BECAUSE 2014 Keynote: "If Loving You is Wrong, Then I Don't Want to be Right" by ABilly Jones-Hennin, Introduced by Loraine Hutchins

Loraine Hutchins and ABilly S. Jones-Hennin in 2009, backstage as Lady Gaga was being introduced.

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Loraine Hutchins Introduces ABilly S. Jones-Hennin

"Imagine Lani Ka'ahumanu right beside me cause if she were here she'd say, like we just said here at the conference, 'write the history, tell the stories.' ABilly makes you think that social justice revolution is the most NATURAL thing in the world. Like it is. In 1979, the year after Harvey Milk was assassinated, ABilly helped mobilize the first ever March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, and that SAME weekend helped convene the first people of color LGBT conference, held in Washington, DC at Howard University's Harambee House Hotel. We first met at the Wash., DC Runaway House, a few years before that when he walked in, looking hot & smart, a merry twinkle in his eyes, for a job interview as youth counselor, and ended up directing the program a few years later. We've both created and contributed to many many human service organizations and coalitions since then, to bring us to the place we are here today. From the first day we met, ABilly and I became fast friends and loyal comrades. ABilly has shown me so much about nurturing a long-term, committed polyamorous open family, that includes constellations of inter-connected families -- moveable feasts -- that embrace everyone in this room .. and beyond. ABilly has now been to the White House and the Mayor's office of DC so many times the security dudes know bi every name he calls himself, they're part of his family too. ABilly is a quiet persistent instigator who sticks up for old people and homeless people and prisoners and refugees and workers, everyone. Please join me in welcoming this man with the biggest heart in the world ... ABilly Jones-Hennin !!"

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 ABilly S. Jones-Hennin: “If Loving You Is Wrong, Then I Don't Want Wanna Be Right”

My fellow bisexuals...

I stand before you as an unapologetic, outspoken, bisexual activist who has intimately loved women, men and transgender persons throughout my life span of 72 years; And in the words of a popular and soulful rhythm and blues song from the sixties and seventies by Luther Ingram and Rod Stewart,

        “If loving you is wrong,
        Then I don't wanna to be right!”

I stand before you acknowledging that I have been

• in consenting poly relationships,
  
• marriage to a heterosexual woman,
  
• and for the last 36 years, in a committed, loving and open Same Gender Loving (SGL) Relationship with a bisexual man who I will be marrying in a few weeks.

And if these loving relationships are wrong,
Then I Don't Wanna BE Right or DO Right!

Coming to Minneapolis is always a HOMECOMING because it is the city that inspired me to acknowledge publicly

• that I am bisexual;
  
• that I am queer;
  
• that I have the capacity and the desire to love men as well as women as well as transgender persons.
  
  

Minneapolis was an amazing coming out experience for me – by no means my first coming, but my shedding of old baggage and starting to really examine my fears about being a sexual minority; about being different; about being queer.

One key message I would like to convey to you today is that

        COMING OUT IS A LIFTIME AND ONGOING ADVENTURE

Every day, and often many times a day, one may find yourself gently or forcefully coming out to someone or someones.

Just on the plane coming here, minding my own business and trying to take a nap, my seat mate asked me if I lived in Minneapolis.

My short answer was, “No.” Now I could have shut up, but I informed my seat-mate that I was going to a conference. And that response led to, “What conference?” I paused and thought to myself, how far do I want to take this. So to speed things up, I informed him that I was speaking at a bisexual conference.

And guess what, he wanted to know more so that he could let his daughter know about the conference; so we talked throughout the entire trip – me talking and sharing about me; he talking and sharing about him and his daughter.

He shared that his daughter had been married to a man; then announced that she was a lesbian and in a relationship with a woman; and is now again in a relationship with a man. Poor Dad was confused and I am not sure my story helped so I suggested that HE come to this conference – if not this year, next year.

Like some of you here today (hopefully not too many), early in my life I identified as straight – in part because being heterosexual was all I knew; in part because in the forties and fifties when I was growing up, there were more likely to be hand signals to describe sexual minorities than words like bisexuals, lesbians, gays, and transgender persons.

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