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FINDING
YOUR OWN TRUE MYTH: What I Learned
from Joseph Campbell: The
Myth
of the
Great Secret
III
FINDING
GOD IN THE SEXUAL UNDERWORLD: The Journey Expanded
GAY
SPIRITUALITY:
The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness
GAY PERSPECTIVE:
Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the
Universe
SECRET MATTER, a sci-fi novel with
wonderful "aliens" with an
Afterword by Mark Jordan
GETTING
LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE:
A
Fantastical Gay Romance set in two different time periods
THE FOURTH QUILL, a
novel about attitudinal healing and the problem of evil
TWO SPIRITS: A Story of Life with
the
Navajo, a collaboration with Walter L. Williams
CHARMED
LIVES: Spinning Straw into
Gold: GaySpirit in Storytelling, a collaboration with
Steve Berman and some 30 other writers
THE MYTH OF THE GREAT
SECRET:
An
Appreciation of Joseph Campbell
IN SEARCH OF GOD IN THE
SEXUAL UNDERWORLD: A Mystical Journey
Unpublished manuscripts
About ordering
Books on
Gay Spirituality:
White
Crane Gay Spirituality Series
Articles
and Excerpts:
Review of
Samuel
Avery's The
Dimensional Structure of Consciousness
Funny
Coincidence: "Aliens Settle in San Francisco"
About Liberty Books, the
Lesbian/Gay Bookstore for Austin, 1986-1996 with a list of topics in
Austin LGBT History
The Simple Answer to the Gay Marriage Debate
A
Bifurcation of Gay Spirituality
Why gay people should NOT Marry
The Scriptural Basis for
Same Sex Marriage
Toby and Kip Get Married
Wedding Cake Liberation
Gay Marriage in Texas
What's ironic
Shame on the American People
The "highest form of love"
Gay
Consciousness
Why homosexuality is a sin
The cause of homosexuality
The
origins of homophobia
Advice to
Future Gay
Historians
Q&A
about Jungian ideas in gay consciousness
What
is homosexuality?
What
is Gay Spirituality?
My three
messages
What is Gay
Perspective?
What
Jesus said about Gay
Rights
Myths, Salvation and the Great Secret with Rich Grzesiak
Queering
religion
Common
Experiences Unique to Gay
Men
Is there a "uniquely gay
perspective"?
The
purpose of homosexuality
Interview on the Nature of
Homosexuality
What the Bible Says about
Homosexuality
Mesosexual
Ideal for Straight Men
Varieties
of Gay Spirituality
Waves
of Gay Liberation Activity
The Gay Succession
Wouldn’t You Like to Be Uranian?
The Reincarnation of
Edward Carpenter
Queer
men, myths and Reincarnation
Was I (or you) at
Stonewall?
Why Gay Spirituality: Spirituality
as Artistic Medium
Easton Mountain Retreat Center
Andrew Harvey &
Spiritual Activism
The Mysticism of
Andrew Harvey
The
upsidedown book on MSNBC
Enlightenment
"It's
Always About You"
The myth of the Bodhisattva
Avalokitesvara
Joseph
Campbell's description of
Avalokiteshvara
The Nature of
Suffering and The Four Quills
You're
Not A Wave
Joseph Campbell Talks
about Aging
Toby's Experience of
Zen
What is Enlightenment?
What is reincarnation?
What happens at Death?
How many lifetimes in an
ego?
Emptiness & Religious Ideas
Experiencing experiencing experiencing
Going into the Light
Meditations for a Funeral
Meditation Practice
The way to get to heaven
Buddha's father was right
What Anatman means
Advice to Travelers to India
& Nepal
The Danda Nata
& goddess Kalika
A Funny Story:
The Rug Salesmen of Istanbul
Nate Berkus is a bodhisattva
John Boswell was Immanuel Kant
Cutting
edge realization
The Myth of the
Wanderer
Change: Source of
Suffering & of Bliss
World Navel
What the Vows Really
Mean
Manifesting
from the Subtle Realms
The Three-layer
Cake
& the Multiverse
The
est Training and Personal Intention
Effective
Dreaming in Ursula LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven
Drawing a Long Straw:
Ketamine at the Mann Ranch
Alan Watts &
Multiple Solipsism
How
I Learned Chakra Meditation
Je ne Regrette
Rien
Gay
Spirituality
Curious
Bodies
What
Toby Johnson Believes
The
Joseph Campbell Connection
The
Mann Ranch (& Rich Gabrielson)
Campbell
& The Pre/Trans Fallacy
The
Two Loves
The
Nature of Religion
What's true about
Religion
Being
Gay is a Blessing
Drawing Long Straws
Freedom
of Religion
The
Gay Agenda
Gay
Saintliness
Gay
Spiritual Functions
The subtle workings of the spirit
in gay men's lives.
The Sinfulness of
Homosexuality
Proposal
for a study of gay nondualism
Priestly Sexuality
Having a Church to
Leave
Harold Cole on Beauty
Marian Doctrines:
Immaculate Conception & Assumption
Not lashed to the
prayer-post
Monastic or Chaste
Homosexuality
The Monastic Schedule: a whimsy
Is It Time to Grow
Up? Confronting
the Aging Process
Notes on Licking
(July, 1984)
Redeem Orlando
Gay Consciousness changing
the
world by Shokti LoveStar
Alexander Renault
interviews Toby
Johnson
Mystical Vision
"The
Evolution of Gay Identity"
"St. John of the
Cross & the Dark Night of
the Soul."
Avalokiteshvara
at the Baths
Eckhart's Eye
Let Me
Tell You a Secret
Religious
Articulations of the
Secret
The
Collective Unconscious
Driving as
Spiritual Practice
Meditation
Historicity
as Myth
Pilgrimage
No
Stealing
Next
Step in Evolution
The
New Myth
The Moulting of the Holy Ghost
Gaia
is a Bodhisattva
Sex with God
Merging Religion and Sex
Revolution
Through
Consciousness Change: GSV 2019
God as Metaphor
More Metaphors for God
A non-personal
metaphor God
Jesus and the Wedding Feast
Tonglen in the Radisson Varanasi
The
Closet of Horrors
The Hero's
Journey
The
Hero's Journey as archetype -- GSV 2016
The Gay Hero Journey
(shortened)
You're
On Your Own
Superheroes
Seeing
Differently
Teenage
Prostitution and the Nature of Evil
Allah
Hu: "God is present here"
Adam
and Steve
The Life is
in the Blood
Gay retirement and the "freelance
monastery"
Seeing with
Different Eyes
Facing
the Edge: AIDS as an occasion for spiritual wisdom
What
are you looking for in a gay science fiction novel?
A Different Take on Leathersex
Seeing
Pornography Differently
The Vision
The
mystical experience at the Servites' Castle in Riverside
A Most Remarkable
Synchronicity in
Riverside
The
Great Dance according to C.S.Lewis
The Techniques Of The
World Saviors
Part 1: Brer Rabbit and the
Tar-Baby
Part 2: The
Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara
Part 3: Jesus
and the Resurrection
Part 4: A
Course in Miracles
The
Secret of the Clear Light
Understanding
the Clear Light
Mobius
Strip
Finding
Your
Tiger Face
How Gay Souls Get Reincarnated
Joseph
Campbell, the Hero's Journey, and the modern Gay Hero-- a five part
presentation on YouTube
About Alien Abduction
In
honor of Sir Arthur C Clarke
Karellen was a homosexual
The
D.A.F.O.D.I.L. Alliance
Intersections
with the movie When We Rise
More
about Gay Mental Health
Psych
Tech Training
Toby
at the California Institute
The
Rainbow Flag
Ideas for gay
mythic stories
My first Peace March
People
Kip and Toby,
Activists
Toby's
friend and nicknamesake Toby Marotta.
Harry
Hay, Founder of the gay movement
About Hay and The New Myth
About
Karl
Heinrich Ulrichs, the first
man to really "come out"
About Michael Talbot, gay mystic
About Fr. Bernard Lynch
About Richard Baltzell
About Guy Mannheimer
About David Weyrauch
About
Dennis Paddie
About Ask the Fire
About
Arthur Evans
About
Christopher Larkin
About Mark Thompson
About Sterling Houston
About Michael Stevens
The Alamo Business
Council
Our friend Tom Nash
Our friend Cliff Douglas
Second March on
Washington
The
Gay
Spirituality Summit in May 2004 and the "Statement
of Spirituality"
Book
Reviews
Be Done on Earth by Howard
E. Cook
Pay Me What I'm Worth by
Souldancer
The Way Out by Christopher
L Nutter
The Gay Disciple by John Henson
Art That Dares by Kittredge Cherry
Coming Out, Coming Home by Kennth
A. Burr
Extinguishing
the Light by B. Alan Bourgeois
Over Coffee: A conversation
For Gay
Partnership & Conservative Faith by D.a. Thompson
Dark Knowledge
by
Kenneth Low
Janet Planet by
Eleanor
Lerman
The
Kairos by Paul E. Hartman
Wrestling
with Jesus by D.K.Maylor
Kali Rising by Rudolph
Ballentine
The
Missing Myth by Gilles Herrada
The
Secret of the Second Coming by Howard E. Cook
The Scar Letters: A
Novel
by Richard Alther
The
Future is Queer by Labonte & Schimel
Missing Mary
by Charlene Spretnak
Gay
Spirituality 101 by Joe Perez
Cut Hand: A
Nineteeth Century Love Story on the American Frontier by Mark Wildyr
Radiomen
by Eleanor Lerman
Nights
at
Rizzoli by Felice Picano
The Key
to Unlocking the Closet Door by Chelsea Griffo
The Door
of the Heart by Diana Finfrock Farrar
Occam’s
Razor by David Duncan
Grace
and
Demion by Mel White
Gay Men and The New Way Forward by Raymond L.
Rigoglioso
The
Dimensional Stucture of Consciousness by Samuel Avery
The
Manly Pursuit of Desire and Love by Perry Brass
Love
Together: Longtime Male Couples on Healthy Intimacy and Communication
by Tim Clausen
War
Between Materialism and Spiritual by Jean-Michel Bitar
The
Serpent's Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion by
Jeffrey J. Kripal
Esalen:
America and the Religion of No Religion by Jeffrey J. Kripal
The
Invitation to Love by
Darren Pierre
Brain,
Consciousness, and God: A Lonerganian Integration by Daniel A
Helminiak
A
Walk with Four Spiritual Guides by Andrew Harvey
Can
Christians Be Saved? by Stephenson & Rhodes
The
Lost Secrets of the Ancient Mystery Schools by Stephenson &
Rhodes
Keys to
Spiritual
Being: Energy Meditation and Synchronization Exercises by Adrian
Ravarour
In
Walt We
Trust by John Marsh
Solomon's
Tantric Song by Rollan McCleary
A
Special Illumination by Rollan McCleary
Aelred's
Sin
by Lawrence Scott
Fruit
Basket
by Payam Ghassemlou
Internal
Landscapes by John Ollom
Princes
& Pumpkins by David Hatfield Sparks
Yes by Brad
Boney
Blood
of the Goddess by William Schindler
Roads of Excess,
Palaces of
Wisdom by Jeffrey Kripal
Evolving
Dharma by Jay Michaelson
Jesus
in Salome's Lot by Brett W. Gillette
The
Man Who Loved Birds by Fenton Johnson
The
Vatican Murders by Lucien Gregoire
"Sex Camp"
by
Brian McNaught
Out
& About with Brewer & Berg
Episode
One: Searching for a New Mythology
The
Soul Beneath the Skin by David Nimmons
Out
on
Holy Ground by Donald Boisvert
The
Revotutionary Psychology of Gay-Centeredness by Mitch Walker
Out There
by Perry Brass
The Crucifixion of Hyacinth by Geoff Puterbaugh
The
Silence of Sodom by Mark D Jordan
It's
Never About What It's About by Krandall Kraus and Paul Borja
ReCreations,
edited by Catherine Lake
Gospel: A
Novel
by WIlton Barnhard
Keeping
Faith: A Skeptic’s Journey by Fenton Johnson
Dating
the Greek Gods by Brad Gooch
Telling
Truths in Church by Mark D. Jordan
The
Substance of God by Perry Brass
The
Tomcat Chronicles by Jack Nichols
10
Smart
Things Gay Men Can Do to Improve Their Lives by Joe Kort
Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same Sex Love
by Will Roscoe
The
Third Appearance by Walter Starcke
The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann
Surviving
and Thriving After a Life-Threatening Diagnosis by Bev Hall
Men,
Homosexuality, and the Gods by Ronald Long
An Interview
with Ron Long
Queering Creole Spiritual Traditons by Randy
Conner & David Sparks
An Interview with
Randy Conner
Pain,
Sex
and Time by Gerald Heard
Sex
and the Sacred by Daniel Helminiak
Blessing
Same-Sex Unions by Mark Jordan
Rising Up
by
Joe Perez
Soulfully
Gay
by Joe Perez
That
Undeniable Longing by Mark Tedesco
Vintage: A
Ghost
Story by
Steve Berman
Wisdom
for the Soul by Larry Chang
MM4M a DVD
by Bruce Grether
Double
Cross
by David Ranan
The
Transcended Christian by Daniel Helminiak
Jesus
in Love by Kittredge Cherry
In
the Eye of the Storm by Gene Robinson
The
Starry Dynamo by Sven Davisson
Life
in
Paradox by Fr Paul Murray
Spirituality for Our Global Community by Daniel
Helminiak
Gay & Healthy in a Sick Society by Robert A.
Minor
Coming Out: Irish Gay Experiences by Glen O'Brien
Queering
Christ
by Robert Goss
Skipping
Towards Gomorrah by Dan Savage
The
Flesh of the Word by Richard A Rosato
Catland by
David Garrett Izzo
Tantra
for Gay Men by Bruce Anderson
Yoga
&
the Path of the Urban Mystic by Darren Main
Simple
Grace
by Malcolm Boyd
Seventy
Times Seven by Salvatore Sapienza
What
Does "Queer" Mean Anyway? by Chris Bartlett
Critique of Patriarchal Reasoning by Arthur Evans
Gift
of
the Soul by Dale Colclasure & David Jensen
Legend of the Raibow Warriors by Steven McFadden
The
Liar's
Prayer by Gregory Flood
Lovely
are the Messengers by Daniel Plasman
The Human Core of Spirituality by Daniel Helminiak
3001:
The Final Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
Religion and the Human Sciences by Daniel Helminiak
Only
the
Good Parts by Daniel Curzon
Four
Short
Reviews of Books with a Message
Life
Interrupted by Michael Parise
Confessions of a Murdered Pope by Lucien Gregoire
The
Stargazer's Embassy by Eleanor Lerman
Conscious
Living, Conscious Aging by Ron Pevny
Footprints Through the Desert by Joshua Kauffman
True
Religion by J.L. Weinberg
The Mediterranean Universe by John Newmeyer
Everything
is God by Jay Michaelson
Reflection
by Dennis Merritt
Everywhere
Home by Fenton Johnson
Hard Lesson by James
Gaston
God
vs Gay?
by Jay Michaelson
The
Gate
of Tears: Sadness and the Spiritual Path by Jay Michaelson
Roxie
&
Fred by Richard Alther
Not
the Son He Expected by Tim Clausen
The
9 Realities of Stardust by Bruce P. Grether
The
Afterlife Revolution by Anne & Whitley Strieber
AIDS
Shaman:
Queer Spirit Awakening by Shokti Lovestar
Facing the Truth of Your Life by Merle Yost
The
Super Natural by Whitley Strieber & Jeffrey J Kripal
Secret
Body by
Jeffrey J Kripal
In
Hitler's
House by Jonathan Lane
Walking on Glory by Edward Swift
The
Paradox
of Porn by Don Shewey
Is Heaven for Real? by Lucien Gregoire
In
Search of Lost Lives by Michael Goddart
Queer
Magic by Tomas Prower
God
in Your Body by Jay Michaelson
Science
Whispering Spirit by Gary Preuss
Friends
of Dorothy by Dee Michel
New by
Whitley Strieber
Developing Supersensible Perception by Shelli
Renee Joye
Sage
Sapien by Johnson Chong
Tarot
of the Future by Arthur Rosengarten
Brothers
Across Time by Brad Boney
Impresario
of Castro Street by Marc Huestis
Deathless
by Andrew Ramer
The
Pagan Heart of the West, Vol 1 by
Randy P. Conner
Practical
Tantra by William Schindler
The Flip
by Jeffrey J. Kripal
A New World
by Whitley Strieber
Bernhard
& LightWing by Damien Rowse
The
Mountains of Paris by David Oates
Trust
Truth by Trudie Barreras
How to be an Excellent Human Being by Bill Meacham
The
Deviant's War by Eric Cervini
What
Is the Grass by Mark Doty
Sex
with God by Suzanne DeWitt Hall
The Sum of All the Pieces by Paul Bradford
All the Time in the World by J. Lee Graham
Jonas and the Mountain by Janis Harper
Two Hearts Dancing by Eli Andrew Ramer
Scissors,
Paper, Rock by Fenton Johnson
Toby
Johnson's
Books on Gay Men's Spiritualities:
Gay Perspective
Things Our
[Homo]sexuality
Tells Us
about the
Nature of God and
the Universe
Gay
Perspective is available as an audiobook narrated
by Matthew Whitfield. Click
here
Gay Spirituality
Gay Identity
and
the Transformation
of
Human Consciousness
Gay
Spirituality is now
available as an audiobook, beautifully narrated by John Sipple. Click here
Charmed
Lives: Gay Spirit in Storytelling
edited by
Toby Johnson
& Steve Berman
Secret
Matter
Lammy Award Winner
for Gay
Science Fiction
updated
Getting Life in
Perspective
A Fantastical
Romance
Getting
Life in Perspective is available as an
audiobook narrated by Alex Beckham. Click
here
The Fourth Quill
originally
published
as
PLAGUE
The Fourth Quill
is
available
as an audiobook, narrated by Jimmie
Moreland. Click here
Two Spirits: A Story of
Life
with the Navajo
with Walter L.
Williams
 Two
Spirits is available as an
audiobook narrated by Arthur Raymond. Click
here
Finding
Your Own True Myth: What I Learned from Joseph
Campbell
The
Myth
of the
Great Secret III
In Search of God in the Sexual Underworld
Finding
God In The Sexual Underworld: The Journey
Expanded
2020 Revised Version
The Myth of the Great
Secret: An Appreciation of Joseph Campbell.
This
was the second edition of this book.
Toby
Johnson's
titles are
available in other ebook formats from Smashwords.
|
An Interview with Toby Johnson
by Rich Grzesiak, Oct 13, 1983
[Author's note:
In 2022, in preparing this for posting—after Rich and I reconnected
over memories of our mutual friend Mark Thompson, the editor at The
Advocate who arranged this interview and I found a copy in a box in my
office closet—I've added comments in brackets to correct or update
things and to point out how differently things unfolded than we were
expecting at that time in July 1983 when we met for the interview. That
was at a time AIDS was not understood at all; the gay community was
still "in shock."]
“Certainly, there’s always been a tradition of gay
mystics. Just look at Allen Ginsberg. There’s something about the gay
sensibility that’s mystically inclined.”
Does that statement startle you? Are you turned off by the discourse of
visionaries? Do you believe that humanity can completely comprehend its
condition and can use science to penetrate its very soul? Or perhaps
you believe there is something more valuable than the scientific
rationalism that has dominated 20th-Century thought and, yes, even gay
social commentary.
If these questions make you uncomfortable, I recommend you read Hardware Age.
But if you have always wondered about the things we cannot explain, you
might want to peruse the recent works of Edwin Clark (Toby) Johnson.
Johnson is a gay man of wide interests and
a
complex style. For several years a member of the Marianist Brothers and
later of the Servite Fathers, he studied at the Catholic Theological
Union in Chicago and at the Service Priory in Riverside, Calif. In 1970
he left the Servites to continue his education in Northern California.
Trained in psychiatric nursing at Napa State Hospital [while in grad
school], he received a
Ph.D. in counseling and psychotherapy from the California Institute of
Integral Studies. [While at C.I.I.S., he volunteered on the team that
put on the talks and seminars of the famed comparative religions
scholar Joseph Campbell and became an advocate for Campbell's
understanding of religion and myth from over and above any specific
tradition.] His religious beliefs now extend far beyond
traditional Western Judeo-Christian thought. In this cynical age,
Johnson believes that “God exists in all of us,” especially among gays.
Johnson has written two fascinating books that are as unorthodox as they are profound. In The Myth of the Great Secret, he states the case for “divining the world” by realizing that we are our own heroes. His latest work, In Search of God in the Sexual Underworld
(William Morrow), a highly unusual account of his experiences while
writing a report on juvenile prostitution, personalizes what Johnson
calls the “hero journey.” His research emerges with the rich texture
one would expect from a self-described “hippie, psychologist,
mythologist, scientist and mystic.”
Johnson lives and works in San Antonio, Tex., where he is well known as
a gay community activist [in the early to mid-80s]. He was recently in New York, where we talked
about a number of issues: sexuality, leadership and gay politics, as
well as subjects not normally tackled by gay writers—matters of life
and hope, and even God.
Do you agree with John Rechy’s assertion that there’s no
substitute for seeking salvation? How do we go about making our way
though a gay world that has debunked most of its life-giving myths?
The issue of finding myths to live by is crucial. Human beings need meaning in their lives.
From one perspective we can look at reality and see there really is a
connection between events. Maybe God really is active in the world. Our
scientific rationalism suggests that things “just happen,” and most of
us live in such a way that things just sort of happen to us. So we have
to impose meaning on what we see, and we do that by creating myths.
The myths Rechy refers to in his literature appear to have been
debunked only when one comes out of a very one-dimensional epistemology
in which things are either true or false—in which there is a single
reality.
I think there are many realities—scientific, historical, statistical.
Those are the ones we tend to think of as true, although if you examine
them carefully, they prove to be not as devoid of falsehood as we
originally took them to be. People do historical research and discover
that we’ve misunderstood the past all along. An interesting gay example
of this is John Boswell’s study of the church in medieval history [Christianity,
Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from
the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (Univ of Chicago Press, 1980)]. We
all knew that the church was anti-homosexual and Christianity was
antigay.
Now along comes Boswell to expose the truth, and suddenly history
changes behind us. [Boswell showed, for instance, that the strongest
condemnations of homosexuality really only began in the early Middle
Ages after the Black Death threatened to wipe out civilization, and
non-procreative sex was blamed for the plagues in order to get the
population procreating again; and that same-sex kinships rituals had
long been performed in the Catholic world.]
As we become more sophisticated in our understanding of reality, we
must appreciate what the ancients knew: that there is more than one
reality and that we can select the myths we will give meaning to, ones
that must have good consequences for our lives.
Christianity has taught us to edit our experience negatively, and all
that does is create lots of problems. The ultimate argument of The Myth
of the Great Secret is that if we begin to see things more positively,
they will eventually begin to get that way.
We still don’t understand the historical Christian
experience because of linguistic difficulties. The Bible tells us that
Peter left his wife to follow Jesus. There’s obviously more to that
story than what has been recorded in the Gospels.
Just imagine the difficulties inherent to interpreting literal accounts
of biblical events over 2,000 years old. Pepsi Cola once had its jingle
literally translated into other languages. The ad slogan in English
was “Pepsi brings you to life.” Translated into German the jingle
meant, “Pepsi brings you back from the grave.” In Taiwan the slogan
became, “Pepsi brings your ancestors back.”
We still don’t really understand what Jesus’ relationships with the
Apostles were. There is a funny euphemism continually used in the
Gospel of John, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Doesn’t that mean
Jesus’s lover?
We know that one of Jesus’ closest friends was a prostitute (Mary
Magdalene). The Apostles themselves were lowlifes—sailors. Through the
filter of 2,000 years of history we’ve shifted them to the status of
middle-class respectability.
A year ago Allen Young made a historic break with the American gay left, in his Gays Under the Cuban Revolution
(Grey Fox Press). One of his main points was that when we lock
ourselves into a black-and-white world view, we shred each other’s
integrity—politically and socially—as gay community leaders.
You must remember that gay liberation occurred at a time when many
people were very angry at the United States. In the parlance of Toby
Marotta’s The Politics of Homosexuality,
I’m a “cultural
radical,” someone who wishes to alter the culture by altering the way
he lives. But that doesn’t necessarily lead one to accept a Marxist
analysis. In general the movement has gone far beyond the
political/economic issues of the 1960s. [Toby Marotta and Toby Johnson
were literary partners in the conversion of Marotta's Harvard PhD
dissertation into popular language, and in production of Marotta's book
of interviews Sons of Harvard: Gay Men in the Class of '67;
together they worked in the juvenile prostitution study mentioned
above; and together—thanks to Toby Marotta's Harvard connections—they
got a wonderful New York literary agent and contracts for their several
books.]
People have often taken the maxim “the personal is
political” to mean that their political analysis allows them to target
people for personal attack, purely because their opponent’s politics
are unacceptable. Thus, everything political must equate to everything
political.
Everything you do has political implications, but you aren’t
necessarily supposed to be politically correct—the latter is the
distortion. The personal decisions you make must be seen in a social
context. How we behave somehow affects the collective mind. We have
ethical obligations to behave in right ways toward other people, but
the right ways are not as cut-and-dried as political analysis would
have it. [There was a bad side of PC; the valid notion that you should
be aware of the consequences of your actions got distorted into making
other people wrong for minor infractions. There was a good side as
well, and it is one of the great accomplishments of feminism and gay
liberation; that is, that getting "your consciousness raised" about how
your life affects other imposes ethical obligations on you. That is
what being "political correct"—PC—was really about: being the best kind
of person you can be.]
The Christian idea that we should love one another is irrefutably true.
When we’re in a context where this is not the rule—with people crying
to get what they want or be politically correct [in the bad sense]—they wind up shitting
on one another.
Perhaps the gay movement has been guilty of “sloganeering,” of mistaking political axioms for real political analysis.
I have a great tendency to romanticize early countercultural ideals. I
learned to be a hippie when I was in the monastery. Right now we have
the controversies surrounding Larry Bush, NGTF [National Gay Task
Force], GRNL [Gay Rights National Lobby] and The ADVOCATE—maybe that’s
part of becoming successful in America, because that’s what Americans
do to one another. [FYI—Larry Bush was the Washington D.C. correspondent for The Advocate,
and the first openly-gay reporter accredited by the White House. He
published articles in both gay and straight publications including the New York Times, Washington Post, Village Voice, and Playboy, and also published the Bush Report,
which was concerned with gay political and cultural issues. He was also
the Washington liaison for the National Gay Task Force. His efforts
influenced the creation of the San Francisco Ethics Commission, the
establishment of voluntary spending limits for San Francisco
candidates, electronic filing of campaign reports, and conflict of
interest reporting for City Hall aides.]
Whether it’s hippiehood or homosexuality, the Roman Catholic
Church seems incapable of dealing with either. Do you think the church
hierarchy will ever deal with its aversion to homosexuality?
Recently I learned that Pope John Paul II had asked for a copy of The AIDS Epidemic
[Saint Martin’s Press]. Still, if the church makes declarations against
gays, all it accomplishes is the alienation of homosexuals. There’s no
need for them to do that. If they come out with a positive statement on
gays, they alienate all the homophobes.
Historically, the only choice left to the church on gays may be
silence, which is what happened with birth control. After much raging
controversy it just stopped being talked about.
[That comment proved remarkably naive. The Priest-Pedophila scandal was
right around the corner and would embarrass the Church into being even
more anti-gay as it turned out most of the priests were closeted, and
many psychologically immature, sexually callow, and ethical inadequate
homosexuals. You know, if not for the pedophilia and the layers of
cover-up and denial, and the public reaction "Who knew so many priests
were homosexuals?", the revelation of gays in the priesthood should
have been "Who knew so many homosexuals devoted their lives to the
service of God?"]
We’ve created many self-defeating myths to get us through
gay life: the doomed queen, the sex-obsessed stud, life in the fast
lane, to name just a few. But we’re finding that none of the myths are
working to give life positive meaning in the AIDS era. As these myths
die, do you see an upsurge of interest in spirituality among gays?
I hope so, for salvation is the issue. That doesn’t mean heaven but the
full life—loving relationships, living well. I am not referring to the
old Christian eschatology about salvation.
A spiritual approach to life is important because the spirit is as
intrinsic to human experience as are our bodies and minds. Omitting
spiritual awareness is like neglecting our bodies’ needs.
When we create new myths, we should hark back to, and be consistent
with, the ancient traditions. A myth like the resurrection has survived
for over 50,000 years because there’s some thing intrinsically human
about it. The myth of the doomed queen means nothing unless we can
place it in the hierarchy of historic mythology. If we’re going to base
our life on myths, let’s choose a very basic [perennial and life-affirmative] one, and not the doomed
queen.
There’s something very true about the myth that drugs can bring you
enlightenment. We took LSD to show us heaven. Then we starred doing
drugs just to go to the discos, but that’s a dead end. The truth about
myths, like the one that “drugs are good,” is not historical but
experiential. [Discovering the "proper use" and the "right kinds" of
substances has been one of the hero challenges of gay culture: some
drugs offer enlightenment; some hot sex; some addiction and physical
deterioration; some camaraderie; some joy; some doom. The development
of the drugs that made AIDS survivable and, with PrEP, sex less scary,
added a whole nother kind of experimentation gay men were willing to
take on themselves—for better or worse.]
As a community, how can we create heroes—or heroic myths—when so many
of us are busy fighting for survival and at the same time are so
terribly ignorant of our gay past? Do we have to reconstruct our past
before we can gain a heroic future?
The reason we develop public heroes is to discover the heroes in
ourselves. The hero journey permits us to piece together all our
experiences and to grow in positive directions.
A more basic myth is that of the great secret, that there’s some place
to go, something we ought to know but don’t: If only we knew this one
bit of information, everything else would make sense. Today we’re
afflicted with a fatalistic notion that we’ll never find the secret, so
why bother looking? Let’s just be satisfied with a new VCR, we tell
ourselves. But there’s a great human hunger to understand the meaning
of life.
There seems to be a tremendous contempt among gay
intellectuals for any interest in spirituality, let alone religion.
Have you experienced that?
Yes. People think I’m really nutty because of the religious
paraphernalia I’m fond of. But in Texas where I am political, people
aren’t even aware of this part of me. [Fifteen years later I'd be editing White Crane: A Journal of Gay Men's Spirituality and win a Lambda Literary Award for a book called Gay Spirituality: Gay Identity and the Transformation of Human Consciousness
in a category called Spirituality/Religion. And gay bookstores would
have whole shelves of books about religion for LGBTQ+ people.]
When people perceive that you’re gay and religious, does that pose problems?
Well, we must remember that the great reality of our day is pluralism,
that there are many truths. Among the organized religions, the
opposition to homosexuality doesn’t arise from any injunction in
Leviticus but rather from the suggestion that our lives imply that
there’s more than one reality or truth. Gays disturb their assumptions
about the nature of reality, their egocentricity. Remember too that
the Romans had no reason to wipe our Christianity; they opposed the
Christians because these new-found religionists wanted to wipe out
everybody else, such was their belief that their creed was the only
truth.
How do you regard organized gay religious groups like the MCC or Dignity?
We go to church to have our religious consciousness raised. To the
extent that their liturgy is effective in this respect, I enjoy having
my spiritual awareness stimulated.
A flaw in these groups is that they’re not sufficiently “gay,” in the
sense of recognizing that to some degree being “gay’’ involves being
critically aware of society. Gay churches too easily accept traditional
Christianity without trying to take a critical distance and reshape the
religion.
Every time I refer to the MCC I belong to in San Antonio as “the gay
church,” someone objects, saying, “We’re a Christian church with an
outreach to homosexuals.” Even Troy Perry subscribes to this
descriptive notion. But they’re wrong—they are a “gay church.”
One of the functions of religion is healing. Maybe that is the main function of gay religious groups these days.
Could you explain that in greater detail?
Maybe there is some truth to the idea that AIDS is a manifestation of
sinfulness. Susceptibility to viruses has strong psychological
components. Guilt and stress do make one more susceptible to viruses.
That’s what I mean when l say that perhaps AIDS is a manifestation of
sinfulness. To the extent that many gay men have feelings of evil
buried deep inside and have no way of reconciling them, these feelings
may well bubble up in self-destructive ways. [The sinfulness isn't the
PWAs' but the churches and preachers that vilify homosexuality and make
a natural human feeling into something evil in order to have somebody
else to blame.]
Compulsive sex is bound to be emotionally unsatisfying. It’s
interesting that AIDS has appeared when the first generation of the
sexual revolution has hit its 30s.
We really aren’t free unless we have some kinds of limits on our
freedom, and those limits are based on responsible behavior. We’ve had
people who have behaved irresponsibly in the name of gay liberation.
Many of us were reluctant to say so because we feared we’d be seen as
gay Jerry Falwells.
[This conversation was happening at a time when AIDS wasn't understood
and within the gay community there was a great debate raging about who
was spreading whatever it was; there were said to be people spreading
it intentionally and others seeking to get infected intentionally.]
As far as sexual morality goes, if we talk in terms of what makes
people happy—i.e., virtue—then that’s a much better way of nurturing
behavior than saying, “Here’s a list of what’s forbidden, now see to it
that you don’t perform any of the following sexual acts.” Christianity
has been forbidding things for almost 2,000 years, and it hasn’t
accomplished anything.
Issues of personal responsibility intrigue me. You’ve been
involved with est and Werner Erhard. Est claims that individuals can
and must take responsibility for their lives and turn acts to their
personal advantage. What would you say to a gay black or a lesbian
feminist who would assert that est denies institutional responsibility
for issues like racism and sexism?
Your question reduces to solipsism, and we don’t really know how to
deal with solipsistic realities—that two things can be true
simultaneously, that individuals can take control of their lives and
that institutions do bear collective responsibilities too.
The problem with est is that it got caught up in the trappings of
middleclass California affluence, but that doesn’t negate the kernel of
truth it imparts, something well worth contemplating.
Certainly one interpretation would be that we live in a mechanistic
world where people out there have power; I have none, thus I am
oppressed. Another approach is to try one of these gimmicks—for
instance, if you put out positive vibes you can change what happens to
you. It does sound silly, but when you do it it seems to work.
Remember the mechanistic view of the world is far from a complete
picture. It doesn’t do any good just to say, “I’m oppressed.” Things
change—politically, socially, whatever—-when people take
responsibility to do so.
The argument of est was that you really have to take responsibility for
your—and the world’s—experience, and not to use the est philosophy to
your own advantage. Changing consciousness, after all, always starts
with the individual.
What if all homosexuals were to positively will themselves to hope for
a solution to AIDS instead of just acting powerless over it? The
Christians are putting forth lots of positive vibes that AIDS will kill
us all off. The sad reality is that we have no way of counteracting
this because we’re so modern that we don’t believe in any of this.
Your commentary assumes an existing gay community capable of
response. Do you think this is a valid assumption, given the proven
impotence of our community in certain parts of the country?
When we talk about the gay community, we’re talking about a tiny
percentage of homosexuals. The number of people actually patronizing
gay places, social or economic entities, is actually very small. There
are large numbers of gay people that we know nothing about, whom we’re
not reaching at all. Let’s face it: There are more of them than there
are of us. And we do have an obligation to reach these people. But the
question that afflicts us, as on so many other points, is how?
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