A Quaker group, the Committee of Friends on Bisexuality, issued the “Ithaca Statement on Bisexuality” following their first gathering in June, 1972. It is named after the city in New York state, USA, where the meeting was held.
It is thought to be the first statement specifically on bisexualityby any religious body, and is supportive of bisexuality and challenging of biphobia. It was published in US lesbian & gay magazine The Advocate.
One of the challenges posed in the Statement was:
Are Friends aware of their own tendency to falsely assume that any interest in the same sex necessarily indicates an exclusively homosexual orientation; and to further falsely assume that interest in the opposite sex necessarily indicates an exclusively heterosexual orientation?
As Bisexual Index spokesman Marcus Morgan observed at a meeting in London this week organised by Kairos – forty years on that is still one of the most central challenges in bisexual visibility and acceptance.
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