Gay Today: World

Ohio Mom Objects
to YMCA's Acceptance of Gay Males

Compiled by GayToday
Photo: Badpuppy

Toledo, Ohio—An Ohio YMCA has become the brunt of recent criticisms by the disturbed mother of two boys, aged nine and eleven. Cindy Edwards, according to AgapePress, is a believer in the Bible who takes Romans 1 (a verse reportedly condemning homosexuality) seriously.

The YMCA in her area, she complains, has allowed male couples to get a family membership. Ms. Edwards feels that such a move is altogether inappropriate for the Young Men's Christian Association and that it shows it to be supportive of the “homosexual lifestyle.”

Ms. Edwards sees no way to avoid the probable fact that there are single, closeted homosexuals in the YMCA. And yet she regards those men who are carriers of family memberships as the greatest possible threats, she implies, to her sons. She will not allow them into the same locker room with men that the YMCA has deemed a family.

A communications coordinator for the Toledo Area YMCA is reported to have allowed that the national YMCA repeatedly advises an “inclusive” policy to its associated branches nationwide. He also reflected that definitions of what constitutes a “family” is forever changing.

The YMCA does not tolerate any sexual activity on its premises, he said, and members discovered violating this rule would forfeit their memberships.

Reflecting on the connection between the YMCA and gay communities nationwide, Florida's celebrated gay scholar, Jesse Monteagudo, writes:

"The Young Men's Christian Association's reputation as a hotbed of homosexuality goes back a long way. When I was in the process of coming out as a gay man (in the early seventies, AKA the Stone Age), I quickly learned that the Miami 'Y' was the place to cruise, along with the Greyhound Station, the Rio Theater and Bayfront Park.

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“Though I never did cruise the 'Y', I knew men who did; and they regaled me with stories and anecdotes that went back to World War Two and beyond.

“By the time the late Jacques Morali got around to writing the song 'YMCA' for his Village People (1978), the YMCA was as much of a gay Mecca as San Francisco, Fire Island, or Key West. This went over the head of most heterosexuals, to who 'YMCA' was just a fun party song with clever hand signals. Little did they know.

“The long and storied history of the YMCA and same-sex relations is told in Take the Young Stranger By the Hand, by independent scholar John Donald Gustav-Wrathall.”