Jim Andris, Facebook

Rev. Carol Cureton (MCC St. Louis)

Good evening, and welcome to the Second Annual Gay Pride Rally of St. Louis, Missouri and surrounding states and areas near. We welcome you all here. Your very presence here is a statement that the election of Dade County a couple of days ago does not mean that gay people are going back into the closet. [Applause.] We will do what we do non-violently and peacefully, but forcefully. It’s a myth that the gay community cannot be forceful, and we intend to show them that. And lovingly we’ll stand together and stand as a unit, and that way, we will remain standing.

In the prime tradition of Westinghouse and Xerox and all other productions of good quality, we’re going to put all of our advertisements at the beginning so that our program will not be interrupted this evening. [Laughter.] There will be coffee and refreshments served on the second floor of the building just behind the sanctuary up on the second floor right after our program is over this evening, you are invited up there for coffee and other refreshments to get to know each other and to speak to our invited guest speakers.

Announcement and advertisement number two. Here at MCC of Greater St. Louis we have a fund, which is known as the Deacon’s Fund. The Deacon’s Fund is used in traditional Christian deaconate to help the people who find themselves in various kinds of need. It is not used for any administrative expenses, salaries, or anything else, only to help those who find themselves with out food, clothing, shelter and other necessities of life. That fund is always low, and in an attempt to provide something neat for you and get some money into that fund, we are offering an opportunity for you tonight to have your picture taken with our elder and moderator of our fellowship, the Rev. Elder Troy Perry. If you’d like to do that, you’ll go to the first floor in the front near the entrance where you came in this evening to have your picture taken for a donation to that Deacon’s Fund.

There’s a bookstore located in Room 2B on the second floor. I can remember when I was way out in rural Missouri, thinking I was the only gay person in the world; well, actually, I didn’t know what ‘gay’ meant; I was the only one “that way.” [Laughter.] I went to the library and looked up what ‘homosexual’ was because I didn’t know, and all I could find was medical textbooks and sociology textbooks and psychiatry descriptions of people who were horrible and sick and miserable and criminal and all that list of adjectives. I would have given my eye teeth for something good to read that would let me know what gay people were really like. If you find yourself in that circumstance or situation, we have a bookstore upstairs in Room 2B where you might find some good, constructive material about the gay community, and you are invited to peruse that area after our program this evening.

Transcribed by Jim Andris August, 7, 2017 from a copy of a tape made of the event provided by John Hilgeman.