I began writing about LGBTQ when I came out as a gay man in 2005. One of the first pieces I wrote was Out and Cowed, for Third Way magazine (which is sadly no longer).
Category: LGBT
OUT AND COWED
[Originally published in Third Way magazine in June 2006]
US “ex-Gay” ministries claim to “heal” homosexuals. DAVID L RATTIGAN tries to keep an open mind as he investigates similar exit counselling in the UK…
How Liverpool’s Frontline church ‘struggles’ with homosexuality
[Originally published on The Guardian‘s Comment is free in 2011]
If you’re a Pentecostal or charismatic Christian in Merseyside, you’ll know that Frontline Church, in the Wavertree area of Liverpool, is pretty much the hip place to be. But a thought-provoking Guardian video report by John Harris last month reveals there’s more to Frontline than just trendy worship and dynamic preaching. Its volunteers are reaching out to sex workers, drug addicts and people in poverty, sometimes with traditional methods, such as food banks, and sometimes in quite progressive ways you might not expect from a conservative church, such as distributing condoms to prostitutes.
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Dracula’s Daughter: A Queer Monster Classic Turns 75
[Originally published on diaboliquemagazine.com in 2011]
The clunky execution of Tod Browning’s 1931 film Dracula is the elephant in the room as far as classic horror is concerned. Bela Lugosi impresses in the title role, certainly, and the movie has a handful of truly memorable moments, but most of it falls very flat. Viewed 80 years later, it is not so much a great film as a curiosity, notable for its seminal place in cinema history.
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Interview with Jonathan Harvey, Author of Beautiful Thing
I’m perched on the toilet, paperback in hand. I don’t have an audience – as far as I’m aware – but if I did, they would see the widest smile ever break across my face. I’ve just reached the end of Jonathan Harvey’s 1993 play Beautiful Thing, the Liverpool-born writer’s sweet tale of teenage love in inner-city London.
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