Peterson Toscano's A Musing

I'm sitting on my front porch at my house. It's suddenly crazy humid and I'm living AC free this summer. I live on a one-way street and someone just zipped along driving in the wrong direction. Wait, she's getting out. She's walking towards me. Hold on... Okay, that was weird. She comes right up to me and introduces herself and starts chatting. I'm like, okay. She tells me all kinds of personal info about her child and the child's husband and then asks, "So are you going to give me a tour of the place?" I'm like, "Wait, What?" Turns out she is here to see the downstairs apartment (I live in an old Victorian house and the first floor is for rent). By the way, my landlord loves me because I am never home which saves him a ton of money since utilities are included in my rent. So yeah, feeling very much at home these days never wanting to leave again, well at least until next week. The fall schedule has really come together nicely with p...

Nearly every day straight women visit my blog after putting in a search like, "my husband is gay" or something similar. In November of 2006 Susanne shared some of her story and since then other women (and men) have also read about Susanne's marriage and her gay husband. These have also shared some of their own stories. Earlier a woman left the following comment. Betrayal by my husband of 28 years is devastating. He hid his gay life for years... He lied over and over and over. And put my health/life at risk. I am hurt to the core and don't know how to get through this and ever trust and love again... How do you get over the feelings of hurt, rage, anger, sorrow, inadequacy, disgust, sadness, etc.? Please feel free to go to the blog entry and add your own supportive comments, words of comfort and maybe share some of your own experience as a straight spouse or just someone who cares. Often when these women first find out, they struggle to share with anyone in their l...

Doin' it meaning worship that is. As many of you know I am a member of the Religious Society of Friends (aka Quakers). I came to the Quakers as a refugee after a religious odyssey that took me from Roman Catholicism to Fundamentalism to Evangelicalism to Pentecostalism to Anglicanism and ultimately (or penultimately?) to Quakerism. A long and winding road indeed. I do not regret any of the stops I made although some proved more useful than others. For me the Quaker way provides something other than a belief structure. We don't have any established creeds to which we ascribe or affirm. Each Quaker has his or her own beliefs, but we do hold onto values that we have grown to cherish through the years (peace, integrity, simplicity, etc). It has also proved to be a healthy environment for me as a person who is gay. But if you want to see a Quaker sputter a bit, ask the Friend, "So what do Quakers believe?" It's kind of like asking vegans, "So what kind of meat do...

I warn you that none of this may make sense. (But I do have a butt/bum joke embedded in my little sermon below) I've been reading the words of Jesus a lot lately (at least those recorded in five different Gospels--Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Thomas) in the shocking and lovely book Good As New: A Radical Retelling of the Scriptures . My reading mixed with conversations with folks in Malta on Guernsey and England has gotten me to think in a new direction (well new for me). For weeks I have reflected and spoke about the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. ( Auntie Doris heard this one over and over and over again) Here is one version of the story in Mark 8:1-10 (form Good as New version.) It was during this visit abroad that Jesus again found himself with a large crowd of hungry people. Jesus called his friends together and said, "I'm concerned about all these people who've been with me for three days and haven't eaten. If I send them away hungry some may collap...

Dave Rattigan at Ex-Gay Watch has been blogging about a hate crime attack on one of his neighbors. He reports the sad news of Michael Causer's death and encourages people to visit the Facebook group set up about Michael, A gay teenager has died , just one week after he was brutally beaten in a homophobic attack . Eighteen-year-old Michael Causer of Whiston, near Liverpool, England, died in hospital on Saturday August 2 at 12.30pm. He had been attacked by other youths while walking with friends in nearby Huyton, some time before 11am on Friday July 25. It was a busy road and it was broad daylight. Emergency brain surgery the following day could not save him. Michael lived just a couple streets away from me. He had many friends and family around here. Many of them are now part of a Facebook group dedicated to his memory. Please drop by and read some of the beautiful messages of support. Join the group and offer your own support if you can.

Yesterday, my final full day at Lambeth, flew by quickly with lots of highlights. I returned to the Changing Attitude/Integrity Bible study where they continued to looked at John 9 . This time we considered how the man born blind grew to understand Jesus through sharing his experience with others. The night before I had dinner with a friend who is disabled and often uses a wheelchair. She and another friend, a wheelchair user, recently traveled from England to Ireland on a holiday. They took the journey with a personal assistant to help out along the way. On their return to Heathrow, the airline temporarily misplaced both their wheelchairs. They sat in airport issued equipment while attempting to sort things out with a Heathrow employee. My friend said that throughout the entire exchange the employee spoke rudely, but more shocking still, the Heathrow employee never once looked at my friend or the other person also sitting in a wheelchair. He dealt exclusively with the assistant as if...

Thanks to the expert driving skill of Auntie Doris I arrived safely at Lambeth Conference in Canterbury. Fortunately (or not) I have wi-fi in my dorm room on campus here at the University of Kent so I can blog some. On the way to Canterbury we listened to LBC Radio (a talk radio station for the greater London area) and the show hosted Jeni Barnett . She offer topic after topic in a frenetic random order, but the one issue that caught my ear had to do with English people trying to change their accents to sound more like the Queen. She asked for callers who had also tried to change their accents. I turned to Auntie, "Should I?" and with little more than a nod from her, I called. ( Joe Gee , that fabulous podcaster, will be simultaneously proud of me and appalled by me). I explained that in the US I get much better customer service when I speak with a posh British accent. This accent is a perceived by many in the US to carry class and sophistication (and it may possibly be a ...

I take off today on a whirlwind island hopping adventure. I first travel to the island nation of Malta (south of Italy) where I will be for 10 days as the guest of Drachma , a Catholic group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. In Malta I will meet with the members of Drachma, lead a Bibliodrama or two, and perform two plays: The Re-Education of George W. Bush and Transifgurations—Transgressing Gender in the Bible . From there I pick up Auntie Doris and we head off to the island of Guernsey for nearly a week. She raves about this channel island where she grew up, so since I had the time I thought it would be a nice excursion. And I can also keep Auntie Doris out of trouble :-p I haven't talked to her about this yet, but it would be cool to meet up with some of the Evangelical leaders there to talk about LGBT concerns and pastoral care. Rested up from my trip to Guernsey, I head to Kent, England for the Lambeth Conference where I will offer a talk as part of the ...

Ah, Marvin. Some of you may remember, Marvin Bloom, our favorite Jew-for-Jesus from Long Island, NY, is no longer ex-gay. See this post of his video announcement. Apparently Marvin has taken to the gay lifestyle with evangelistic zeal (gay lifestyle as in wearing tacky rainbow clothing and attending Pride Parades and bashing straights). In this video he gives us an update and his very own pride message. Of course this over the top embrace of all things gay commonly happens to those of us who crammed ourselves into closet, cupboards and wardrobes all those years. We burst out of those confined places, and suddenly we see the world through rainbow lenses. It is not unlike the born-again experience, especially if one converts as a young adult. I remember dashing to the Salt Shaker, the local Christian bookstore, where I bought all manner of Jesus products. Not just books and music, I purchased Jesus pencils, Jesus t-shirts, Jesus glue sticks, etc. We see this same expression of new ...

This is the June of the gay and lesbian marriages. So many of my friends and acquaintances got married in the past week. Most went to California to take part of the new marriage equality that now exists there (perhaps for a limited time only, but we shall see). I have seen so many beautiful photos of men with men and women with women dressed up and married. Last week when I was in Memphis, my friend (& Friend) and fellow blogger Joe Moderate married his partner in a lovely Quaker ceremony. Pomoprophet, who I met last year during the Ex-Gay Survivor Conference in Irvine, CA attended and provides a first hand account . Quakers do their wedding ceremonies much different than most of us are used to. Yet most of us really liked it! Quakers have no pastor and no one lead the service. We all sat in this simple white room, sitting in a big circle with the grooms near the middle. We started off with all of us introducing ourselves and sharing our relation to the grooms. This really set the...

Back in January I mentioned the Lost2Found website and art project. Started by a high school student near LA, it is a place where LGBT folks can share their experiences through art (both visual and written). The big art exhibit will be Friday June 27 (a week away). If you can make it, please do so. It should be amazing. (and they may still be receiving art submissions!)

Here are some videos for you (cause I'm too lazy to do any proper blogging, but I do have enough energy to maintain a raw vegan diet this week. Yum) 1. Announcement about my upcoming trip to Malta (shot in the courtyard at the St. Albans during European Forum of Lesbian and Gay Christians.) Check out Drachma's blog here . 2. PFLAG protests Love Won Out 3. Vincent Cervantes talks about the impact of ex-gay treatment and theories on his creativity. 4. Jayna (of the fabulous Trans-Ponder podcast ) talks about the importance of coming out of the closet 5. Grisno goes Under NYC! (Which reminds me of when Pastor David Wilkerson exhorted the Times Square Church congregation to pray for the C.H.U.D.s ) 6. And finally Mittymoo has some great zany video's with someone who must be a close relative to Marvin Bloom. (starring John Roberts). In My Son is Gay a mother comes to grips with the gayness of her son. And if you liked that one, check out this year's Mother's Day video ...

I have the privilege of speaking in middle schools and high schools in various places in the US, the UK and Europe. When I meet with a group of high school students (ages 14+), I typically perform my play Queer 101—Now I Know My gAy,B,Cs . This one-person, multi-character comedy explores homophobia, identity and activism through the words and lives of lesbian and gay poets. In it I do the scene between my character Chad and the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca. (See video here .) We also explore tems like gay, fag, queer, sissy, dyke, etc. With younger students I do not present the whole play as some of it may be over their heads (more so because the complex historical background to some of the poems and less so about the sexual content). With middle school students (under age 14) we look at identity starting out with considering things about ourselves that we don't like that we might like to change (hair color, height, abilities, etc). Next I do my Identity Monologue with the s...

I am sure most of you have heard the good news about the California Supreme Court ruling in favor of in favor of the marriage lawsuit jointly brought by Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), and his spouse, Phillip Ray De Blieck, along with MCC friend and LGBT activist Robin Tyler, and her partner, Diane Olson. (Read story here ) This is from the letter issued by Nancy Wilson, the current moderator of the MCC, Equality for all people, including marriage equality, has been an integral part of Troy's passion and ministry for almost 40 years. It's worth remembering that in 1969, as the Stonewall Rebellion took place in New York City, Troy was already organizing the LGBT community in Southern California, had already established Metropolitan Community Churches -- and had performed what Time Magazine has credited as the first public same-sex wedding in the United States. All before Stonewall -- amazing! And in January of 1970, Troy made history again w...

Since our trip to Sweden, Marvin has not quite been the same. I was unaware of all the big changes going on in his life until about two weeks ago when we met up for lunch. Turns out he burst forth some good news to share with me, but he made me promise to be quiet about it until he was ready to say it in his own words. As so often happens with Marvin, good news becomes, well, not bad, but not quite good either. See for yourself and give Marvin some comments to help him on his journey. Oh, and I retired Homo No Mo just in time! Now you can see, Straight to Heaven , an ex-gay parody in musical form that was presented at the GCN --Gay Christian Network Conference 2007. Hilarious! hat tip to Ex-Gay Watch Oh, and it gets better. Here is a clever little video of a Jewish gay guy coming out straight to his mother. She doesn't take it very well. Hat tip to Good As You

The National Association for the Research and Treatment of Homosexuality (with its sinister sounding acronym NARTH), purports to provide a secular and scientific approach to their work. They offer reparative therapy--those pesky treatment plans with high hopes and false claims to straighten out the gays (which never seem to work all that well and most often cause more harm than good.) More and more we see people like Joseph Nicolosi, who had been long-time president of NARTH, and also Warren Throckmorton, who has criticized NARTH in order to make way for his own version of reparative therapy by another name, trying to influence credible scientific organizations like the American Psychiatric Association into acknowledging some form of the degaying process. But under the psycho-babble we see all the same ole religiously fueled anti-LGBT rhetoric. In a recent Christianity Today article , Warren Throckmorton waded into the gender waters by discounting the transgender experience. Where di...

One of the number one key word searches that bring people to both my English and Spanish blogs has to do with questions from women who want/need to know what to do when they find out their husbands are gay. That or simply the question, How do I know if my husband is gay? Is my husband a homosexual? I have a blog entry, My Gay Husband—A Spouse Speaks Out , (and a similar one in Spanish ) which is my most visited entry. Women have added their own stories and questions in the comments section. Yesterday I received another comment that I want to share. Wives with similar experiences, feel free to offer whatever support you can over at the original thread . I feel at a loss as to what to say, but I have seen you comfort and support each other in marvelous ways. Thank goodness I found this site. I have been married 38 years and I have asked my husband if he is gay or bi but he always said no. Two days ago I found out that he is and it explains so much. Of course I feel betrayed, that our ...

On April 2, 2007 we launched Beyond Ex-Gay and announced the 2007 Ex-Gay Survivor Conference. We're taking a few minutes to share the BXG love and look at all that's been accomplished: June 20, 2007: Beyond Ex-Gay (bXg) and Soulforce invite Exodus leaders to dinner. June 27, 2007: Former Exodus leaders issue a public apology for their roles in the ex-gay world. June 29, 2007: Dinner with three Exodus leaders. June 29-July 1, 2007: Ex-Gay Survivor Conference ; Reflections from survivors who attended. July 2 - August 3, 2007: The Ex-Gay Survivor Initiative Ex-Gay Survivors told their stories in front of places that promote and provide ex-gay therapy/ministry. August 17, 2007: Three former ex-gay leaders in Australia add their names to the apology from June 27. Fall 2008: Dozens of ex-gay survivors come forward to tell their stories through bXg, blogs, video and in the press. February 22-24, 2008: Deconstructing the Ex-Gay Myth —A Weekend of Action and Art, Memphis, TN. Up...

Over the weekend I got to thinking about some people I know who are partially out as LGBT. They have a few on-line friends who know they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, and maybe one or two non-net friends who know. Many of the most significant people in their lives do not know. Perhaps that is the best way for them right now, but I have found that living too long like that can drain us of life. As I prayed about that I wrote the following poem. We speak riddles to ourselves, proclaiming, in whispers, "I am OK" But strapped to our backs We bear a wardrobe, the opposite of that portal to Narnia, a closet that dumps us into a smaller world, a cramped, musty place of shadows. "I don't want to upset my mother." "My brother will never understand." "No need to flaunt it." "It's only a tiny part of me." A part muffled in a velvet-lined padded valise, Jammed in the back of a wardrobe, besides dusty boxes of dreams and desires...

Before I forget, check out Horton Hears a Who . Amazing with a wonderful queer subplot if I ever saw one. I remember when I first came out as gay. Filled with residual shame and still believing all the myths about LGBT people, I hated the idea of being part of the gay world which I assumed had at the center of its universe a bar (a smoky bar at that filled with catty drag queens and drug addicts.) I have been fortunate though and have experienced all sorts of LGBT people throughout the US, Canada, Europe, West Africa and the Caribbean and have discovered that I need never enter a bar to meet up with brilliant, interesting and thoughtful LGBT people. But I can also meet amazing people at bars too. Also, some drag queens radiate the love of God and a stellar intellect and killer wit. I can meet LGBT folks at book clubs and film festivals, in cafes and at poetry jams, gay bingo, and at community centers, in churches, choirs, theater productions, anti-war rallies, food pantries, orchid soc...