Integration was happening and, on the football team anyway, blacks and white got along well.
No one knew what to say in those uncomfortable days so nobody said anything.
Paul and I and our dates ate and drank for free before laughing all the way to the Garden City Methodist Church where we parked ... making out until the girls had to be home.
At Georgia Southern I had friends who were gay, one on our Intramural Football Team "The Smokey Jays" and never really thought much about it.
I was busy working, going to school and my son had been born so there wasn't a lot of free time to wonder about differences.
But in Seminary my world changed!
In the early 80s there was AIDS.
Inexplicably I was the "Professional Christian" in charge of an inner city church where I was intensely focused on Ronald Regan's exploding homeless population.
AIDS scared everyone more and landlords were evicting gay tenants left and right who were sick and had nowhere to go.
Some heard about a hippy preacher who helped people find a place to stay so they came to me.
Young, naïve, with a good heart and high hopes, I believed in Jesus and everything he did so I did my best to help.
And I entered another universe.
People in love ... or desperate for it ... faced discrimination like I had never seen and God forbid if you were both black and gay because churches of all colors were so lovingly hypocritical.
"GOD DID NOT CREATE ADAM AND STEVE," an African-American preacher bellows as I integrated his congregation. GOD MADE ADAM AND EVE AND THAT'S THE WAY IT'S ORDAINED TO BE!"
"What a shit head," I remember thinking.
So in Louisville, Kentucky in the 80s and Savannah, Georgia in the 90s and 00's a big part of my life ... a big part of my heart ...was spent helping the gay community become one with the rest of us.
We opened Glade House in Louisville and Phoenix Place in Savannah so people with AIDS had a home when their own families kicked them out.
As important we helped "out" gay people through the St. Jude's Guild in Louisville and First City Network in Savannah.
I'm very proud to have played a small part in these things.
So this weekend, Sarah and I are celebrating "The Rainbow Festival" on Tybee Island where we live.
We are full of Gay pride!
"Red and yellow, black and white," keeps running through my head, "Lesbian or gay, transgender or any ol' way ... all are precious in his sight ... Heaven's come to us today!"
Amen!
And thank God!
