How Did It Begin?
Motivation, The Story Behind the Name, and Humble Origins
The HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s caused Jim to become increasingly angry at the church’s lackluster response to the disease. After a visit to the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, Bailey began putting together thoughts for a spiritual resource for the LGBTQ community. He also wanted to challenge the rhetoric of ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’, which gained currency amongst members of the Religious Right. ‘A voice to counter hate’, in his own words. Hence, the Second Stone was born.
The newspaper’s title derives from a story told in John 8:7, where Jesus prevents the Pharisees from stoning a woman by saying ‘Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her’. Jim recalled it as a response to the exclusionary practices of the Church in the 1980’s: “I thought of the New Testament story where Jesus told the crowd to let those among you without sin cast the first stone. I felt like the Church had certainly cast the first stone toward us as a community, and that this would be the response to hatred coming out of the church toward gay people.”
Second Stone began life as a newsletter but quickly expanded to become a nationally distributed newspaper. As early as July 1989, circulation stood at 6,000 with an estimated readership of nearly 12,000. The first full-size issues were small - just twelve pages. But eventually, the newspaper would grow and become one of only two nationally distributed LGBTQ Christian periodicals. According to one advertisement, the Second Stone was ‘an ecumenical newspaper committed to expanding Christian ministry in the gay community and to the spiritual growth and development of gay persons’.
Jim described the newspaper’s Key goals that “it will present uplifting, upbeat features for readers and help put them in touch with worship and social resources that will facilitate their spiritual growth. To be gay and Christian is a struggle and we want to provide much support in that area. We will address social issues and denominational problems, but our main focus is personal spiritual renewal and growth.”