Sexual+Orientation

 **Questioning American Heterosexism ** "In this country, lesbianism is a poverty--as is being brown, as is being a woman, as is being just plain poor." -Cherríe Moraga, "La Güera"

media type="youtube" key="E9d38EoQ9pg" height="344" width="425"

"America, one of the freest and most enlightened nations in the world, fulfills all the outward duties of religious fervor." -Alexis DeTocqueville

"[The Scarlet Letter] had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and inclosing her in a sphere by herself" -Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter "Then slowly, deliberately, [she] kissed Allie, and that was all there was to it, and just like that, swiftly and silently as a deer pauses a moment then vanishes into the bush, Allie was taken by that twilight world, made a citizen of it, an outcast who forever would belong to wilderness, and there would be at home." -Paula Gunn Allen, // Raven's Road //



//"Success, recognition, and making money must always come first in a balanced life. This is, no doubt, why dozens of people whom I know make their life decisions--love, marriage or union, where they live, what kind of work they do--on the basis of money instead of their real needs and yearnings. But life is so short." --Malcolm Boyd,// Take Off the Masks Final Note Reflections on American Heterosexism << A Class of Broken Bootstraps 