Reconciling in Christ
Resource List

Resources Surrounding Gay and Lesbian Issues (Jan/05)

Anonymity: The Secret Life of an American Family
Susan Bergman
Behind the worldwide calamity of the AIDS epidemic, behind all the statistics and news reports, there are millions of private histories; none is ever likely to be told with more honesty or power than this one.

Becoming A Man: Half a Life Story
Paul Monette
Winner of The National Book Award, 1992
A child of the 1950’s from a small New England town, “perfect Paul earns straight A’s and scholarships as well as shines in social and literary pursuits, all the while keeping a secret-from himself and the rest of the world. Struggling to be, or at least imitate a straight man, through Ivy League halls of privilege and bohemian travels abroad, loveless intimacy, and unrequited passion, Paul Monette was haunted and finally saved, by a dream—“The thing I’d never even seen: two men in love and laughing.” This searingly honest, witty, and humane merging of memoir and manifesto promises to become the definitive coming out story—and a classic of the coming-of-age genre.

Beyond Acceptance: Parents of Lesbians and Gays Talk about Their Experiences
Carolyn Welch Griffin, Marian J. Wirth, Arthur G. Wirth
“Mom, Dad, I’m gay.” When a parent hears these words, the initial shock is often followed by feelings ranging from anger and denial to fear and guilt. It’s also the beginning of a difficult journey that, with understanding and emotional support, can lead to acceptance and beyond.
Beyond Acceptance is a groundbreaking book that provides parents the comfort and knowledge they need to accept their gay children and build stronger family relationships. Based on the experiences of other parents, this book lets them know they are not alone and helps them through the emotional stages leading to reconciliation with their children.

Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality
John Boswell
John Boswell’s revolutionary study of the history of attitudes toward homosexuality in the Christian West challenges our own preconceptions and opinions about the Church’s past relationship to its gay members, among whom were priests, and even bishops and canonized saints. The historical breadth of Boswell’s research (from the Greeks to Aquinas) and the variety of sources consulted (legal, literary, theological, artistic, and scientific) make this one of the most and extensive treatments of any single aspect of Western social history. Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality, the product of ten years or research and analysis of records in a dozen languages, opens up a new area of historical inquiry and helps elucidate the origins and operations of intolerance as a social force.

Coming Out: An Anthology of International Gay and Lesbian Writings
Edited by Stephan Likosky
This anthology brings together provocative and disturbing essays, interviews, letters, and journals written by gay and lesbian writers the world over. It includes: from Thailand, anonymous letters to an advice column that tell of the overwhelming pressure brought to bear on gays-occasionally through violence-to conform to heterosexual norms; from Australia excerpts from Dennis Altman’s pioneering work Homosexual Oppression and Liberation, one of the first books in English to articulate the ideas of the Gay Liberation Movement; from Brazil, an interview with Herbert Daniel, AIDS activist and Brazilian presidential candidate; from Aotearoa New Zealand, West toward lesbians from the 1950’s to the 1980’s; and much more. Among the other contributors are Nicole Brossard, David Fernback, Guy Hocquenghem, Jill Johnston, Gary Kinsman, Mario Mich, and Joao S. Trevisan.
Coming Out brilliantly shows how discussions of homosexuality are determined by politics, race, class, history, and culture and how homosexuals are imaging their lives in contradistinction to heterosexual majorities.

Coming Out of the Classroom Closet: Gay and Lesbian Students, Teachers and Curricula
Karen M. Harbeck, PhD., J.D.
Gay and lesbian teachers and students remain invisible in our schools for fear of hostile responses to “coming out.: But this invisibility is costly in term of self-esteem, social support, academic performance, and life itself. Recent studies suggest that around 30% of the annual teen suicides may be related to sexual preference distress. This eye-opening book helps all educators break their silence and assist these young people in need. Gay and lesbian educators will be empowered by the research documenting greater social support and legal protection. All educators concerned with civil rights, social entitlements and personal development will be challenged to address the needs of gay and lesbian youth in our schools through intervention, advocacy, and curricula modifications.

Coming Out of the Fires of Homosexuality and Homophobia
Howard Rawlins
The author is a member of the Latter Day Saints church, has a gay son, and his written the book to summarize his feelings about homosexuality and the L.D.S. church.

Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the US Military
Randy Shilts
“The accounts of lawless, senseless and secret persecutions of lesbian and gay soldiers are chilling,…Conduct Unbecoming is about what happened to individuals: about their being rousted out of bed, informed against, punished without trials, hounded, set up, brutalized to nervous and physical collapse, and loyal and able service is rewarded with disgrace.

Discovering Images of God
Larry Kent Graham
In the middle of a prejudiced society, the experiences of lesbians and gays who give and receive care can provide powerful resources for all people to develop their images of God. Graham has interviewed lesbians and gays across the country and has discovered a new sense God at work through all people. These insights bring new images of God that are more true, more faithful, and more deeply connected to the pains and joys of everyone’s life.

The Family Heart: A Memoir of When Our Son Came Out
Robb Forman Dew
What happens when a mother finds out her son is gay? Robb Forman Dew’s account of that moment in her life, and of the subsequent journey she makes with her family from confusion to a clear and powerful commitment, is a book everyone should read. In this extraordinarily honest examination of maternal, family, and community attitudes toward homosexuality, Robb Dew not only wrestles with her own mistakes and dream, but moves us to reflect on the American attitude in general. Family happiness was subject Robb Dew believed she understood in all its complexities-until one spring day when her son told her he was gay. In The Family Heart, she navigates deep emotional waters in order to accommodate this knowledge, turning her attention to her own husband and two sons and the events that began for them three years ago. It when he told her, “I think I might be gay … No, that’s not what I mean. I mean I am gay.” This moment, so difficult to remember because it left them both moving into uncharted territory, began a process of evolution in the family-of love and enlightenment and deeper acceptance that has left no family member untouched.

Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men In the USA – Edited
Jonathan Ned Katz
This groundbreaking work is the primary sourcebook for an accurate, fascinating, historical account of American lesbians and gay men. Now with an n new preface and an updated bibliography, the collection remains the most complete and authoritative reference work of the homosexual experience in the United States. Here are reprints of rare and hard-to-find documents that represent over four hundred years of oppression, conflict, and struggle in the New World. Among its wealth of provocative material are an 1891 proto graph of male-male dancing in the Old West; a 1974 interview with a male homosexual victim of shock treatment; a 1629 journal account of “sodomitical activity” among the first American colonists; and an account of lesbianism in the life of blues singer Bessie Smith. Impeccably researched and covering American history from the earliest European settlers and Native American to contemporary times, this volume is both a superb history and a deeply moving book.

The Gay and Lesbian Self-Esteem Book
Kimeron N. Hardin
When something as basic as self-esteem is constantly under siege, as it is for most GLBT people, books such as this one are a vital element of the healing process. Scientifically sound as well as highly readable. An indispensable resource for gays and lesbians as well as for professionals who work with them.

Gay Spirit: Myth and Meaning
Mark Thompson
Gay Spirit, the psychic and creative energies generated by people we now call gay, has always existed on the outer shores of our culture’s collective consciousness. In the past, gay people were labeled heretics, perversions of nature, or categorized pseudo-scientifically. Gay people lived on the edge of the global village or worked within its mainstream in denial and disguise. But today that spirit has re-emerged and lives among us.
This book of essays explores the possibilities of that spirit-suggesting ways in which gay people might find a place and purpose in human culture unique to themselves, departing with the questions asked nearly forty years ago by the Mattachine Society: who are we? Where have we come from? Why are we here?

Hidden From History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past
Edited by: Martin Bauml Duberman, Martha Vicious, and George Chauncey, Jr.
“A landmark of a book and a land mine of ideas that will shatter ignorance and delusion.” Katherine Stimpson, Dean of the Graduate School, Rutgers
A superb collection that convincingly demonstrates the legitimacy of gay and lesbian history, reveals its extraordinary richness, and sets the agenda for future research.

Homosexuality and Christian Community
Edited by Choon-Leong Seow
Contributors to this volume, all members of the Princeton Theological Seminary faculty, address the various exegetical, interpretive, and practical issues pertaining to the issue of homosexuality and the church. Like the Christian community at large, the contributors are not of one mind on any of these issues.

Homosexuality and Christian Faith Questions of Conscience for the Churches
Presents short pieces from some of the nation’s church leaders – women and men, Protestant and Catholic, mainline and evangelical. They invite the reader to open his or her heart to the Spirit, to Gospel values, and to full acceptance of gay and lesbian persons in the “family of God.” These Christians provide clarity on the biblical witness and biblical authority, sexual orientation, the morality of homosexuality behavior, the dilemmas of families and friends of bays and lesbians, and challenges that the church face in dealing with gay/lesbian civil rights, ecclesial rights, and covenants.

Is It A Choice? Answers to 300 of the Most Frequently Asked Questions About Gays and Lesbians
Eric Marcus
There is no such thing as a stupid question. In this honest, compassionate, and comprehensive resource, Eric Marcus answers a side variety of questions relating to gays and lesbians, including: What should you do if you think your child is gay or lesbian? In gay and lesbian relationships, who plays the husband and who plays the wife? What does the Bible say about gay men and lesbians? How do gay and lesbian couples have sex? Have there always been gay and lesbian people?

Is The Homosexual My Neighbor? A Positive Christian Response
Letha Dawson Scanzoni and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott
First published in 1978, Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? Was the only book of its kind-a powerful wake-up call for Christians to re-examine their attitudes toward gay and lesbian people. This revised and expanded edition is now more relevant than ever, wit updated information on such key, headline-grabbing topics as gays in the military, the AIDS crisis, and genetic research on homosexuality. Looking at homosexuality from scientific, psychological, and biblical perspectives,
Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? Is both informative and compassionate- the ideal resource for Christians on our culture’s hottest social debate.

Lesbian and Gay Families Speak Out
Jane Levy Drucker
This book has much to teach us about families, values, and relationships. Regretfully, one of the major obstacles to a compassionate understanding of the varieties of sexual orientation and the raising of children is “religion” and “the Bible.” Men and women of faith are frequently misled by those who turn a living, revealed word into a stone cast down from above. Yet, to leave a text bare, uninterpreted by history and/or conscience forms a letter into an idolatrous icon.

Listening to the Spirit, A Handbook for Discernment
Edited by William Paulsell
The book presents a process of discernment the helps us to listen to the Holy Spirit for guidance as we consider the question, “What is the gospel message to the church as we relate to gay and lesbian Christians?” This question is addressed through a process that will help Christians approach the issues thoughtfully, theologically, and prayerfully. Here are no set answers or preconceived outcomes.

Loving Someone Gay
Don Clark
For three decades, Clark has courageously offered perceptive insights and compassionate guidance to gay men and lesbians, their friends, their families, and the professionals who work with and counsel them. In this updated edition, he speaks clearly and directly to the individual and to the global community calling for practical, spiritual and political awareness on personal, local, national, and international levels.

The Male Couples Guide
Eric Marcus
This landmark guide to relationships for gay men has been thoroughly updated with the latest information on how to build successful and rewarding relationships. This warm, common sense companion, which includes extensive source listings, is based on interviews with gay men across the country, their families, health professionals, and peer counselors, and on the author’s own experiences.

MANY members yet ONE body, Committed Same-Gender Relationships and the Mission of the Church
Craig L. Nessan.
This is a good book to read especially for those who have some unanswered questions after having completed The Journey Together Faithfully Series. “Dr. Nessan’s stance is bold, humble and hopeful—bold enough to risk speaking to a church deeply afraid of division…that there is a way forward that avoids glossing over our differences while helping understand those with whom we profoundly disagree.”

Member of the Family: Gay Men Write About Their Families
Edited by John Preston
In this extraordinary collection, the most talented gay writers of our time turn their hearts and psyches inside out to show us the families who gave birth to them, raised them, exiled them, and love, them. Each of these 24 original essays describes a family that is unique and so idiosyncratic that it can belong only to its author-and so familiar and universal that it startlingly reminds us of our own. John Preston begins the anthology by recalling the angry letter he left for his parents the day he moved out of their home forever and the unsuspected impact that letter had on his younger brother. Michael Nava writes of his stoic, enigmatic, and embittered grandfather-a living portrait of what Nava himself could become. Larry Duplechan mixes laughter and tears with his hard-edged, wisecracking description of his mother, who said learning he was gay was like bearing he’d been killed in a car crash-but he was still her baby. Growing up with parents who survived the Holocaust left Harlan Greene with different kinds of scars. Brian Kirkpatrick has created a brilliant work of introspection and imagination about the mother who abandoned him in a Catholic orphanage. Deeply emotional, daringly honest and beautifully conceived, Member of the Family raises simple truths about our families.

My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story
Abraham Verghese
Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award
Nestled in the Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee, the town of Johnson City had always seemed exempt from the anxieties of modern American life. But on August 11, 1985, the local hospital treated its first AIDS patient, and before long, a crisis that had once seemed an “urban problem” had arrived in the town to stay. Working Johnson City was Abraham Verghese, a young Indian doctor specializing in infectious diseases, Dr. Verghese became by necessity the local AIDS expert, soon besieged by a shocking number of male and female patients whose stories came to occupy his mind, and even to take over his life. Out of his experience comes a startling but ultimately uplifting portrait of the American heartland as it confronts-and surmounts-its deepest prejudices and fears.

New Testament and Homosexuality
Robin Scroggs

Now That You Know: What Every Parent Should Know About Homosexuality
Betty Fairchild and Nancy Hayward
Winner of the3 Gay Book Awards
A challenging and enlightening guide for the 20 to 40 million parents in the United States who may be faced with the knowledge that a son or a daughter is homosexual. Now That You Know has become a classic of information and support since its first publication in 1970. As The Advocate commented: “The authors take us from the first heavy moments of revelation through the guilt and recrimination, emerging on the other side of tolerance in love and joy.” Written by two mothers of gay children, the book discusses the nature of homosexuality and its effects on the lives of children, counseling parents how to respond supportively to gay children and how to keep families together in a bond of understanding and affection. For this new edition, Betty Fairchild has added a chapter discussing the complex issues that confront both gays and parents of gays in the age of AIDS.

The Other Side of the Closet: The Coming-Out Crisis for Straight Spouses and Families
Amity Pierce Buxton, Ph.D. Revised and Expanded 1994
In two million marriages, one spouse is gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Having a spouse or parent disclose his or her same-sex attraction is a shattering experience fraught with pain, confusion, anger, and a profound loss of self-esteem. Amity Peirce Buxton spotlights this exploding phenomenon and reports constructive coping strategies that spouses and children have used to resolve problems of sexual damage, family breakdown, deception, and homophobia. Illustrated throughout by riveting personal narratives, this expanded edition of The Other Side of the Closet traces the family’s journey from initial trauma to eventual transformation.

Passage of Pride: Lesbian and Gay Youth Come of Age
By Kurt Chandler
This wonderful and compelling book is sure to inspire gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth who are struggling with their sexual identity while at the same time looking forward to their rite of passage. While all the coming-out stories are different, there are themes that are common to all, from Derek, a young African-American male living on the edge of two communities, to Amy, a baby butch struggling to be herself in school and with her family. Youth, parents, and professionals will be moved by the individual stories of youth coming of age.

Pastoral Care of Gays, Lesbians, and Their Families
David K. Switzer
This book, written by a pastoral theologian with many years of experience in counseling gay and lesbian individuals and their families, assists both pastoral care of homosexual people and their families.

Permanent Partners: Building Gay and Lesbian Relationships that Last
Betty Berzon
Today, more than ever before, gay and lesbian couples want long-fasting, fulfilling, happy relationships. But in order to accomplish this, the notion of “partnership” itself must be radically reinvented. Gay men and lesbians must learn to imbue relationships with the same importance that their heterosexual counterparts do-in a society that still offers none of the same support. The book offers clear, compassionate advice and counseling on the internal and external problems faced by two men or two women as they create a life together.

A Place at the Table: The Gay Individual in American Society
Bruce Bawer
A passionate call for a peaceable kingdom in which homosexual people are permitted to be what they are-human beings of many parts, only one of which is their sexuality-rather than forced into the narrow stereotypes into which their friends and enemies alike seem bent on consigning them. Sane and compassionate….a book that needed to be written.

Queer in America: Sex, the Media, and the Closets of Power
Michelangelo Seigniorial
A journalistic history of gay activism in the AIDS era, a coming-of-age, coming-out memoir, a manual for guerilla politics in the Age of Information, and even a utopian blueprint for the high-tech liberation of coming generations of lesbians and gay men. Queer in America will open minds as well as closets.

Remembering Brad: On the Loss of a Son to AIDS
Wayne Schow, with Journal Entries by Brad Schow
“Remembering Brad caused me to recall my own struggle to reconcile my sexual orientation with my spirituality. More importantly, Schow relates the coming out process for parents, offering significant assistance for families trying to understand and accept.” –Duane-Director, Wasatch Chapter, Affirmation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons.

Same-Sex Unions In Pre-Modern Europe
John Boswell

The Science of Desire: The Search for the Gay Gene and The Biology of Behavior
Dean Hamer and Peter Copelant
The search for a genetic basis of homosexuality illustrates, in a profound way, the potentially turbulent relation between the biological sciences and public policy. The Science of Desire is an authoritative and very readable explanation of how both to conduct good science and to manage its risky social implications.

Sexual Fulfillment for Single and Married, Straight and Gay, Young and Old
Lowell O Erdahl & Herbert W. Chilstrom
What is healthy sexuality for a Christian? This book approaches some of the more difficult-to-discuss areas of human sexuality.
• The human need for sexual fulfillment
• Singles and sexual fulfillment”
• Sexual fulfillment in marriage
• Heterosexual marriage
• Same sex relationships
• Sexual fulfillment in the elder years
The authors distinguish between “life-giving sex” and “life-degrading sex” by establishing four criteria for a healthy relationship: mutual love, mutual respect, mutual openness, and mutual faithfulness. They then discuss healthy sexuality in a variety of life stages and relationships. With a compassionate tone, the authors explore the issues Christian people face with respect to the experience and expression of their sexuality.

The Slow Miracle of Transformation
Mary Lou Wallner
Before you condemn your gay or lesbian child, take a deep breath. This book, a story about true family values, portrays a bittersweet journey of an initially condemning mother and the lesbian daughter she rejected. It should be read by all who profess the name of Christ.

Stonewall
Martin Duberman
Exciting and powerful…it will remind you how deeply the gay liberation impulse is rooted in both the ram class, and gender injustices of American life and the courageous resistance of ordinary people.

Stranger at the Gates: To Be Gay and Christian in America
Mel White
In this courageous and important book, Mel White, once the ghostwriter for such leaders of the Religious Right as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, has come out of the closet of silence to confront the homophobia these men engender and to issue a clarion cal for justice and freedom.

Straight Parents/Gay Children
Robert Bernstein
This book inspires families and friends to live honestly and with greater understanding of their homosexuality issues. This book supports the mission of P-FLAG to keep families together. This is a must-read for every parent as it stresses education, understanding, acceptance, and support, but most of all, love, thereby empowering our children – straight and gay – to lead happy and productive lives.

Tendencies
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
Tendencies brings together for the first time the essays that have made Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick “the soft-spoken queen of gay studies” (Rolling Stone). Combining poetry, wit, polemic, and dazzling scholarship with memorial and autobiography, these essays have set new standards of passion and truthfulness for current theoretical writing. What unites Tendencies is the vision of a new queer activism and thought that, however demanding and dangerous, can also be intent, inclusive, physical, and sometimes giddily fun.

Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation
Urvashi Vaid
This is not a book about how a person deals with his or her sexuality. It is a book about bow we as a society deal with that small minority of us which is homosexual … an attempt to think through the arguments on all sides as carefully and honestly as possible; to take the unalterable experience of all of us, heterosexual and homosexual, and try to make some social and political sense of it.

Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality
Andrew Sullivan
This is not a book about how a person deals with his or her sexuality. It is a book about bow we as a society deal with that small minority of us which is homosexual … an attempt to think through the arguments on all sides as carefully and honestly as possible; to take the unalterable experience of all of us, heterosexual and homosexual, and try to make some social and political sense of it.

We Were Baptized, Too
Marilyn Bennett Alexander & James Pearson
Through poignant, personal anecdotes Alexander and Preston challenge the church to take its understanding of the sacred acts of baptism and communion seriously for all people. Between chapters, eight gay/lesbian Christians tell their stories of struggle and faith, shedding light on an often-darkened topic. The authors point out that congregations pledge to love, forgive, and nurture newly baptized members, but often become selective in bestowing these gestures to gay and lesbian church members. The book puts out a hopeful call for a truly inclusive church.

What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality
Daniel A. Helminiak, PhD,
Top scholars –s such as Yale history professor John Boswell, New Testament professor L. William Countryman of Berkeley and Robin Scroggs of Union Ethological Seminary – show that those who perceive Bible passages as condemning homosexuality are being misled by faulty translation and poor interpretation.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

A Congregational Approach to Openness: A Reconciling Process in Ministry with and on Behalf of Gay and Lesbian Persons.
A 24 page document written and published by a group of pastors and seminary professors in Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN called The Blessing Group. To order: e-mail STPAULREF@aol.com.  Cost is $5.00

Congregational Hospitality to Gay and Lesbian People: Resources for Congregations.
Report and case studies on congregations which welcome gay and lesbian people. Published in 1999 by the Division for Outreach of the ELCA. Download an order form: www.elca.org. 

Homosexuality and the Bible
A 16 page booklet by Walter Wink. This is an easy read and quite accessible to most congregants. May be ordered from Fellowship Bookstore 845-358-4601.

THIS Obedience
A 90 minute video produced by Aquaries Media and Wingspan Ministry. THIS obedience tells the emotional story of the ordination of Rev. anita Hill and the events which followed. See additional info on www.thisobedience.com. Cost $55.

The following resources can be ordered through the Lutherans Concerned website www.lcna.org/infox .

Claiming The Promise Bible Study
A 7-session adult Bible study with a youth adaptation that explores biblical authority and biblical interpretation of same-sex conduct.

This is My Story VHS Video
This video presentation produced by Lutherans Concerned features personal stories of gay and lesbian Christians – their inner struggles and journeys of reconciliation.

Inclusive Faith VHS Video
This video describes, promotes and dramatized the need for congregations to adopt the Lutherans Concerned Affirmation of Welcome and become Reconciled in Christ.

Is Ex-Gay a False Hope?
This powerful video refutes the promises and principles of the ex-gay ministry movement. Through a special arrangement, Lutherans Concerned is pleased to offer this 15 minute video resource produced by Better World of St. Paul, MN.

PFLAG (Parents, Friends & Families of Lesbians and Gays) Pamphlets
Available through PFLAG at www.pflag.org or 1726 M Street, N.W., Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20036 1-202-467-9194

Faith In Our Families
Parents, Families and Friends Talk About Religion and Homosexuality

Opening the Straight Spouse’s Closet
A guide for understanding issues facing families with gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered spouses.

Our Daughters & Sons
Questions and Answers for Parents of Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual People

Be Yourself
Questions & Answers for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Youth

Read This Before Coming Out To Your Parents
A Guide for you and your parents