Melissa Levine: Continuing reviewer for www.inthelibraryreview.com
Archbishop Bruce J. Simpson educates and enlightens with the presentation of his life as a gay man called to be a servant of God. In the autobiography, “The Gay Face of God.” Simpson's story begins with his violent conception and spirals through acknowledgement of his homosexuality in his pre-pubescent years, service in the Air Force and many turns as a police officer, to his successful induction into the Old Catholic Religious Order. Throughout Simpson's journey there are three constants: his outspoken advocacy of the gay community, his calling to serve in the church, and his love for his partner of thirty years.
In “The Gay Face of God,” Simpson speaks out against the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope, and the sitting President of the United States and their collective dogma regarding the gay community. The Archbishop goes straight to the Bible to point out the discrepancies in the conservative religious community's argument against the gay lifestyle: “No where does Jesus himself say anything about gay people or gay sex. If homosexuality were such a sin, does it not make sense that Jesus would have talked about it at least once?”
While this writer respects the author's views on the mistreatment of the gay community, what I was most struck by and appreciative of in “The Gay Face of God” was the simple manner in which Simpson outlined the struggles, successes, failures, and love he experienced that were not unlike those of any straight man who has lived a varied and purposeful life. Simpson's piece brings us a step closer to understanding that we are all more alike than different.
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