FREEPORT, Ill.LGBT people and allies united for St. John United Church of Christ's second annual Unity Fest. Speakers shared experiences that taught attendees about what segments of the LGBT community has faced and how to face certain ones.
Unity Fest is a Pride event that Lighthouse Prism, the church's LGBT ministry, created. Speakers included St. John United Church of Christ member Timothy Outcault, Chicago LGBT Asylum Support Program ( CLASP ) co-founder John Adewoye and Open Prairie United Church of Christ pastor, the Rev. Mary Gay McKinney. Open Prairie United Church of Christ is in Princeton, Ill.
Outcault, who's gay, painted a vivid mental image of the AIDS epidemic's early days, describing a striking similarity with another deadly disease.
"No one was sure how it was spreading," he said. "There was shame in cancer like there was shame in AIDS."
Outcault remembered that it took nearly two years for the media to report on AIDS. At one time, no one knew whether AIDS was transmitted by sexual contact or mosquitos, according to Outcault.
"The U.S. government got caught with its pants down," he said.
Inattention and neglect left the door open for homophobia-fueled hysteria. Outcault, who once lived in California, said Proposition 64 ( 1986 ) would have classified AIDS as a communicable disease. Political activist Lyndon LaRouche, a Democrat, pushed the legislation, which was defeated at the ballot box.
LaRouche's Prevent AIDS Now Initiative Committee ( PANIC ) was the proposition's catalyst. Outcault said LaRouche supported turning gay areas like New York's East Village, West Los Angeles and San Francisco's Castro district into place to quarantine gay people. Outcault distilled LaRouche's "logic."
"Once the gays were dead, the virus would die," he said.
Outcault only lived one-half block from the LaRouche headquarters and protested outside.
"We walked in peace as we were called all sorts of names," he said.
Outcault walked past the LaRouche headquarters the day after the protest. The building's walls were being scrubbed with bleach and soapy water. Sadly, that was only one manifestation of fear and hatred. AIDS patients were fired and evicted. After reflecting on the past, Outcault pondered the present.
"No one on this planet should be dying of AIDS," he said. "[About] 35,000 people die of AIDS every week."
The present, in some ways, is similar to the past. Some doctors, Outcault said, still refuse to treat patients. Outcault himself has AIDS, which he openly discusses.
"Please don't tell me that life with AIDS is normal, because it's not," he said.
Being LGBT in America can be life-threatening. People in anti-gay countries face life-and-death situations daily. That's what prompted Adewoye to help found the organization, which helps those seeking asylum in the United States. However, that's not what brought the Nigerian-born man, who's become an American citizen, here. Adewoye, a gay former Catholic priest, arrived in the land of milk and honey on Dec. 14, 1999, in hopes of making a terrific change.
"[I was] looking for freedom from being gay," he said. "That's what brought me here to America."
Adewoye came solely to get reparative therapy. Although he'd become an ordained priest, that wasn't his dream job.
"As a little boy, I had this gorgeous aspiration to be a nun," Adewoye said.
Bullying was a constant companion during elementary school. And, at home, it was obvious that Adewoye wasn't like his brother.
"'You the only boy in the house and you don't get out of the kitchen,'" he remembered his father saying.
Adewoye eventually got into a seminary high school, which he thought was a real God-send.
"If you go to such a school, there will be no bullying…no name calling," he said. "We'd all be angels."
Adewoye recalled seeing closeted gay men with suffering wives, when he became an ordained. With that said, his sexuality was soon questioned and Bible-based bullying began. Adewoye remembered the day a note was slipped under his door.
He'd walk out the door and, eventually, end up in America.
"For the first time in my life, I discovered I was not alone," Adewoye said. "Here, I am! I got the freedom to be me."
AIDS and homophobia helped create enemies for the LGBT community, said McKinney. A lesbian, McKinney shared strategies for dealing with or figuring out whether people are actually our enemies.
"It doesn't have to be the Roman soldier," she said. "It can be somebody really close."
Dealing with enemies is a daily process, according to McKinney. Praying is a good first step in dealing with an adversary. However, avoiding confrontation or interaction is impossible.
"The time does comes that we want to engage an enemy," McKinney said.
Engaging the enemy in a thoughtful way requires keeping one thing in mind.
"We have to know and be aware that people's worldview is different from ours," McKinney said. "It can be crazy, hard and exhausting to enter another's world view."