Ray Harvey Amer
Ray joined
the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
after his partner died:
"I was just really angry
that he had died,
and that I had not died with him.
I thought the big thing
that we should be fighting
was not AIDS,
but homophobia.
Because it was homophobia
that created the AIDS crisis
in the first place."
"It was like a road to Damascus,
or Brighton to be more honest.
I saw this wonderful image
across the field
during Brighton Pride festival,
it was Sister Latex
of the Immaculate Protection.
It was the appropriation
of a very powerful symbol
of oppression
of gay men and lesbians,
namely the papacy and Anglican nuns.
The idea was
to grab a symbol of oppression
and to use it against them."
"I chose the name
Sister Molesta of Absolute Corruption
because gay men get labelled
as molesters and corrupters.
What I wanted to do
was to turn it around.
Throughout my life
I've been molested by society.
They'd corrupted me into believing
I was sick and mad."
"We've done lots of protests
in Parliament,
the London Rubber Company once
and Westminster Cathedral twice.
And in 1994
we did this wonderful cleansing ritual
of Bromley Council chamber
because they were not spending
any money at all
on HIV services.
We made them look very silly indeed."
