Sean’s Last Wish founder Elke Kennedy is featured in the soon to be released book CRISIS, 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social, and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing Up Gay in America. It is edited by Mitchell Gold, founder of Faith in America, with Mindy Drucker.

CRISIS is an expose of the fear, isolation, depression, and even suicidal feelings young gay people face from the time they realize they are gay until they have a healthy coming out. For many gay adults, the traumatic teenage years are buried in memory as a painful time to be left behind and forgotten. But, those who bravely recalled and contributed their stories to CRISIS describe experiences that are unfortunately universal for gay youth. 

Well-known successful members of the gay community, such as Bishop Gene Robinson, actor Richard Chamberlain, ambassador Jim Hormel and US Reps Tammy Baldwin and Barney Frank, share what it was like to live a lie every day, without support from family, friends, church, or school-and how they triumphed over the challenges. And a number of young people detail personal experiences that make clear the same challenges unfortunately continue today.

CRISIS is designed to make parents, clergy, teachers, politicians, and the media aware of the ongoing crisis young gay people experience in our culture today and understand how to stop it.

In addition to being an inspiring and helpful personal resource, it is an excellent gift for that someone you know whose heart and mind you’d like to transform from hostility to love and from rejection to acceptance. 

CRISIS will be published in mid-September. Pre-orders are available now at Amazon.com and CrisisBook.org.

On Sunday, Aug. 10, at 7pm the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Columbia will hold a panel discussion about the proposed South Carolina “I Believe” license plates, which has resulted in a lawsuit. (See earlier post for background on the controversy.)

The panel will include Kevin Hall, an attorney with Nelson Mullins, the law firm that will be defending the Dept. of Motor Vehicles in the lawsuit. He will join the Rev. Michael Frisina, pastor of Calvary Chapel, and one of his parishioners, Carl Sohm, in defending the constitutionality of the plate. Speaking in opposition to the plate will be two of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit: the Rev. Dr. Tom Summers, a retired United Methodist minister, and the Rev. Dr. Monty Knight, pastor of the First Christian Church of Charleston and president of the Charleston AU chapter.

The UU Fellowship is at 2701 Heyward St., corner of Heyward and Woodrow in Shandon.

Check out Publishers Weekly’s review of Candace Chellew-Hodge’s forthcoming book, Bulletproof Faith. Rev. Chellew-Hodge serves as a pastor at the Garden of Grace United Church of Christ (a member of the SC Progressive Network) in Columbia and edits the online publication Whosoever.

Rev. Candace Chellew-Hodge (right) joins Rev. Tom Summers (center) and Rev. Bennie Colclough in facilitating a group discussion at a Network retreat at Penn Center.

By Becci Robbins and Brett Bursey
SC Progressive Network

About 25 activists met yesterday in Columbia to talk about the future and direction of the South Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which in April was taken over by the national after years of poor management and in-fighting. While the national organization has twice before taken over a state chapter, this is the first time in the ACLU’s nearly 90-year history that it has done so without the affiliate’s blessing.

It’s too bad that it has come to this, but it appears it was the only way the SC ACLU was ever going to get out of the ditch it has been mired in for more than a decade. Under the leadership of libertarian David Kennison, the chapter has been at ideological odds with the national organization and has alienated longtime SC ACLU supporters and board members.

It didn’t help that the SC ACLU hired a series of executive directors who ranged from inept to corrupt. The last director was fired after it was discovered that her law license had been suspended and that she was stealing money from the chapter.

Tension deepened two years ago, when the chapter became the only state affiliate to sign onto a Web site criticising the ACLU’s national director, Anthony Romero. Kennison has argued that the chapter take-over is tied to his past criticism of Romero. (You can read more about this dispute in The Nation.)

All this drama has not come without a price. While the SC ACLU has been battling with itself, abuses of civil liberties have gone unchallenged. Absent, too, has been a clear and consistent voice in the South Carolina media addressing privacy concerns, chronic problems regarding the separation of church and state, and a host of other legal and legislative matters.

Yesterday’s meeting in Columbia was the first in a series that the ACLU will hold across the state in an effort to gather input and chart a new course. If you want to add your two cents, the organization is soliciting feedback through an online survey.

We wish the new SC ACLU well.