Gay Identity: Redefinable?

By Ginny Finch

For years gay pioneer Nick Benton has been questioning popular definitions of “gay.” Benton is the cofounder of the Berkeley, California Gay Liberation Front, a graduate of the Pacific School of Religion, and the founder, owner, and editor of the weekly newspaper,  The Falls Church News Press.

He told a packed room of adult education participants about the series of essays he’d written called “The GayScience Papers: Towards Shaping a New, Post-Stonewall  Gay Identity.” According to Benton, “We’re just like you except for what we do in the bedroom” is an assimilationist approach that does not strike at the heart of what it means to be gay. For him, gay  identity precedes sexuality and involves a gay “sensibility,” an alternative perspective, and constructive nonconformity. 
 

If we want to go back to some great gay people, we should go back to David, concluded Benton. “More attention is paid to him and his relationship with Jonathan in the Books of Samuel than in any other relationship  in the entire Bible.”  

To read Nick Benton’s essays on gay science, visit 
http://www.fcnp.com.