Born On This Day- June 9th... Father Macolm Boyd

Today is the 88^th birthday of Malcolm Boyd: Bestseller author of over 30 books, Gay Elder, Episcopal Priest for 50 Years , Civil Rights & Antiwar Activist; a “Freedom Rider” in 196l, 3-Term President of PEN Center USA West, Production Partner of Mary Pickford in PRB, Inc., & President of the Television Producers Association of Hollywood.

In 1976 Boyd announced his homosexuality in a NY Times interview. The gay movement was starting to fulfill it’s promise , & he wanted to be part of it. But the gay movement, the church, the world, didn’t know what to do with a gay celebrity who was also a priest. Too open for religion, & too religious for being gay, Boyd now found that more doors had closed than were opened. He had no choice but to keep on running.

"This is a homosexual bar, Jesus. It looks like any other bar on the outside, only it isn't. Men stand 3 & 4 deep at this bar, some just feeling a sense of belonging here, others making contacts for new sexual partners. This isn't very much like a church, Lord, but many members of the church are also here in this bar. Quite a few of the men here belong to the church as well as to this bar. If they knew how, a number of them would ask you to be with them in both places. Some of them wouldn't, but won't you be with them too, Jesus?"

This audacious meditation from Boyd's much praised 1960s collection of prayers, "Are You Running With Me, Jesus?", speaks not only for the gay man in the bar but of the author's yearnings as well. Spanning the sacred & the secular, the political & the personal, has been his life work.

Boyd lives with his husband, writer Mark Thompson, in LA where he is Poet-In-Residence at St. Paul’s Cathedral.