good afternoon, my name is dr. richard m. lyons.
i would like to thank you all for coming this afternoon to the first eloise lyons foundation ceremony.
i would like to thank especially the honerable ms. pauleen chen, diane and most of all, the beloved students of "CPC".
my parents, sister eloise and myself have devoted our lives to the betterment and cultural heritage of chinatown. my sister who lost her husband on their honey moon on a automobile crash, came to cpc thirty years ago, and with the help of ms. pauleen chen, taught and exposed the students to many variaslearning expierences. my sister eloise, for the past 10 years struggled and fought courageousl against a severe cancer. this foundation is devoted to my sister eloise. once again, thank you all for coming, and lets get on with the ceremony.



eloise and i sponsered tennis, base ball, basket ball, cultural programs at "CPC". eloise's wish was always a scholarship foundation for students at "CPC" the essasys were fantastic, i learned so much about the environment. i would like to thank the judges who judges the essays. ,i would like to thank my assistant, judy lei, for helping our scholarship. and most of all the students at "CPC" for writeing the well written essays.

The problem now..

Year 2007 arrives, and new problems for gays arrive also. They want the right to gay marriage, but will we give it to them? The answer is no. The only areas in the world that allow gay marriage is Netherlands (first to allow it), Belgium, Canada, South Africa, Spain and the only U.S state right now; Massachusetts.

But why won’t the other states and countries allow gay marriage? I simply think because of tradition and the trouble it will cause to remake the whole marriage ceremony. Such as “you may kiss the bride” I mean how do you figure out who is the bride? And “I pronounce you husband and wife” but which is husband and which is wife? How do you decide which one is the man in the house? Which one throws the flower to the other single ladies, or if it’s a gay marriage do you throw it into a pool of gay men?

If you gay then you got aids

If your Italian, then you love pizza. If you Chinese then you’re great at math. If you gay, then you got aids. This was a stereotype that people had in their minds in the 1980’s. This was the age of AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). During this time period, Gays were definitely discriminated. They couldn’t make friends, get jobs, etc. At the start people had no idea what AIDS was, all they knew was that majority of gays had it, and that was that. People were afraid to touch gays, to talk to them; afraid that they might catch it.

It was used in movies, music, comedy, and other types of media. It was even written into magazines etc. One specific one is Eddie Murphy doing a stand up comedy show called “Delirious” (1983). Basically he uses gays in his stand up and uses it to make the audience laugh.

You may view it by simply going to www.youtube.com and search for “Eddie Murphy – Delirious” (Caution, rated r for language)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8301093&dopt=Abstract

http://gaylife.about.com/od/amiga1/a/gaymyths.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS

Definitely better… but still not good enough

Life as it is is definitely better for homosexuals… I mean it’s better now than before. As we remember, during early times where America was just founded, colonies were just created. Homosexuals were discriminated and hated upon. They were considered as bad as the people who practiced witchcraft. (Refer to Salem Witch Trials). They were punished for being themselves, for being different. Majority of the people who were caught in acts of sodomy were given the death sentence. But after time the nation started to realize it wasn’t a crime to be a homosexual, and finally let them live their lives.

But was that the end of the cruel life? You will realize it surely didn’t. “Homos” were looked down upon ever since the beginning. And was it going to stop now? No it wasn’t. The world has long yet to stop torturing these people and making their lives difficult.

Many changes are made

On it goes, and soon after sodomy became a capital crime through the nations. (1642, Connecticut includes sodomy in its 12 capital crimes). Laws of sodomy grew and there were more and more. Boys over the age of 14 would be put to death if caught with the act of sodomy.

But soon after, people started to say why women are allowed this crime of homosexuality when men are not. Thus lesbians were also punished and hung when caught. It started in Salem, Massachusetts, and spread through the nation. (1642)

Chaos is made throughout the nation as Homosexuality is growing more and more. And all are put to the death penalty.

Time passes and there is finally a change. Pennsylvania. A Quaker colony is the first to pass that sodomy is NOT a capital crime and is reduced to only whipping forfeiture of 1/3 of one’s estate, and six months of hard labor. (1682)

http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Park/2609/timeline2.htm

It was Strange from the Start

Homosexuality has been around since there were humans roaming the earth. The earliest to date was 1528-36. This was when the Spanish explorer Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca writes in his diary about finding “effeminate” Indians when exploring an area in the Americas. (Now known as state Florida.) He found the Indians to have another man as his wife “so abominable that they (Indians) openly have another man for a wife” and so effeminate that they “do not understand a thing about men but perform every activity pertaining the women.”

At this time period, more and more people were found as Homosexuals but the term has not been found yet. Thus they used the term “sodomites”. This term gave the meaning of making intercourse of the "@nu$". (Interaction between gay males).

It was as if Homosexuality was to be hated by nature. People thought it to be wild and strange and un-human the first time it was found. Thus the Virginia colony passed the earliest American sodomy law (1610) which was to punish all that practiced sodomy with death. (Usually by hanging), thus not only “gays” were punished, but also the men and woman who were Heterosexual but choose to perform sodomy.

http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Park/2609/timeline2.htm
www.library.txstate.edu/swwc/cdv/further_study/historian_ethnologist.pdf
http://www.sodomylaws.org/sensibilities/samoa.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality

Homosexuality

Homosexuality refers to sexual interaction and / or romantic attraction between individuals of the same sex. In modern use, the adjective homosexual is used for intimate relationships and/or sexual relations between people of the same sex, who may or may not identify themselves as gay or lesbian.
The term gay is for males with males and lesbian is for females with females. Homosexuality, as an identifier, is usually contrasted with heterosexuality and bisexuality. The term gay is used predominantly to refer to self-identified homosexual people of either sex. Lesbian is a gender-specific term that is only used for self-identified homosexual females.
Heterosexuality refers to sexual and/or romantic attraction between individuals of the opposite sex, and is the most common sexual orientation among humans. The current use of the term has its roots in the broader 19th century tradition of personality taxonomy. These continue to influence the development of the modern concept of sexual orientation, gaining associations with romantic love and identity in addition to its original, exclusively sexual meaning.
Bisexuality is a sexual orientation which refers to the aesthetic, romantic, or sexual attraction of individuals to other individuals of either gender or sex. Most bisexuals are not equally attracted to men and women.

www.dictionary.com
www.wikipidea.org
images from google images