Bill Weintraub

Re:The Last Refuge of Man's Dignity and Soul

10-2-2003

hey thank you greg

you've made many great contributions to the site and they're all appreciated

re Christianity

i think it's important to differentiate between the Christian Faith itself, which contains a clear and unequivocal message of love, hope, and redemption, and the historical and often hate-filled actions of various churches

the Faith has been and is an important and vital force in many people's lives

while the churches themselves have too often been destructive

so in the club we respect the Christian Faith and others, while criticizing the actions of individuals and institutions who claim to speak for a faith, but are usually just homophobic and/or have another agenda -- like making money

that's particularly true of the abstinence folks

their position is that they will only work with men who have sex with men -- if we stop having sex with men

what that means is that they would rather men die of HIV than have a safe and joyous sexual life with each other

that position is not morally tenable

because clearly, one's first duty is to save lives

but to these folks, it's more important that their interpretation of the Bible prevail, than that men be protected from HIV

that's not moral, nor is it scriptural

Greg, you also said that

Sometimes I'm getting a feeling as well that The Man2Man alliance is becoming a religion by itself.

All we have is the faith and belief in what we stand for and what we fight for.

it's true that caught between the two power blocs of the religious right and the analist left, we are, at the moment, relatively powerless

so we have our faith and belief in what we stand for and fight for -- but not much ability to get our message across

yet that would change quickly if men would begin to donate

because we have the numbers

if each of you would pledge to give and follow through on just $5 a month, we've have enough money to bring about genuine social change, and change which would be enormously to your benefit

so one way to think of The Man2Man Alliance is as a social ministry, whose task is to reach out to men who have sex with men or who want to, and to show them that they can do so in a way that's hot, phallic, faithful, and masculine

the abstinence right and the analist left have done and will continue to do all they can to prevent our message from reaching other men

only we can fight this fight

we have our faith and belief in what we stand and fight for, but we have also the truth of our lives, and it's our task to speak that truth as widely as we can

if we do that, we'll prevail

Big D

Re: The Last Refuge of Man's Dignity and Soul

10-30-2003

I so thoroughly argee I can't even begin to add anything. This site, in the few days I have been reviewing it has meant a lot to me.

Carry on.

Dennis