Diversity Rules Magazine

January 2013 Growing Up Gay and amish An Interview With James Schwartz By Jim Koury, Editor James Schwartz is a poet and slam performer striving for the simplicity of Cavafy mixed with modern gay wordplay and elements. Schwartz���s poetry/ slam material dialogues of queer issues and affirmations of gay (night) life and love. He was born February 19, 1978 and raised in the Old Order Amish community in southwest MI. read aloud to me, Bible stories or sometimes secular fiction which I preferred. He read ���Robinson Crusoe��� over and over to me. I attended Nottawa Community School which is a mix of Amish and ���English��� students and I had free reign at the library where I discovered Oscar Wilde, Truman Capote and all the other gay writers a Michigan library will carry. I didn���t have this huge spiritual struggle in leaving the Amish, I knew I would leave. Dad became my best friend once I actually grew up, which took a while. I spent my 20s hanging out at Brothers Beta Club in Kalamazoo, staying with drag queens and clubbing all the time. I did some cabaret shows too but knew I really wanted to write. Schwartz is the author of The Literary Party: Growing Up Gay and Amish in America (inGroup Press) 2011. In 2004 Dad asked me to move back home to help him out as he was getting up there in years and wanted somebody around the house. I stayed with him until his passing in January 2010 and am very glad I did. I got to spend time with him and have great memories. As a slam performer Schwartz has read at The Meta Caf��, This is Fire! The Zoo Bar and St. Joseph County MI, Democratic Inauguration Day party of President Barack Obama. To find our more about James go to his website at: literaryparty.blogspot.com. Diversity Rules Magazine is honored to feature James Schwartz in the January issue. JRK: You were born and raised in an Old Order Amish community in SW MI. Tell us what that was like and how has it impacted the person you are today? JS: Living without electricity certainly instilled a love of reading! I was nine when my mother passed away which is the great tragedy of my life. I was very much a mama���s boy, always hanging on her apron strings! Amish are descendants of European Anabaptist immigrants, usually German; my paternal great, great, great grandfather was from Bern, Switzerland and his wife from Belfort, France. Being of Swiss descent both my parents had that famous Swiss tolerance and neutrality. Most Amish grow up in large households but after Mom���s passing it was just Dad and I. The rest of my brothers and sisters were older and had left the Old Order Amish faith. Many nights after Mom���s passing Dad would JRK: Did you come out while you were living in the Amish community? If so, how were you treated? JS: I was in my teens when I quit attending church services. I went to a few ���rumspringa��� parties but hetero country music and beer wasn���t my idea of a good time! There was simply nothing there for me. I have been out of the closet since at least my early 20s and while the Amish I know are nice to me in passing they do not approve. They see being gay as a sin, thank you Leviticus. Everything in an Amish person���s viewpoint is filtered through dogma. An Amish woman did ask me if I thought I would still be gay if I got baptized and joined the church. Amish don���t have a real understanding of LGBT issues because they have no access to information or resources beyond Leviticus. JRK: I read that when one turns 18 they are given the choice to remain in the community and adhere to the old ways or to go out into modern society. Is this accurate? Is this what happened to you? JS: There is no set age, more like when a parent deems his teen responsible enough he may attend ���rumspringa��� parties, go to youth singings and court an Amish girl. Not a man! Some Four

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