the way in which they live, shop, have sex and organise their private lives. Robinson shows that gay men and their politics have been central to this change in the post-war world.
LGBT activism is often imagined as a self-contained struggle, inspired by but set apart from other social movements. Lavender and Red recounts a far different story: a history of queer radicals who understood their sexual liberation as intertwined with solidarity against imperialism, war, and racism. This politics was born in the late 1960s but survived well past Stonewall, propelling a gay and lesbian left that flourished through the end of the Cold War. The gay and lesbian left found its center in the San Francisco Bay Area, a place where sexual self-determination and revolutionary internationalism converged. Across the 1970s, its activists embraced socialist and women of color feminism and crafted queer opposition to militarism and the New Right. In the Reagan years, they challenged U.S. intervention in Central America, collaborated with their peers in Nicaragua, and mentored the first direct action against AIDS. Bringing together archival research, oral histories, and vibrant images, Emily K. Hobson rediscovers the radical queer past for a generation of activists today.
“I used to be a lesbian.” In Gay Girl, Good God, author Jackie Hill Perry shares her own story, offering practical tools that helped her in the process of finding wholeness. Jackie grew up fatherless and experienced gender confusion. She embraced masculinity and homosexuality with every fiber of her being. She knew that Christians had a lot to say about all of the above. But was she supposed to change herself? How was she supposed to stop loving women, when homosexuality felt more natural to her than heterosexuality ever could? At age nineteen, Jackie came face-to-face with what it meant to be made new. And not in a church, or through contact with Christians. God broke in and turned her heart toward Him right in her own bedroom in light of His gospel. Read in order to understand. Read in order to hope. Or read in order, like Jackie, to be made new.
The powerful, dramatic story of how a successful Hollywood set designer whose identity was deeply rooted in his homosexuality came to be suddenly and utterly transformed by the power of the gospel. When Becket Cook moved from Dallas to Los Angeles after college, he discovered a socially progressive, liberal town that embraced not only his creative side but also his homosexuality. He devoted his time to growing his career as a successful set designer and to finding "the one" man who would fill his heart. As a gay man in the entertainment industry, Cook centered his life around celebrity-filled Hollywood parties and traveled to society hot-spots around the world--until a chance encounter with a pastor at an LA coffee shop one morning changed everything. In A Change of Affection, Becket Cook shares his testimony as someone who was transformed by the power of the gospel. Cook's dramatic conversion to Christianity and subsequent seminary training inform his views on homosexuality--personally, biblically, theologically, and culturally--and in his new book he educates Christians on how to better understand this complex and controversial issue while revealing how to lovingly engage with those who disagree. A Change of Affection is a timely and indispensable resource for anyone who desires to understand more fully one of the most common and difficult stumbling blocks to faithfully following Christ today.
Allen Young has held a number of interesting careers and roles. He has worked as a reporter for the Washington Post and Liberation News Service, protested the Vietnam War, edited several gay anthologies, joined the "no nukes" movement, and started a commune. Now, from his Octagon House in the North Quabbin region of Massachusetts, he provides insights into his most memorable moments. Young's journey begins in a surprising place. He grew up on a poultry farm in New York's Borscht Belt. His childhood gave him not only a lifelong love for the great outdoors but also his first political education. His Communist parents fostered in their son a passion for standing up to the bastions of power and fighting for the oppressed. After six years at Columbia and Stanford and a sojourn to South America, Young devoted himself wholeheartedly to a variety of causes. He gave up a reporter's job at the Washington Post to join the New Left's underground press, edited pioneering gay liberation anthologies, and put down new roots in one of the most rural parts of Massachusetts. Through it all, Young constantly explored what it meant to be "left, gay, and green." His career, political pursuits, and relationships all took him in surprising new directions, but even as his identity was changing, Young never lost his true sense of self.