Toby Johnson: This review was originally published in White Crane Journal (#50). It is reprinted with permission from www.whitecranejournal.com online.
Here's another book that would make a great gift (especially perhaps to a relative who doesn't understand homosexuality) and that belongs in your bathroom library. It's comprised of brief, usually pithy, autobiographical sketches, along with a few poems and an extensive list of community resources. The theme of the collection is that “real people,” not stars and celebrities, live wonderful contributing lives, and many of them are gay.
The Movement talks so facilely about “gay pride,” but often neither the gay nor the straight media ever provide us reasons for why we should feel pride. By recognizing the experiences and ordeals and contributions of the “real people,” most of them gay and only a very few celebrities, Journeys Across the Rainbow gives inspiration for pride and self-respect.
There are some 44 writers (about equally mixed men and women), some of them (including the editors) have multiple entries. Some of the stories are cute. Some profound. Some a little cliched, but all well-meant and warm-hearted.
There's a section of Spirituality that strikes me as awfully Christian (and the Spirituality Resources are all Christian and don't include White Crane Journal, RFD, the Radical Faeries or Body Electric). But, of course, that's the way the world of “real people” really looks. It's important that stories like these make it into the collective consciousness as that consciousness struggles with the place of gay people.
Journeys Across the Rainbow is available on the web at www.RainbowPridePress.com. Or call (303) 267 2155.
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