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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Unpublished manuscripts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
Psycho-Spiritual Development
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
Jungian Themes in Spirituality & Psychology
Gay
Spirituality
Curious
Bodies
What
Toby Johnson Believes
The
Joseph Campbell Connection
A Surprising Dinner Party
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
Gay Relationship Rings: Symbols to Help Cement Our Commitment
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
What is Truth?
Fish on Friday
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
Toby
Marotta & Sons of Harvard
Toby
Marotta's Politics of Homosexuality
People
Kip and Toby,
Activists
Toby's
friend and nicknamesake Toby Marotta.
24 Mandalas Hand-drawn by Geoffrey Graham
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 Bill
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
Where's
My Pizza? by Larry Armstead II
A New Now by
Michael Goddart
Heavenly
Homos, Etc by Jan Haen
The Erotic Contemplative by Michael Bernard Kelly
Our Time by Chuck
Forester
Queer
God de Amor by Miguel H. Diaz
I Came Here Seeking a Person by William Glenn
Memories of a Gay Catholic Boyhood by John
D'Emilio
Ever After by Andrew Ramer
Meditation for Prisoners by Lewis Elbinger
Why and How the Clergy Lied by D.L. Day
Heavenly LGBTQ+ by Jan Haen
My Life As a Boy, Priest, Gay Man, and Artist by Jan Haen
Trailblazerrs in Love by Jeff Lutes
Daddy Lover God by Don Shewey
Coming In by Urs Mattman
The Shoes of the Fisherman movie with Anthony Quinn
Tantric Psychophysics by Shelli Joye
The Hidden Dimensions of Consciousness by Shelli Joye
Queer Callings by Mark D Jordan
The Secret That Is Not a Secret by Jay Michaelson
Divining Desire by Sequoia Thom
Making Room by Carl Siciliano
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.
|
A True Example of Gay Sanctity
Making Room:
Three Decades of Fighting for Beds, Belonging, and a Safe Place for LGBTQ Youth
by Carl Siciliano
Convergent Books (May 21, 2024)
304 pages, kindle $12.99, paperback $12.67
ISBN 978-0593444245
Available from Amazon
Click here:
Making Room
Description:
From
a pioneering advocate for LGBTQ youth, a gripping, impassioned account
of how an unhoused queer youth's murder compelled him to create the
nation's largest housing program for homeless LGBTQ teens.
“A gut-wrenchingly poignant real-life saga . . . an unputdownable
account of what it looks like when compassion is harnessed to funding
and policy.”—Tim Murphy, author of Christodora and Speech Team
ONE OF CNN’S ESSENTIAL READS FOR PRIDE MONTH AND BEYOND
What power does a long-disenfranchised community hold to transform the
treatment of its most abused members? How can we locate that power?
Carl Siciliano met Ali Forney—a Black nonbinary teenager known for
fierce loyalty to friends and an unshakeable faith that “my God will
love me for who I am”—in 1994 while working at a daytime center for
homeless youth in New York City. Nineteen years old, Forney was one of
thousands Siciliano encountered who had been driven from their homes by
rejecting families, forced to struggle in the streets due to homophobic
and transphobic violence in the shelters.
Then Forney was murdered, a moment of horror and devastation that
exposed the brutality that teenagers like Forney faced in a city marked
by gentrification, racist policing, and the onslaught of the AIDS
epidemic. Anguished by Forney’s loss, Siciliano fought to create homes
where unhoused queer teens could live safely, with their human dignity
at last affirmed, while he helped lead a movement that compelled New
York City to invest millions of dollars in kids who’d been ignored for
decades.
Siciliano writes with loving affection for Forney and many other queer
teens, showing deep respect for their wisdom, courage, and spiritual
integrity. Their stories illuminate the harsh realities faced by
hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ youths suffering from homelessness
across our nation. And, exposing the political and religious forces
that continue to endanger LGBTQ youths, he makes a clarion call for
their protection.
Written with heart and profound insight, Making Room is a
landmark personal narrative, bringing to life an untold chapter of
LGBTQ history and testifying to the power of community, solidarity, and
the human spirit.
Review:
This is a lovely, loving,
engaging, and moving account of the author's struggle and devotion to
LGBTQ community social service. In 1994, Carl Siciliano was hired as
director of a drop-in/day-care program for gay and queer youth in New
York City called SafeSpace. He tells that he soon saw that the clients
at SafeSpace needed more than just a place to hang out during the day.
Demographics of the target population of such programs had changed by
the 1990s. Now many--most--of the youth who came to SafeSpace were
effectively homeless and many surviving through tricking and hustling
in the gay world of New York City. They needed a place to sleep. They
needed a home.
Carl Siciliano was a religious man, zealous
to serve God as he'd learned of such a way of life, growing up Italian Catholic. He must have felt
"called" to such a life by the "social gospel of Catholicism." Let me
interject that that's the best of part of Catholic teaching; all that
terrible stuff about sex and sin notwithstanding, the social/socialist
message is what the religion is really about. Also growing up Catholic, I understand myself what
that "calling" was about.
Siciliano lived in a couple of monastic environments and then spent
several years living and serving the poor and homeless in The Catholic
Worker. This was the social service/spiritual mission created by the
modern day saint Dorothy Day. After coming out as gay in 1987, he
worked with People with AIDS. SafeSpace for LGBTQ youth was a natural
development in his social service career. And, we learn through the
book, in his personal and spiritual development.
Siciliano is a good writer. The simplicity of speech and immediacy of
the storytelling draw the reader right into his lifestory, but without
it being about him. The book is filled with stories of the youth he has
met in his work. Often these are stories of terrible abuse, dismissal by
parents, mistreatment by bullies, by johns, by social services. Several
of the stories end with deaths. Not least of these is the story of Ali
Forney.
The book's title, Making Room: Three Decades of Fighting for Beds, Belonging, and a Safe Place for LGBTQ Youth,
refers to Carl Siciliano's accomplishment in creating a network of
residences for homeless youth as The Ali Forney Center, the nation's
largest non-profit providing shelter and healthcare services to LGBTQ
youth experiencing homelessness in New York City. Quite an accomplishment
and a guantlet of tasks of fundraising, moneychasing, lifesaving,
careerchanging, and prayer and suffering to get there.
 Ali
Forney is the main character of the book, an African-American gay and
gender non-conforming transgender youth who also used the name
Luscious. Forney graduated from being a desperate client of SafeSpace
to being a peer counselor and advocate in Carl's work to develop
housing and refuge for homeless queer youth. They became close friends.
Forney was shot to death on the street in 1997. The murder
inexplicable. But, as the story is told in the book, it was this event
that spurred Siciliano to create the youth program in 2002 that he
named in memorial as The Ali Forney Center.
 This wonderful book reports on a side of gay/queer life that most of
us know little about. Some of the stories are heart-rending, but others
heart-warming. The book is specifically about social service needs in modern,
urbanized society. But it is also about gay sanctity. That's Carl
Siciliano's "saintliness" in being a helper for those who need help.
The word saintliness suggests religiousness--and that's true,
but more importantly it means being compassionate and sensitive and responding to others' feelings and needs. And it's
not just Carl Siciliano who's a paradoxically sexy and good-looking gay
Mother Theresa. This saintliness and sensitivity is something intrinsic
to gay men of a certain temperment.
This motivation to service—and sometimes self-sacrifice for the good of
others—is a driving force in so many queer gay men. In the mythology of
reincarnation, one might say there's a whole cohort of shamans,
Two-spirits, healers, priests, and monks and nuns—bodhisattvas all,
reincarnating down through history, and they are showing up as gay men,
with all the variations and gender-diversity we now understand under
the LGBTQ umbrella, in these days of AIDS and world crisis.
Siciliano mostly tells about the youth. He calls for the reader to
recognize that these abused, maligned, bullied, and persecuted,
confused, lost and desperate kids really do exist and need our help.
Fortunately, over the years, in great part thanks to Siciliano's
organizing and fundraising skills, the Ali Forney Center has become
well-established, respected, and successful. There is sometbody helping
these kids.
Siciliano also lets us into his personal and spiritual life just a
little. There is an episode about three-quarters of the way through the
book—where in a novel the denoument would begin—where things look dark
and hopeless for the future. And Carl prays. He tells us about his
prayerlife and mentions saints and spiritual heroes that he, coming out
of Catholic tradition, prays to for help. Some of these are familiar objects of
Catholic devotion like Saint Francis and Mary the Mother of God, but
also modern characters like Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton, and Bayard Rustin and Sylvia
Rivera. Among the recognizable names is one fairly obscure one: Saint
Benedict Joseph Labre.
 I
know of Benedict Joseph Labre
from a mention by Thomas Merton, the communist idealist
intellectual, post-World-War-II spiritual seeker turned Trappist monk,
who
observed ironically that of all the men who've been in the Trappist
Order the only one who is recognized by the Church as a saint is
Benedict Joseph Labre. Labre was a peculiar young man who was thrown
out of the Trappist Order for
being too religious and too delicate. He ended up a wanderer and
a homeless beggar in Rome, but he was also a popular and beloved
eccentric and
was canonized by popular acclaim after his sudden death at age 35 in
1783. This painting by Antonio Cavallucci, I think, is supposed to be
from life. Doesn't he look like he'd fit right in with Ali Forney in
Carl's clientload.
I had a fascination with Benedict Joseph Labre, what Catholics call a
devotion. I too had been thrown out of a religious order and Labre
seemed like a role model — at least the "wanderer" part. I loved that
idea. The myth of the wanderer is a major theme in Hermann Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund.
It's a metaphor for throwing oneself into life — into God's hands —
trusting that the trust itself will carry you through hardship,
trusting that the universe is ultimately benign, and there is nothing
to be afraid of. Prayer is making oneself a wanderer then, staying attentive, accepting what comes, choosing things the way they are so they can open up and become what we need for our hero journey.
I won't tell whether or how Carl Siciliano's prayers were answered—or
which "saint" (whom you all know BTW) it was that answered them. It's a
wonderful, heartwarming moment in the book, and I wouldn't want to ruin
the surprise.
I resonated with this book because I have some personal history with
the cause of gay runaway youths. This is a chapter of my life I wrote
about in my book Finding God in the Sexual Underworld.
In the late 1970s, I was a licensed counselor in a community mental
health clinic in downtown San Francisco. I'd done my internship for a
PhD in Counseling Psychology at The Tenderloin Clinic and after
finishing the intership I applied for and got a real job in this agency
which had a special contract to provide services for gay and lesbian
clients from all over the City. In 1977, a lot of the time that meant
helping newcomers and "refugees" arriving in San Francisco to discover
their homosexuality to find it as a natural and positive character trait.
Through that job, I met nicknamesake Toby Marotta who was working in a
study of the Tenderloin District ("red-light" neighborhood) for an
agency called Hospitality House. I assisted Marotta finalize his
Harvard dissertation on the gay rights movement and then get it
published along with a book about other gay men in the Harvard class of
1963. Toby had been interested in the demimonde of The Tenderloin, and
especially the plight of teenagers who'd fled to San Francisco and
ended up hustling sex to gay adults. Through his Harvard connections,
he met a gay Washington bureaucrat in the Youth Development Bureau
which oversaw the network of halfway houses for runaway youth that had
formed around the Summer of Love in 1967 and the Anti-war and Youth
Movement of the 60s and 70s. These agencies, Toby learned, didn't serve
gay youth because they didn't serve sexually active youth, since they
weren't equipped to allow sex between the residents. AND their first
directive was family reunification: get the kids back home. So by their
nature, these halfway houses for runaway youth couldn't help the youth
that most needed help, like homosexual boys and girls who'd been driven
out of their homes and come to San Francisco or New York to find
themselves, and ended up on the street.
The fellow at Youth Development was very sympathetic with Toby Marotta's
urging that the YDB halfway houses provide services to the gay teen
hustlers whom he'd seen and interacted with at Hospitality House—and
that I'd sometimes interacted with at the Tenderloin Clinic. Our
contact at YDB got a Call for Proposals issued for a needs study of
male and female teenagers involved in prostitution. And, as is the way
of federally funded studies, got it "wired" to a consulting firm in San
Francisco called URSA. They had done similar research for this agency.
URSA hired Toby and me to handle the area of teenage boys hustling in
the Tenderloin in S.F. and Times Square in N.Y.C.
Our job was to observe patterns, try to understand who and why these
young people were, describe problems, and suggest solutions. We were to
produce a "Resource Manual" that would assist the youth agencies in
offering the needed help. We moved into a hustler hotel (run by a
couple of gay activists, Ron Lanza and Hank Wilson, as a kind of
privately-owned social service residential agency). Toby Marotta interviewed the
hustlers. I interviewed the staff at the agencies. Toby was an
ethnographer; I was a social service provider.
It was quite an adventure. I almost got murdered-- twice. It was a
spiritual ordeal, a hero's journey. It woke me up to reality. It scared
me out of San Francisco and on to the next phase of my life. Thank
goodness.
Reading Carl Siciliano's book, I recognize the challenges of this kind
of work. I also see that the scope and nature of the work has changed
enormously. In 1978, we didn't have in our understanding the identity
of trans*. There were people who'd had sex-changes and there were
prostitutes who crossdressed in order to appeal to men who didn't think
of themselves as homosexual and so sought female prostitutes who were
really men. Gay Liberation has resulted in awareness of so many shades
of human sexuality and consciousness.
Toby Marotta and I and the URSA team observed and documented the plight
of the young boys and girls who were living in the sex trade zones of
major cities. We described their problems, made suggestions for
understanding their various outcomes, and urged the federally-funded
halfway houses to accept the sexually active and sexually-variant youth
into their programs.
We received funding for the study from Y.D.B. under the Carter Administration. By the
time we finished the project, the Reagan Administration had taken over.
The Report and Resouce Manual which we submitted to the Dept of Health and
Human Services was rejected outright.
In a phone call between the head of URSA and the Secretary of H&HS
(Margaret Heckler) which the staff listened to in the next room over
the speakerphone, we were told that our findings could not be correct.
The issue she mentioned specifically was our finding that most of
the teenage boys who lived in the sex trade zones and hustled gay
adults were themselves gay. That's why they'd come to the Tenderloin or
Times Square; that's often why they had run away from home in the first
place. That seemed fairly obvious to us as gay men ourselves. But the
official line was that there are no "gay youth." Youth are only turned
gay by homosexuals having sex with them.
Helping the boys learn to be happy gay adults—as we proposed these
programs should be doing—was not what the Adminstration wanted being
done.
URSA did keep the Resource Manual in print for a while and there were
some agencies that were interested in the findings, but we certainly
didn't set gay-positive national policy.
I think Carl Siciliano's struggles for funding and recognition of the
plight of the homeless queer youth a decade or two later resonate with
that same misunderstanding and intransigence in mainstream society.
They really don't believe homosexuality exists. They don't believe
people really need to change their gender. They don't really believe
other people can be different from them.
Making Room refutes that misunderstanding by humanizing
the real queer youth, and revealing their one true problem: They need a
place to live, they need a room. And Carl Siciliano has been making
rooms for them.
You know, Jesus said the criterion for getting into heaven is whether
you fed the poor, gave water to the thirsty, clothed the naked, gave
homes to the homeless. And maybe that heaven, that is supposed to be after
death, is actually in the joy you experience in being alive and being loving and compassionate and generous. This is heaven
now! I think Carl's gotten there.
Here's a passage from Narcissus and Goldmund by Herman Hesse describing
the mtyh of the wanderer is some vaguely medieval world. Maybe this is
a description of a kind of sanctity. There's something gay about this
wanderer identity.
"Obedient to no man, dependent only on
weather and season, without a goal before them or a roof above them,
owning nothing, open to every whim of fate, the homeless wanderers lead
their childlike, brave, shabby existence. They are the sons of Adam,
who was driven out of Paradise; the brothers of the animals, of
innocence. Out of heaven’s hand they accept what is given them from
moment to moment: sun, rain, fog, snow, warmth, cold, comfort, and
hardship; time does not exist for them and neither does history, or
ambition, or that bizarre idol called progress and evolution, in which
houseowners believe so desperately.
"A wayfarer may be delicate or crude, artful or
awkward, brave or cowardly—he is always a child at heart, living in the
first day of creation, before the beginning of the history of the
world, his life always guided by a few simple instincts and needs.
"He may be intelligent or stupid; he may be deeply aware of the
fleeting fragility of all living things, of how pettily and fearfully
each living creature carries its bit of warm blood through the glaciers
of cosmic space, or he may merely follow the commands of his poor
stomach with childlike greed—he is always the opponent, the deadly
enemy of the established proprietor, who hates him, despises him, or
fears him, because he does not wish to be reminded that all existence
is transitory, that life is constantly wilting, that merciless icy
death fills the cosmos all around.
Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund p. 192-19
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