How to Win Gay Rights | Book Giveaway

With LGBTQ people all over the United States rising up for love after our losses in the 2008 elections, MyOutSpirit.com decided it was time to give away the manual for the new LGBT activism, SHIRT OF FLAME, endorsed by leaders including Arun Gandhi. Here's an excerpt to get you started, then download a pdf of the entire book.  We hope you find it helpful as you stand up for the equal rights and recognition of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and families.

CHAPTER 1: THE SCHOOL OF FIVE-WEAPONS

Once upon a time, thousands of years ago, somewhere in Asia, a handsome young prince had just finished his military studies with a famous teacher. He received the title “Prince Five-weapons” as a symbol of his distinction, and accepted the bow and arrows, sword, spear, and club his teacher gave him. The young prince bowed, and, armed with his knowledge and new weapons, struck out onto the road leading to the city of his parents, the queen and king. On the way he came to the edge of a forest. The villagers that lived nearby warned him, “Beautiful prince, do not enter this forest! An ogre named Sticky-hair, who kills every man he sees, lives here.”

But the prince was confident and he fearlessly entered the forest
despite their warning. When he reached the heart of it, the ogre showed
himself. The ogre was gruesome - as tall as a palm tree with a head as big
as a house with a bell-shaped roof, yellow eyes as big as bowls, and two
tusks like a bull elephant; he had the beak of a hawk; his body was covered
with a tangle of moist gray hair, and his hands and feet were stained dark
green. “Where are you going in such a hurry? Won’t you stay for dinner,
dinner?” the ogre demanded in a hungry growl.

Prince Five-weapons answered without fear, for he had great
confidence in the military skills that he had learned. “Ogre,” he said, “You
should be careful about attacking me, for I will shoot you dead with an
arrow steeped in poison!” As the ogre lumbered toward him, the young
prince fitted to his bow an arrow coated with deadly poison and let fly. It
stuck harmlessly right in the ogre’s hair. Then he shot fifty arrows, one
after another. All stuck right to the ogre’s hair without piercing the
fearsome beast. The ogre grinned, shook like a great dog, each one of those
arrows falling right at his feet, and continued toward the young prince.

Prince Five-weapons gave the ogre a second warning, and swinging
his sword, delivered his most powerful stroke, which could have felled a
bodhi tree. The sword stuck right to the ogre’s hair. Then the prince tried
to impale him with the spear. That also stuck right to his impenetrable
tangle of hair. Then the prince smote the ogre with his heavy club. That
also stuck right to the monster’s hair.

When the prince saw that the club had stuck, he said: “Ogre, you have
never heard of me before. I am Prince Five-weapons! But when I entered
this forest you’ve infested, I took no account of bows and such weapons; for
a weapon is only an extension of a warrior. Now I am going to beat you and
pound you into powder and dust!” With a yell he struck the ogre with his
right hand. His hand stuck right to the ogre’s hair. He struck him with his
left hand. That also stuck. He struck him with his right foot. That also
stuck. He struck him with his left foot. That also stuck. He slammed his
bare chest into the sticky ogre’s body. The still-confident prince shouted, “I
will beat you with my head and strike you down!” He butted the ogre with
his head, which also stuck right to the ogre’s hair.

Prince Five-weapons was stuck fast to the ogre’s body in six places!
But for all that, he was unafraid, undaunted. The ogre, surprised,
thought:“This is some lion of a man and no ordinary human! He’s to be
made an ogre’s dinner, but he doesn’t seem afraid! Most people tremble or
quake in my presence! In all the time I have lived in this forest, I have never
seen a human to match him! Why is he unafraid?” Curious, he asked
aloud,“Youth, why are you not afraid? I am going to eat you. Why are you
not terrified with the fear of death?”

“Why should I be afraid, Sticky-hair? In one life, one death is to be
expected. Besides, I have one weapon left—there is a thunderbolt in my
belly. If you eat me, you will not be able to digest that secret weapon. It will
tear your insides into shreds and tatters and will kill you. If you eat me,
we’ll both perish. That’s why I’m not afraid!”

“What this youth says is true!” thought the ogre, terrified with the
fear of death. “My stomach would not be able to digest the thunderbolt of
this lion of a man. I don’t want to die!” And he let Prince Five-weapons go.
The prince sat the rest of the day with the ogre and instructed him in great
spiritual truths. The teaching was so obvious and profound that the ogre
was transformed into a kind and helpful friend to the villagers living near
the forest, who came to trust him to care for their children and defend the
village. The young prince continued whistling through the forest, and
returned safely home.

Most things begin violently, like matter exploding into being at the
beginning of time. Even our lives begin violently, each of us thrust
suddenly, unexpectedly, into the glaring and chill world. From birth on, we
are bound with a thousand million cultural conventions which we are taught
are natural and necessary; we’re given a billion expectations and
requirements to meet, most inherently violent to our essential nature, queer
or not. We are trained to meet aggression with aggression, hate with hate,
and violence with violence. By the time we are capable of changing such
behaviors, many of us are tamed entirely, conditioned to regard the cold
world as if it were Miami.

For too long, many Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT
or queer) people have allowed others to dictate not only what their concerns
are but also how those concerns can best be redressed. A lot of us have been
following the ‘party line’ when it comes to LGBT issues instead of deeply
considering our own passions and developing our own informed opinions.
Moreover, we often alienate those who rock the boat by suggesting that
perhaps there could be a more helpful approach to cultural transformation
and the enumeration of LGBT rights and recognition. Even in our queer
communities we meet both critique and leadership with mistrust, as if our
activism cannot withstand scrutiny. The joke “I thought they gave up
cannibalism”—“No, but now they only eat their leaders,” hits close to home.

Sometimes it seems that there is no plum or satsuma—not even the
fruit of freedom—fragrant, moist and sweet enough to tempt
same-gender-loving and Transgender people out of the cage of our
conventional approaches to creating change, though the door is open—and
has always been open, if desperately defended. Avenues to transform
society are available to us that would make the ultimate victory of our
movement for equal rights, respect and recognition more likely, but our
queer communities are like the legendary ostriches that, even when they are
released, will stick their heads in sand rather than venture from cages—even
when the door stands open, they stay.

Like Prince Five-weapons, we have used every one of the weapons at
our disposal to try to defeat our enemies and win our freedom—we have
rallied, railed and wailed, we have marched and voted and debated and
organized and lobbied—only to have each small advance lodge uselessly in
the status quo’s “sticky hair.” We have used every weapon in our arsenal
and now, dangling from the ogre, we are left with only our thunderbolt
untried. The nature of our battle is such that we may choose to continue
our fight with the conventional weapons we know, and we are likely to
succeed within a century or two. At the same time, I believe that the
‘thunderbolt in our belly’ is the only weapon pulsing with enough
alchemical power to achieve true victory in the next ten years.

True victory, as Prince Five-weapon’s myth demonstrates, is the
cessation of hostility as well as the co-creation of new harmony and the
transformation of the enemy into benevolent spirit. More than Prince
Five-weapon’s simple cleverness, that divine thunderbolt is the Weapon of
Knowledge, the Power of Love, and the Realization of Self—eternally free,
sufficient, immanent. We just have to pry our thunderbolts free and allow
them to do their work, but if that is our choice, we have to do it now.

We feel the claustrophobic gathering of the political sky around us
Bi-attractional, Transgender and same-gender-loving people, like the giant,
repressive hand of convention clutching at heaven’s cloth. All the attention
on LGBT people and issues, positive as well as negative, is a direct
consequence of our increased visibility and daring, but we’re out of time.
This storm is going to break, and soon. We must create change now or not
in our lifetimes. If each LGBT person does not learn to rise and stride
forward, steadily and relentlessly, if we cannot begin to dance our lives with
grace, if we refuse to join hands with other queer people and our allies
before the rain comes, we will all be meeting avalanches.

The clock sped through our collective adolescence as queer people.
We find ourselves, suddenly and largely unprepared, on the brink of our
maturity just as the forces and principalities arrayed against us move to abort
us. From city council chambers, school board meetings, pulpits and
legislatures, anti-queers are demanding our withdrawal—sometimes in the
name of patriotism or public safety, and most often in the name of
religion—and if they succeed, the legacy of our stillborn movement would
be an end, a hopelessness, a quietude—a homeostatic silence into which
hatred and fear could swell grossly and unopposed.

For any LGBT people or Allies to remain silent and suffering,
unfulfilled, in this time of tribulation is simply suicide by default. Every life
deserves more than to remain undeclared, unsupported and shrouded in fear,
and every queer alive today has an immediate destiny to fulfill. This “secret
gay art of war” uncovers that destiny and spells out the way to true victory.

Like heroines and heroes in a fairy tale, LGBT people are at that point
in the quest where all chasms have been crossed, all chimera dispatched, all
riddles answered. We have emerged from a cavern onto the mountaintop,
where we’re faced with the choice between two blazing weapons, a fiery
sword or a Shirt of Flame—equally forged of power and pain, but only one
of which will win the battle to save kingdom and soul.

We have reached a critical juncture. The decision we make now
between fiery sword and shirt of flame will define the existence and
pronounce the fate of all LGBT people, born and unborn, for decades to
come.

To create positive, genuine, lasting change in culture and policy we
just have to take up the correct weapon: the thunderbolt—the shirt of flame.

---

We hope you enjoyed this excerpt of SHIRT OF FLAME! 

Click on the banner below to download a free pdf of the whole book, which Arun Gandhi calls "Excellent" and which lesbian Christian author, Rev. Candace Chellew-Hodge says provides:

"AN EXCITING NEW STRATEGY for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender liberation that will lead to not only a civil rights revolution, but also to a revolution of the human heart."

ENDORSEMENTS OF SHIRT OF FLAME

"AN EXCELLENT BOOK that promotes better understanding."
~ Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and Founder of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence

"With a fresh, youthful, contemporary voice and perspective, Ko Imani conveys the elusive, but crucial, wisdom that the basis of Gay community, Gay activism, and Gay politics is fundamentally spiritual and moral. WELL-WRITTEN, WELL-ARGUED."
~ Toby Johnson, author of Gay Spirituality and Gay Perspective

"AN EXCITING NEW STRATEGY for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender liberation that will lead to not only a civil rights revolution, but also to a revolution of the human heart."
~ Rev. Candace Chellew-Hodge, Author of Bulletproof Faith and Founder and Editor of "Whosover: A Magazine for LGBT Christians"

"Ko Imani has laid down a provocative challenge to LGBT activists. The community envisioned could lead a cultural shift far beyond the boundaries of the so-called 'Gay liberation movement.' A REMARKABLE AND REVOLUTIONARY DISCIPLINE."
~ Jeffrey Montgomery, Former Executive Director of the Triangle Foundation

"If you think Gay culture has passed its peak, consider that maybe we've barely scratched the surface. Ko Imani reveals how doing for others may be the best thing we can do for ourselves, to emerge from isolation and fear into loving connectedness. The author uses a global scope of myth, tradition and history to persuade us it's time to wake up and get involved, and to really begin sharing our special gifts as Gay people."
~ Bruce P. Grether, author of Mindful Masturbation: Transforming Male Self-Pleasuring into a Spiritual Practice

"Shirt of Flame SHOULD BE HANDED OUT WITH QUEER MEMBERSHIP CARDS!"
~ Ashe-Prem Journal

"Wow! Shirt of Flame is a battle cry for a new kind of battle -- REALLY POWERFUL for LGBT work or feminism or any civil rights issues. I want everyone to read it!"
~ Julia Mossbridge, author of Unfolding: The Perpetual Science of Your Soul's Work

Comments

[Zohaib]

well… i visit your website first time and found this site very usefull and intresting !

well… you guys doing nice work and i just want to say that keep rocking and keep it up !!!!

Regards
Zohaib

[pennyjane]

don't know where else to put this where it might be seen at all. but on this day and in this place i'm reminded, again so harshly, of why the "t" should be removed from glbt. we have no allies, no friends, no brothers and sisters among the lgb's. not even so much as a well wish from our christan bretheren on this our day of rememberance. why are we here?

so sad.

[Clayton]

One of my favorite lessons from A COURSE IN MIRACLES states: "Only what you are not giving can be lacking in any situation."

[Clayton]

PJ, I hope my previous comment didn't come off as flippant - I certainly didn't mean it that way. You are a vital part of the MyOutSpirit community! I know you are acutely aware of how little transgender content is posted on MyOutSpirit, and we have corresponded before about the ways in which I'm working to remedy that.

Did the Day of Remembrance slip right by me? It sure did. I work 60 hour weeks at my full-time job to pay for MyOutSpirit.com, and unfortunately don't have as much time as I'd like to write for the site. I apologize that it was so important to you and went unremarked about on here, if that was your real concern.

Personally, I think it's unfortunate that the highest visibility transgender people get in the community every year is a Day of Remembrance to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice.

As important as the event truly is in pointing out the suffering of many trans people, it's such a sad way to take the stage. The law of attraction states, "Whatever you focus on, you get more of..."

Why couldn't the whole Q community get behind an annual TWELFTH NIGHT event - some sort of mass celebration of gender diversity - and make a positive and uplifting statement about the rich and vibrant and varied trans life thriving in you and all around us?

We could have some fun and tell the happy stories instead of just the sad ones.

Just a thought.

Love,
Clayton

Info about Twelfth Night:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelfth_Night_(holiday)

"Twelfth Night is a holiday in some branches of Christianity marking the coming of the Epiphany, concluding the Twelve Days of Christmas, and is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "the evening of the fifth of January, preceding Twelfth Day, the eve of the Epiphany, formerly the last day of the Christmas festivities and observed as a time of merrymaking..."

"The common theme was that the normal order of things was reversed..."

"Shakespeare's play 'Twelfth Night, or What You Will' was written to be performed as a Twelfth Night entertainment and first performed at Middle Temple Hall, London during the Twelfth Night celebrations of 1602 at the culmination of the celebrations, which was then at Candlemas, February 2. The play has many elements that are reversed in the tradition of Twelfth Night, such as a woman Viola dressing as a man, and a servant Malvolio imagining that he can become a nobleman."

[pennyjane]

bunk! i'm so sick of hearing that lame, condecending, self-serving excuse i just want to scream! you, clayton...have 24 hours each day to do what you feel YOU want to do. to the best of my knowledge that's exactly, to the second, what everyone else on earth has.

if you were an honest person you would own your actions without making lame excuses. you would just come right out and say that the plight of transsexual people is of so little consequence to you that their nat'l day of rememberance didn't even get your attention. you would own your own priorities.

not just picking on you....not a word on this site...my question is....where the heck do you come off advertising yourself as a glb...T...site? that's just plumb false advertising. the t is as irrevelvant here as it is on all the other gay sites. gay people are every bit as transphobic as is the population at large...the difference is..you lie about it. bogotry is bigotry wherever you find it and it's rampant!

[Clayton]

I apologize that you are so hurt about it that you would attack me, and you are absolutely correct, PJ - if I had known about the Day of Remembrance happening and been inspired to write something about it on here, I could totally have done it.

I did not, and that was kind of my point a couple of posts up when I said, "Only what you are not giving can be lacking in any situation."

Maybe it would be clearer to say, "People who don't ASK for what they want, don't GET what they want."

If you knew the Day of Remembrance was coming up and that it was important to you, you could have let me know. You did not. You could have helped me write something moving and helpful to post on MyOutSpirit.
You did not. You could have posted a blog to your MyOutSpirit profile, which would have then been featured on the main homepage (where I would have seen and read it). You did not.

And you would have been more than welcome to reach out and request anything of me! I honestly appreciate your passionate presence and participation here and I would have been happy to do my best to provide.

Maybe in this instance we failed each other...?

Any thoughts on my idea to create an event that CELEBRATES trans people instead of LAMENTING their "plight?"

C

P.S. Also, don't doubt that I wrestle all the time between devoting myself to my passion for this site and the fight to keep a roof over my head, food on my table and my phone turned on. If you knew what I go through to keep this thing going... you wouldn't dismiss my excuses so readily...

[pennyjane]

hi clayton. my attack was not on you pre se, it was on that excuse about how "i just don't have the time", i hear that way too much and have come to just detest it. we all have the time to do what we consider important. what we're really saying in that is that whatever it is that we "don't have the time for" just simply doesn't measure up on our own personal list of priorities. when we say that about not having time we are at best being disingenuous, if we were honest we'd say, "that wasn't high enough on MY priority list to rate MY attention."

i used to post often on my personal blog, hopefully to generate conversation about the realtionship between christianity and transsexuaism, i found it totally ineffective so i just quit wasting my time. probably 99% of those who come here don't even click on my profile, so they never see my blog...of the rest only one person in the year or so i've been here has made any comment, or asked any questions, or shown any interest at all.

that's what i'm talking about and why i always question "why the t"? gay people, it seems to me, have no more interest in transpeople or trans issues then do the straight community...even less seems to be my experience.

i can't volunteer anyone else to do anything and of course i can't force feed information and insight to anyone. in all humility, though, i have demonstrated my willingness and my ability to speak here and in any place where the truth might be heard. i do live a very successful translife which didn't just appear on my plate one day. i found how to make it happen and i do have a passion for sharing what i've learned. your idea about pointing out about positive and successful living isn't a new one to me, i've been at it ever since i found my own peace, when i learned to celebrate who and what i am, not accept it or tolerate it.

i've seen transpeople come here, look around...and leave. why? because outside of clicking on pennyjane's profile and then on her blog they find no reference to trans issues at all. they ask the same question i do..."just what is that t doing there?" g l b and the silent t.

i admire that you have created this place, it's something beyond even any imaginary ability i might have to do so. perhaps it's just being preseumtptous of me, but with the "t" there in the title i would think it incumbant upon you, personally, to provide some t content, or remove it from your title. i have offered my services, but you must provide the forum.

God bless with much love and hope. pj

[pennyjane]

and the challenge goes unnoticed. it's unfortunate that i have to post here, and still....not one of you....not even ONE! has acknowledged the terrible slight myself and all transsexuals have been shown by you all.

ok, i'm done here. no purpose at all in my wasting my time trying to share with people who just frankly only give a crap about themselves and their own plight. i will go to where people share not only the tresures or others but their intimate griefs and pains, just as i have shared with all of you here.

may you each find some peace, some love and some hope for a better tomorrow for us ALL. PJ