You may wonder what prompted me to post a piece I had written in 2008 in 2012 (my previous post “An Answer to…Why Do They Want To Marry?”).  It’s not because I like to hear myself, but a friend of mine sent me a message today about an interesting study which I am attaching below.

Same-Sex Marriage Laws Reduce Doctor Visits and Health Care Costs for Gay Men

*

Gay men lead healthier, less stress-filled lives when states offer legal protections to same-sex couples, according to a new study examining the effects of the legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. The study, “Effect of Same-Sex Marriage Laws on Health Care Use and Expenditures in Sexual Minority Men: A Quasi-Natural Experiment,” is online in the American Journal of Public Health.

“Our results suggest that removing barriers to marriage improves the health of gay and bisexual men,” said Mark L. Hatzenbuehler, PhD, lead author of the study and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at the Mailman School. It also saves money in healthcare costs.

In the 12 months following the 2003 legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, gay and bisexual men had a significant decrease in medical care visits, mental healthcare visits, and mental healthcare costs, compared with the 12 months before the law change. This amounted to a 13% reduction in healthcare visits and a 14% reduction in healthcare costs. These health effects were similar for partnered and single gay men.

Among HIV-positive men, there was no reduction in HIV-related visits, suggesting that those in need of HIV/AIDS care continued to seek needed healthcare services.

For the study, researchers surveyed 1,211 patients from a large, community-based health clinic in Massachusetts that focuses on serving sexual minorities. Examining the clinic’s billing records in the wake of the approval of Massachusetts’ same-sex marriage law, researchers found a reduction in hypertension, depression, and adjustment disorders—all conditions associated with stress.

“These findings suggest that marriage equality may produce broad public health benefits by reducing the occurrence of stress-related health conditions in gay and bisexual men,” Dr. Hatzenbuehler said.

Previous studies have documented that excluding lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals from marriage has a stressful impact on this population. Dr. Hatzenbuehler’s study is the first study to examine whether same-sex marriage policies influence healthcare use and healthcare expenditures among sexual minorities. Lesbians were not included in the survey due to insufficient sample size among the patients who visit the clinic.

“This research makes important contributions to a growing body of evidence on the social, economic, and health benefits of marriage equality,” Dr. Hatzenbuehler said.

The research  was supported by the Fenway Institute, the Eunice Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholars program.*

* The research findings presented here are those of the researcher and are not necessarily the views of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

December 15, 2011

What occurred to me was that the post “An Answer To…” was trying to address the macrosociological element addressed by this very study in healthcare.  In the largest sense, whether persons who love each other of mixed, same sex, gender presentations or identities decide to get married.  On a macro scale the freedom to make choices is better for all.  That’s what all the isms take away, a freedom to choose the elements of the components of one’s identity.  We are all composites of so many things that to deny any one of us a right to be who our very being directs us to be is simply…lest I judge.  For I too must continually work on catching myself judging, moralizing, placing my expectations on persons/cultures/presentations of humanity.

This is becoming a bit too esoteric and that will make it rife for criticism, but I am working this out myself as well and claim no hold on “having the right answer”.

I just know that we are given expectations by society, family, friends, culture, etc. and the realization of those expectations are crucial markers or rites of passage.  The issue of same sex marriage has just brought this very subconscious pressure I have put on myself to the fore to be examined.  And I have found that, while I am not in a relationship, the freedom to choose whether or not I marry has lifted a huge burden off of me.  I can dream of a nuclear and extended family that fits my dream; the dream of a thirteen year old boy holding hands with his mate–ringed and having said I do, after having heard the words in front of family and friends, “You may kiss your love…”

And just as Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has issued its disclaimer so do I…

*The male centric focus of this study and its exclusion of women and other gender representations is strictly that of the researcher and its funding source and is not necessarily the lens through which Derrick McQueen operates.

To clarifiy–
The entry below is in response to a heterosexual friend of mine truly trying to understand why the defeat of Prop 8 in CA drew such notice. He asked in all sincerity, “Why do they want to be married?” He mentioned that even he wasn’t so sure if this marriage thing, esp. via the church was truly a valid idea. Especially since most Prostestant churches reject marriage as a sacrament (the only two being communion and baptism.).  After an initial conversation, these thoughts ensued.  Peace

Answer to “Why do they want to marry?” 11/21/08

As I said, just wanted to pass along a few thoughts about this marriage thing.
I think the very real need to be “married” goes beyond the concept of  ”equal rights under the law or from another perspective forcing same sex marriages on a society that might not be ready for it” (his words). Your question was why do some feel they want or even need this so badly? Dealing with the politics and church political ramifications of it are very real but I feel they are a smoke screen for the real discussion as to “why?”

I can tell you that in realizing and/or coming into one’s “orientation” there is a struggle no matter who you are. It is a psychological process that isolates and one cannot imagine that anyone else has ever gone through what you are going through at that moment. Things to face are rejection of friends and family-either lovingly or violently (lovingly=”we understand and love you but what did we do wrong, we will never have grandkids, our lives are forever changed now, etc.” while violently=how could you do this to us, if you can live the right way get out, why did God have this abomination come from me, that is a disgusting, depraved community and deserve whatever it gives you, etc”.)

Despite the ultimate reactions, the truth of the matter is that the training and ideals of family (mostly heteronormative ideals) are ingrained into LGBTQ folk just as they are into hetero folk. We’ve all been groomed to find partnership in life, become family with that person and that the final true public/spiritual testament to that love is to be married in the eyes of God and a company assembled. Heterosexuals have a choice of whether or not this is necessary for their lives. Heteros have the privilege (damn Union word slipped out, a liberal seminary inside joke) of whether or not to be married, whether or whether or not to have children, etc. The point is that the common starting point for us all is that ideal ingrained into us from childhood-marriage.

LGBTQ life at least in regards to these proscribed ideals, is full of personal loss. Identity has to be reformed and all of those cultural/religious aspirations either must be given up or somehow redefined to match the identity that has been shaped for you with the identity that has been shaped by you in no small part by your sexual affinity. It is here where I think the question “why marriage” can be answered. It seems to me that identity is, especially once we realize that we have some say in our own identity formation, something we cling to for dear psychological and spiritual life. The less we have to shed from those core years of identity formation the more secure we are in growing into our own person. Our choices become clearer because our foundation stronger.

In LGBTQ identity formation, those building blocks that are cultural, familial, and societal are the hardest to reframe because our input on their importance in our lives has been so limited. It is like the game Jenga-trying to build an identity while with each round of life you realize the pieces of your identity that culture and society takes away is from your foundation. You can still grow and be strong and find where the new pieces fit but you are forever aware of the precarious nature of your identity because those foundational pieces like marriage, civil rights, human rights-all the things we grow up expecting– are slowly being removed because of your sexual affinity/orientation. It’s not even that it is a malicious thing. It’s just the way things are set up. I think marriage represents much of this foundational identity formation. Now that there is even the remotest of possibilities of putting this foundational piece of identity formation (marriage) back in place, people are reclaiming the piece.

Of course, there is the issue of whether or not these social constructs cause more damage than good. But at this stage of the game it doesn’t matter, that debate will go on much ad infinitum. The fact is that these constructs are in place and until equality exists the place of conversation is not a level playing field. Strangely enough it seems to me the fight for marriage equality is more of a fight for a place of privilege from which one can choose whether or not to marry. That’s my personal opinion, but it seems to me a perverse use of luxury. But then again, isn’t so much of what we fight for a perverse pursuit of luxury?
Posted by D’Rock’s House

Even civil unions do nothing more than bring a legal status to the relationship between two people.  Marriage it seems is more culturally privileged, at least in the United States, seems to be a pronouncement of God’s sanction of a relationship.  There is an entire historical understanding of marriage as a property transaction, not just person (usually the woman to man) to person, but also of joining families, making political alliances, etc.  That carryover is still very much present in modern marriage whether we like it or not.  The church has been complicit in this aspect of marriage by declaring this very secular purpose of two persons joining in matrimony as blessed by God.  It has always been a subjective blessing given by those who profess to have in inside track on the will of God.

It is very encouraging that we place such a value on finding “true love”.  The romantic in me is grateful that this is so.  It seems much more likely that the mystery of God is realized in the random meeting of two souls who can no longer picture their lives as a singular thing.  But as a life that one can no longer imagine living single.  I truly believe that is the act of God, that is the blessing of God on we mere humans, an invitation to a piece of the divine that is love expressed in our yearning to be with another; our only way of physically satiating our intense and spiritual desire to be with God.

I am happy for the passage of the Marriage Equality Bill in New York State.  But the fact is that many clergy can still be tried and defrocked for performing marriage ceremonies or ceremonies that in any way resemble “traditional” marriage ceremonies.  The church has said that God does not bless and make sacred any relationship other than a male/female partnering, no matter how the gender expression in the pair is realized.  But that’s a whole other issue.

I think of these things and must also share my understanding as an African American Black Man.  I can’t help but go back into the history of my people, American people of color enslaved for so many centuries.  The same church that is doling out marriage blessings, the same church that is withholding marriage blessings, is the same church that refused to recognize the sanctity of the Black family during slavery. There were many reasons to be sure—we were property, we were only a percentage human, we were savages who could not understand or were not worthy of the sanctity of a blessed by God bond of matrimony.  Ugly reality to be sure…But is it really so different than what church and society is telling the Lesbian, Gay, Transgendered, Queer communities?

Queer and Black are communities understand Shakespeare’s Shylock.  We substitute ourselves for the word Jew when he says,

“I am LGBTQ. Hath not a Queer eyes?

Hath not a Gay hands, organs, dimensions,

senses, affections, passions?

Are not Lesbians fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,

subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means?

Are not Transgendered warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer,

as a Christian is?

If you prick us, do we not bleed?

If you tickle us, do we not laugh?

If you poison us, do we not die?

and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” (III,i,50ff)

But we don’t want revenge, we just want to, if we so choose, to get married.  Some of us want to get married in a church where we have experienced God in our lives.  Some of us want to get married in a church that has shared all of our major life events.

Some of us just want to fit into our tuxes and gowns and experience that one day that just belongs to us.  And…some of us don’t.

But when my ancestors were told they could marry what did they do?  They found something from the motherland that had meaning and incorporated that into their ritual.  Jumping the broom is still done at many African American weddings.  If you are interested in reading more about the history of jumping the broom I suggest you read “Broom Jumping: A Celebration of Love” by Danita Rountree Green.

Marriage is legal in the state of New York.  All historical, proprietary, monetary assurances can now be claimed.  But many churches still won’t dole out God’s blessing.  Well, that’s quite alright.  What God has brought together let no one tear asunder.  I say I will jump the broom when the time is right.  I will invite God to carry us into our household and future lives together.  You if God decides to bring love into my life, there are very few who hold more sway for me that God God’s self when it comes to blessing me and the one who just might come to love me.

In likewise fashion, this letter is to an imagined African American young man whose sexuality will cause him to be at risk of the same things but in response to his  church’s response to the politics of sexualities as well as his own that he holds close who share the abundance of pigment with him.

Dear Darius,

I have started this letter several times to you in the hope of your existence.   I call you Darius, the one who comes after me.  I call you Darius because this means “one who maintains possessions well”.  To you I entrust the all that I have for you to hold in a community that I can envision but which does not exist.  It is a community that I give to you to name, to call into existence.  To keep and hold the experiences of black men who love God who love men. It is a community I have longed for, one that my associations assume already exists.

I see you in the church pew amongst the sea of black, brown and beige bodies at the age of 6 or 7 dangling your feet to the sway of the music.  I notice how your eyes linger on your blink as the singer holds a soaring note invoking the Spirit of God to come here now.  How your head rolls to the right and your eyes slowly open, as if in a everlasting trance of a single moment, when the singer gasps for the breath to sing on.  I see how you jump to your feet to clap a syncopated rhythm in response to the choir’s exuberant gospel refrain.  And just last week I felt your heart yearn as your soul responded to the spiritual you are way too young to knowingly sing truthfully, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I Seen.”  And yet the furrow of your brow told me that you will know of what you sing.

As I see you, I see me.  I want you to know that someone sees you.  I don’t just see you sitting there, I see you in all your possibility.  As you grow you will be tempted to believe that your possibilities are limited.  In your blackness you will struggle with the sense that you are inferior, that something is wrong with you, that you are wrong to be who God has created you to be.  When you feel that way and don’t know why, stop and take a look at the world.  You will see that your grandfather’s mother and her ancestors before have wondered the same thing.  They have wondered why this feeling of less than when that’s not what the soul feels.  Know that it is not your blackness that offends but what your blackness represents.  It represents resilience, ingenuity, beauty, honor and history at its best.  But those things are also what pains those who would have you doubt yourself.  For they resent your resilience, begrudge your ingenuity, defame your beauty, want to replace your brazen honor with shame and have tried to erase your history.  But these things they will never have.  These things they can never have.  Through Middle Passage, through slavery, through midnight journeys north, through Jim Crow, through forest canopy lynchings, through fire hoses and dogs you still have those things we have always truly possessed that make us who we are and not who others would have us to be.

So hold onto those things, Darius for they are yours hold and to keep.  But you must hold tight.  For those around you would have these very things wrested from grasp.  They too see you in the rapturous ecstasy of what it means to be loved by Christ alone.  They too witness your reckless abandon in loving the one who loves you more than any other.  They too know of the trouble you see and will begrudge you the journey you have yet to travel.  For they will tell you that you must abandon the ways of your being if you want to associate with them.  They will whisper in darkened corners as you grow, wonder and whisper why you bring no woman home to love for their approval.  They will laud your singing and passion for the Lord, expecting you to serve at their whim while they accept you as sinner and guess at the sin in you they hate.

Whether you choose to stay or leave, neither revile nor revere them.  Honor the love of the man you choose to hold.  Honor the love that Christ has instilled in you to share as part of your gift.  Do not revere those who would shame you by recreating their way of being in the world.  Do not conform to what is their ideal; one man, one woman in service of procreation for the Lord.  Do not revile them as you choose a different path, your path as dictated by the Spirit’s guidance in your life; love in honesty, love with open heart, love to find your help meet as God has always intend you to find.

Darius, you may wonder where does your blackness and your loving of same gender cross paths in this address to you?   I tell you, do not allow the bigotry against your blackness from outside of your black family wrest away your possessions.  Do not allow the love of God’s chosen for you to be wrested away by your black family and out yonder beyond them.  Empathy may be the better part of valor.  For with empathy you see the result of the hatred of your blackness relived in the hatred of your sexual being.

For in our blackness, we have learned to perpetrate on others the hatred of our oppressors.  And this is an unintended allegiance to the powers that be will be inflicted on you unless…

Unless you find your power to witness to your possessions…Your possessions will have you witness to the struggles that have allowed you in your blackness to come this far…They will have you witness to all of your oppressors from the place, the mountaintop, from which Martin called for civil rights.    They will have you witness to your own kind…those who love like you, who look like you, who live like you…They will have you witness of a forgiving love because you will be armed with the right way of loving past the hatred and into the love that will make this world as God intended.

Like me you have been outside and are looking for a place to be.  For your sake I need to tell you these things and so I write you today.   Malcolm X tells us, “We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves.”[1] Love who you have been created to be!  Let this be the place from which you measure all else, Darius.  Your self is the most prized possession.  Not that you are to hold onto it as a dear possession to the exclusion of all else.  You are to hold it, love it, protect it and listen to it.  It will guide you through many turns on this journey.  You are not alone.  Build this community for me Darius.  For I am jailed in the trappings of my own psyche and must continue to break free of the hatred from without that is blocking me from the love that is within.  I give my hope to you.

The love of Christ and all that is holy is my prayer for you.

Jami is a 2nd year M. Div. Student who is increasingly finding a calling to work in the area of gender, gender expression and various understandings of the queer community.

The end of the semester is approaching…a little too fast for some of us.  And, we all have a lot of decisions to make.  Decisions about the future.  Should I do a PhD?  Is that class I really want to take going to fit into my schedule next semester?  What’s up with my Field Ed. are they ever going to respond?  Or, hope I picked the right place to do my CPE.  And we can never forget the ever looming…am I going to get a job after this?

We get so swept up in tomorrow we forget entirely about the here and now…

All around us spring is here. Right now there are flowers and trees blooming all over New York, at Riverside, and in our very own Quad.  However, Spring isn’t just outside these walls.  You are in bloom too.  And you all so look so beautiful.  But as we have experienced Spring has its rainy days….its not all smooth sailing, lets not get things twisted.

Spring lives within a tension between winter and summer – that tension, much like a slingshot, propels us into the next season.  Being in seminary, being at Union, can also feel like we are living in a kind of tension.  Tensions with each other, tension between the secular and sacred, the tension between knowing and accepting, the tension between intentional silence and prophetic speech. Is this tension that which propels us into our next big thing?

Like a slingshot we are being stretched, it hurts to be stretched, but the strength is in the stretching.  Each class, experience, moment of pushing yourself beyond your limits is going to boost your speed…and your distance…

Like us, the women in the passage are filled with tension.  An angel appears, Jesus’ body is nowhere to be found, the women are told to tell everyone what happened.  Women are the ones that get to explain the resurrection.

The women, the unlikeliest of messengers are the news bearers.  They weren’t worried about tomorrow.  They were caught up in today.  In Greek to tell means to report, or bring news.  These women are inside of the slingshot, and the tension of that moment is the exact energy needed to go tell the greatness of the resurrection.

For thirty years the Presbyterian Church (USA) has been in a debate about who is called. This is my tension.  My daily existence is full of anxiety, worry, and frustrations over people that don’t even know me – who are voting on my right to serve.  I’m not allowed to forget I’m a lesbian.  The adversity of living in this tension every waking second makes my passion for justice grow.  I make the tension work for me.

I imagine if people were asked to vote whether or not to allow the women at the tomb to speak……..they would have voted no.  Despite this the angel tells them to go spread the good news; they were called to bring the truth.  The unlikeliest of messengers were sent out.  And so here I stand, like a slingshot, I have been pulled back, and I’m tired of being in the slingshot.  I am ready to go.  Its going to take five more votes to release the whole Presbyterian Church from our slingshot.  Into what I don’t yet know.  But we are full of excitement and a little nervous about spreading the word.  And I am the unlikeliest of messengers.

This is my experience, what slingshot are you ready to be released from?  ……..

What message are you excited and a little worried about telling?

The women left the tomb with fear and great joy.  Likewise, after being pulled back in the slingshot, and when we are released, that exposure is both awesome…and a little scary.  But don’t forget, God doesn’t make mistakes.  God chose women in a time when they would be the unlikeliest of messengers…and God chose us, or the universe pushed us …and…that’s arguably an epic move. The women kept the moment of receiving the message quite pure.  They left the tomb immediately and ran to tell the disciples.  There was no delay.  The moment was kind of like where we are right now.  The residue of what seems like a tomb of emptiness, an unknown future, was actually the conception of new life.

If you think about it, the tomb the women arrive at is kind of like a metaphor for seminary.  We show up expecting to experience one thing, and something else entirely manifests.  Our own power startles us.  Our humanity humbles us.  Our God illuminates us.  We get it from this place, from these ivory towers.  That position of privilege is exactly the place the women stood.  But they knew they couldn’t hold onto that information.  The message was bigger than they were, larger than life. And suddenly, the perils of being female disappear and they have a compulsion to go and tell.   In a time in which the world needs to hear the good news, we are the unlikeliest of messengers to go there.  So Union, step up.  Step in.  Let the slingshot help you soar……and go tell all that you have seen………

Drum Major Instinct: Still Leading For A Future Yet Unseen

I am on the board of That All May Freely Serve, a national Presbyterian organization working for full inclusion of LGBT persons for ministry.  In that capacity I am part of our board’s pastoral care team.  We use an online ministerial presence with one another to create the spiritual support and presence ‘while we are absent one from another’ (Genesis 31:49).  I offer my latest meditation and prayer to the board, wondering if in celebrating and honor Rev. Dr. King trying to answer the question, “Does Rev. Dr. King have a message for Us?

I am sitting here thinking about the sermon I am in the middle of processing for a Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock on Sunday, January 16, 2011.  It is a sermon I am giving on behalf of the Poverty Initiative here at Union Theological Seminary.  The Poverty Initiative’s mission says that “The Poverty Initiative is dedicated to raising up generations of religious and community leaders committed to building a movement to end poverty, led by the poor.”  The sermon I am preparing is based on Rev. Dr. ML King’s speech “The Drum Major Instinct”.  I’ve attached a link below.

Here is my reading for the day from that speech:

“I know a man—and I just want to talk about him a minute, and maybe you will discover who I’m talking about as I go down the way (Yeah) because he was a great one. And he just went about serving. He was born in an obscure village, (Yes, sir) the child of a poor peasant woman. And then he grew up in still another obscure village, where he worked as a carpenter until he was thirty years old. (Amen) Then for three years, he just got on his feet, and he was an itinerant preacher. And he went about doing some things. He didn’t have much. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. (Yes) He never owned a house. He never went to college. He never visited a big city. He never went two hundred miles from where he was born. He did none of the usual things that the world would associate with greatness. He had no credentials but himself.

He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him. They called him a rabble-rouser. They called him a troublemaker. They said he was an agitator. (Glory to God) He practiced civil disobedience; he broke injunctions. And so he was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. And the irony of it all is that his friends turned him over to them. (Amen) One of his closest friends denied him. Another of his friends turned him over to his enemies. And while he was dying, the people who killed him gambled for his clothing, the only possession that he had in the world. (Lord help him) When he was dead he was buried in a borrowed tomb, through the pity of a friend….

I’d like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. (Yes)

I’d like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody.

I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question. (Amen)

I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. (Yes)

And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. (Yes)

I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. (Lord)

I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity. (Yes)

Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. (Amen) Say that I was a drum major for peace. (Yes) I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. (Yes) I won’t have any money to leave behind. I won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. (Amen) And that’s all I want to say.”

I share this text with you for a couple of reasons today.  I share it to remind us that Christ always went against the grain of what others thought should remain the status quo.  King did not  say this to remind us the suffering we have to go through in order to fight for what’s right.  He did it moreso to  remind us that greatness is adjective that is assigned to us by others.  Meaning, it doesn’t take greatness to make the change in the church we are making.  It takes very real people, willing to humbly stand for what’s right, willing to speak up for injustices. And everyone of us are a part of what makes this church we serve “great”.  You see others cannot defend the status quo of this church and it’s greatness without realizing that it is each person in it, each part of the body, is what makes up that greatness.  It’s like a jigsaw puzzle.  The picture on the outside of the box is what we call “great,” but it is its pieces working together inside the box that make it so.

In all honesty, Dr. King’s attitude toward the work we do would have had to undergo some major shifting to get behind us.  The leaders of the Civil Right’s movement relegated the openly gay man, Bayard Rustin-organizer/planner extraordinaire, to a behind the scenes piece of the legacy of the movement.  It was fear of the government leaking Rustin’s sexuality that convinced King to take a part in this process.  But in my heart, I do believe that King would have come around.  I believe that King would have stood shoulder to shoulder with Rustin in solidarity.  I believe that he would be able to finally stare Rustin in the eyes and say the words to him that mean so much for the work we do, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”*

That is a Jesus message if I ever heard one.  That is the truth of the Good News we bring to our church.  May we stand steadfast in the struggle.

I remember last fall, here in NYC we had these winds like you wouldn’t believe.  One could barely walk down the street without having the wind blow you off balance for a second or two and sometimes you could barely walk against the wind without threat of being blown over.  I remember looking out the window watching person after person walk up the wide boulevard, struggling to walk into the wind.  From a less windy side street, I saw an older couple who I imagined to have been together for at least 50 years.  Before they turned the corner onto the windier street they did something I will never forget.  They turned and looked toward one another and then side by side they burrowed into each other.  They turned the corner and walked straight into the wind together.  Step after measured step, they held tight and walked unwaveringly through that wind.  When they reached the deli their destination they stepped into the doorway and gave each other a quick kiss and went inside.

If we can continue to link arms and walk forward in the wind of opposition, we can cut through it, diffuse its power, and reach our destination. The winds died down that day.  Be assured dear friends, that we can weather the storm.  But remember to hold on to one another tightly.  We have turned a corner and are out of the shadows of the church.  That is why the winds of resistance have been so fierce upon us.  Hold on…the deli is at the end of the corner for us too!

We serve a church that tries to care for the poor, the unloved, those devastated by war, the hungry, those who don’t have clothes on their backs.  We are a church that seeks to love and serve humanity from Arkansas to Angola.  But let us continue to remind this church and shine the the light on their shortsightedness.  Let us continue to speak of our injustice here within the church as we minister to the world outside.  Friends, let us remind ourselves, the church we serve and the world we are a part of that, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”  Ashe and Amen.

Loving and most gracious God,

We come to you in thanksgiving because we have come so far.  ’We’ve come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord.  Trusting in Your holy word, we can’t turn around.’  Int his moment of renewed commitment to service in honor of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Help us to cling to one another as we move along this journey we have undertaken.  Help us to recognize our failings and our prejudices, the ones that hinder us from serving your church.  Help us to remember as we fight our struggle, so that one day all of your children can be free, that our struggle is the struggle of the poor, those in prison, those with no food or clothes.  As we get bogged down with the important work of strategizing, planning, organizing, claiming victories and mourning defeats–help us to remember that we are not just fighting our fight but we are fighting for injustice everywhere.

Bless this board, oh Lord.  That we may hear and discern your will for us and in the work that we do.  Bless the ones we love as they support us in this work.  Help us to love those who would see us fail, those who would rather see us leave your church.  Help us to maintain the truth of our ministry.  We ask these things in our solitary prayers, but we ask them now collectively that you would bless this body with those virtues that you hold so dear.

We ask these and so many other blessings, we bring these concerns and so many others in our hearts to you.  Thank you for giving us the courage through your grace.  We thank you, oh God and give thanks in the name of Christ and the blessed communion of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

*Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963

http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_the_drum_major_instinct/

picture from Yahoo Pictures

Ashes, Stones, and Flowers: In Memory of All Victims of War and Terrorism

For vibrant lives suddenly and shamelessly sacrificed we lift up the ashes of our loss, O Source of Life.

For the lives that continue, haunted forever by the pain of absence, we lift up the ashes of our remorse, O Wellspring of Compassion.

For the conflagration of flames and nightmare images forever seared into our memories we lift up the ashes of our pain, O Breathing Spirit of the World.

For the charred visions of peace and the dry taste of fear we lift up the ashes of our grief, O Infinite.

For all the deaths that have been justified by turning the love of God or country into fanatical arrogance, we lift up the ashes of our shame, O God.

As we cast these ashes into the troubled water of our times, Transforming One, hear our plea that by your power they will make fertile the soil of our future and by your mercy nourish the seeds of peace.

Be with us as we cast the ashes in silence into the river [or a bowl of water].

For the ways humanity pursues violence rather than understanding, we lift up the stones of our anger, O Breathing Spirit of the World.

For the ways we allow misunderstanding, fear and the refusal to understand sexual, gender and all identity expression to build up the boundaries that circumscribe our compassion, we lift up the stones of our hardness, O Wellspring of Compassion.

For our addiction to weapons and the ways of violence against each other we lift up the stones of our fear, O Source of Life.

For the ways we cast blame and create enemies we lift up the stones of our self-righteousness, O God

As we cast these stones into this ancient river, Transforming One, hear our plea:

Just as water wears away the hardest of stones, so too may the power of your compassion soften the hardness of our hearts and draw us into a future of justice and peace.

Be with us as we cast the stones in silence into the river [or a bowl of water].

For sowing seeds of justice to blossom into harmony, we cast these flowers into the river, O Source of Peace.

For seeing clearly the many rainbow colors of humanity and earth, we cast these flowers into the river, O Infinite.

For calling us to life beyond our grieving, we cast these flowers into the river, O Breathing Spirit of the World.

As we cast these flowers into this ancient river, Transforming One, hear our plea:

Just as water births life in a desert and gives hope to the wounded, so too may the power of your nurturing renew our commitment to peace.

Be with us as we, your people, cast the flowers in silence into the river [or a bowl of water].

Litany by Rev. Patricia Pearce, pastor of Tabernacle Church, Philadelphia, and Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director of The Shalom Center

Revised for Transgender Day of Remembrance 2010, Union Theological Seminary.
[A shorter version of this litany was originally written by Rev. Pearce for the first anniversary of 9/11, and was expanded and revised by Rabbi Waskow for Veterans Day 2003. This version was used in Washington DC, Philadelphia, and elsewhere on May 27, 2004, as part of the interfaith memorial services of grief, repentance, and transformation initiated by the National Council of Churches.]

You see this is the time when no one knew how or why little black boys and black teenagers were disappearing and turning up dead in Atlanta, GA. Those five white men in that car have no idea how much they scarred me that day. And even if they were to ever apologize, I’m sure they would say, “It was just a joke.”  You see they had the privilege to joke about things like that. That was their reality.

One person’s idea of reality can be so hurtful and damaging to another. And I must say, Mr. Beck, listening to your take on Liberation/Black/Theology (I lump them together because you did) I felt sucker punched. You have single handedly given millions of people permission to hate and distrust Black me simply because you seem to enjoy wanting the world to live in your reality.

I feel very much like that scared fifteen year old again. I can’t get the image out of my head of vitriolic hate speeches coming my way again. I can’t get the image out of my head of people in the name of democracy stepping on others dreams just to get ahead. And yes, Mr. Beck, it is this serious to me, I can’t get the image of dead black bodies turning up in swamps and city alleys out of my head. You give permission for hate, Mr. Beck. And whether or not you know it, I am the one who suffers for it. Me, this Black man, this African American, this Same Gender Loving human being who, as tired as I am, must keep fighting for survival because with each word you speak you unleash the hounds of hatred–against me.

I applaud my fellow seminarians and seminary President, Serene Jones for responding to your diatribe of intentional misinformation regarding Liberation/Black/Theology. I couldn’t watch more than ten minutes before my eyes streamed with tears for what you are doing to this country.

Please do come to Union, Mr. Beck. At least then you will have at least three years to try to digest the information we study, the Bible we try to live, the love we try to spew. If your staff can digest Black Theology in one day with the help of one person then you all deserve a theological scholarship to Union.

By the way, let’s clear up a couple of things. Mr. Beck, the Good Samaritan is a parable…Jesus’ teaching tool. Stick to Jesus’ script if you are going to use it and don’t add your take. It’s stood this long without your take on highway maintenance in the Roman world. The other thing, while we’re on the Romans. Be careful the way you spit out how the Jews killed Jesus and he would have come back to get ‘em. That’s the way you think, don’t put that on Jesus. And the last time I looked, it was the Romans that stripped Jesus, beat him, nailed him to the cross and pierced him in the side! No Jewish person had that much power under Caesar.

And one last thing, while my stomach is still in knots, while I still fear for the safety of those I call my own, and while I know that your work hurts me more than you will ever know…this one thing I can say:
I have nothing but the love of Jesus Christ for you and hope the Holy Spirit will crack your heart wide open so that you see the simplest words of social justice that Jesus ever spoke, ‘Love God, Love your neighbor as yourself’. If you can do this one thing for Christ, Mr. Beck, then you will see that everyone deserves to live in the bounty of God’s creation.

As parents, we are so in need of our own worship time that we put our trust and faith in the – God bless them – volunteer Sunday School teachers who are typically (but not always) kind-hearted souls who do their best.  When my partner and I sat in on a Sunday School session the first time we visited a church, one of the parents approached us at coffee hour and asked us how it was because while she’d been sending her kids there for several years, she’d never actually gone and observed. She thought it such a novel idea. I don’t think she cared less than we did what her kids were learning, but I’m not sure it occurred to her that she could and should be involved.

Well intentioned or not, our amazingly committed teachers are not frequently trained and, in my experience, often operate autonomously. Sometimes this means that what is being preached up in the sanctuary is undermined or inconsistent with what’s happening in the church basement. Disturbingly, many (most?) churches don’t have well developed policies for dealing with children and creating “safe spaces” for them. There may be a newly derived interest in sexual abuse policies because of the slow unveiling of the horrific misconduct in the Catholic Church, but these policies are often simply on-the-books for show.

How many mainline congregations in fact take the time to establish an entire system of safety – both theological and practical — for the practices of their churches and for the care of their youth?  When my two kids (who have lesbian moms) and the son of a gay couple received their first Bibles from their church school leader on one special Sunday, they were told by a Sunday School leader that they should go home and read it with “your mother and father.” Understand this: the only kids getting Bibles that Sunday were children of the only out queer families in the church. A theologically cogent system designed for the safety and inclusion of its children would have never led to three kids hearing the dismissal of their families realities in front of the entire congregation.

I didn’t expect this post to get so long, but I’m not done yet. (And I’ve got a feeling I’m gonna need many more posts on this topic.)

Here’s another big problem: I’ve been at seminary for 4 years now and up until the January SU190 1&2 courses, Children in the Church  (non-required 1 point supplemental courses offered during intersession) with Laurel Koepf (who is amazing and I highly recommend any course she offers) , I have had yet to hear about or deal with anything related to children. In other words, it is quite possible to graduate from this prestigious (and mostly wonderful) seminary without ever having a course related to children. That is absolutely shocking. It means we are untrained to minister to what is it, roughly half of our congregation?  That’s unconscionable.

It goes beyond just asking people to lie. It’s what that lie actually says about the power structure of institutional authority, as well as the person who must submit to that institution. I’m feeling that way about these arguments about gays in the church. The parameters for the discussion of the issue has been set in such a passive aggressive tone. Of course, the primary foundation reduces people who are LGBTQ to nothing more than what they do in their practice of sex. And that is the fight: to be able to claim who is moral and who is immoral.

Much of the church’s argument seems to hinge on this idea of moral superiority. My personal belief is that the LGBTQ person is not immoral. Lying is immoral. Living a lie is immoral.  (Upon further thought, what I meant to say is that living as though it seems one must live a lie is immoral.  For the choice to be out or not is personal and should be respected as such.) Don’t get me wrong, I am a human being and know that I have human failings. But it seems that I am being asked to acquiesce to the idea that loving someone of the same gender is immoral before I can gain acceptance into the institution that is church.

I guess I’m just saying that I will not acquiesce to being immoral. When I am asked by the church to lie and agree that LGBTQ falls outside of the realm of who God wants to serve God’s church, then I am being immoral. Immoral acquiescence…can’t do that for any human. I have to answer to an even higher authority.

**use of the term “church” is specifically monolithic to express the ideas here and is based on experience in many denominations