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For Immediate Release -- Project TAG, a LBGT community support and social organization based in Tyler, TX is proud to announce the visit of Toby Johnson on November 9, 2009. Mr. Johnson is the author of "Gay Spirituality: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness" and "Gay Perspective: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe" , won a Lambda Literary Award in 1990, and in 1999 was a nominee to the Gay Lesbian Science Fiction Hall of Fame. He is also the former editor of The White Crane Jourmal.

Johnson attended Catholic parochial school and then the college prep school associated with St. Mary's University, both run by the Brothers of Mary. A writing teacher at Central Catholic, Bro. Martin McMurtrey, S.M., inspired Johnson as well as such students as novelist Whitley Strieber, college president Larry Goodwin, and Henry Cisneros.

In 1981, Johnson returned to his hometown where he practiced as an openly gay therapist and served as co-chair of the San Antonio Gay Alliance. Toby and partner organized Gay Pride celebrations, worked with fledgling AIDS Foundations, and helped found gay business societies in both San Antonio and Austin. From 1988 to 1994, Johnson and Dollar ran Liberty Books, a lesbian and gay community bookstore in Austin. Partners since 1984, they were the first male couple registered as domestic partners in Travis County, TX.

Mr. Johnson's central idea is that as outsiders with non-gender-polorized perspective homosexuals play an integral role in the evolution of consciousness — especially regarding the understanding of religion as myth and metaphor—and that for many homosexuals gay identity is a transformative ecological, spiritual, and even mystical vocation.

The visit will be held during the meeting of East Texas PFLAG starting at 7:15pm at Tyler Unity Center 14024 Hwy 155 South. Project TAG will be serving a spaghetti dinner starting at 6pm prior to the meeting. Attendance is free, as always, though donations are gladly accepted. Donations for the speaker and dinner for this event go to Project TAG, whose members made this evening possible.

East Texas PFLAG is the oldest surviving organization in East Texas that serves the parents, family and friends of lesbians and gays. ETPFLAG has graciously offered their November meeting time as a fundraiser for “Tyler Area Gays.”

Project TAG, or “Tyler Area Gays” is a new organization that represents the first attempt to build a community center for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and straight ally population in East Texas’ history. In its short time in existence (just over a year) Tyler Area Gays has established over a dozen interest groups, fielded a football team at the Gay Superbowl in Washington D.C., hosted the first gay/lesbian Valentines ball in East Texas’ history, and has been publicized in articles recognizing its efforts in the Dallas Voice and Advocate.com. Project TAG has submitted application for its non-profit 501(c)(4) status. Online donations can be made at www.tridd.com.

For more information, visit tridd.com or contact Board Chairman Troy Carlyle at (903) 372-7753.