Gay and Out on the Carnival Pride Cruise (Baltimore-Bahamas)

BRONX, NEW YORK. STEPHEN PARELLI. MARCH 7, 2014

Today on his Other Sheep Exec Site website, Rev. Stephen Parelli posted an article on his recent cruise to the Bahamas with his husband Jose Ortiz.

Article Title:  Gay and Out on the Carnival Pride Cruise (Baltimore-Bahamas)

Jose & Steve, Nassau, Bahamas

Excerpts:

• “We thought it was a gay cruise,” says Jose jokingly to another gay couple on board. “After all,” he points out, “the ship is called ‘Pride.’ “ No, it wasn’t a gay cruise. But, there were gay couples on board – some couples were out, and some were decidedly not! 
• The preacher, in his late twenties and currently going to school for his Master’s in Education, had recently come out to, and subsequently lost, his Pentecostal church in the Bronx.  He told us, in general (not revealing any identities), about Pentecostal preachers and lay people who were secretly coming to him to discuss their own personal lives as gay and closeted.
• Apparently, Carnival is keeping pace with society’s sense of inclusiveness:  the code phrase “Friends of Dorothy” has graduated to “GLBT” (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender). 
• Apparently, there are stage hosts and performers enough who have no skill in changing their heteronormativity terms when addressing gay couples. 
• And to that, the comedian announced to the audience, “This is the Brokeback section where this man is sitting.”  
• “I’m gay. We are both gay and we are legally married. You know, they marry gays in many other countries.”  The angry male I had spied, quickly put distance between us, as if his rage was about to burst out of control.
•  It was the waiter from India who had served us breakfast one morning in the dining room on board the ship.  “How do you like the book,” Jose asked him.  “I’ve read it and I really like it,” he said.  The waiter is gay and Christian so we had given him a copy of the book The Children Are Free:  Reexamining the Biblical Evidence on Same-sex Relationships.