Category Archives: GLBT

Clergy Unite to Protest Oppression of Sexual Minorities in Uganda


Diana Sands, LGBT Program Associate of the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office, has gathered signatures from 80 religious leaders, representing a variety of denominations around the world, for an open letter protesting the Ugandan government’s recent initiative to step up persecution of homosexuals and transgender persons.

UU-UNO is seeking donations to pay for publication of this letter as a paid editorial in Ugandan newspapers. To help, visit the donation page on their website, choose the “Your Choice” donation amount option, and write in the “Your Choice” box the amount to be donated followed by the word “Uganda” (Ex. “25 Uganda”). Or send a check to UU-UNO, 777 UN Plaza, suite 7G, New York, NY 10017. Make sure that “Uganda Project” is noted in the memo line or in an attached note.

If you’re on Facebook, join the Cause “Support Publication of Uganda Letter from Religious Leaders”.

Thanks to Diana for permission to reprint the letter on this blog, and to Steve and Jose at Other Sheep for bringing this project to my attention in their e-newsletter.

Open Letter to Hon. Dr. James Nsaba Buturo, Ugandan Minister of Ethics and Integrity

Hon. Dr. James Nsaba Buturo
Minister of Ethics and Integrity
Office of the President, Parliamentary Building
P. O. Box 7168
Kampala, Uganda

Honorable Minister Buturo:
As leaders and members of faith-based communities we are gravely concerned about recent events which endanger the lives and human rights of many Ugandans. Faith-based groups from Uganda and the United States called for the formation of an official anti-homosexuality task force after a three day seminar organized by Family Life Network (FLN), a Ugandan organization with U.S. support that since 2002 represents itself as working for “the restoration of Ugandan family and values.”

According to news reports, this task force would lobby to create a special division in the police force to persecute lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. It would also seek to lobby for harsher penalties for homosexual conduct and “out” people in different spheres. These actions would create an atmosphere of fear, driving essential family and community members underground, and would tear apart families and communities on the basis of gender identities and sexual orientations.

As people of faith, we believe that perfect love casts out all fear {I John 4}. We believe that all people are created in the image of God, and that honesty before God and our fellow human beings is essential to a just and equitable society. We cannot condone any position or practice, which in the name of faith, seeks to do less than extend this perfect love and work for this just society.

Prior to the seminar, Stephen Langa, Executive Director of FLN, and Dr. Scott Lively, a US spokesperson at the seminar, met with members of parliament and the Ugandan Christian Lawyers Association. According to Dr. Lively, he also met with you and other influential leaders.

We are concerned that the allegations raised by Dr. Lively and Mr. Langa, wrongly associating sexual minorities and human rights defenders with sexual abuse of people, will lead to violence against people on the grounds of their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. This in turn will work against building communities of openness and trust and families where all members are valued and cherished.

With many people of faith throughout the world, we hold that all people, regardless of their sexual orientation, are created in the image of God and are loved by God. We further believe that the scriptural responsibility incumbent upon people of faith and good will across the globe is to respond to hate with compassion, charity and love. We strive to do that with this letter and our appeal to you as a person of good will and a public servant.

Uganda stands out as a nation which fosters spiritual diversity among its diverse population. As people of faith, we believe, as we trust you do, that state impartiality on spiritual matters is critical for the maintenance of peace and the enjoyment of religious freedom for all Ugandans.

The FLN brings into Uganda, with the support of a few US faith-based organizations, attitudes of hatred and intolerance that digress from the attitudes of compassion and tolerance advocated by most religious organizations globally. What we share in common as members of diverse traditions and co-signers of this letter is our firm conviction that we are called to love all people completely and equally, and to accept the place of every person in God’s creation.

As Minister for Ethics and Integrity, you represent the government of Uganda and as such you have an obligation to resist calls to limit the human rights of any group of people based on the beliefs of another group of people. We write to you seeking your pledge to honor the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights which affirms the equality of all people. We pledge our continued witness to the truth of God’s unconditional and universal love for all humanity, and to a more accurate and just representation of the faith we serve.

As people of faith, we believe it is the responsibility of the government to set the standard in matters of civil and human equality by investing time and resources into education about the diversity of human sexuality and gender identity. It is the responsibility of the government to facilitate a productive and respectful dialogue between people of differing religious and civic views. A peaceful and nonviolent society in which the rights of all are equally recognized and protected is achieved when the government takes a strong stand to defend religious liberty and diversity of belief.

We call on you today, as we did in a previous letter [14/2/2008 tinyurl.com/upendouganda] to publicly lead Uganda in becoming a model nation, working towards ending all discrimination against its lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and replacing judgmentalism and oppression with acceptance of diversity; hatred and violence with love and compassion for all.

Sincerely,

1. The Rev. Elder Nancy Wilson, Moderator, Metropolitan Community Churches
2. The Rev. John H. Thomas, General Minister and President, United Church of Christ
3. The Rev. Dr. Sharon E. Watkins, General Minister and President, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada
4. The Rev. M. Linda Jaramillo, Executive Minister, Justice and Witness Ministries, United Church of Christ
5. The Rev. Pat Bumgardner, Chair, Global Justice Ministry, Metropolitan Community Churches
6. The Rev. Peter Morales, President, Unitarian Universalist Association
7. The Most Rev. Craig Bergland, EFR, Presiding Bishop, The Universal Anglican Church
8. Maria Jespen, Bishop of Hamburg and Luebeck in the Northelbian Evangelical Lutheran Church, Germany
9. The Rev. Mark Kiyimba, Unitarian Universalist Association of Uganda
10. The Rev. Samuel Waweru, Presbyterian Church of East Africa PCEA, Nairobi, Kenya
11. The Rev. Steve Parelli, Other Sheep East Africa
12. Mel White, Soulforce
13. The Rev. William G. Sinkford, Past President, Unitarian Universalist Association
14. The Rev. Michael Schuenemeyer, Executive for Health and Wholeness Advocacy, Wider Church Ministries, United Church of Christ
15. The Rev. Robert B. Coleman, Minister of Mission and Social Justice, The Riverside Church in the City of New York
16. The Rev. David Vargas, Co-Executive, Global Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and United Church of Christ, President, Division of Overseas Ministries, Christian Church (Discipl
es of Christ), Indianapolis, IN
17. The Rev. Cally Rogers-Witte, Co-Executive, Global Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and United Church of Christ, Executive Minister, Wider Church Ministries, United Church of Christ, Cleveland, OH
18. The Reverend Eric M. Cherry, Director of International Resources, Unitarian Universalist Association
19. The Reverend Keith Kron, Director of the Office of Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Concerns, Unitarian Universalist Association
20. The Rev. Mark Worth, Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Castine, Maine, USA
21. The Rev. Ann Marie Alderman, Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Greenville, NC, USA
22. The Rev Rowland Jide Macaulay, House Of Rainbow MCC, Lagos, Nigeria
23. The Reverend Krishna Stone, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, USA
24. The Rev. Cn. Mary June Nestler, Canon for Ministry Formation, Episcopal Diocese of Utah
25. The Rev. Jared R. Stahler, Pastor, Saint Peter’s Church, NY
26. Rabbi Laurence Edwards, Congregation Or Chadash, Chicago
27. The Rev Deniray Mueller, Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio, Assistant to the Canon for Public Policy
28. The Rev. Dámaris E. Ortega, United Church of Christ
29. Sister Betty Obal, Sisters of Loretto
30. Sister Mary Peter Bruce, Sisters of Loretto Community
31. The Rev. H. Scott Matheney, Chaplain and Dean of Religious Life, Elmhurst College, Chicago
32. Christian Albers, Pastor in the Protestant Altstadt Congregation, Hachenburg, Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau, Germany
33. Rabbi Renni S. Altman, Great Neck, NY
34. The Rev. Renee (Maurine) C. Waun, D.Min., Pittsburgh, PA
35. The Rev. Edith Gause, Consultant for Transitional Ministries, Pasadena, CA
36. The Reverend Lynn M. Acquafondata, Unitarian Universalist minister, Pittsburgh, PA
37. The Rev. Rebecca Booher, Minister
38. John Clinton Bradley, Acting Executive Director, Integrity USA
39. The Rev. Dr. Joan Kavanaugh, the Executive Director of the Counseling Center at The Riverside Church, NY
40. The Rev. Fr. Japé Mokgethi-Heath, Acting Executive Director ANERELA+ and INERELA+, South Africa & United Kingdom
41. The Rev Dee Cooper, Pastor, Head of Staff, Church of the Hills PCUSA
42. Anivaldo Padilha, KOINONIA Presença Ecumênica e Serviço, Rio de Janeiro-RJ, Brazil
43. Malte Lei, Vicar, Northelbian Evangelical Lutheran Church, Germany
44. The Rev. C. Edward Geiger, United Church of Christ
45. The Rev. Patricia Ackerman, Anglican Women’s Empowerment, New York City
46. Dr. Arnold Thomas, Minister of Education, The Riverside Church in the City of New York
47. Dr. Brad Braxton, Senior Minister, The Riverside Church in the City of New York
48. Penelope McMullen, Sisters of Loretto, New Mexico
49. The Rev. LaMarco A. Cable, Associate for Global Advocacy and Education, Global Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and United Church of Christ, Indianapolis, IN
50. The Rev. Robert Galloway, Metropolitan Community Church of Knoxville, Knoxville, Tennessee
51. The Rev. Mieke Vandersall, Presbyterian Welcome, Minister Director, NY
52. The Rev. Charles Booker-Hirsch, Pastor, Northside Presbyterian Church, Ann Arbor, MI
53. Harry Knox, Director, Religion and Faith Program, Human Rights Campaign Foundation
54. The Rev. Laurel Hallman, Unitarian Universalist Minister, Dallas, TX
55. The Rev. Robert C. Hastings, United Methodist Church
56. The Rev. Ray Neal, Pastor, Metropolitan Community Church, Seattle, WA
57. The Rev. Dr. Neil G Thomas, Metropolitan Community Church, Los Angeles, CA
58. The Rev. Hugh Wire, Presbyterian Church, USA
59. The Rev. Janine C. Stock, D.Min, JD, All Saints American Catholic Church
60. The Rev. David E. Cobb, Sr. Minister, First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Lynchburg, VA
61. Lowell O. Erdahl, Bishop Emeritus, St. Paul Area Synod, The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
62. The Rev. Allan B. Jones, Retired United Methodist Clergy, Santa Rosa, CA
63. The Rev. Doug Johnson, Presbyterian minister and hospital chaplain, Billings, MT
64. The Rev. Christopher Eshelman, United Methodist Church, Wichita, KS
65. The Rev. Gary Mitchener, Pastor, St.Alban Episcopal (Anglican) Church, Cleveland Heights, OH
66. The Rev. Father Andrew Gentry, FCSF (Faithful Companions of St. Francis), Chaplain to the Bethlehem Community, Liverpool UK
67. The Rev. Marilyn Chilcote, Beacon Presbyterian Fellowship, Oakland, CA
68. The Rev. Jonathan Wright-Gray, Senior Minister, The First Church in Sterling, MA
69. The Rev. Dr. Penny Christianson, pastor, Tualatin United Methodist Church, Tualatin, OR
70. The Rev. Galen Guengerich, Senior Minister, All Souls Unitarian Church, New York
71. The Rev. LaTeasha A. Richardson, MAR, United Church of Christ, Minnesota
72. The Rev. Robert Forsberg, High St. Presbyterian Church, Oakland, CA
73. The Rev. Kerry Boese, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
74. The Rev. Mary Jane Donohue, Episcopal Priest, Diocese of Connecticut
75. The Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, Church of God in Christ (Pentecostal)
World Officers of the World Federation of Methodist & Uniting Church Women
76. Chita R. Millan, World President – Philippines
77. Shunila Ruth, World Secretary, Pakistan
78. Lyra P. Richards, World Treasurer, West Indies
79. Rosemary Wass, President Emerita, United Kingdom
80. Brenda Smith, UN Representative, USA

Alegria Imperial: “To This We Wake”


Poet Alegria Imperial, a regular reader of this blog, was inspired by some recent posts to write these reflections and a poem, which she kindly shares with us:

“Reading more of gay marriage and its brambles, and knowing a few friends who in their quiet wordless moments peer beyond the seasons, I am convinced how unfair this world will always be.

“I believe that despite our knowing what in and how equality works, our friends will never attain it–not in our lifetime or even the next. But I suppose we can’t be more than our human nature limits us to be and yet, like you’ve shown in supporting their cause, we can by leaping beyond the barriers we’ve created be quite meta-human. Like compassion, understanding and the daring to break confines must be scary for those who can really make a difference but you have done it, are doing it.

“Yet in spite of their fractured world, here is what I sense is our friends’ legacy.”

To This We Wake
by Alegria Imperial

Scraps of purple on winter dawns
slung on arms of mornings–
a sun awaiting for us
in between strutting seagulls
pigeons braiding shadows–
we snuggle.

We trace our days in dreams we
birth at dawn
when swatches of light
tickle us out to walk
on grounds of endearments our steps
have marked engraved by winds.

We step on
shredded blooms the seasons
gift us, stealing kisses, time on
halved imperfect whispers, wishes we rip
off the day, their ends we spangle on
skies, our secret into stars.

We wake yet to another day–
what lies deeper than frost farther
than slumber, closer
to the core where
seasons sleep: to this, to this
we always wake.

Alegria is currently part of an editorial team assembling an anthology of women’s life stories. Women Elders in Action, the organization for which she volunteers in Vancouver, compiled 77 taped interviews of unattached elderly women living on low-income in the lower mainland of British Columbia.

Alegria writes, “What an amazing trove of childhood memories, broken dreams and marriages, turning points and awakenings to global needs. They have debunked the myths women are brought up on but in surviving and living lives more impressive in reality than myths could ever be, they have given rise or have created a “mythogyny”–the book title. We hope to launch it in mid-Sept. The book is funded by Status of Women Canada. By the way, one of them is the first lesbian couple to have won custody over their children in a court battle.”

Read more about this project here.

Episcopal General Convention Rejects Moratorium on Gay Clergy, Supports Transgender Inclusion


I’m proud to be an Episcopalian today.

The 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church USA is meeting this week in Anaheim, CA. You can follow all the news about General Convention at our official website, EpiscopalChurch.org. (Stop by and say thanks to St. John’s parish member Solange De Santis who edits Episcopal Life Online.)

Yesterday the House of Bishops approved Resolution D025, which affirms that “any ordained ministry” is open to gays and lesbians. The amended resolution now returns to the House of Deputies for approval, defeat, or further revision. D025 was first introduced in the House of Deputies as an apparent response to the last Convention’s Resolution B033, which recommended “restraint” in consecrating bishops whose “manner of life” challenged other churches in the Anglican Communion.

Read the full story at Episcopal Life Online.

In other news, General Convention is also discussing various resolutions to make the Episcopal Church more welcoming to transgender Christians. Today, the House of Deputies voted by a large margin to add “gender identity and expression” to the ministry canons regarding non-discrimination. This year marks the first time that General Convention has conducted such an in-depth study of trans issues. Follow Rev. Cameron Partridge’s TransEpiscopal blog for detailed updates.

When we say “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You”, we mean it!

Other Sheep Memo on Gay Marriage and Religious Liberty


The tireless Rev. Steve Parelli and Jose Ortiz of the GLBT Christian outreach ministry Other Sheep are touring Southeast Asia this month, with stops in Nepal and Thailand. Earlier this week, they held a seminar in Kathmandu for 26 pastors, where representatives from Nepal’s Blue Diamond Society also spoke. This resource web page is aimed at Nepali pastors but will be useful to GLBT-affirming religious leaders in other cultures as well.

One of the resources I found especially interesting was Steve’s paper titled “How Baptist Doctrine May Obligate the Evangelical to View Same-Sex Marriage as Primarily a Civil Matter and a Matter of Individual Conscience”.
This paper was first presented at the 2006 annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society.

Steve discusses American Baptists’ history of support for religious freedom and church-state separation, a point on which Roger Williams split with the Puritans in colonial times. The American Baptist tradition emerged in opposition to their European forebears, including Luther and Calvin, who were more comfortable with using civil authority to enforce obedience to doctrine. Steve then argues that since legalizing gay marriage does not infringe on the liberty of conscience of those who oppose it, evangelicals should not seek to write their Bible-based views into law. Excerpts:

…In a written statement to his congregation on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2006, Ted Haggard, who recently resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals, said of his same-sex relations with a gay escort, “I am guilty of sexual immorality.

“There is a part of my life,” he says, “that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all my adult life. … From time to time, the dirt that I thought was gone would resurface, and I would find myself thinking thoughts and experiencing desires that were contrary to everything I believe and teach. . . . the darkness increased and finally dominated me. As a result, I did things that were contrary to everything I believe. … the deception and sensuality that was in my life . . . need to be dealt with harshly” (New Life Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado, website).

Ted Haggard’s remarks are timely and relevant. First, he tells us that his same-sex attraction existed for the duration of his adult life, increasing more and more and finally dominating. Secondly, he tells us, twice, that his homosexual desires and acts are contrary to everything he believes and teaches, and that – on the basis of his belief system – his homosexuality is repulsive, dark and dirty. Thus, his views on homosexuality are sectarian and his sectarian views must trump his own personal life-long homosexual experiences. While this may be true for Ted Haggard and the evangelical Religious Right he represents, this does not hold true for other gays and lesbians (whether evangelical or not) who have reexamined the church’s teachings in light of their life-long adult homosexual experiences and have, in contrast to Ted Haggard’s faith and practice, submitted scripture to reason, experience and re-interpretation.

The question this paper addresses is this: can Ted Haggard vote his conscience in a ballot initiative to ban gay marriage without wrongly violating the conscience and liberties of others who according to the dictates of their conscience do not find homosexual love repulsive, nor dark, and neither contrary to or dependent upon scripture. Ted Haggard can judge himself according to the dictates of his conscience. But, can he impose the same standard upon the conscience of others through the use of civil law? The 17th century Boston Puritan, Rev. John Cotton would answer, “Yes.” Roger Williams, his contemporary and theological opponent would answer, “No.”
…

****

…In the matter of gay marriage, the question, for a democracy, is not “What is right?” but rather, “Who should determine what is right: the church, the state, or the individual?”

Today’s evangelicals are bringing the wrong question to the public square. Evangelicals are addressing the question, “What is right?” When Robert Gagnon says “for any given homosexual person hope exists for forming a heterosexual union” – that directive addresses the question “What is right?” and belongs in the pulpit not in the capital (Myers & Scanzoni 2005: 126.)

It is the Baptists who have historically brought the right question to the public square. And so it must be now. In the matter of gay marriage, the question is, “Who should determine what is right: the church, the state, or the individual?” The historical, Baptist answer is the individual and therefore the state must defend liberty of conscience.

Why the individual? Because gay marriage “does not interfere with the rights of conscience.” That means, my right to a gay marriage does not interfere with your right to refrain from a gay marriage. So then, gay marriage compels no individual, whereas a ban on gay marriage is “compulsory heterosexuality” (Eskridge 1996: 143), and in the words of 17th century English Baptist John Murton: “The foulest of crimes is to force people’s bodies to a worship whereunto they cannot bring their spirits.”

Finally, gay marriage “does not violate the [civil] laws of morality and property” (Justice Samuel Miller) (Gaustad 1991: 44). Same-sex civil union in place of gay marriage is an expression of intolerance, discrimination and oppression. And according to Ted Jelen, professor of political science at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, “Identification of religious principles with political values can be considered a violation of the First Commandment as well as the First Amendment” (Jelen 2000: 94).

Testimony Needed by July 10 for Massachusetts Transgender Rights


The Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality, the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, and a number of Massachusetts faith communities are gathering testimony to present in support of the transgender anti-discrimination bill now pending before the state legislature. I just received this message from Rabbi Riqi Kosovske from Northampton’s Beit Ahavah synagogue:

There is a hearing for the bill called ‘An Act Relative To Gender-Based Discrimination & Hate Crimes’ (House Bill 1728 / Senate Bill 1687) before the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, July 14th. What is most needed from transgender people and allies alike who support this bill is written testimony (in the form of letters)– especially from people and communities of faith such as clergy, congregations, lay leaders, individuals, and other groups.

We are encouraging people to please write a one-page letter and submit it to the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition at te*******@*****pc.org. If you are writing as a person or community of faith, please also send it to Orly Jacobovits, Community Organizer & Community Educator at Keshet, at or**@**********ne.org. The Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality (ICTE) will submit a packet of faith-based testimony to the Judiciary Committee to show how much people and communities of faith support this vital civil rights bill.

All letters are needed by Friday, July 10 so they can be presented to the legislators. Feel free to forward the information in this letter if you know of friends, family or colleagues who would be able to write a testimony letter.

For more information about how to write and submit testimony, please visit www.masstpc.org/legislation/testifyinwriting.shtml.

Charlie Bondhus: “Epithalamium to Myself and Walt Whitman”


Charlie Bondhus is a poet, fiction writer and literary critic who is currently pursuing a Ph.D at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. The poem below is reprinted by permission from his new chapbook, What We Have Learned to Love, which won the 2008-09 Stonewall Competition from BrickHouse Books. Charlie’s full-length poetry book How the Boy Might See It will be out from Pecan Grove Press in October, and his novella Monsters and Victims will be published by Gothic Press in March 2010.

Epithalamium to Myself and Walt Whitman

As Adam early in the morning,
Walking forth from the bower refresh’d with sleep,
Behold me where I pass, hear my voice, approach,
Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my
    body as I pass,
Be not afraid of my body.

                        -Walt Whitman

I found Walt Whitman–

native and slithering in the tall grasses
au naturel save for beard,
true and biological son of Adam and Father Time.

Yet undivorced from the solid world, I
considered averting my eyes and crying:
“Come up from the fields, father!
Show your face
scraped in dead leaves
smudged with herb juice
and streaming with the sweet, gentle dew
of buttercups.”
Thinking book deals and self-promotion I
considered calling
The Daily Sun
The Hanover Press
The New York Times
to report this
cleft of time and space
this bit of transcendental news.
But something about his eyes,
weary and reckless,
stopped me.
I knew he was ashamed
to go naked about the world, though
clothing only constrained
his meadow meanders.
What wisdom, I thought, could be learned from this
grizzled young gray man?
What childless adventures?
Sensing my hesitation, Walt,
by way of greeting,
spooled his body about my own:
wrinkled ligaments and hairy appendages
encircling my boy-shape,
like Lucifer to Eve
in classical painting.

Grinding white teeth he
hissed affectionately:

To-day I go consort with Nature’s darlings, to-night too,
I am for those who believe in loose delights

Bowing then my head
to the priest of nature
unvested save for crabgrass and pinecones
I reverently uttered the responsorial:

For who but you or I understand lovers and all
    their sorrow and joy?
And who but you and I, dear grandpapa, ought
    be poets of comrades?

Much to do, needless to say.
Job had to be quit.
Buses had to be boarded.
Messages had to be left
on lovers’ answering machines.

I admit I initially judged Walt’s value
in terms of brand recognition.
Considering my new companion
a muscle for my rhetoric, I
dragged him on board a Greyhound
and bore him south.

Watching the 6 o’clock news in a D.C. hostel’s
    common room
I learned that we were in no way unique;
Melville was giving a lecture entitled “I am
    not Ishmael” in Boston,
Emerson was alive and well, already booked
    to speak at Dartmouth’s commencement,
and the Enquirer reported that Isherwood and Auden
    had gotten a civil union
in Los Angeles.

Appointing himself captain and helmsman
of brotherly mayhem, Walt drew up blueprints
of the White House, shared his plan
to invade the Oval Office
and recite “The Song of the Broad Axe”
interpolated with “I Hear America Singing”
to protest outsourcing, encored
by a brideless wedding march.

But, as it turned out, Walt had been
too long in the ground
to remember his own words.

Later that night at the hostel, lying awake
back-to-back in a twin bed, I
heard him singing in his sleep
reimagined refrains about New York City.

Next day on the plane he
pried open my lap-top
with a butter knife he had somehow gotten past
    security,
found the porn,
and spent the whole flight in the bathroom,
revising every poem in Calamus
to assimilate bears and twinks.

Approaching the gray and brown skyline,
noses and beards pointed towards JFK, I
described the violent rise and sudden crash of
    the towers,
the significance of which he appreciated,
though not the stark irony of 9-1-1.

That night at CBGB’s he got in for free
just for having the gumption
to say he was Walt Whitman
later corroborated
by an NYU adjunct
who happened to be standing near the door.

Wiggling like Mick Jagger
to the rhythm of an all girl rock band
(called, I think, “The Flaming Cunts”)
he danced his hips into my crotch and,
diving from the stage, cried:

I am Walt Whitman! Liberal and lusty as nature!

After the set and two rounds of cosmopolitans,
the moment splintered away as Walt
sustained an unfortunate groin injury
after propositioning the drummer—
a pink haired girl in zebra halter top.

There was also a moment of jealousy
when my companion fell
fascinated in love
with a leather queen
named Boddi Elektrique.
The divine nimbus of the female form, he proclaimed
    in amazement,
wedded to the action and power of the male…

Grabbing his freckled arm, I
assured a miffed Ms. Elektrique that
yes his words were complimentary and
yes she could’ve fooled me.

(Privately got revenge later
by making out with a poet of lesser talent
while Walt was in the bathroom.)

Tired of the East Coast and low on provisions we
    went shopping,
arm in arm at a supermarket in California.
Naturally, we ran into Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady,
just out of hell and trying to be domestic.
We chatted about their new home in P-Town and
graciously declined an offer of mescaline and a four way.

At a poetry slam in San Francisco I
introduced him as a cousin to Dodie B.
and later caught him in the bathroom
peeking at Dennis Cooper
on the other side of the divider.

Faced with expository verse
self-serving metaphor
and the slack-jawed applause of tongue-pierced
    teenagers
Walt didn’t need to be cajoled
into reciting “Whoever You are Holding Me Now
    in Hand.”

The reigning champion, a
heavy girl in black jeans named Rain
(spelled “R-A-Y-N-E”)
was surprisingly fine with losing,
dutifully informed me that she’d “SO do” me if I
    wasn’t gay,
thought it was cool that I hung out with Walt
    Whitman,
and asked us if we knew Poe’s number.

Bivouacing the next afternoon on Newport Beach,
we witnessed no solemn and slow procession
no halting army
save that of surfer boys, comrades to be,
capped in hair gel and highlights (which I patiently
    explained)
and garbed in soft herbages of chest bristle
that sprang forth from breasts
like joyous leaves.
All the while
a pink umbrella grew,
as a lone oak in Louisiana,
behind and above us, as I wondered,

what could I, poet who has come,
do to justify his one or two indicative words?

Leaning over, Walt slipped a ring on my finger, then
    growled:

All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann’d

Overcome by the passionate surreality of it all
I fell back crying:

“Dear father graybeard! Lonely old courage teacher!
I ride tonight and every night with you,
spooned
in ecstasy
with the evening star on my lips
the thrush warbling in my breast pocket
and lilacs spread across my trembling hand,
inside a wooden box across the open roads of
    sombre America!”

An Affirming 4th of July Message from State Sen. Stan Rosenberg


Massachusetts State Sen. Stan Rosenberg (D) represents Hampshire and Franklin counties, including our hometown of Northampton. He sent this July 4th message yesterday to the members of his email list. It also ran as a column in today’s local newspaper, the Daily Hampshire Gazette.

At the State House, in the House of Representatives chamber, hangs a mural entitled “Milestones on the Road to Freedom in Massachusetts.”

This painting, by Albert Herter, depicts five scenes from our state’s history. For me, the most poignant of these is the image of Judge Samuel Sewall, his head bowed in shame as he seeks forgiveness for his role in the Salem Witch Trials and the execution of 19 innocent people in 1692.

The caption beneath this panel of Herter’s mural reads: “Dawn of Tolerance in Massachusetts.”

We have indeed come a long way since those days, when fear and superstition held sway over our system of justice. But over the centuries many people, far too many, have suffered as our society struggled to fulfill its noblest, yet apparently most vexing, promise – the promise of equality. Our history is replete with examples of how certain groups of people have been defined by the majority and then vilified and subjugated because of their differences. From the execution of “witches” in Salem, to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, from the enslavement of Africans and the genocide of Native Americans, to the stinging discrimination felt at one time or another by all minorities – blacks, Jews, women, gay men and lesbians, Hispanics, the poor, the list goes on – our efforts to achieve equality have all too often collapsed before the notion that it is somehow permissible to deny justice and equality to those perceived as “the other.”

The good news is that America is, and will continue to be, a work in progress, much like the individuals we encounter everyday. The best news is that the forces for equality eventually, eventually, prevail.

Five years ago, Massachusetts stood alone as the birthplace of marriage equality in America. Today, five states have joined us in providing full marriage equality, while nine others allow some form of legally recognized same-sex union. Such victories have not come easily, or swiftly, or without sacrifice. But they have come, and more will follow if people of fair and open minds persevere. The forces for equality eventually prevail.

I am proud to have been a member of the Legislature that helped start this national movement, not just because it marks the beginning of the eventual end to another form of injustice, but because it marks what I consider to be another milestone on our road to freedom – the eventual end to identity politics. As a foster child who grew up as a ward of the state, as a gay man, as a Jew, I understand what it’s like to be cast as “the other.” I rarely discuss these facets of my character because I don’t practice identity politics. I practice policy politics. And I firmly believe that we will never fulfill our potential as a just society until we embrace the principle of equality for all and adhere to it as fundamental, immutable policy.

Eventually we will. Our past, I believe, is prologue.

When the debate over marriage equality began on Beacon Hill, only about a quarter of the state’s 200 legislators favored extending marriage rights to all adults. Given such a daunting task, the forces for equality might have been forgiven had they chosen to stay silent, to continue to live in the shadows. Instead, scores of non-traditional families, the courageous “others,” shared their lives and their stories and reminded us that any law that violated a person’s civil rights, that crushed a person’s dignity, that tarnished a person’s self respect, would be unworthy of the world’s oldest democratic institution. They reminded us, quite simply, that we’re not so different after all.

In the end, marriage equality won the support of 75 percent of lawmakers, a stunning and remarkable turnaround. The forces for equality eventually prevail.

As we celebrate this Fourth of July and all the freedoms we enjoy, we should pay special tribute to the people whose names are lost to history who helped make our Commonwealth a community, a work in progress, a welcoming place for all good people of good will. We once hanged “witches” in this state. From that injustice, at least according to Mr. Herter, we learned tolerance. Because of what began here five years ago, eventually, eventually, the time will come to add a new panel to his mural, maybe one entitled “Dawn of Equality in America.”

Stonewall Anniversary Thoughts: Everyone’s Marriage is Queer


Today is the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village, typically cited as the first uprising of the gay rights movement. I wasn’t born yet, and I didn’t get a clue for another 30 years, so I had to learn everything I know about it online. (It pisses me off that the third Google result for “Stonewall” is a website called “Stonewall Revisited” which offers “Help for gays and lesbians to leave a homosexual lifestyle for Christianity”. Trademark tarnishment lawsuit, anyone?)

The progressive Christian website Religion Dispatches put out a special “Stonewall” issue of their e-newsletter this weekend. Two articles there reflect the tension between mainstream acceptance and preserving a minority group’s unique culture.

Louis A. Ruprecht Jr., a religion professor at Georgia State University, laments that although our popular culture tolerates and sometimes even celebrates the existence of same-sex couples, two fundamental institutions–marriage and faith communities–largely remain closed to them:

Greenwich Village has a rare beauty in the early summer, when the days tend to be breezy and nights are still cool. I have never seen the place better kept, each and every park and thoroughfare brilliantly manicured with flowers and spices positively exploding into an orgiastic display of midsummer colors. Most all of the storefronts were painted in rainbow patterns that beautifully set off the gardens. It was the summer solstice. And it is the fortieth anniversary of the Stonewall riots that symbolically announced the birth of a gay rights movement in the United States, rights for a community that would no longer be ignored. Quite suddenly, coming out of the closet meant hitting the streets….

…The lifestyle, the identity, is generally accepted now, especially in the generation that has come of age since Stonewall. The whole thing is generational, and that generational kind of tolerance has been achieved after a fashion.

But what does it mean? What does the alchemical magic that turns private sexual activity into a public lifestyle, and then into a social identity, do to the politics of sexuality? Ironically, it turns thoughts to marriage, and not only because it is summertime in New York, and the solstice is upon us.

“Gay marriage,” for a variety of complex reasons, is still the sticking point. Many people—and I overheard this several times in the snippets of conversation inspired by the anniversary on the quiet streets with storied names, like Bleeker, Houston, and Gay—many people happily grant an individual’s freedom to do what he or she wants behind closed doors.

But churches, mosques and synagogues have open doors, at least in theory.

Marriage is a public statement, and it requires a kind of recognition that goes far beyond tolerance. That is harder to grant, harder for gays and lesbians and others to win….

Meanwhile, in the same issue, Nick Street, a journalist who is the LGBT Contributing Editor for Religion Dispatches, suggests that gays and lesbians have become homogenized in the quest for social acceptance, not measuring up well to the bohemian cross-dressing outcasts who started it all:

…The Stonewall riots of late June 1969—as well as the Summer of Love two years earlier, the Woodstock music festival two months later and the debut of the Cockettes at the Palace Theater in San Francisco the following New Year’s Eve—are examples of what Hakim Bey, a queer anarchist social critic, calls the Temporary Autonomous Zone.

“The TAZ is like an uprising which does not engage directly with the State,” Bey writes, “a guerilla operation which liberates an area (of land, of time, of imagination) and then dissolves itself to re-form elsewhere/elsewhen, before the State can crush it.”

Bey’s idea trades on the observation that orthodoxy of any kind—legal, social or religious—is essentially a living fiction, a collective hallucination. Groups that participate in this illusion take its abstractions for reality, and within that margin of error the TAZ springs into being.

And before it can be captured or commodified, the TAZ vanishes, leaving behind an empty husk. Think of Burning Man (or perhaps the Jesus Movement).

The anarchic spirit of the TAZ inevitably calls forth a violent response from those who tend the shadow-fires of orthodoxy. Crucifixions, witch-hunts, and inquisitions embodied this impulse in our historical past, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy during the Consciousness Revolution of the late 1960s also bore its mark.

As did the 50,000 deaths that Ronald Reagan abided before he uttered the word “AIDS” in public.

Today, queer culture is not so much a vector of this spiritual enlivenment as it is a passive beneficiary of it. Rather than dismantling the master’s house, many of us prefer to beseech the master to loan us his tools so that we can construct a tasteful adjoining cottage and two-car garage.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I should hasten to add. Stability has its virtues.

But we have lost sight of something that the most keen-eyed queerfolk of the Stonewall era clearly had in view: the circumstances under which human beings can flourish are innumerable, and cultivating an orthodox view of human flourishing inevitably leads to the oppression of nonconformists and the spiritual degeneration of the culture that oppresses them….

Street has a point, but in making it, he perpetuates some harmful stereotypes of his own. As my feminist consciousness grows, so does my appreciation for GLBT subcultures and queer theory, as well as the carnival of misfits that is Pride. Five minutes of shopping for baby clothes reveals how thoroughly we’re indoctrinated in gender stereotypes from birth. The gay community’s visible diversity of sexual personae shocks us into questioning the naturalness of these sex-role straitjackets which shame both boys and girls into suppressing one side of their personality.

So I’m all for resisting conformity. I just get so very sick of seeing the equation of marriage with conformity.

Do you actually think the dominant culture values marriage? It values heterosexual couplings, and maybe weddings, to the extent that they’re an excuse to buy stuff. But the actual work of growing in harmony with another person, of shaping your lives to be a joint project of service to one another and the community, is vastly undersold. The joy of an ever-deepening connection that involves two people’s bodies as much as their souls is nearly invisible in the mainstream media.

Instead, we’re largely served a glamorized picture of singleness as perpetual youth, and promiscuity as self-empowerment. We see this in the adult entertainment that most men consume, and in TV series that continually break up their characters’ romances in order to keep the storyline moving forward without pushing the characters to evolve beyond our initial impression of them.

As Garth says, “We fear change.” Marriage is change. It means you’ve moved on to another stage of life, and unless you believe in heaven (and to be fair, a lot of gay people have been told they wouldn’t be going there), you might be afraid it’s all downhill after thirty.

My husband and I aren’t trying to be countercultural or conformist. Butting heads with the dominant culture is just something that happens when we support one another’s attempts to develop our unique gifts, regardless of how society gender-codes those traits. Okay, so I do the laundry and cook dinner while he fixes the computer and removes large bugs from the bathtub (he doesn’t kill them because he’s a Buddhist). But he also gets up early to shop for bottle sterilizers on the Internet while I’m writing my novel about gay men in love. I pick out the onesie with sequins because I want a fabulous son, and Adam puts it back because he read a baby-care book that says they’re unsafe. But we both agree that Disney is Satan and electronic toys are his tools of destruction.

Living mindfully within the institutions of a patriarchal society is hard work. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Instead of this dead-end debate over whether gay marriage is assimilationist, let’s work to make everyone’s marriage a little more queer. There’s no necessary association between a lifetime commitment to your true love and a retreat into apolitical consumer contentment. Think about gender: which traditional roles suit you, and which feel confining? Can your partner help you appreciate all the roles you play?

I worry that the theme of “marriage makes people lose their edge” indoctrinates us into choosing an abstraction over a connection to a real person. This is fundamentally the same bait-and-switch perpetrated by religious conservatives who tell gays and lesbians to sacrifice their lovers in favor of the abstraction of personal righteousness, or obedience to (one interpretation of) Scripture. So…

Just do your thang, honey!

    

Book Notes: GLBT Nonfiction in Brief


Back to June pride-blogging with brief reviews of three nonfiction books that offer insightful writing on GLBT themes.

Written from within the evangelical community and addressed to that community, David G. Myers and Letha Dawson Scanzoni’s What God Has Joined Together: The Christian Case for Gay Marriage (HarperSanFrancisco, 2005) makes a welcome contribution to the dialogue about faith and sexuality. Myers is a psychology professor at Michigan’s Hope College, while Scanzoni is a professional journalist and nonfiction author. Her commercial magazine experience is evident in the book’s concise, approachable style.

The book’s argument proceeds in stages: Committed relationships have proven essential to human flourishing. Marriage benefits couples, families, and society as a whole. More and more scientific evidence is showing that homosexuality is a naturally occurring human variation, probably caused by some combination of genetic and prenatal factors, and that sexual orientation is nearly always resistant to change. (The authors document the general failure of “ex-gay therapy” and denounce the suffering it causes.) In addition, the Bible verses most often cited against same-sex intimacy have been taken out of context, when they really refer to specific abuses such as temple prostitution and rape. There is therefore no reason to oppose marriage for committed gay couples on the same terms as straight couples. “Marriage lite” options like domestic partnerships and civil unions actually do more to undermine a culture of marriage, by suggesting that less-committed relationships are equally good for couples and their families.

Readers familiar with gay-affirming theology won’t find a lot that’s new here, but that’s not a bad thing. Seeing the same reinterpretations of Romans 1:26, etc., pop up in many places, one has to conclude that this is no longer a “fringe” viewpoint. It’s a viable alternate view, supported by scholarship, that at the very least deserves to be admitted to the conversation at evangelical colleges, publishing houses, and places of worship. Hopefully, the fact that What God Has Joined Together was written by two straight allies will enhance its credibility in those circles.

I recommend the paperback edition because it includes a dialogue between the authors, discussing reactions to the book and how they themselves came to change their views on homosexuality. Scanzoni observes at one point:

I think when we keep a subject such as homosexuality distant from us, seeing it only in the abstract, it’s easy to believe false information, accept stereotypes, and act accordingly. Homosexual people are then seen as an “out-group,” a category distinctly different from the heterosexual “in-group.” A blind spot makes it hard to see gay people as human beings, as persons who want the same things as straight people do–to love and belong and just go about their lives with dignity, as persons made in God’s image.

But when a heterosexual person learns that what had been only a generalized abstract mental construct is actually embodied in an admired person who reveals his or her sexual orientation, something begins to happen. How can you continue to believe gay relationships don’t last after getting to know Pete and Tom, who have been together 50 years, and have watched Pete tenderly caring for Tom, who now suffers from Alzheimer’s disease? How can you claim that homosexual people are rejecting God when that life-transforming sermon you can’t get out of your mind was preached by a lesbian minister? How can you believe that homosexual people are unfit parents when you see the love and care that Elaine and Laura shower on their baby, or the fun little Joey has as he plays and laughs with his two dads, whom he adores? Meeting gay people replaces an abstract topic with real people and with the universality of human experience.


As Harvey Milk said… “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

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Whereas one might say that Myers and Scanzoni’s work seeks to integrate gay and lesbian couples into the bourgeois mainstream, Marjorie Garber’s Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety (New York: HarperPerennial, 1993) celebrates the deconstruction of social norms in the figure of the transvestite. Tracing the theme of cross-dressing through historical anecdotes, legends, high art and popular culture, Garber argues that wherever it occurs, it signals anxiety about the instability of some other social category, not only gender but (at various times) race, class, religion, or colonial power. “[T]ransvestitism is a space of possibility structuring and confounding culture: the disruptive element that intervenes, not just a category crisis of male and female, but the crisis of category itself.” (p.17) A little further on, she writes, “there can be no culture without the transvestite because the transvestite marks the entrance into the Symbolic” (p.34) The rest of the book works out this simple thesis at great length.

Garber’s book comes from that mid-1990s postmodernist period when everything looked like a text. She’s a Shakespeare expert, so it makes sense that she’d use the tools of literary criticism to investigate the cross-dressing phenomenon. However, I found myself wondering whether her romance with transgression fits the experience of most trans-people. From what I’ve read on their blogs (and I admit that I’m a beginner here), at least some of them are quite eager to resolve their “third-sex” status into something as close to “male” or “female” as possible. They want to pass for a particular gender, maybe not the one they were born with, but also not some liminal category between.

Bottom line: I wasn’t always satisfied with Garber’s analysis, but I’m still thinking about the book, months after reading it, and that’s enough for me to recommend it.

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Wrestling with the Angel: Faith and Religion in the Lives of Gay Men, edited by Brian Bouldrey (New York: Riverhead Books, 1995), is a profound and heartfelt anthology of spiritual memoirs, with contributors including Mark Doty, Andrew Holleran, Kevin Killian, Alfred Corn, Fenton Johnson, and Lev Raphael. The authors touch on such topics as the connection between spiritual and erotic ecstasy, family secrets and reconciliations, and AIDS as a modern crucible of faith. Several Jewish and Christian denominations are represented, as well as Eastern spiritual traditions.

Queer Families Speak Out in “13 Love Stories” Video Project


13 Love Stories is a multimedia advocacy project that tells the stories of families adversely affected by Prop 8, the California ballot measure that took away same-sex marriage rights. The project was organized by the UCLA Art/Global Health Center. It includes videos narrated by 13 GLBT couples, who talk about their commitment to one another and their children, and how the lack of marriage equality puts their families in financial and legal jeopardy. This video montage, with a soundtrack from Jason Mraz, is a good introduction to their inspiring narratives.