Meg and Jake Abhau Archives

081: Meg & Jake Abhau | Part 1: Our Son is Gay

Posted 7 years ago Tagged Jon Abhau Meg and Jake Abhau

Thank you to John Dehlin and the Mormon Stories Podcast for providing this interview of Meg and Jake Abhau. This three part series discusses the Abhau family and their journey in understanding their son, Jon’s sexuality. This is an abbreviated … Read the rest here

Latter Gay Stories

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Latter Gay Stories

1 day ago

Christians quoting Bible verses to condemn queer people while ignoring their own flaws is peak hypocrisy. And then they bear false witness quoting their uneducated version of scripture ignoring what the text actually means—like Leviticus and Paul’s words.

Weaponizing scripture to hate—instead of love. Jesus flipped tables over less.

You should know something’s wrong when you have to twist the scriptures and put words in God’s mouth to justify your bigotry.

We see you. 👀

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Latter Gay Stories

2 days ago

Marsha P. Johnson did not single-handedly lead Stonewall, and her own words and account of the events on June 28, 1969 do not support the legend that she threw the first brick, or ignited the riot that would eventually memorialize Stonewall.

Marsha said so herself in a 1989 interview with historian Eric Marcus. When asked about that first night at Stonewall, she explained, “I was uptown and I didn’t get downtown until about two o’clock, because when I got downtown the place was already on fire. And it was a raid already. The riots had already started.”

The police raided Stonewall at 1:20 am, nearly an hour later, after hearing about the raid, Marsha arrived. That historical point doesn’t diminish Marsha—it makes our history more honest.

Stonewall was not a neatly organized protest with one leader, one spark, or one hero. It was a spontaneous riot after years of police raids, arrests, humiliation, and violence against LGBTQ people. The people who pushed back were bar patrons, street kids, drag queens, lesbians, gay men, trans people, gender-nonconforming people, neighbors, and others who had simply had enough.

Marsha was one of the people who embodied the spirit of Stonewall: poor, Black, gender-nonconforming, constantly targeted by police, and unwilling to disappear. Her greater legacy may be less about one dramatic “first brick” and more about what she did after Stonewall. She was an organizer, she sheltered people, protested, and forced a movement that often tried to exclude people like her.

The myths surrounding Marsha makes the Stonewall story easier to tell, but the truth is more useful. Her importance isn’t about a tidy little origin story. It is found in the life she lived after Stonewall, in the people she protected, and in the pressure she kept putting on a movement that too often wanted the courage of people like her without making room for them. ... See MoreSee Less

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Latter Gay Stories

2 days ago

In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village. That alone was not unusual. Police raids on gay bars were common, humiliating, and often devastating. People could be arrested, photographed, outed in newspapers, fired from their jobs, rejected by their families, or worse, simply for being found in a place where they felt safe enough to exist.

That night, 57 years ago, today, the people outside Stonewall did not quietly accept another raid.

As police forced patrons into the street, a crowd gathered on Christopher Street. The anger that erupted was not about one raid alone. It was about years of being treated as criminals for gathering, for dancing, loving, and existing openly. The people pushed back, the confrontation spread, and demonstrations continued over several nights. New York City police did not expect the result of what they were witnessing.

Stonewall was not the first time LGBTQ people resisted. There had been earlier protests, organizations, and acts of courage across the country. But Stonewall became one of the defining moments because it moved the fight into public view. It was visible. It showed a country that LGBTQ people were no longer willing to be hidden, shamed, arrested, or erased without a fight.

The six-day rebellion ended when neighborhood activists, bar patrons, and drag queens dispersed on July 3, 1969.

One year later, on June 28, 1970, marches were held in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago to mark the anniversary of the uprising. Those marches helped form the foundation of today’s modern Pride.

Pride did not begin as branding, marketing, or a seasonal rainbow. It began as a demand to live freely and publicly in a country that had spent too long punishing people for being gay.

Today, we remember Stonewall—June 28, 1969, and recognize our responsibility to carry that inheritance: to resist, to be visible, to have courage, and to own the responsibility to protect the freedoms others risked everything to claim. ... See MoreSee Less

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081: Meg & Jake Abhau | Part 1: Our Son is Gay

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