Peterson Toscano's A Musing

Leaving Scotland in the morning to motor down to Oxfordshire for the Courage retreat. I attended last year and just loved the people and their expression of faith and sexuality. This year I will present my play, Queer 101, and lead Bibliodramas , a form of Bible study through theater developed by Peter Pitzele. On Sunday I head back to Oxford to repeat my visit from last year to hang with Quakers there and to speak with an LGBT youth group. Soooo, I won't blog over the weekend. I'll give you a chance to catch up. But let me leave you with this short video I took with Alex and Noa when we went to Lund, Sweden for the Kulturnatten . Watch it to the end; there is a little surprise.

Yesterday I visited Edinburgh where I met with LGBT activists to talk about their various projects and goals and to see how I might contribute to the work they do. Today I rode and walked (and ate) around the southern portion of the Scottish Highlands (mostly in Perthshire) wearing my favorite hat (from DITC (Dykes in the City). I know some of you prefer to look at the pictures (hey Tonya & Tina!) Below are some images, including one of a Scottish rival to my new Swedish food fetish. Can I possibly consider slathering Tartex on my Vegetarian Haggis??? Oh, and I shot a little video of our descent from the mountains. YIKES!

Yesterday, here in Crieff, Scotland, I had two anxiety producing face to face encounters. Both could have caused me pain and blood loss. The first encounter was with my new Scottish dentist (dental care is so expensive now in the US that my last two dentist have been from the UK). The second was a special meeting at the quarterly gathering with most of the ministers who pastor the churches for a small conservative denomination here in Scotland. The dentist were far more painful than the pastors. Jill, the dental hygenist, saw to it that I had no more blood to spill by the time I reached the pastors. I appreciate these ministers giving me an hour to speak to them about my experience as a same-gender loving man in a church and world that often rejected me and told me I had to change. The idea behind the meeting was to have me talk about the pastoral needs of LGBT people (a perspective that I learned from Harry Knox over at the HRC). Officially this denomination believes that for someone ...

Daniel over at Ex-Gay Watch posted a thoughtful and clever satirical response to Linda Harvey's A Seven-Point Plan to Protect Christian Youth Against Homosexuality . Read A Satirical Seven-Point Plan to Protect GAY YOUTH Against OPPRESSION

What do Uma Thurman, Heath Ledger, Alan Chambers and I have in common? Our images and words appear in the October edition of Maxi magazine , the German women's fashion/lifestyle monthly. I won't post all of Tina Kopperschmidt's five page article here (go out and buy your own :-), but from what I can decipher, she spends several pages writing about her experience at this year's Exodus Conference. Towards the end of the article, she refers to ex-ex-gays and quotes "Daniel, 25" ( Daniel "Ex-gay Watch" Gonzales perhaps?) He says, Eines aber bereue ich besonders: dass mein Coming-out drei Jahre zu spät dam. Damals war ich am Collge und habe eine Menge wunderbarer Typen verpasst, mit denen ich tolle Beziehungen hätte führen können. Which according to Babelfish translated into garbled English says, However I particularly repent one: that mine Coming out three years too late dam. At that time I was at the Collge and a quantity of marvelous types missed, w...

Daniel at Ex-Gay Watch posted photos and commentary about the protests surrounding Focus on the Family's Love Won Out conference held in Palm Springs this weekend. They look GREAT. Regan literally glows on the street and Daniel looks so official. Ex-Gay Watch has really stepped up and taken an important role in consistently providing thoughtful, well-written analysis of the Ex-Gay Movement (and some funny and ocassionally the necessary snarky stuff too). I was speaking with Noa here in Sweden who told me how impressed he is in the quality writing on the Ex-Gay Watch site . One thing for sure is, they keep ex-gay leaders on their toes. Kinda like ballet dancers without the tutus .

First off, I want little dots over my name! I mean, they look so cool. So I propose that I now be known as Pëterson Töscåno. Last night I went to Lund, Sweden with Alex and Noa, an incredibly cool and insightful gay couple, (You will hear lots more about them in the future!) Once a year Lund puts on Culture Night . Music in the streets, performers, art and great food. Oh, and guess who is a BIG hit here? Marvin Bloom . Alex has personally shared Marvin with scores of Swedes (he forces them to sit down and listen to Marvin posts). The Marvin craze has taken off and there is even a Marvin clothes line. Alex and Noa model for us.

Apparently the Swedish press adores me, well at least Lars Klint of Kvälls Posten does. I mean read what they are writing about me and my Homo No Mo presentation! I går inleddes den tolfte Regnbågsfestivalen i Malmö. En manifestation på temat - Mångfald, Kärlek, Respekt, Förståelse. Peterson Toscano var en av invigningstalarna i RFSL:s (Riksförbundet för sexuellt likaberättigande) lokaler på Monbijougatan. Han attackerade den amerikanska "ex-gay-rörelsen", som inte minst genom pingstpastor Åke Greens predikan fått starkt fäste även i Sverige. snip I dag är Peterson Toscano en av USA:s mest tongivande röster för ett humanistiskt och mångfaldigt samhälle. Humor, artisteri och personlig karisma är hans vapen. - Hade samhället varit tolerant och kärleksfullt hade det inte behövts några exgayrörelser, säger han. Read all of Jag är en stolt bög (and if you have any clue what they are saying, let me know) 5 HOURS LATER... Alex sent me a translation of the article. Like so many new...

Today is my last full day in Sweden. Off to Scotland tomorow morning. I spoke with Alex and Noa, a queer Christian couple I met on-line before coming here, about the myths many of us in the USA carry about Sweden. While conservatives point to it as an example of gays gone wild and evidence of the fall of Western cilivilation, many of us queer folks think of it as some sort of gay paradise where Swedish society fully embracies LGBT people. Not so simple as that. Turns out the state of Connecticut, where I live, has much more progressive laws protecting the rights of transgender individuals then here in Sweden. Hate crimes happen all too often in Sweden. Far too many parents and churches reject transgender, lesbian, bisexual and gay loved ones. Extreme Right Wing activists say many dreadful lies about LGBT individuals. Yes, they have made some amazing advances here in Sweden. But it is no gay paradise. Intolerance, fear, hate can not be legislated away. That takes time and relationships...

Yes, just like the conservative anti-gay leaders in the US have warned, liberalize your views on same-sex partnership and all hell breaks loose! We have the terrifyingly instructive example of Sweden that introduced the dangerous practice of same-sex registered partners back in 1995. Then came domestic partnership and coming soon full-fledge marriage between people of the same sex. Slippery slope indeed. First you marry off humans of the same-sex, what next? On the ground here in Sweden, I've been able to witness firsthand the devastating toll same-sex partnership is having on this once normal, heterosexual, family value Viking people. Not content with same-sex households, they now allow same-gender houses to form partnerships. And although the sign says they are not allowed on the lawn, same-sex animal marriages are strongly supported. Gay identity stamps itself everywhere. This isn't just any old paint store. Flaunting the rainbow flag makes this a GAY paint store. Färgservi...

Yes, it has finally happened. I fell in love and don't think I can ever come back to the US. Ah, nothing like love to sweep you off your feet, to make you giddy. And here is the shocker--I did not fall in love with a man! I know, I know, after all that ex-gay and ex-ex-gay stuff, it is crazy. But we can't control love. It happens in the strangest ways, in the strangest places. And yes, I know about long distance relationships, the challenges, particularly with cross-cultural stuff. And this love is, well, complicated, because my new love is not, well, human. You see I have fallen in love with Tartex , the organic vegetarian yeast paste, (Available in Mushroom, Green Olive, GarlicHerb Meadow, Shiitake and Original) popular among vegetarians in Sweden and Germany. And now, Sweden's Next Top Tartex Model!!! For all my silliness, I actually am feeling a little sad these past few days. It is lovely here and the people are super, but I miss home and increasingly feel the loss of ...