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A lucky Catholic church might house a famous relic -- Saint John's leathered heart or a piece of Christ's foreskin. Plimoth Plantation -- where actors in period dress impersonate Pilgrims and the native Wampanoag of almost 400 years ago -- is a shrine in its own right. The relics here are as concrete as the Mayflower (in full-size replica) and as conceptual as Thanksgiving and a storybook vision of America as land of freedom. With busloads of schoolchildren and hordes of vacationing families, Plimoth Plantation -- near where the Pilgrims first landed in 1620 in Plymouth, Massachusetts -- is a cross between a church rich in saintly body parts, Lenin's tomb, and Disneyworld.

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But the Cape Cod tourist spot isn't just what it seems. "We're a fabulous destination," says PR manager Jennifer Monac, "famous for our attention to detail and our dedication to the truth about history -- not just the popular myths we learned in school." And when Ms. Monac says fabulous, she means it in that special, coded sense of queer.

Cub Scouts, bears, leathermen, and lesbian moms will likely be rubbing shoulders come Saturday, September 13, when the venerable Smithsonian-affiliated institution hosts Out at Plimoth Plantation, "a GLBT event from one of the nation's leaders in living history." The museum invites "individuals, couples, and families and friends to enjoy at Out at Plimoth Plantation in an atmosphere of acceptance and tolerance, where diversity is celebrated as a matter of corporate philosophy!"

On offer are "some family-friendly activities, a Thanksgiving- inspired dinner/social mixer," and, starting at 2 p.m., "two historical talks about our knowledge of 17th-century gay history."

Hopefully folks won't choke on their turkey. Fleeing to America to escape persecution, the Pilgrims soon became oppressors in their own right. The Plymouth Colony launched a preemptive war against the local Indians, who had taught the colonists how to survive winter in the New World. Aiming more at their own kind, the Puritans aped English law and in 1641 made sodomy a capital crime. William Plaine -- one of Guildford, Connecticut's original settlers -- was hanged in 1646 for relations with two men back in England and for "corrupting a great part of the youth of Guilford by masturbation."

Plaine's was only one of three confirmed executions for sodomy in colonial New England. But it's clear that while Pilgrims aced the Wilderness Survival course provided by the Wampanoag, they failed Sex Ed.

"My sexuality and the way I express it has never been a real issue so long as I'm fulfilling what I'm supposed to be doing for the community," says Kent Lebsock, a Two-Spirit Lakota man and an urban Indian who has worked with human rights groups, including the NorthEast Two-Spirit Society in New York City (Ne2ss.org). At 3 p.m. Lebsock will join with fellow Ne2sser Harlan Pruden, of the Cree nation, to present "Two-Spirit is Better Than One," a talk on sex, gender, and sexuality in Native America then and now.

"The rebirth of the two-spirit movement came in the late '80s, when some of our elders started coming together to seek out what one another knew about the tradition and its history," Lebsock tells The Guide. "Like a lot of our traditions, this one had simply gone underground for generations."

The term "two-spirit" denotes a role present in perhaps a third of native societies, though not among the Wampanoag. The tradition elevated those who seemed conversant in the spirit of both genders with special tasks in the community -- artistic, spiritual, ceremonial, even diplomatic.

Such subtleties were lost on colonialists imbued with master-race Christian fervor. In October 1513 in what's now Panama, explorer Vasco Nœ–ez de Balboa condemned some 40 Quarequa Indians for sodomy, cross-dressing, and idolatry. Then he sicked attack dogs on the victims, tearing them limb from limb.

"When we got the invitation from Plimoth Plantation," Lebsock says, "I was like, are they kidding me? The very people at that particular settlement were responsible for the annihilation of various Indian nations in that area once the colonists had got themselves established precisely because of help the Indians provided."

But Lebsock reconsidered and decided to join the discussion at a place widely seen as a memorial to the Pilgrims' landing. "I think humankind at that point had a real opportunity to combine our spiritual view of the world and the European scientific view and really make a paradise," he adds. In the unlikely venue of a please-don't-call-us-hokey tourist spot, that stalled but vital project will maybe get a nudge.

For more information on Out at Plimoth Plantation, call 508-746-1622 x8210, or browse to Plimoth.org

Author Profile:  Bill Andriette
Bill Andriette is features editor of The Guide
Email:	theguide@guidemag.com