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A woman hit on a gay man in a parking lot and the misunderstanding is so heartwarming

The enouncter was special for both of them but for different reasons.

via WowRealNeat/TikTok and TifanieMayberry/TikTok

Tifanie Mayberry and David Frazier discuss their chance encounter.

Usually, when you read a story about people being confronted in a grocery store parking lot, it's bad news. But not this time. Back in November of 2023, Portland, Oregon-based photographer David Frazier had an uplifting experience in the parking lot of a New Seasons market after being approached by a female admirer.

He later told the story on TikTok in a video that received over 3.4 million views. While making a quick run to the store, Frazier parked next to a woman driving a Tesla. He noticed she was eating, hanging around and “vibing,” so he flashed her a smile and went into the store, where he picked up a bite to eat.

Upon returning to his car, the woman was still there. She rolled down her window and asked Frazier, “Hey, are you single?” Frazier was taken aback by the question and replied: “Sadly, yes, I am. Um, also very gay, though.”

@wowrealneat

Dear New Seasons Parking Lot Girl, you’re so cool and ily ❤️ #fyp #portland #parkinglot #xoxo

He told the woman he was flattered and that asking never hurts. "You're just so handsome," she replied. Frazier returned the compliment, calling her "pretty," and the two shared a laugh and went their separate ways.

But the interaction stuck with Frazier. He thought it took real "guts" to tell a stranger you think they're attractive. He also felt that it was "kind" and "flattering" for her to compliment him. "She seemed like such a genuine and kind and earnest" and "cool" person, he said in the video.

He hoped the TikTok video he made would eventually reach her somehow. “You have uplifted me in a way that I didn’t know I needed, and it made me feel amazing, and I just wanted to say thank you and I hope you have such an incredible weekend,” Frazier told the woman through his post.

He also invited her to get a “friend coffee.”

Five weeks after Frazier posted the video, it successfully reached its intended audience of one. It was seen by Tifanie Mayberry, the woman driving the Tesla. She shared a reaction video where she watched Frazier’s original post. The video received over 11 million views.

@tifaniemayberry

#duet with @David #fyp WOW!! Never expected for this to come back around like this. OMG. The internet is internetting and I LOVE it!!

Mayberry followed the reaction video up with another, explaining that her behavior in the parking lot that day was a perfect example of where she is in life. She’s 35, single and ready to settle down and have kids. If that means she has to be a little forward in approaching men, so be it.

"So what you're witnessing is me just being like no BS and being 'like okay if I see me a good one, I just like to lasso them, and reel 'em in’ and be like 'Hey, I'm interested,' and that's just kind of where I am in life. And apparently, this one got back to me in a very unexpected way,” she said.

Mayberry added that she has yet to speak with Frazier but is looking forward to meeting him. She hopes that one day he’ll even make it to her wedding.

@tifaniemayberry

Well its been a very funny ending to 2023, and I have to say it ended things on such a great note for me 🥹❤️✨ Thanks TikTok!! @David - Coffee in the New Year?!

This article originally appeared last year.

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Former antigay theologian gives 3 reasons why he came to love and accept LGBTQ people

If he can change, anyone can.

via Duke University and Canva/Photos

LGBTQ parishioners and Richard Hays.

Richard Hays, an ordained Methodist minister and the 27-year dean of the Duke Divinity School, passed away on January 4, 2025, from pancreatic cancer. Hays was known for his 1996 book, “The Moral Vision of the New Testament,” which was taught in seminary schools and embraced by conservative evangelical Christians for its repudiation of same-sex marriage. “Homosexuality is one among many tragic signs that we are a broken people, alienated from God’s loving purpose,” Hays asserted in his book.

However, in his final months, Hays dramatically shifted his public views about LGBTQ people and their place in the Christian faith. In September 2024, Hays and his son, Chris, released their book “The Widening of God’s Mercy,” which claims God continually extends his mercy to those who are outcasts in the Bible and that LGBTQ people should be accepted in the church.

“The biblical narratives throughout the Old Testament and the New trace a trajectory of mercy that leads us to welcome sexual minorities no longer as ‘strangers and aliens’ but as ‘fellow citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God,’” the authors wrote, quoting the Book of Ephesians.

Hays’ theological change of heart was controversial in some evangelical circles.


3 Reasons Why Richard Hays believes the church should accept same-sex marriages

In a speech given at CenterPeace Conference 2 months before his death, Hays shared 3 reasons why he believes the church should accept LGBTQ people and that same-sex marriage should be blessed.

1. His experience with LGBTQ Christians

Hays argues that we don’t know what the word of God means until we see it “embodied” by others, and he saw terrific examples of LGBTQ Christians with his students and at a Methodist church in Durham, North Carolina. “I was, of course, encountering students both from my time teaching at Yale and time at Duke students who were of alternative sexualities minority sexualities who were there to learn and to seek to serve in the church they were smart, they were committed, and they were gay and lesbian,” Hays said in his speech.

- YouTubeyoutu.be

2. Reading books

Hays read accounts of life as an LGBTQ Christian by Wesley Hill (“Washed and Waiting”) and “Scripture and Ethics” by Karen R. Keen. “That book led to a series of extended conversations between Karen and me. We would go get coffee and sit and talk for a long time about what both what Karen had written and about her own experience, and it just helped me to move off the place where I had been stuck,” Hays said. He also read theological books that defended traditional Christian marriage and found their positions “unconvincing.”

rainbow book art Photo by Edson Rosas on Unsplash

3. His mother’s death

Hays says that the tipping point was “nearly 5 years ago” when his mother died, and his family wanted to have her funeral at a Methodist church where she was the organist. However, the church was a reconciling congregation accepting of LGBTQ people and flew a rainbow Pride banner out front. Hays’ brother refused to attend a service in the church, so the family decided to move the funeral elsewhere. The family disagreement made Hays wonder why LGBTQ issues, which aren’t central to Christian doctrine, held such a firm grip on believers’ hearts. “I thought, why is this such an issue, you know? This is not about a dispute about the doctrine of the Trinity. It's not about justification by faith,” Hays said. “This is not a matter that stands at the heart of Christian doctrine. Why can't we agree to disagree about something like this? But [his brother] couldn't; he felt it would compromise his principles. So for me, that was the personal tipping point where I said damn, I've got to write something to set the record straight.”

Ultimately, Hays’ dramatic final proclamation was a brave act that will be a big part of his legacy. The man who justified antigay policies in the church later came to believe that LGBTQ people deserve to be accepted and their marriages blessed. Let’s hope his change inspires others to rethink their anti-LGBTQ views and create real change within the church.

woman holding baby Photo by Margaux Bellott on Unsplash

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Gay choir teacher breaks down when his class gives a surprise performance at his wedding

Christopher Landis had kept his marriage secret because he wasn't sure how students or parents would react.

via Pexels

His students made his special day even better.

Christopher Landis, a choir director at Hingham Middle School in Massachusetts, didn’t tell his students he was engaged to Joe Michienzie three years ago. According to Inside Edition, whenever they asked who Michienzie was, Christopher would say, "That's Joe. He's my friend."

Landis kept his relationship a secret in front of his students because he wasn’t sure how their parents would react. Sadly, even today, LGBTQ people still have to be discreet about their personal lives in some professions. A 2018 study by the Human Rights Campaign2018 study by the Human Rights Campaign found that 46 percent of LGBTQ people do not reveal their sexual orientation at work.

This is sad for the teachers who have to stay closeted and also for the LGBTQ students who miss out on having a positive role model.

However, somehow the secret got out and two mothers of Landis’ students, Margit Foley and Joy Foraste, approached Michienzie to see how they could get the students involved in their wedding.

“At the end of the summer, Margit and I heard he was getting married. He’s the best teacher, and he’s got this great energy, and he makes every school function fun. We thought, wouldn’t it be awesome to do something for his wedding?” Foraste told The New York Times.

The women emailed the other choir parents to see if their children could perform at their teacher’s wedding rehearsal dinner.

“We hoped we’d get at least 15 kids to do it,” Foraste said. But 50 of the 70 kids in the chorus said they’d be there to support their teacher’s wedding. They secretly rehearsed for four Sundays in a row at a local library so Landis wouldn’t catch a whiff of the plan they hatched.

The doors and signage on Hingham Middle School in Massachusetts.

Hingham Middle School in Massachusetts

via Google

The kids and their parents kept the secret for four months before the big day and had to get off school and travel 30 miles to the event. Landis had no idea what was about to happen but he felt something was up when people at the dinner started picking up their phones.

Out of nowhere, 50 kids filed into the room, songbooks in hand. After Dona Maher, a colleague of Landis’, banged out the first few notes of the French National Anthem "La Marseillaise" on her keyboard, the kids began to sing the word, “Love.” It was the perfect song for the occasion: “All You Need Is Love” by The Beatles.

Video taken by the bartender at the event shows Landis unable to hold back the tears as his kids sang their hearts out. It was a beautiful moment of acceptance for a teacher who wasn’t sure if his kids and their parents would understand his love for his husband-to-be.

After the performance, Landis turned to the crowd with a huge smile and said, “These are my kids."

"It was so wonderful for the kids to see him with his family and his close friends, and they saw him as a person, not just their teacher," Foraste told The Patriot Ledger. "They saw how much it meant to him. He immediately started crying and the kids started crying. It's something they’ll never forget."


This article originally appeared two years ago.

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In 1983 actor Harvey Fierstein bravely shared what it means to be gay in prime-time TV interview

“I assume that everyone is gay unless I'm told otherwise," he told Barbara Walters.

via ClipoRama/YouTubeClipoRama/YouTube

Harvey Fierstein explains what it means to be gay to Barbara Walters.

If you want to know what it was like to be gay in the United States in the 1980s, an interview on ABC’s “20/20” where one of America’s prominent journalists, Barbara Walters, talked to 29-year-old Broadway legend Harvey Fierstein, is a great place to start. In 1983, Fierstein was the hottest thing on Broadway” with 2 hit shows: “La Cage aux Folles” and “Torch Song Trilogy.” But even though he was the talk of the town, Walters treats his homosexuality as if it is something foreign and threatening.

At the time, Fierstein was a rarity in pop culture—an openly gay male celebrity and his “Torch Song Trilogy” dared to do the unthinkable: humanize homosexual relationships. Fierstein later found mainstream success in films, starring alongside Robin Williams in “The Birdcage,” a movie version of “La Cage aux Folles,” and “Mrs. Doubtfire.”

In 1983, Fiersten sat down with Walters for a prime-time interview where he made the case that homosexuality wasn’t a deviant lifestyle and that it’s much more prevalent than most people think, especially in the arts.

“What's it like to be a homosexual,” Walters asked the actor, writer and one-time drag queen, point-blank. “I don't know. I'm just a person. I'm a person who sees the world in the opposite light than you do, that's all. But I see the exact same world as you do. I assume that everyone is gay unless I'm told otherwise. You assume everyone's straight unless you're told otherwise,” he told Walters and the millions of viewers watching at home.

Fierstein went on to dismiss the myth that homosexuality was caused by a strong mother and a weak father by noting that his brother was straight. He added that people must be born gay because LGBTQ people are found in every part of the world. “I mean you have to you have to start from the basics, 10% of the world is gay,” Fierstein said. “You got to stop with the ‘this is a sickness,’ ‘this is an abnormality.’ This is a normal thing that has gone on through the history of man. It has always been 10% of the population has never been bred out.”

In the interview, Fierstein also debunks the notion that homosexual people can’t enjoy the same type of committed romantic relationships as heterosexuals. “Those are not heterosexual experiences and those are not heterosexual words. Those are human words. Love, commitment, family belong to all people,” Fierstein said. "It is the norm in the homosexual community. It is not the norm in what you see on the news and all that. But what you see on the news and what you see in print are the bars.”



Fierstein added that when a happy lesbian couple stays together for 70 years, it doesn’t make the news. “Monogamy is as prevalent a disease in homosexuality as it is in heterosexuality. It's all the life choice that you make for yourself,” he joked.

The interview is a fascinating time capsule of a world right before the AIDS epidemic when LGBTQ people began coming out of the closet in increasing numbers to help fight the deadly pandemic. In the interview, Fierstein, as one of the few out and proud gay male role models, was forced to share simple truths about gay life that, 40-plus years later, most people have come to understand. It took a lot of courage for Firestein to speak his truth on such a big stage, and he did so fearlessly and with love and humor.

You can watch the entire interview here.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

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