Oh, yes, and there's pride, of course.
The Seven Deadly Sins have been with us, in one form or another, for the last 1,500 or so years. That means pride has been a sin a lot longer than it's been a rainbow-striped lifestyle choice. Thirty years ago, borrowing a page from the women's and black power movements' playbooks, gay and lesbian activists determined that American queers needed a slogan of our own. Women had "Equal Rights," and African Americans had "Black Power." For better or worse, we got "Gay Pride," equal parts exhortation (to still-closeted gays and lesbians) and confrontation (of homophobic straights).
In this, The Stranger's 1999 Queer Issue, we've put pride back in its original context--pride as a deadly sin--and examined it and its sister sins to see how they impact and play out in gay and lesbian lives. Andrew Sullivan argues that gluttony is the gayest of sins; Urvashi Vaid comes out swinging for sloth; Spencer Bergstedt dissects female-to-male transsexual envy; Kevin Killian attempts to pin down lust; Susie Bright lays out some good ol' lesbian anger; and Mary Martone teaches us that greed--lesbian greed at least--is good. I take on pride, Riz Rollins ponders sins, and Adrian Ryan presents us with a nearly comprehensive list of other deadly sins.--Dan Savage
