Category Archives: Politics and Culture

Usury: The Invisible Sin


American Christians have a lot of buying power. Imagine, if you will, what would happen if we went off the financial “grid” and refused to bank with companies that had abusive lending policies for their mortgage borrowers and credit-card customers. As I read the Bible, financial oppression is a front-and-center issue. And yet, in this supposedly Christian nation, consumer advocates have been trying in vain for years to pass regulations against overdraft fees that are several thousand times greater than the debt that triggered them. Both political parties bear some blame for deregulating the industry, but I believe it’s time for socially conservative Christians to rethink their automatic support for the GOP, given the party’s complete inattention to economic justice issues.

Apparently, when you have a debit card from most major banks, it doesn’t actually deny you funds when you run out of money in your account. Instead, the bank “lends” you money without your knowledge or consent, and then charges “interest” at an effective rate of up to 4,000%. I was unaware of this multibillion-dollar scam (which is still perfectly legal) until my best friend got hit with $500 in penalties for a $15 overdraft on his debit card. In his own words:  

On the 14th of August I received my first letter from the bank, telling me I was 15 dollars overdrawn on 5 small check card purchases on August 10th. For each of these I was charged a $25 fee for a penalty of $125. Of course, at that point I stopped making ATM purchases, but between August 10th and the 14th, I continued about my business and my ATM card contniued to work ALLOWING me to make purchases even though I was apparently already overdrawn at that point. So, I had an additional I think 8 purchases from the 10th to the 14th, when I received my first letter from the bank. Yesterday I received another letter from the bank itemizing four of these new purchases, of which they charged me $37 for the first, and $39 for the next three (not $25 anymore.) OK fine.

Today I went to the bank. I got the most recent update first. I have so far been charged $240 in penalties (in 4 days) , with two more “purchases” which haven’t gone through, which will add another $78 in penalities when they “clear.” I then spoke with a customer rep. I explained the situation to her. I explained that the reason that I signed up for debit card rather than credit was because I did not want the possibility of getting myself into trouble borrowing money. I did NOT WANT to be offered credit— this was the sole reason I signed up for the debit card. She said that it was my responsibility to keep track of my own balance and purchases, not the bank’s. I admitted that while that was true, the bank had a responsibility to make clear what I was agreeing to when I signed up with them. I said that it was explained to me that a debit card worked like a credit card as long as you had money in your account. It was never made clear to me that I would given credit without my agreeing to it and then charged credit at 1,800% INTEREST! I said that was insane, and exactly opposite to what I was trying to do to help my financial situation. If I had known that was what I was signing up for, I never would have signed up for that. I would have gotten a freakin’ credit card at 30% interest instead!!!! WHICH IS WHAT I DIDN’T WANT!

Right now, I owe the bank about $340, $100 for the purchases I made during the four days my account did not have money though they let me keep charging, plus $240 in penalties. In another day or two I might owe them close to $500. At present, when I go to an ATM and check my balance, it says zero dollars and I cannot make purchases. This is what I expected would have happened from August 10th to August 14th. However, during those four days the bank allowed me to keep charging and then charging me 1,800% interest on those purchases for four days!

My friend has been disputing the charges with the completely unhelpful branch managers at Citizens Bank in Buffalo, and in the meantime, has run up nearly $500 in debt because they are still charging him $37 per day. To keep him perpetually behind the eight-ball, when he now deposits a check in his account, the debit card machine tells him that the money is free to make purchases, but the bank applies the money to his overcharge penalties and then charges him a new penalty for the purchases he was misled into making.

He’s not alone in this Kafkaesque scenario. This July 29 article from MSN Money describes a nationwide problem (boldface emphasis mine):

A new survey of overdraft fees charged by the nation’s largest banks reveals that bankers are hiking fees, adding new fees, and shortening time limits to trigger fees when banks pay overdrafts and extend credit to families struggling to make ends meet.

The Consumer Federation of America blames the Federal Reserve for failing to protect consumers from escalating and multiplying overdraft fees.

Testifying before Congress recently in support of President Obama’s proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency, the CFA said regulatory inaction in just this one area is costing hard-pressed consumers more than $17.5 billion during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression….

The Consumer Federation of America’s survey can be read in PDF form here. As you can see, effective rates on a 7-day overdraft of $100 range from 1,820% to 3,848% at the top 16 banks. More tales of consumer woe can be found here. The New York Times also ran a staff editorial yesterday urging Congress to act:

Not many people would knowingly pay more than $35 for a cup of coffee. But far too many people are getting saddled — with no warning — with outsized bills for minor purchases, under a euphemistically labeled “overdraft protection program” that most major banks have adopted over the last 10 years.

Before that, most banks would simply have rejected debit transactions, without a fee, when the card holder’s account was empty. Now, they approve the purchase and tack on a hefty penalty for each transaction.

Moebs Services, a research company that has conducted studies for the government as well as some banks, reported recently that banks will earn more than $38 billion this year from overdraft and bounced-check fees. Moebs also estimates that 90 percent of that amount will be paid by the poorest 10 percent of the customer base….

Call your representatives and demand an end to debit-card usury!

Straight Ally of the Day: Ted Olson


The libertarian wing of the GOP, which briefly wooed me into that party as the defenders of free speech during the politically correct 1990s, has seemed to be all but dead in the era of Bush-style statism for the rich. But conservative powerhouse Theodore Olson, one of the Right’s most respected constitutional lawyers, remembers that his movement once stood for something more than bailouts for dimwitted financiers.

An unlikely but very welcome ally, Olson is the lead counsel in the federal lawsuit to overturn Prop 8 on equal protection grounds, now pending in District Court in San Francisco. This New York Times profile describes his road to defending GLBT civil rights, and the flack he’s taking from his Republican compadres:

…Mr. Olson had become active in the Republican Party as a college and law student in California in the 1960s, long before the rise of the religious right and its focus on social issues. He gravitated toward a particularly Western brand of conservatism that valued small government and maximum individual liberty, becoming one of a few law students at the University of California, Berkeley to support Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential bid.

At the time, the South was riven by racial strife, and during a college debate trip to Texas, Mr. Olson got his first close-up view of blatant discrimination. Lady Booth Olson, a lawyer whom Mr. Olson married in 2006, said he still tears up when telling how a black teammate was turned away from a restaurant in Amarillo. Mr. Olson “tore into the owner,” insisting the team would not eat unless everyone was served, recalled the team’s coach, Paul Winters. “If he sees something that is wrong in his mind, he goes after it,” Mr. Winters said.

Years later, during the Reagan administration, when Mr. Olson was asked if the Justice Department could dismiss a prosecutor for being gay, he wrote that it was “improper to deny employment or to terminate anyone on the basis of sexual conduct.” In 1984, Mr. Olson returned to private practice and was succeeded by Mr. Cooper, his adversary in the marriage case. The switch eliminated “what was seen as a certain libertarian squishiness at the Office of Legal Counsel under Ted,” Mr. Calabresi said.

During the Bush administration, Mr. Olson was consulted on a plan to amend the Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. “What were we thinking putting something like that in the Constitution?” he recalls telling the White House.

Around that time, state legislatures were debating alternatives to same-sex marriage like civil unions, but Mr. Olson said he saw them as political half-measures that continued to treat gay men and lesbians as separate and unequal. Over dinner at a Capitol Hill restaurant, he argued that marriage was an essential component of happiness that gay couples had every right to enjoy, recalled David Frum, a conservative author and former Bush speechwriter.

“I was really impressed and struck by how important the issue was to him,” Mr. Frum said. “The majority view at the table was on the other side, but his view was, ‘You have to make peace with this because it is sure to happen, and you will see it in your lifetime.’ ”

Mr. Olson signed on to the California case after a meeting at Mr. Reiner’s home last December, telling the group gathered there that he would not “just be some hired gun,” Ms. Schake recalled. In fact, he had already rebuffed a query about defending Proposition 8.

Still, to allay suspicions on the left, he suggested bringing on his adversary in Bush v. Gore, David Boies, whom he had since befriended. Both lawyers agreed to waive part of their fees.

“I thought, why wouldn’t I take this case?” Mr. Olson said. “Because someone at the Federalist Society thinks I’d be making bad law? I wouldn’t be making bad law.”

In Mr. Olson’s analysis, the situation in California presents a favorable set of facts for an equal protection argument. Proposition 8 created three classes: straight couples who could marry, gay men and lesbians who had married in the brief period before the ban, and gay couples who wanted to marry but now could not.

As he began honing the arguments, he sounded out a few confidants, including his wife, Lady.

One of those whose advice he sought was Robert McConnell, a friend from the Reagan Justice Department. Mr. McConnell, a practicing Catholic, said he told Mr. Olson that as a religious matter, he believed that marriage ought to be reserved for two people who can procreate. He said Mr. Olson replied that while he respected his convictions, he considered it a civil-rights issue.

Mr. Olson, who is not a regular churchgoer, began to elaborate on his view that religious beliefs were insufficient legal justification for government to refuse to recognize same-sex marriage, but soon paused. “You don’t agree with me, do you?” Mr. McConnell recalled him saying.

Ms. Olson, a Democrat, said she was thrilled that “on this case we’ll be on the same wavelength.” She said Mr. Olson’s mother, Yvonne, expressed some initial concern that a court decision overturning Proposition 8 would disenfranchise voters, but came around after Mr. Olson explained that voters cannot impose mandates that violate constitutionally protected rights.

In the lawsuit, filed in May, he asserted that Proposition 8 had done just that.

Since then, he and Mr. Cooper have been filing dueling briefs.

The Supreme Court has long recognized marriage between men and women as a right, most notably in a 1967 case overturning bans on interracial marriage. Since sexual orientation, unlike race, is not mentioned in the Constitution, the question is whether that right extends to gay men and lesbians.

The answer, in Mr. Cooper’s view, can be found in a 1970 case, in which the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling that marriage could be limited to men and women. But Mr. Olson points to two more recent Supreme Court cases.

The first is a 1996 decision in which six of the nine justices, citing equal protection grounds, struck down an amendment to the Colorado Constitution that stripped gay residents of existing civil rights protections. This, Mr. Olson argues, is similar to Proposition 8’s negating the California Supreme Court decision that recognized the rights of gay couples to marry.

The second is the court’s 6-3 decision in Lawrence v. Texas, striking down laws criminalizing sodomy in 2003. Not only did the majority find that Texas had no rational basis to intrude into private sexual behavior protected by the Constitution’s due process clause, it also declared that gay men and lesbians should be free to enter into relationships in their homes and “still retain their dignity.”

Mr. Cooper asserts that Mr. Olson is stretching the scope of the Lawrence decision, pointing out that it dealt with the criminalization of private sexual behavior, not a state’s duty to recognize a marriage. But Mr. Olson notes that no less a conservative than Justice Antonin Scalia argued in a blistering dissent that the majority in Lawrence had indeed opened the door to same-sex marriage.

Given that the Lawrence case established gay sex as a protected right, Mr. Olson argues, the state must demonstrate that it has a rational basis for discriminating against a class of citizens simply for engaging in that behavior.

He dismisses Mr. Cooper’s contention that the California ban is justified by that state’s interest in encouraging relationships that promote procreation and the raising of children by biological parents. If sexual orientation is not a choice — and Mr. Olson argues that it is not — then the ban is not going to encourage his clients to enter into heterosexual, child-producing marriages, he insists. Moreover, he says, California has waived the right to make that argument by recognizing domestic partnerships that bestow most benefits of marriage.

And that is if the state wanted to: Mr. Olson structured the lawsuit so the named defendants are two proponents of same-sex marriage, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown. Both have filed helpful briefs questioning the constitutionality of Proposition 8.
…

Read the whole article here.

In other Prop 8 news, Bay Area indie newspaper East Bay Express last week broke the story that Oakland Bishop Salvatore Cordileone had been a chief mastermind of the referendum, organizing right-wing religious groups and large donors to raise millions behind the scenes. (One wonders whether this lobbying activity ought to endanger his church’s tax-exempt status.) Cordileone is chiefly known for his dedicated ministry to poor Mexican immigrants.

People are complex, and if our bad deeds cancelled our good ones, who could escape judgment? But still, if the bishop has the clout to raise six-figure contributions from the Knights of Columbus and wealthy businessmen, isn’t it a crime to spend it on taking away same-sex couples’ rights instead of feeding the poor? And if it’s easier to get these Christians to pony up for the former cause than the latter, what does that say about their comprehension of the gospel? 

Viagra Ice Cream versus Gay Wine


Consumer-trends newsletter Springwise illuminates the far corners of the retail imagination, with weekly updates on new business schemes from the socially conscious to the absurdly decadent. In the latter category, this week, we have Sex Pistol Ice Cream, a British dessert shop’s latest plan to pitch this girlie comfort food to the male “members” of the species. The limited-edition flavor is “touted to have the same charge as a dose of Viagra”:

Mixed into the frozen treat are ginkgo biloba, arginine and guarana—all guaranteed to increase blood flow and energy level. Before serving, The Sex Pistol is doused in La Fee Absinthe. And since presentation is key, the absinthe is administered from a drip bag into a pink water gun and fired at a heated sugar cube, which drops into the ice cream. The Sex Pistol is deemed so potent that sales are limited to one per customer, although at GBP 11.99 customers might prefer to split one with a special friend.

If you’d rather heat up than cool down, never fear. From the same newsletter, we get UO! Wines, a Spanish wine brand targeted at gay men:

UO! Ánima Blanca, for example, is a Sauvignon Blanc and Verdejo blend featuring earth tones and “wisps of flowers and fruit – the perfect accompaniment to a gathering of friends on a hot day, whether the heat comes from within or without.” Antinoo, meanwhile, is a Monastrell that’s “young and mature, fruity, elegant, smooth….Mediterranean…. When you try it, shut your eyes and imagine that you are licking rivulets of syrup from his body,” the company advises. Rounding out the line is Oscura Lágrima, a Shiraz and Merlot blend that’s “dark, dense and turbulent.”

Whew. With ad copy like this, who needs Viagra sundaes?
 

Against Sincerity


Journaling about some difficult family memories last year, I wrote, “I became a poet so that I could tell the truth without being understood.” I hadn’t ever realized this until I wrote it down; apparently, transparency is a privilege I don’t always grant to myself, let alone other people.

Although Eve Tushnet and I disagree on what the Bible requires of gay Christians, I love how she has retained the queer sensibility, with all its outsider wit and willingness to embrace psychological extremes. The hunger for normalcy, for invisibility after a lifetime of persecution, leads far more “ex-gays” to go along with the cultural assimilation program of conservative churches, giving up not only the genital expression of their sexuality but an entire way of seeing the world from a marginalized and ironic perspective. Maybe Eve resists this pressure because, well, Catholics just have more style than evangelicals.

Anyhow, this is not yet another GLBT rant but an excuse to quote Eve’s awesome lines from this August 3rd post critiquing the aesthetic of “sincerism”:  

It’s the privilege of those whose beliefs are basically mainstream to think that “realism” and sincerity are good ways of conveying the truth. Only those whose experiences and interpretations line up with mainstream culture can be guaranteed that their sincere heart-baring tales will be believed; and they’re the ones for whom this language of sincerity was made.

I could explain the relevance to my life but…that would be too sincere. Instead, here’s a poem from my chapbook Swallow, forthcoming this fall from Amsterdam Press.

How to Fail a Personality Test

That’s an ink blot. Too literal.

I know, it’s not actually an ink blot. There’s no ink
    on it, now, is there?

It’s a photograph of an ink blot. That’s what it
    signifies. What Derrida might have called the
    absent present. Or was it the poison Gift?

No, I’ve never been tempted to drink household
    cleansers.

You want me to say that one’s a bat, don’t you?
    I know, I saw it on Wikipedia.

But I think it’s a pelvis. That’s the tailbone. Oh, I’m
     sorry — looks like.

Because we don’t really have tails.

You’re the one showing me pictures of dead
    people. Ha ha.

All right, it’s a bat. Does that make me
    homosexual?

I just figured, with the velvet cape and all.

Everybody says that.

I could flip this one upside-down. Do you think
    it would enjoy that?

Oh come on, don’t tell me you’ve never apologized
    to a chair for walking into it.

Yes, it is all about me. That one’s a crab.

Why take longer to look for something that’s
    not there?

I could wait for the stain on the ceiling to spread a
    map over my day.

Did you know they sell a stencil to burn the Virgin
    Mary onto your toast? I mean, why this picture?

I could name the clouds until a white horse
    stopped for me.

But we all have a job to do.

A crab in a lace mantilla shaking a popsicle stick.
    But all you say is Hmm.

I think that’s very sad.

James Baldwin Asks: Who’s Tolerating Whom?


Legendary African-American writer James Baldwin’s 1963 essay “My Dungeon Shook: A Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation” is a brilliantly subversive exploration of internalized prejudice and the rhetoric of “inclusion”. (Thanks to the magazine The Sun for reprinting this essay in a recent issue, where I read it for the first time.)

Dismantling the official institutions of discrimination is only the first phase of the struggle, Baldwin argues. Full equality is impossible without reexamining the very structures of our psyches and seeing how they have been formed by the ideology of racial inferiority. This may require us to exist for some time in a state of groundlessness and fear, because we no longer know who we are. In a masterful reversal of the typical dynamic of “toleration”, Baldwin says that it is actually the oppressive majority who needs the minority’s compassion as they struggle with the loss of their old identity.

Since Baldwin was also a gay man who suffered from homophobia, even within the black activist community, I hope he would not mind my suggesting the obvious analogy to gay people’s struggle for acceptance in the church and society. Imagine the Anglican breakaway churches as your “lost, younger brothers” while reading this excerpt (I’ve added paragraph breaks to make it easier to read online):

You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason. The limits of your ambition were, thus, expected to be set forever. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity. Wherever you have turned, James, in your short time on this earth, you have been told where you could go and what you could do (and how you could do it) and where you could live and whom you could marry.

I know your countrymen do not agree with me about this, and I hear them saying, “You exaggerate’ ” They do not know Harlem, and I do. So do you. Take no one’s word for anything, including mine-but trust your experience. Know whence you came. If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go. The details and symbols of your life have been deliberately constructed to make you believe what white people say about you. Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear.

Please try to be clear, dear James, through the storm which rages about your youthful head today, about the reality which lies behind the words acceptance and integration. There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them.

And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger. In this case, the danger, in the minds of most white Americans, is the loss of their identity. Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shining and all the stars aflame. You would be frightened because it is out of the order of nature. Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one’s sense of one’s own reality.

Well, the black man has functioned in the white man’s world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations. You, don’t be afraid. I said that it was intended that you should perish in the ghetto, perish by never being allowed to go behind the white man’s definitions, by never being allowed to spell your proper name. You have, and many of us have, defeated this intention; and by a terrible law, a terrible paradox, those innocents who believed that your imprisonment made them safe are losing their grasp of reality. But these men are your brothers–your lost, younger brothers. And if the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it.

Read the whole essay here.

Tuesday Random Song: Joan Baez, “The Altar Boy and the Thief”


Legendary folk singer Joan Baez was a straight ally before it was cool. This song from her 1977 album Blowin’ Away was written in honor of her gay fan-base.

At night in the safety of shadows and numbers
Seeking some turf on which nothing encumbers
The buying and selling of casual looks
Stuff that gets printed in x-rated books
Your mother might have tried to understand
When you were hardly your daddy’s little man
And you gave up saluting the chief
To find yourself some relief

Finely plucked eyebrows and skin of satin
Smiling seductive and endlessly Latin
Olympic body on dancing feet
Perfume thickening the air like heat
A transient star of gay bar fame
You quit your job and changed your name
And you’re nearly beyond belief
As you hunt down a little relief

The seven foot black with the emerald ring
Broke up a fight without saying a thing
As the cops cruised by wanting one more chance
To send Jimmy Baldwin back over to France
And a trucker with kids and a wife
Prefers to spend half of his life
In early Bohemian motif
Playing pool and getting relief

My favorite couple was looking so fine
Dancing in rhythm and laughing in rhyme
In the light of the jukebox all yellow and blue
Holding each other as young lovers do
To me they will always remain
Unshamed, untamed, and unblamed
The altar boy and the thief
Grabbing themselves some relief

The altar boy and the thief
Catching a little relief

(Lyrics courtesy of JoanBaez.com)

Signs of the Apocalypse: “Texts From Last Night”


Helping you make the most creative use of your embarrassment, the website Texts From Last Night invites readers to submit text messages that were sent under the influence of judgment-impairing substances. This 21st-century update on drunk-dialing could be a fruitful source of writing prompts. Imagine beginning a short story with any of the following:

“then i got kicked out of the bar for trying to pay my $30 bar tab in sacajawea dollar coins”

“Hands down the best time I’ve ever had barfing”.

“I never thought that I’d ever use the phrase “and the resulting ice cream explosion” seriously at work… “

“we couldnt find her phone in the morning so i called it and found it under the bed. my name came up as ‘regret’.”

“I just woke up in my car with half the wedding cake next to me. This will not end well.”

“The only reason why I invited him to my party was because he is suicidal.”

Other texts are aphorisms worthy of Dorothy Parker (“you’re putting all your eggs in a very hungover basket”) or brief but telling observations about human relationships (“i love how people use prayer to talk shit about eachother in a ‘holy’ manner”). How true it is.

Pamela Uschuk: “North Carolina Ghost Story”


Pamela Uschuk is the editor-in-chief of the literary journal Cutthroat. Her new poetry collection Crazy Love (Wings Press, 2009) is enlivened by twin passions for social justice and the beauties of the Colorado landscape. In these poems, nature always provides a restorative place of peace and abundance when the wartime news becomes overwhelming. Beauty is her foundation, but unsentimentally so; the broken human world remains a constant background presence, as if to say that the joys that nourish us are not for our private pleasure alone, but also to give us strength to nourish others.

Read a review of Crazy Love in the literary journal RATTLE: Poetry for the 21st Century. Pam kindly shares a poem from this collection below.

North Carolina Ghost Story

for Elizabeth Dewberry, Teri Hairston and Zelda Lockhart

I

Sunrise torches the Winston-Salem Projects,
a saxophone of light swelling the cups of red buds
and crenoline skirts of Japanese cherry blossoms
morphing my back yard from orange clay
to Southern belle parfait that a red-tailed hawk
    cuts
through chasing pigeon breakfast on the wing.
Spooked, the blue jay creaks, a rusty gate
flapping as it navigates dogwood’s white dance.
I walk to campus, hear a rustle,
see how small things of the world survive.
A burrowing chipmunk pokes his nose
from rotten old magnolia leaves,
breathes sky.

II

I think of my friend, Teri, waking
in the Hood, her dreds emerging
from a thrift store blanket, waking
to pigeons she feeds strut and coo
on the fire escape, waking to
sirens and the smell of grits and coffee
from across the common lawn.

I remember her eyes last night,
chilled even while she laughed,
I don’t want to hear about ghosts. Black girls don’t
like ghosts; don’t tell me about no ghosts, uh, uh.

So Teri waited in the damask parlor
of the elegant old college President’s house
while we three climbed secret stairs
to the attic, where dusky air
compacted like a punctured lung
with each step until our chests squeezed
into the small wheezing cry
of the girl we all heard dragged
across the floor to the terror of her life
and we felt her die
and die and die, her fear bright
and palpable as blood
that streaked her thighs.

None of us could speak but
strained to translate the acid etch
of tears unredeemed, the mystery
inside the marred grain of the oak floor,
but we couldn’t in our strictest scholarly logic
tame the icepick panic
chipping at our own hearts.

Then I whispered what earlier I’d seen —
the vapor trail of the matron
corseted in grim gray muslin,
a living cauldron of grief
boiling through the rooms downstairs,
clouding wallpaper, pink
and oblivious as a bouquet of carnations.

Was she looking for a daughter, hers, her maid’s?
We left the muffled screams of the attic floor,
stained so deep two pine boards had to be
    replaced
long after the Civil War. We left
with no real clues, just the urine reek
of terror leaking from the walls, the long echo
of screams beating like small fists
or an arrhythmic heart,
a temperature drop
none of us could shake, even when
we descended to the parlor and Teri’s quip
about the questionable ethnicity of Spectral
    Americans.

III

Accompanied by the sweet flutes of Carolina wrens
I unlock the President’s house
to clean up last night’s party, wondering
about the school’s boast of its underground
    railroad,
and how those who began this school had kept
    slaves.

I scan portraits decorating peppermint walls—
the magnolia blossom faces of gentlemen tobacco
    barons,
plantation owners who never pulled
a boll from a plant.

Back from the hunt, one gent leads
a dapple grey thoroughbred
to the livery’s whitewashed stalls, his fox hounds
splayed helpless as contorted cutouts
behind the thick black hooves.
The man’s face is pinched, his thin mouth
locked on lust’s hard verb,
eyes ashy, vest cinched tight
under the black waistcoat above white jodpurs
highlighting the bulge between the tops of his
    thighs,
the mahogany blur of a young girl
escaping around the corner
of the elegant white house, up the steps
just out of our sight.

Anglican Allies: The Chicago Consultation


The Chicago Consultation is a group of Episcopal and Anglican bishops, clergy and lay people who support the full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Christians in the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion. Their website offers theological essays, Bible studies, videos and links to other materials that support an inclusive reading of Scripture. Their support for GLBT Christians is part of their wider mission to “strengthen the Anglican Communion’s witness against racism, poverty, sexism, heterosexism, and other interlocking oppressions.”

Here’s an excerpt from the sixth of a series of articles on sexuality and Scripture, by the Rev. Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG, the Vicar of Saint James Episcopal Church Fordham:

…Several biblical authors use marriage as a symbol for the relationship between God and Israel, and Christ and the Church. But, as with many of the issues surrounding sexuality, the picture is far more complex than mere equivalence. Not only is marriage only one of many symbols for this relationship, but the marriage symbolism itself is ambivalent, capable of standing for both good and bad relationships between God and God’s people.

There are many earthly phenomena — and Jesus assures us (Matthew 22:30, Mark 12:25, Luke 20:35) that marriage is an earthly phenomenon! — that the biblical authors use (in addition to marriage) to represent the relationship between God and Israel or Christ and the Church: monarch and people, tree and branches, father and children, shepherd and sheep, master and slaves, head and body, cornerstone and building. These symbols all depend on the cultural understanding of those to whom they speak. As noted in an earlier portion of this series of essays, the Letter to the Ephesians collects and intertwines a number of these symbols, in addition to marriage. As Paul himself recognizes, his blending of these symbols gets a bit confusing, as he spins out the various cultural themes of leadership and authority, the relationship of one to many, the nature of organic or bodily union, and love and care.

Thus the Scripture does not single out marriage as a unique symbol for the divine/human relationship — and one can carry the analogy or symbol too far — as some have suggested Paul does — as if women should literally treat their husbands as if they were God. Nor should one carry away from this symbolic usage the notion that because marriage is a symbol for the divine/human interaction it is therefore in itself divine — it remains, according to Jesus, a terrestrial phenomenon. (Luke 20:34-35) So to confuse the symbol with what it symbolizes is a category error. More than a few theologians have of late wandered off in a direction more suggestive of pagan notions of hieros gamos than is warranted by strictly orthodox theology. This includes suggestions that the relationship of a male and female somehow more perfectly embody the imago dei than either does individually. This is very shaky theological ground upon which to tread, as I noted in an earlier section of this series, for it undercuts the doctrine of the Incarnation….

…Given that heterosexual relationships can be used as such multivalent symbols, positive or negative, single and plural, and even with a degree of sexual ambiguity, can faithful, monogamous, life-long same-sex relationships also serve in symbolic capacity — towards good? I will explore the negative imagery in later reflections on Leviticus and Romans, but will note here that the same linkage between idolatry and harlotry is made there between idolatry and some specific forms of same-sexuality. But what might a faithful, loving same-sex relationship (as opposed to the cultic activity described in Leviticus or the orgiastic in Romans) stand for as a symbol — not in the cultures of those times, but in our own?

It is clear that the prevailing biblical symbol for heterosexual relationships is intimately (!) connected with the assumption of male “headship” — thus the related analogies with master and slave, head and body, and so forth, assume a cultural notion of male authority, likened to the authority of Christ over the church. So powerful is this imagery that men become “feminine” in relation to God — as C.S. Lewis noted in his emendation to the conclusion of Goethe’s Faust.

But what of Christ — who voluntarily (and temporarily) assumes the position of a subordinate — not only in the great kenosis of the Incarnation, but in the symbolic act of the Maundy footwashing — while remaining Lord and God? When Jesus assumes the position of a servant to wash his disciples’ feet, he is also assuming the position of the woman who washed his feet with her tears. It is no accident that Jesus uses this powerful acted symbol to show his disciples the danger of assuming the position of authority over rather than assuming the position of service to. (It is perhaps ironic that in the Roman Catholic Church only men are to take part in the Maundy ritual as either foot-washers or as those whose feet are washed. How much more powerful a symbol it would be if a bishop were to wash the feet of women?)

Jesus is secure in his knowledge of himself, yet is free to set aside the role of authority to assume the role of a slave, a role played elsewhere in the passion narrative by a woman. As is obvious, in a same-sex relationship there are no stereotypical sex roles for the partners. They are, like Jesus, free to take upon themselves, in a dynamic interchange, various opportunities to love and to serve. This flexibility is no doubt one of the reasons same-sexuality is seen as a threat to entrenched systems of automatic deferral to culturally established hierarchies. Like Christianity itself, same-sexuality “turns the world upside down” (Acts 17:6) by challenging the “natural” roles assigned by culture. Same-sex couples are thus capable of being truly natural symbols for the mutuality of equals, free from the traditional roles assigned by the culture to men and women. Whether the culture sees this as a threat or a promise will depend upon what they value.

Read the whole essay here.

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