Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
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The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are self-described "21st century nuns" for the queer, kink, and homosexual communities. They are activists, and many of the Order's convents are non-profits raising money for AIDS projects and other community service organizations, and have been leaders in the campaign for safer sex and personal responsibility.
The organization was started in 1979 in San Francisco, California, and has grown to include Houses on five continents, including ones in Seattle, Washington (1987), Los Angeles, California (1995), as well as England, France, Germany, Scotland, Australia, and Uruguay with more than four hundred nuns worldwide. A recent generation of houses has started with the Sister of Perpetual Indulgence as official missions have formed in Las Vegas, Nevada, Portland, Oregon and San Diego, California.
The San Francisco Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have raised over $1,000,000 and distributed it to non-profit organizations that serve the queer and sex positive community. Other orders worldwide support various organizations such as the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund and Wendy's Hope, a women's breast cancer charity. Originally, the organization included only gay male nuns, but it now includes people of all genders and orientations including intersex, homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, and transgendered.
Sister Boom-Boom (from San Francisco) who has retired from the group ran for San Francisco City Council and got over 23,000 votes on the "Nun of the Above" ticket and was immortalized in the play "A Simple Matter of Justice" about the trial of Dan White for the assassination of SF openly gay Supervisor Harvey Milk and SF Mayor george Moscone.
The SPI believe that the Catholic Church is a source of dogma, hypocrisy, guilt and shame and have had two notable encounters. The first, when French photographer John Babiste Carhaix toured photographs of the group in Belgium and both he and the group were declared Papal Heretics. The second when the San Francisco Catholic Observer rallied against the group closing Castro Street for their 20th anniversary celebration in 1999. The resulting worldwide attention ensured a healthy crowd and and over a $1 million in estimated free publicity for the emerging international loose knit group.
Today, The Sisters continue to uphold their vows to promulgate universal joy and expiate stigmatic guilt while serving their respective communities.