Agape’ MCC | MCC: A Gay Church, LGBTQ Church, Human Rights Church & More

Contents:

• SBC OTS ANOTHER GAY-IENDLY CHURCH
• MOVG TO LGBT FORT WORTH, TEXAS? HOW TO FD YOUR PERFECT GAY NEIGHBORHOOD!
• NEW DALLAS EPISPAL BISHOP TELLS GAY MEMBERS TO MARRY FORT WORTH

SBC OTS ANOTHER GAY-IENDLY CHURCH

Effectively tellg the story of LGBT (Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgenr) life Fort Worth and Tarrant County is a challenge for many reasons, the biggt obstacle beg s slow transformatn om unspoken secrecy to gradual acceptance and muny visibily. Begng wh muny standards that marked homosexualy as a crime, leadg to an unrground culture fostered semi-gay spac (such as theaters and nightclubs that at tim employed female impersonators) and eventually explicly openly-queer spac such as gay nightclubs, the multi- evolutn of LGBT life remaed largely visible until the rise of “out” culture wh the muny progrsg to public activism and eventually morn-day acceptance. In many ways, this gradual progrsn paralleled the gay stggle the Uned Stat the neteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuri, but was also— a number of rpects—specific to Texas, the Southwt and “Cowtown.

MOVG TO LGBT FORT WORTH, TEXAS? HOW TO FD YOUR PERFECT GAY NEIGHBORHOOD!

” Before the turn of the neteenth century and several s thereafter, documentatn of queer life was virtually nonexistent, due large part to the crimalized stat of beg openly gay. Texas passed s first sodomy law 1860, and the ser ramifitns for beg intified as a homosexual uld not only rult imprisonment but also social rejectn, loss of employment, or, some s, ath.

The earlit mentns of homosexualy prt media took place the 1890s, wh listgs crime blotters the Fort Worth Morng Register llg out offenrs charged wh the “ser crime” of the 1940s gays and lbians beme headle news, though the circumstanc allowed only for their reprentatn certa prcribed rol. Echog films of the time, gays ma news only when they uld be st as villas.

Stori of gay killers proved popular fodr for the more salacly-md prs at the time, and Hollywood’s obssn wh them, begng wh Aled Hchck’s 1948 thriller Rope, persists to this day. Though the cy’s first nightclubs terg exclively to gays and lbians were still several s away, the art of female impersonatn began drawg crowds Cowtown as early as 1899.

NEW DALLAS EPISPAL BISHOP TELLS GAY MEMBERS TO MARRY FORT WORTH

In 1951 a celebrated travelg impersonatn group lled the Jewel Box Revue—found by a gay uple and staffed almost entirely by gay men and one lbian woman—enjoyed a five-week holdover n at the Skyler Ballroom on Jacksboro Highway. ” Though ’s uncerta how many of the performers may themselv have been gay, we may assume that some were, and the art form was fely a huge part of gay culture.

The ntued succs of drag acts seemed cur nsirg how lol police ed a cy anti-cross-drsg ordance to routely harass the gay muny. In the chapter lled “The Lonely Star: Texas Confintial, ” the thors had much to say about Fort Worth’s early ti to anized crime along wh s rowdy nightlife, but their snt mentn of homosexual life Cowtown at the time was summed up tersely: “It is wooly and dividual and about the only burg of proportns where there are no fairi. Bee of the clanste nature of gay nightclubs, most were not listed wily-prted sourc and were stead shared secretly handma guis and privately-circulated listgs.