mom…dad…?

Yes, Gay is Definitely OK

For Immediate Release, June 23, 2009
By Affirmation Co-spokesperson Tim Tennant-Jayne

As is the sexuality of all of God’s children who are lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex, straight, or queer!

Affirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and  Queer Concerns supports and congratulates the Reverend Diana Holbert, for her courage and strength in preaching the truth about homosexuality. Rev. Holbert is the pastor of Grace United Methodist Church in Dallas, TX. While other clergy seek to continue spreading distortions of God’s message, Rev. Holbert courageously preached the truth of God’s gift of homosexuality. Her congregation is blessed to have this strong person as their pastoral leader. The United Methodist Church is blessed to have her as one of their clergy persons.

In true David vs. Goliath fashion, the Rev. Holbert was willing to dispute the message coming out of a much larger congregation. As she prepared to do so the forces of ignorance rose up in fear. Her sermon was mocked even before she was able to preach it. Unable to stand the light of God’s truth and love, those who obtain power by demeaning us sought to cloud the issue by questioning her message. Rev. Holbert persevered with preaching God’s message to her congregation.

We applaud the Rev. Holbert for her courage to speak out. We hope her shining example will empower others within this denomination and in all faith traditions to recognize God’s love of this varied gift of sexuality. Love of another person is indeed a rich gift from God. Let us all celebrate it and proclaim its value.

As an independent voice of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer people, Affirmation radically reclaims the compassionate and transforming gospel of Jesus Christ by relentlessly pursuing full inclusion in the Church as we journey with the Spirit in creating God’s beloved community.

Affirmation is an activist, all-volunteer, not-for-profit organization with no official ties to The United Methodist Church.
 

meanwhile, over in Moscow

MOSCOW – Riot police violently broke up several gay rights demonstrations in Moscow on Saturday, hauling away scores of protesters hours before the Russian capital hosted a major international pop music competition.

City officials had warned they would not tolerate marches or rallies supporting the rights of gays and lesbians. Activists had targeted Moscow, which was holding the finals of the Eurovision song contest on Saturday, to press their claims that Russia officially sanctions homophobia.

Police seized gay rights protesters as well as some members of religious and nationalist groups that staged counter-demonstrations. They also took away gay rights activists for simply talking to reporters, and ripped the bra and shirt off one female protester.

Read more >>

economic inequality

In an editorial on NPR, Nancy Goldstein discusses the prejudices against gays in America.

courage

Lt. Dan Choi, from Orange County, California, is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and an Iraq War veteran. Last March he went on Rachel Maddow’s show and spoke three truthful words: “I am gay.”

As a result Lt. Choi received a letter from the Army on April 23 discharging him for violating the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. He told Rachel Maddow the letter was “a slap in the face” to himself and the soldiers he as commanded and served with over the past decade.

Lt. Choi is fighting to stay in the military and ensure that no other soldier is ever again discharged as a result of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The Courage Campaign and CREDO Mobile are joining his effort to secure equality in our armed forces.

President Obama did not create this policy. But he now has the opportunity to keep his promise and allow gay and lesbian soldiers to serve openly in the military. It’s the right thing to do — for justice and for national security.

Watch the video. Then, if you feel it the right thing to do, sign the petition.

unfiltered and unaware

It’d been months. Much happened. Obama. Market crashes. The turning of a season, the passing of my father, the discovery of new music, the enduring of far too many job rejections. I’d fallen in love. I’d experienced impenetrable brick walls at every turn. New friends had swelled like a tide into my confused winter. Older friends were drifting away to distant jobs. My geriatric cat, my one physical constant, was dying. Two young teenagers were drawing me into their lives. One wall slowly revealed a tiny crack—an out I’d not considered—and my life looked to be taking an uncharted, unexpected, and even sometimes uncomfortable turn. I was moving north. That alone colored the background of my life’s canvas with a dizzying intensity of activity.

Yet, she said, the reason we didn’t speak any longer was because, as she put it, “everything always” comes down to my being gay.

Huh, I said. I thought it all came down to your being conservative and my being liberal. This seemed more accurate to me, mostly because we each interpreted every situation we spoke about from the filter of our political perspective. And maybe even more accurately, from the filter of our eschatological worldviews. Apocalypse confronting boundless, non-sectarian peace.

No. It’s all about my being gay.

But maybe S is right. Maybe it is all about my being gay. And I suspect I am also right. It’s all about my being liberal. It all comes down to this: I’m a woman, I’m a Gen X-er, I’m a Christian, I’m an American, I’m a scholar, I’m a musician. It all comes down to the core of who I am.

oh, my

Huffington post. I have no words. Watch the video for yourself.

God Makes Surprise Visit To Local Church

This just in from reporters at The Onion.

FAYETTEVILLE, NC—Parishioners at the First Presbyterian Church were left stunned and in awe of His glory Sunday, when the Lord God Almighty dropped by their 11 a.m. service unannounced.

the shocking correlations between ice-cream, drowning, aliens, and sequined leisure suits

I read this today at Bridge Out:

a beautiful couple

From Tom Toles this week

a few of my favorite things

“I love you,” the over-used, trivialized phrase goes.  But do we mean it? What is love, really?

I was struck by this question, Tuesday, while on a long, crowded flight back to the normalcy of my life in Indiana, after a far-too-short stay in Alberta. I was visiting people I love, growing to love them even more, and hunting for some chink in bureaucracy that might facilitate my moving there. And even so, I was missing those I love in the Midwest, wishing the church I visited there were more like the one here. I was wondering where that place was to properly call ‘home.’ They say ‘home’ is where the heart is. Home is where you love. —which makes it even more difficult, since I also love many who live in the city I lived in for 35 years.

Is love a sort of favoritism? I love the town I grew up in, the town I left five years ago. I mean, if I had to pick on architecture, culture, and overall natural beauty, that one wins, hands down. It’s my favorite of the three, of the places I have lived or in which I am considering living. But if I had to pick for the number of people I favor, I’d be hard pressed to choose between any of the three cities—unless, that is, you recognize rankings of favoritism, and then it gets all irrational, since the city I truly like the least (though to be fair, I know it the least, too, even though I moseyed about, poking and exploring enough to get a good whiff of its personality and culture) is the one I currently most wish to call my ‘home.’

So then what sort of favoritism is this?

In town A (the one I lived in for 35 years), I have family and one of my very closest friends. In town B (current residence), I have very good friends and a church family. In town C, I have three people whom I wish to call family. Actually, whom I consider family, and who consider me likewise. Again, back to that thing, love.

Is it merely favoritism?

Consider. When we speak of love, we speak of dedicating one’s life to something or somebody. We speak of certain feelings. We speak of passion, of loyalty.

So is this a specialized sort of favoritism?

We all know love isn’t a feeling. Or maybe we should all know that. Love is a commitment. We’ve heard that. But is that all it is?

the wooing of the wanderer: a love story

Once there was a large park, in which a variety of gardens were lovingly tended by a master gardener. Each garden had a number of beds, in which any kind of plant, blooming and non-blooming, could be found. There were formal gardens, filled with carefully-planned and symmetric beds, and herb gardens, populated by the most fantastic variety of edible blooming plants. There were sculpture gardens, decorated with the loveliest of shrubs, and cottage gardens, which seemed almost a riot of blossoms in a fantastic variety of colors, textures, and scents. And each garden was a haven not only to the plants that the gardener had chosen to grow there, but also to the many beings who buzzed about the blooms or wandered meditatively through the well-worn, tree-lined stone pathways that beckoned welcome to any with a love for nature.

In one bed, there was a certain blooming plant who, though beautiful beyond description, was equally fragile and required much individualized attention from the master gardener. Some extra mulching was needed in autumn seasons, and a constant eye was kept on her during winter storms, to make certain she would not be overwhelmed by the cold and bitter winds. And so, in the care of the master, she grew and even flourished, despite the harsh climate in which the park lay. She was so beautiful, in fact, that one day, a wanderer who chanced upon the park, was stopped in her tracks. Such a lovely bloom! she thought. And since there was a stone bench under a spreading willow beside the bed, the wanderer sat down and gazed long on the beautiful, though fragile plant.

The wanderer, of course, could not long stay. But she also could not forget the tender beauty of that blossom, and she found that her wanderings often returned her to that bench, to that plant. And she found herself drawn particularly to this plant because she was so fragile, so exquisite. And she would pay special attention to this one plant, eventually becoming blind to all the other beauty around her in the master’s lush park. All she could see was that bloom. And she decided she must have her.

a trail through the forest

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that, the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

“The Road Not Taken” by Frost is usually considered in the context of choosing an unknown path, of one less (though not so very much less) traveled, of the other a little bit more traveled, and taking the risk. But go with me down either of these roads in the wood. The one bends in the undergrowth, and thus remains unseen, hidden, unknown. The other, the one I take, is grassy, but still unknown, untrodden, unblackened by footfalls.

Unseen. Unknown. Untested.