Kirkus Reviews QR Code
UNDERSTANDING GAY RELATIVES AND FRIENDS by Clinton R. Jones

UNDERSTANDING GAY RELATIVES AND FRIENDS

By

Pub Date: May 1st, 1978
Publisher: Seabury

During the past twelve years Connecticut minister Clinton Jones has counseled more than two thousand people grappling with the manifold problems of homosexuality--experience he profitably shares. He notes that revelation of one's homosexuality to a loved one is frequently initiated by letter, and illustrates by beginning each chapter with a letter drawn from his counseling experience. Each archetypal-real case is patiently developed to indicate the importance of Understanding and open communication on the part of relatives, friends, and society. Dennis the Gay Son needs to know that his mother still sees him as a ""whole"" person; Arthur the Gay Husband pleads wistfully for his wife to stand by him until the future reveals itself; Cindy the Gay (and angry) Sister asserts that her lesbianism is not a matter of ""voluntary choice."" The agonies of a gay clergyman and his counterpart in the educational world are all the more acute because of the intense fear of professional reprisal. Jones expands on the given situations with sympathetic discussions rooted in a Christian perspective of love as the ""central theme."" He describes homosexuals, transvestites, and transsexuals simply as ""sexual minorities"" expressing what is essentially a matter of ""preference,"" and thereby places the homophile movement firmly within a civil-rights context. The book is down-to-earth, reassuringly anecdotal (however you feel, there's a lot of that going around), and effortlessly readable.