Aelred of Rievaulx: Gay saint of friendship

January 12, 2016, 12:42 am

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St. Aelred of Rievaulx

By Brother Robert Lentz, OFM, www.trinitystores.com

Aelred of Rievaulx (1109-1167) is considered one of the most lovable saints, the patron saint of friendship and also, some say, a gay saint. His feast day is today (Jan. 12).

Aelred was the abbot of the Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx in England. His treatise “On Spiritual Friendship” is still one of the best theological statements on the connection between human love and spiritual love. “God is friendship… He who abides in friendship abides in God, and God in him,” he wrote, paraphrasing 1 John 4:16.

Aelred’s own deep friendships with men are described in Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality by Yale history professor John Boswell. “There can be little question that Aelred was gay and that his erotic attraction to men was a dominant force in his life,” Boswell wrote.

Boswell’s account inspired the members of the LGBT Episcopal group Integrity to name Aelred as their patron saint. Click here for the full story on how they won recognition for their gay saint.

Aelred certainly advocated chastity, but his passions are clear in his writing. He describes friendship with eloquence in this often-quoted passage from his treatise On Spiritual Friendship:

“It is no small consolation in this life to have someone who can unite with you in an intimate affection and the embrace of a holy love, someone in whom your spirit can rest, to whom you can pour out your soul, to whose pleasant exchanges, as to soothing songs, you can fly in sorrow... with whose spiritual kisses, as with remedial salves, you may draw out all the weariness of your restless anxieties. A man who can shed tears with you in your worries, be happy with you when things go well, search out with you the answers to your problems, whom with the ties of charity you can lead into the depths of your heart; . . . where the sweetness of the Spirit flows between you, where you so join yourself and cleave to him that soul mingles with soul and two become one.”

Aelred supported friendships between monks, comparing them to the love between Jesus and his beloved disciple, and between Jonathan and David in his treatise on spiritual friendship. Louis Crompton, professor of English at the University of Nebraska, reports in Homosexuality and Civilization that Aelred allowed the monks at his Yorkshire monastery to express affection by holding hands, a practice discouraged by other abbots.

Aelred’s writings are discussed extensively in a 2015 book by a prominent evangelical scholar in the new celibate LGBT Christian movement. Wesley Hill writes about friendship as a spiritual path, offering practical ways for building stronger friendships in Spiritual Friendship: Finding Love in the Church as a Celibate Gay Christian.”

The icon of Saint Aelred at the top of this post was painted by Robert Lentz, a Franciscan friar and world-class iconographer known for his innovative icons.  He faces controversy for his icons depicting same-sex couples. His Aelred image includes a banner with Aelred’s words, “Friend cleaving to friend in the spirit of Christ.”

“Aelred of Rievaulx” by Tobias Haller

A bright-eyed icon of Aelred was sketched by Tobias Haller, an iconographer, author, composer, and vicar of Saint James Episcopal Church in the Bronx. He is the author of “Reasonable and Holy: Engaging Same-Sexuality.” Haller enjoys expanding the diversity of icons available by creating icons of LGBTQ people and other progressive holy figures as well as traditional saints. He and his spouse were united in a church wedding more than 30 years ago and a civil ceremony after same-sex marriage became legal in New York.

Another portrait of Aelred was drawn during his own lifetime. Aelred perches on an illuminated alphabet in the medieval manuscript "De Speculo Caritatis"“Mirror of Charity.”

Portrait of Aelred of Rievaulx from “Mirror of Charity” medieval manuscript, circa 1140 (Wikimedia Commons)

Queer theologian Hugo Cordova Quero writes about Aelred in his scholarly article "Friendship with Benefits: A Queer Reading of Aelred of Rievaulx and His Theology of Friendship.” It is included in “The Sexual Theologian: Essays on Sex, God and Politics,” edited by Marcella Althaus-Reid and Lisa Isherwood.

Quero quotes and analyzes Aelred’s words from “Mirror of Charity” on the death of his first close friend, a fellow monk named Simon: “I grieve for my most beloved, for the one-in-heart with me…” He goes on to explore Aelred’s subsequent love for an unnamed monk, putting his attachments to men into historical context with queer perspective. Click here to view the article online.

“Brother and Lover: Aelred of Rievaulx,” by Brian Patrick McGuire is a charming chronological account that traces the homoerotic impulse in Aelred’s life. McGuire, a history professor in Denmark, tells the story with a personal and informal writing style.

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Related links:

12th January: St Aelred of Rievaulx, Patron of Same Sex Intimacy (Queer Saints and Martyrs -- and Others)

A St. Aelred Catechism (Walking with Integrity Blog)

St. Aelred of Rievaulx (Pharsea’s World: Homosexuality and Tradition)

Worship resources for Saint Aelred (Integrity USA)

To read this post in Spanish / en español, go to Santos Queer:

San Elredo de Rievaulx: Santos gay de amistad

To read this post in Italian, go to Queerblog: Il magazine LGBT di Blogo:
Aelredo di Rievaulx, abate, santo e gay

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This post is part of the LGBT Saints series at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints and holy people of special interest to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts
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Icons of St. Aelred and many others are available on cards, plaques, T-shirts, mugs, candles, mugs, and more at Trinity Stores



Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

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RIP David Bowie: Queer messiah figure of LGBT liberation, music and art

January 14, 2016, 11:10 am

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I celebrate the life of David Bowie, genderbending British singer-songwriter, rock icon and actor who died Jan. 10 at age 69. He was my most important early queer spiritual artistic inspiration -- a prototype for my later visions of the queer Christ.

And he moved the whole society toward acceptance of LGBT people. Bowie proved that a man can be intensely feminine and changed public perceptions about sexual orientation and gender identity.

Several readers pointed out a resemblance between Bowie and the contemporary gay Jesus painted by Doug Blanchard in our book “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision.” The 24 paintings show Jesus as a young urban hipster in modern dress as he faces his arrest, trial, death and resurrection. Maybe I didn’t notice the similarity myself because the Jesus of my private meditation often looks like Bowie. But the likeness shows in the photo (above) that I took of my vintage Bowie cassette tapes with a page from the Passion book.

It’s true that for me as a teenager growing up in Iowa, Bowie embodied the archetype of the misunderstood queer messiah… although the salvation he promised was based on rock music (Ziggy Stardust) or alien technology (in “The Man Who Fell to Earth.”) The inspiration that I found in Bowie became the foundation for my later understanding of the queer Christ.

Actually in “The Last Temptation of Christ,”” Bowie played not Jesus, but governor Pontius Pilate, who interrogates the would-be messiah in this video clip.



My vocation now is to write about LGBTQ spirituality and the arts, and Bowie had all three aspects when I was a teen searching for role models: a cool queer persona, an artistic sensibility and strong visual style, and what I perceived as a subtle spiritual quality. All of this was while I was still an unbaptized secular person, albeit with spiritual inclinations.

When asked to choose the “walkout song” for my Queer Clergy Trading Card last year, I picked a Bowie tune. His “Oh! You Pretty Things” expresses how I felt when I walked out to preach at the predominantly LGBT Metropolitan Community Churches, especially during the AIDS pandemic of the 1980s. I saw the people in the congregation as beautiful, even though they were condemned as sinners by many churches and “driving their mamas and papas insane” with their gender nonconformity.

Saint David Bowie candle from GrannysHopeChest

Sexuality
Bowie came out as gay in an interview in 1972, when it was far from cool. That was only three years after Stonewall. Elton John and Freddie Mercury were still in the closet. Rumors reached all the way to Iowa hinting that he had a sexual relationship with Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones. Bowie seemed to be one of us. He projected otherness.

In a 1976 Playboy interview Bowie described himself as bisexual. His sexual experimentation and desire to break moral taboos were real, although in 1983 he claimed, “I was always a closet heterosexual” and regretted his declaration of bisexuality as “the biggest mistake I ever made.”

His coming out was important even if it turned out to be an artistic statement or publicity stunt, because all the world-famous musicians who were really gay were still afraid to admit their homosexuality in public. Bowie took a risk and helped clear the way.

He may not have actually been gay, but he did experience some homophobia. Bowie reported that he lost opportunities to perform because of his self-proclaimed bisexuality. “America is a very puritanical place, and I think it stood in the way of so much I wanted to do,” he said in a 2002 interview.

His refusal to be labeled or stick to any one label seems strikingly contemporary.

How gay did Bowie really seem back in 1972? Check out the 1972 video of Bowie draping his arm suggestively around guitarist Mick Ronson while singing “Starman” (from his “Hunky Dory” album) on the British primetime show “Top of the Pops.” Homosexuality was still considered a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association. (They de-listed it in 1973.)



Religion
Bowie told a reporter that he was bothered by being “not quite an atheist,” and yet religious leaders offered tributes to him when he died. Even the Vatican had some praise for him, tweeting his lyrics and declaring him “never banal.”

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby told the BBC, “I’m very, very saddened to hear of his death. I remember sitting and listening to his songs endlessly in the ‘70s particularly, and always really relishing what he was, what he did, the impact he had.”

Before becoming a rock star, Bowie explored various religions, including Christianity. He studied Tibetan Buddhism for four years starting when he was 13.  He considered becoming a monk, but his guru urged him to follow music because he could benefit others more that way.

He confessed to having “a passion for the visual in religious rituals,” which he expressed in the dramatic flair of his costumes, cover art, and the sets and staging of his concerts and music videos.

In a 2005 interview he revealed that his spiritual quest continued through his music: “Questioning my spiritual life has always been germane to what I was writing. Always.”"

Bowie knelt and led thousands in the Lord’s Prayer at the 1992 Freddie Mercury tribute concert captured on video.


Dear God - PLEASE BLESS David Bowie FOR THIS...by kneepadsphysical

Favorite albums
My life partner Audrey said that one reason she fell in love with me was that I had David Bowie and Chopin tapes next to each other in my cassette drawer at college. Bowie had a HUGE impact on me as a teenager, bringing what we would now call a queer sensibility to a budding lesbian growing up in Iowa and getting me through high school.

I can’t choose my favorite Bowie song because I love so many so much. I can’t even choose my favorite Bowie ALBUM! Here are my top three, in chronological order.

“Hunky Dory” (1971) includes songs about the underground world of drag queens (“Queen Bitch”) and my favorite artist Andy Warhol. When I fell in love with Audrey, so many songs on this album expressed our moods: “Kooks” proclaimed happily, “If you stay with us you’re gonna be pretty kooky too.” “Fill Your Heart” rejoiced that “Love cleans the mind and makes it Free.”

“The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars” (1972) is about a bisexual rock star / prophet who prepares the way for extra-terrestrials who will come to save the Earth. Bowie’s own explanation of the Ziggy Stardust album: “I wanted to define the archetype of the messiah rock star.”

Listening to “Ziggy Stardust” again, I am struck by how many religious references he did make -- to priests, God and church. My walkout song “Oh! You Pretty Things” is on this album.

The song “Five Years” is like a Buddhist lovingkindness litany for “all things without exception” as he sings about trying to take in everything before the Earth dies in five years:

I heard telephones, opera house, favorite melodies
I saw boys, toys electric irons and T.V.'s
My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare
I had to cram so many things to store everything in there
And all the fat-skinny people, and all the tall-short people
And all the nobody people, and all the somebody people
I never thought I'd need so many people

“Aladdin Sane” (1973) had an amazing androgynous cover image of Bowie with red hair. My favorite song on this album has always been “Time.”

I drifted away from Bowie later as he went through many “Ch-ch-changes” (another great Bowie hit song) and distanced himself from his genderfluid personae.

New and final album: Blackstar
I like that Bowie did a final album (Blackstar) designed to be released when he died, dealing with his own deathbed and the transition to heaven. It shows he was a real artist who used every life experience as fuel for his artistic expression. His collaborator called it a “parting gift.”

Bowie showed me how to grow up queer. Now he’s showing me how to face death and go to heaven.

Particularly striking is the song “Lazarus,” an obvious reference to the Biblical Lazarus whom Jesus loved and raised from the dead. Bowie, face bandaged, opens by singing from his hospital bed in the Lazarus video:

Look up here, I'm in heaven
I've got scars that can't be seen
I've got drama, can't be stolen
Everybody knows me now.

“Blackstar” was released on Bowie’s 69th birthday, just two days before he died. May this music icon be welcomed to heaven by the other LGBTQ saints whose lives are honored here at the Jesus in Love Blog.  As he sang in “Space Oddity” (his first US hit song): “May God’s love be with you.”



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Related links:

LGBT People Reveal Why David Bowie Was So Important To Them (Buzzfeed.com)

How David Bowie Sexually Liberated Us All (Daily Beast)

In Memory of My Great Gay Saint, David Bowie (pitchfork.com)

That time David Bowie almost became a Buddhist monk — and what he said (and sang) about that time (lionsroar.com)

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This post is part of the LGBT Saints series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints, martyrs, mystics, prophets, witnesses, heroes, holy people, humanitarians, deities and religious figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and queer people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

Blessed Bernardo de Hoyos: Mystical same-sex marriage with Jesus

November 28, 2015, 8:39 am

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“The Mystical Marriage of Blessed Fr. Bernardo de Hoyos y de Sena, SJ”

By William Hart McNichols © www.fatherbill.org

Blessed Bernardo Francisco de Hoyos y de Seña is an 18th-century Spanish priest who wrote vividly of his mystical gay marriage to Jesus. He was beatified in 2010 and his feast day is tomorrow (Nov. 29).

Bernardo (1711-1735) was 18 when he had a vision of marrying Jesus in a ceremony much like a human wedding. He described it this way:

Always holding my right hand, the Lord had me occupy the empty throne; then He fitted on my finger a gold ring.... “May this ring be an earnest of our love. You are Mine, and I am yours. You may call yourself and sign Bernardo de Jesus, thus, as I said to my spouse, Santa Teresa, you are Bernardo de Jesus and I am Jesus de Bernardo. My honor is yours; your honor is Mine. Consider My glory that of your Spouse; I will consider yours, that of My spouse. All Mine is yours, and all yours is Mine. What I am by nature you share by grace. You and I are one!”
(quoted from “The Visions of Bernard Francis De Hoyos, S.J.” by Henri Bechard, S.J.)

Bernardo’s vision inspired artist-priest William Hart McNichols to paint an icon of Bernardo’s wedding with Jesus.

“I was so taken with this profoundly beautiful account of Jesus’ mystical marriage with Bernardo, including all the symbols of a human wedding,” McNichols wrote.

Bernardo de Hoyos (Wikimedia Commons)

Official Roman Catholic accounts emphasize how Bernardo went on to become “the first apostle of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Spain,” but the church downplays the queer vision that inspired him. Bernardo’s marriage with Christ can justifiably be interpreted as a “gay Jesus” story.

Bernardo spent nine years in the Jesuit formation process and was ordained in January 1735. His pastoral ministry was cut short later that same year when he died of typhus on Nov. 29, 1735. Some call him a “boy saint” because he only lived to be 24. His dying words indicate that he felt the presence of his Spouse Jesus at the end. Bernardo’s last words were, “Oh, how good it is to dwell in the Heart of Jesus!”

After his death Bernardo’s reputation for holiness continued to grow, but church politics slowed his path to sainthood until recently. His beatification ceremony was held in April 2010 in the northwestern Spanish province of Valladolid, where Bernardo spent his entire life.

While the Catholic church refuses to bless same-sex marriages, the lives and visions of its own saints tell a far different story -- in which Christ the Bridegroom gladly joins himself in marriage with a man.

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This article is available in Spanish at:

Beato Bernardo de Hoyos: El matrimonio místico entre personas del mismo sexo con Jesús (Santos Queer)
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This post is part of the LGBT Saints series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints, martyrs, mystics, heroes, holy people, deities and religious figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and queer people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

It is also part of the Queer Christ series series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series gathers together visions of the queer Christ as presented by artists, writers, theologians and others.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Saint Sebastian: History’s first gay icon

January 20, 2016, 9:32 am

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“Self Portrait as Saint Sebastian” by Christopher Olwage

“Homage to Sebastian” by Tony De Carlo

Saint Sebastian has been called history’s first gay icon and the patron saint of homosexuals. His feast day is today (Jan. 20).

Sebastian was an early Christian martyr killed in 288 on orders from the Roman emperor Diocletian. He is the subject of countless artworks that show him being shot with arrows. Little is known about his love life, so his long-standing popularity with gay men is mostly based on the way he looks.

Starting in the Renaissance, Sebastian has been painted many times as a near-naked youth writing in a mixture of pleasure and pain. The homoeroticism is obvious.

“Saint Sebastian”by Il Sodoma, 1525 (Wikimedia Commons)

Two contemporary artists did new LGBT-affirming works based on Saint Sebastian in 2015. Gay New Zealand artist Christopher Olwage painted a self-portrait as Sebastian (at the top of this post) for his “Ecce Homo” exhibit inviting viewers to consider the possibility of a gay Jesus.

Queer British artist Tony O’Connell sculpted a life-size statue of Sebastian and filmed his dramatic interactions with the figure to make a strong statement against homophobic violence in a performance art piece for All Saints Day. It includes a “Litany of the Queer Saints” that calls upon Sebastian to pray for and protect the downtrodden:

Tony O'Connell prepares to kiss St Sebastian in his new film

“St. Sebastian, who strengthens the persecuted Pray for us…
St. Sebastian empowered to protect from plague and AIDS, Pray for us…
St Sebastian, loved and then abandoned by the Roman Emperor, Pray for us.
St. Sebastian, loved and increasingly abandoned by the Roman Church, Pray for us
St. Sebastian, Loved by our people, Pray for us…
Glorious Martyr and undefeated warrior,
we ask that you protect the persecuted
from tyrants and enemies.
Use your unstoppable energy
not to punish but only to humble
those who dedicate themselves to oppression and evil.”

For the whole litany and more info, see my previous post New art film highlights queer saints, Sebastian and homophobic violence for All Saints Day.

St Sebastian is martyred by arrows in O'Connell's film

Other blogs have already compiled the St. Sebastian masterpieces from art history, so the Jesus in Love Blog simply posts one example and refers readers to the best of many online collections of Sebastian art:
Saint Sebastian: The Homoerotic Patron of Gay Men (Artwork I Love Blog)

The historical Sebastian actually survived the arrow attack and was nursed back to health by Saint Irene of Rome, only to be “martyred twice” when the emperor executed him later.

In addition to his longstanding but unofficial status as patron saint of gay men, Sebastian is known as a protector against plague and a patron saint of soldiers, archers and athletes.

“Saint Sebastian” by Rick Herold

Saint Sebastian is a favorite subject of contemporary gay artist Tony De Carlo (1956-2014), whose work is at the top of this post. He began his ongoing Sebastian series in the 1980s in response to the AIDS crisis. It has grown to more than 40 pictures.

“I chose him because he was known as the Patron Protector Saint Against the Plague, as the Plague was sweeping Europe,” De Carlo said in an interview with the Jesus in Love Blog. “It wasn't until the year 2001 when I went into a Catholic store in New Mexico, picked up a pewter statue of Saint Sebastian, and saw a label on the bottom that said ‘Patron Saint of Homosexuals.’”

Sebastian is also referenced frequently in the gay literary world. For example playwright Tennessee Williams named his martyred gay character Sebastian in “Suddenly, Last Summer,” and Oscar Wilde used Sebastian as his own alias after his release from prison.

An important film biography for many gay men today is “Sebastiane,” directed by British independent filmmaker Derek Jarman. The Latin-language 1976 film was controversial for its homoeroticism and is considered a landmark of LGBT cinema. A YouTube clip shows its beautiful style.



The painting at the top of this post is by California gay artist Rick Herold. He places Saint Sebastian against a colorful, cartoon-like backdrop reminiscent of gay artist / activist Keith Haring. “I over the years as a painter have been interested in the idea of the spirit and the flesh as one -- began by Tantric art influences and then using my Catholic background,” he told the Jesus in Love Blog. He paints with enamel on the reverse side of clear plexiglas.

Herold has a bachelor of arts degree in art and theology from the Benedictine Monastic University of St. John in Minnesota and a master of fine arts degree from Otis Institute of Art in Los Angeles. His religious artwork included a Stations of the Cross commissioned by Bob Hope for a church in Ohio before a conflict over modern art with the Los Angeles cardinal led to disillusionment with the church. Herold came out as gay and turned to painting male nudes and homoerotica.

“Saint Sebastian and Matt Shepard Juxtaposed” by JR Leveroni

“Saint Sebastian and Matt Shepard Juxtaposed” by JR Leveroni compares Sebastian’s martyrdom with the killing of a contemporary gay martyr, Matthew Shepard (1976-1998). Shepard was a student at the University of Wyoming when he was brutally beaten and left to die by two men who later claimed that they were driven temporarily insane by “gay panic.” His murder led to broadening the US hate-crimes law to cover violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Leveroni is an emerging visual artist living in South Florida. Painting in a Cubist style, he portrays the suffering gay martyrs in a subdued way with barely a trace of blood. A variety of male nudes and religious paintings can be seen on Leveroni’s website.
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Related links:

The Allure of St. Sebastian (Wild Reed)

Not Dead Yet: St Sebastian as Role Model (Queering the Church)

New art film by Tony O'Connell highlights queer saints, Sebastian and homophobic violence for All Saints Day (Jesus in Love)

The Martyrdom Of Saint Sebastian, In Ascending Order Of Sexiness And Descending Order Of Actual Martyring (The Toast)

James Fenton on the lure of Saint Sebastian (Guardian)

Yukio Mishima and St. Sebastian (Partially Examined Life)

Anglican Church consecrates oratory in favor of homosexuals (Brazil)

“Peter Hujar Dreaming” (St. Sebastian image by David Wojnarowicz - warning: sexually explicit)

St. Sebastian (LGBT Catholic Handbook)

San Sebastián: Historia de icono gay primero (Santos Queer)


Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Welcome: Jesus in Love Blog has a new look

January 25, 2016, 4:03 pm

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Welcome to the new look of the Jesus in Love Blog.

The blog is now upgraded to a cool new “template” that should make it more accessible to readers who use mobile devices. It’s also wider to fit today’s most common computer screens.

The new template uses purple and lavender, colors that are often associated with LGBTQ people.

Please let me know what you think about the new format.

Here is a screen shot of the old look so you can see the difference.

David Kato: Ugandan LGBT rights activist and martyr

January 26, 2016, 8:13 am

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“David Kato” by Rod Byatt

David Kato, Ugandan LGBT rights activist, is considered a father of Uganda’s gay rights movement. He was beaten to death on this date (Jan. 26, 2011) in a case that some blame on anti-gay religious rhetoric.

David Kato

It is especially important to carry on Kato’s legacy now with legal rights diminishing for LGBT people in many places across the Africa. Laws against homosexuality made news n Africa countries such as Uganda, Nigeria and Gambia. (See links at the end of this article.)

Many have heard of the 45 Ugandan Martyrs who were killed for their Christian faith and canonized as saints. Kato can be seen as a new kind of Ugandan martyr, killed for the cause of LGBT equality.

American evangelicals helped stir up the hostility that led to Kato’s death because they promoted a law imposing the death penalty for homosexuality. The influence of the US evangelical movement in promoting the anti-homosexuality law is explored in the award-winning 2013 documentary “God Loves Uganda.” Watch the trailer below or on YouTube.



Shortly before his murder, Kato won a lawsuit against a Ugandan magazine for identifying him as gay and calling for his execution. Kato’s murderer was sentenced to 30 years in prison, but the anti-gay motive for the murder was covered up in the trial.

A documentary about Kato, “Call Me Kuchu,” premiered in 2012 at the Berlin Film Festival. Watch the trailer for the video below.  "Kuchu" is the term used in Uganda for LGBT people.


Call Me Kuchu - Trailer from Call Me Kuchu on Vimeo.

Below is a news video about Kato from “The Rachel Maddow Show.” It includes scenes from Kato’s funeral, where Ugandan clergy speak both for and against LGBT rights, and David’s own voice in an NPR interview about homosexuality in Uganda.

Australian artist Rod Byatt drew the portrait of David Kato above. The stark, unfinished quality of the portrait conveys the sense of a life cut short. Byatt posted it on his blog **gasp!** (Gay Artists’ Sketchbook Project) with a reflection that begins, “We grieve over the loss of David Kato. We know that being gay is anathema to Family, Church and State, and increasingly The Media...” Byatt is part of the Urban Sketching movement that seeks to link personal identity to broader social issues.

On the anniversary of his murder, may those who honor David Kato’s legacy continue to work for justice and equality for all. May he find peace with all the other LGBT martyrs and saints who have gone before.



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Related links:

Portrait of David Kato by Random Salmon

David Kato Kisule at the Legacy Project

Powerful Documentary ‘Call Me Kuchu’ Examines the Lives of Uganda’s Brave Gay Activists (Towelroad)

They will say we are not here (New York Times, Jan. 25, 2012)

In Uganda, a “Fearless Voice” for Gay Rights is Brutally Silenced (Wild Reed Blog)

David Kato: A new Ugandan martyr (Queer Saints and Martyrs - And Others)

Uganda Martyrs raise questions on homosexuality, religion and LGBT rights (Jesus in Love)

Martyrs of Uganda (Walking with Integrity Blog)

Ugandan Activist David Kato Never to be Forgotten (O-blog-dee-o-blog-da)


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Recent news reports on anti-gay laws in Africa

Mapping anti-gay laws in Africa (Amnestry International)

Uganda planning new anti-gay law despite opposition (BBC.com)

Another African nation to enact anti-gay law (Gambia) (msnbc.com)

Nigeria Tries to ‘Sanitize’ Itself of Gays (New York Times)

Shock Amongst Gays in Nigeria as President signs Jail-The-Gays law (O-blog-dee-o-blog-da)


Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Holocaust Remembrance: We all wear the triangle

January 27, 2016, 9:00 am

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A gay priest killed in the Holocaust appears in the icon
"Holy Priest Anonymous one of Sachsenhausen"

By William Hart McNichols ©

www.fatherbill.org

International Holocaust Remembrance Day honors the victims of the Nazi era, including the estimated 5,000 to 60,000 sent to concentration camps for homosexuality. The United Nations set the date as Jan. 27 -- the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp.

Established by the UN in 2005, International Holocaust Remembrance Day recalls the state-sponsored extermination of 6 million Jews and 11 million others deemed inferior by the Nazis, including 2.5 million Poles and other Slavic peoples, Soviet prisoners of war, Gypsies and others not of the "Aryan race," the mentally ill, the disabled, LGBT people, and religious dissidents such as Jehovah's Witnesses and Catholics. Holocaust Remembrance Day aims to help prevent future genocides.

The date chosen is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp, by Soviet troop on Jan. 27, 1945.

Approximcately 100,000 men were arrested from 1933 and 1945 under Paragraph 175, the German law against homosexuality. They were imprisoned or sent to concentration camps. Only about 4,000 survived.

Artists who address LGBT deaths in the holocaust (or “homocaust”) include Tony O’Connell, Mary Button, William Hart McNichols, Richard Grune, John Bittinger Klomp and those who designed the world's dozens of memorials to LGBT Holocaust victims. Their art is featured here today.

The defeat of the Nazis brought liberation for most prisoners in the concentration camps, but some of those accused of homosexuality were re-imprisoned in post-war Germany based on evidence found by the Nazis.

The world's first LGBT Holocaust memorial was the Homomonument, opened in 1987 in the Netherlands. Queer British artist Tony O’Connell made a photo and video record of his prayers and offerings at the Homomonument in Amsterdam on Christmas Day 2014 as part of his contemporary performance art series of LGBT pilgrimages.

Holocaust Memorial Pilgrimage to Homomonument in Amsterdam by Tony O'Connell

O'Connell visits historical sites such as to the Harvey Milk Metro station in San Francisco, New York City's Stonewall Inn, and the Alan Turing Memorial Bench in Manchester. Democratizing the idea of sacredness and reclaiming the holiness in ordinary life, especially in LGBT experience, are major themes in O'Connell's work. Based in Liverpool, O’Connell was raised in the Roman Catholic church, but has been a practicing Buddhist since 1995. For more info about O’Connell’s art, see my previous post Codebreaker Alan Turing honored in queer pilgrimage by artist Tony O’Connell.

Persecution of LGBT people during the Holocaust is juxtaposed with Jesus falling under the weight of his cross in the image at the top of this post: Station 3 from “Stations of the Cross: The Struggle For LGBT Equality” by Mary Button. The painting features headshots of men who were arrested for homosexuality under Paragraph 175 of the German criminal code and sent to concentration camps between 1933 and 1945.

Jesus falls the first time and Nazis ban homosexual groups in Station 3 from “Stations of the Cross: The Struggle For LGBT Equality” by Mary Button, courtesy of Believe Out Loud

Using bold colors and collage, Button puts Jesus' suffering into a queer context by matching scenes from his journey to Golgotha with milestones from the last 100 years of LGBT history. For an overview of all 15 paintings in the LGBT Stations series, see my article LGBT Stations of the Cross shows struggle for equality.

Richard Grune, a Bauhuas-trained German artist sent to Nazi concentration camps for homosexuality, also saw a connection between Christ’s Passion and the suffering of people in the camps. After being imprisoned in Sachsenhausen and Flossenbürg, he created “Passion of the 20th Century,” a set of lithographs depicting the nightmare of life in the camps. Published in 1947, it is considered one of the most important visual records of the camps to appear in the immediate postwar years.

“Solidarity.” Richard Grune lithograph from a limited edition series “Passion des XX Jahrhunderts” (Passion of the 20th Century). Grune was prosecuted under Paragraph 175 and from 1937 until liberation in 1945 was incarcerated in concentration camps. In 1947 he produced a series of etchings detailing what he witnessed in the camps. Grune died in 1983. (Credit: Courtesy Schwules Museum, Berlin) (US Holocaust Museum)

Willem Ardondeus

A gay Dutch artist who died in the Holocaust was Willem Arondeus (Aug. 22, 1894 - July 1, 1943). He participated in the anti-Nazi resistance movement with openly lesbian cellist Frieda Belinfante and others. Arondeus was openly gay before World War II began and proudly asserted his queer identity in his last message before his execution: “Let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards.”  His life and art are featured in a YouTube video.

The Nazis also denounced and attacked lesbians, but usually less severely and less systematically than they persecuted male homosexuals. Their history is told online in the article Lesbians and the Third Reich at the US Holocaust Museum.Some lesbians claim the black triangle as their symbol. The Nazis imposed the black triangle on people who were sent to concentration camps for being “anti-social.”

Identification pictures of Henny Schermann, a shop assistant in Frankfurt am Main. In 1940 police arrested Henny, who was Jewish and a lesbian, and deported her to the Ravensbrueck concentration camp for women. She was killed in 1942. Ravensbrueck, Germany, 1941. (US Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives)

Nazis used the pink triangle to identify male prisoners sent to concentration camps for homosexuality. Originally intended as a badge of shame, the pink triangle has become a symbol of pride for the LGBT rights movement.

A recent painting on the theme is “Pink Triangle” by John Bittinger Klomp, a gay artist based in Florida.

“Pink Triangle” by John Bittinger Klomp, 2012

“The Pink Triangle was part of the system of triangles used by the Nazis during World War II to denote various peoples they deemed undesirable, and included Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses and homosexuals,” Klomp said. The painting is part of his “Gay Dictionary Series” on words and symbols related to being gay.

The pink triangle appears in a variety of monuments that have been built around the world to commemorate LBGT victims of the Nazi regime. In January 2014 Israel'sfirst memorial for LGBT victims of the Holocaust was unveiled in Tel Aviv. Since 1984, more than 20 gay Holocaust memorials have been established in places ranging from San Francisco to Sydney, from Germany to Uruguay. Some are in the actual concentration camp sites, such as the plaque for gay victims in Dachau pictured below.

Plaque for gay victims at Dachau concentration camp by nilexuk

To see powerful photos of all the queer Holocaust memorials and read the stories behind them, visit:
http://andrejkoymasky.com/mem/holocaust/ho08.html

The logo for the Jesus in Love Blog also shows the face of Jesus in a pink triangle. He joins queer people in transforming suffering into power.

The last surviving man to wear the pink triangle in the concentration camps was Rudolf Brazda, who died in 2011 at age 98. His story is told in the video below and in his obituary at the New York Times.




Another of those who wore the pink triangle was an anonymous 60-year-old gay priest, brutally beaten to death because he refused to stop praying at the concentration camp in Sachsenhausen, Germany. Eyewitness Heinz Heger reported that the murder was so brutal that “I felt I was witnessing the crucifixion of Christ in modern guise.”

The priest is honored in the icon at the top of this post, “Holy Priest Anonymous One of Sachsenhausen.” It was painted by Father William Hart McNichols, a New Mexico artist and Catholic priest who was rebuked by church leaders for making LGBT-affirming icons of unapproved saints. His Anonymous Priest of Sachsenhausen icon appears in his book “The Bride: Images of the Church,” which he co-authored with peace activist Daniel Berrigan.

Here is the beginning of his tragic story, as told by Heger in his book The Men With the Pink Triangle.

Toward the end of February, 1940, a priest arrived in our block, a man some 60 years of age, tall and with distinguished features. We later discovered that he came from Sudetenland, from an aristocratic German family.

He found the torment of the arrival procedure especially trying, particularly the long wait naked and barefoot outside the block. When his tonsure was discovered after the shower, the SS corporal in charge took up a razor and said "I'll go to work on this one myself, and extend his tonsure a bit." And he saved the priest's head with the razor, taking little trouble to avoid cutting the scalp. quite the contrary.

The priest returned to the day-room of our lock with his head cut open and blood streaming down. His face was ashen and his eyes stared uncomprehendingly into the distance. He sat down on a bench, folded his hands in his lap and said softly, more to himself than to anyone else: "And yet man is good, he is a creature of God!"

The book goes on to recount in heartbreaking detail how the Nazis tortured the priest, hurling anti-gay slurs and beating him to death. More excerpts are available at the Queering the Church Blog in a post titled The Priest With the Pink Triangle.

The award-winning 1979 play “Bent” by Martin Sherman helped increase awareness of Nazi persecution of gays, leading to more historical research and education. A film version of “Bent” was made in 1997 with an all-star British cast including Clive Owen, Mick Jagger and Jude Law. Its title comes from the European slang word “bent” used as a slur for homosexuals.

The 2000 documentary film “Paragraph 175” tells the stories of several gay men and one lesbian who were persecuted by the Nazis, including interviews with some of the last survivors.

In recent years new memoirs of gay Holocaust survivors have been published and queer theory has brought new understanding of the Gay Holocaust as not just atrocities, but also a system of social control. Valuable books include:

I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual: A Memoir of Nazi Terror by Pierre Seel (2011)

Lost Intimacies: Rethinking Homosexuality under National Socialism by William J. Spurlin (2008)

An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin by Gad Beck (2000)

"The Hidden Holocaust?: Gay and Lesbian Persecution in Germany 1933-45” by Gunter Grau (1995)

The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals by Richard Plant (1988) -- first comprehensive book on the subject

“Homosexuality d Male Bonding in Pre-Nazi Germany: The Youth Movement, the Gay Movement, and Male Bonding Before Hitler’s Rise” by Hubert Kennedy (1992)

Josef Jaeger by Jere' M Fishback (young adult novel based partly on the life of Jürgen Ohlsen, Nazi propaganda film star who turned out to be gay)


International Holocaust Remembrance Day is observed here with the prayer “We All Wear the Triangle” by Steve Carson. It appears in the book “Equal Rites: Lesbian and Gay Worship, Ceremonies, and Celebrations.” Carson was ordained by Metropolitan Community Churches and served congregations in New York, Boston and San Francisco.
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One: We are in many ways a culture without memory. The Holocaust, a series of events that occurred just over a generation ago, changed the world forever. Yet by some the Holocaust is forgotten, or seen as irrelevant, or even viewed as something that never happened.

All: As people of faith, we refuse to forget. We refuse to participate in the erasing of history. As a community of faith, we decide to remember, as we hear the historical record from Europe a generation ago and reflect upon events in our own time. We dare to listen to the voices of the past, even as they echo today.

One: In this moment, we are all Jews wearing the yellow Star of David.

All: We are all homosexuals wearing the pink triangle.

One: We are all political activists wearing the red triangle.

All: We are all criminals wearing the green triangle.

One: We are all antisocials wearing the black triangle.

All: We are all Jehovah’s Witnesses wearing the purple triangle.

One: We are all emigrants wearing the blue triangle.

All: We are all gypsies wearing the brown triangle.

One: We are all undesirable, all extendable by the state.

…Leader: To God of both memory and hope, we pledge ourselves to be a people of resistance to the powers of death wherever they may appear, to honor the living and the dead, and to make with them our promise: Never again!

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Related links:

Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals 1933-45 (US Holocaust Museum)

Lesbians and the Third Reich (US Holocaust Museum)

Pink Triangle (Qualia Encyclopedia of Gay Folklife)

Pink Triangle at the Legacy Walk

Persecution of Homosexuals in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust (Wikipedia)

Holocaust Memorial Day: The Nazi Bid to Exterminate Gay People by Peter Tatchell (Huffington Post)

The Holocaust's Forgotten Victims: The 5 Million Non-Jewish People Killed By The Nazis by Louise Ridley (Huffington Post)


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This post is part of the GLBT Saints series at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints, martyrs, heroes and holy people of special interest to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

Brigid and Darlughdach: Celtic saint loved her female soulmate

February 1, 2016, 8:15 am

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“Saint Brighid and Darlughdach of Kildare” by Rowan Lewgalon and Tricia Danby (tir-anam.weebly.com)

Saint Brigid and her soulmate Darlughdach were sixth-century Irish nuns who brought art, education and spirituality to early medieval Ireland. Brigid (c.451-525) shares her name and feast day (Feb. 1) with a Celtic goddess -- and she may have been the last high priestess of the goddess Brigid.  Her followers still keep a flame burning for her.

Raised by Druids, Brigid seems to have made a smooth transition from being a pagan priestess to a Christian abbess. Today she is Ireland’s most famous female saint. Her name is also spelled Bridget.  Legend says that when she made her final vows as a nun, the bishop in charge was so overcome by the Holy Spirit that he administered the rite for ordaining a (male) bishop instead.

A younger nun named Darlughdach served as Brigid’s ambassador and her “anam cara” or soul friend. The two women were so close that they slept in the same bed. Like many Celtic saints, Brigid believed that each person needs a soul friend to discover together that God speaks most powerfully in the seemingly mundane details of shared daily life. The love between these two women speaks to today’s lesbians and their allies. Some say that Brigid and Darlughdach are lesbian saints.

Brigid started convents all over Ireland and became the abbess of the “double monastery” (housing both men and women) at Kildare. Built on land that was previously sacred to her divine namesake, the monastery included an art school for creating illuminated manuscripts.

After Brigid turned 70, she warned Darlughdach that she expected to die soon. Her younger soulmate begged to die at the same time. Brigid wanted her to live another year so she could succeed her as abbess. Brigid died of natural causes on Feb. 1, 525. The bond between the women was so close that Darlughdach followed her soulmate in death exactly one year later on Feb. 1, 526.

Both Christians and pagans celebrate St. Brigid’s Day on Feb. 1. It is also known as Imbolc, a spring festival when the goddess Brigid returns as the bride of spring in a role similar to the Greek Persephone. People still celebrate her day by weaving twigs into a square “Brigid’s Cross,” an ancient solar symbol traditionally made to welcome spring.

Brigid’s main symbol was fire, representing wisdom, poetry, healing and metallurgy. The nuns at the Kildare monastery kept a perpetual fire burning in Brigid’s memory for more than a thousand years -- until 1540 when it was extinguished in Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries.

The Order of St. Brigid was reestablished in 1807. Two Brigidine sisters returned to Kildare and relit the fire in the market square for the first time in more than 400 years on Feb. 1, 1993. The perpetual flame is now kept at the Solas Bhride (Brigid’s Light) Celtic Spirituality Center that they founded there. In addition, anyone may sign up to tend St. Brigid’s flame in their own homes through the Ord Brighideach Order of Flame Keepers.

Two Celtic Christian artists based in Germany collaborated on the sensuously spiritual portrait of Brigid and Darlughdach at the top of this post. On the left is Darlughdach, painted as a fiery redhead by Rowan Lewgalon, and on the right is fair-haired Brighid, painted by Tricia Danby. Lewgalon and Danby are both clerics in the Old Catholic Apostolic Church as well as spiritual artists whose work is online at tir-anam.weebly.com.

"Saints Brigid and Darlughdach of Kildare"

By Brother Robert Lentz, OFM. © 1999

trinitystores.com

Brigid and Darlughdach are shown with their arms around each other in the above icon by Brother Robert Lentz. He is a Franciscan friar and world-class iconographer known for his progressive icons. The two women are dressed in the white gowns worn by Druid priestesses and Celtic nuns. Flames burn above them and on the mandala of Christ that they carry. It is one of 40 icons featured in his book Christ in the Margins.

The icon was commissioned by the Living Circle, a Chicago-based interfaith spirituality center for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) community and their friends. Four Living Circle members took the original icon to Kildare with them in 2000 for the flame-lighting ceremony at the recently excavated site of Brigid’s ancient fire temple.

Dennis O’Neill, the priest who founded the Living Circle, includes the icon and an in-depth biography of Brigid and Darlughdach in his book “Passionate Holiness: Marginalized Christian Devotions for Distinctive People.”

Brigid’s spirit of fun and hospitality is expressed in her reputation for loving beer. She made beer for the poor every Easter. In a well known poem attributed to Brigid, she envisioned heaven as a great lake of beer. Here are some of the words to St. Brigid’s Prayer, as translated and performed by Irish singer Noirin Ni Riain:

I’d sit with the men, the women of God
There by the lake of beer
We’d be drinking good health forever
And every drop would be a prayer.

Riain also sings a heavenly Ode To Bridget on the video below and on her Celtic Soul album.


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Related links:

February 1st: Celebrate Brigit's Day by Diann Neu (WATER)

Santa Brigid y Darlughdach: Irlandés santo amaba a su alma amiga (Santos Queer)
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Icons of Brigid and Darlughdach and many others are available on cards, plaques, T-shirts, mugs, candles, mugs, and more at Trinity Stores

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This post is part of the GLBT Saints series at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints and holy people of special interest to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

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New LGBTQ Christian books: “Brother-Making in Late Antiquity" and “Two Pews from Crazy”

February 3, 2016, 8:12 am

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New LGBTQ Christian books this month range from ancient brother-making rites to the challenges faced by a lesbian pastor today.

They are “Brother-Making in Late Antiquity and Byzantium: Monks, Laymen, and Christian Ritual” by Claudia Rapp and “Two Pews from Crazy” by Cyd Andrews-Looper.

History


“Brother-Making in Late Antiquity and Byzantium: Monks, Laymen, and Christian Ritual” by Claudia Rapp

A scholarly book examines a medieval ritual that has been seen as an ancient same-sex wedding. Gay historian John Boswell said that adelphopoiesis was a church rite for blessing same-sex unions in pre-modern Europe. This comprehensive study presents evidence on how the brother-making rite is different from marriage. For example, it offers more equality than heterosexual marriage. The author says the rite was “not created for the purpose of sanctioning and sanctifying homosexual relationships… although… this evaluation of the historical evidence does in no way undermine the legitimacy of seeking recognition for same-sex partnerships in current societies.” She is professor of Byzantine studies at the University of Vienna in Austria. From Oxford University Press.



Memoir and biography


“Two Pews from Crazy: My Insane Journey from Christian Fundamentalism to a Faith of Love Alone--LGBTQ Minister” by Cyd Andrews-Looper.

A lesbian pastor raised Baptist and ordained by the United Church of Christ tells the ups and downs of her journey, including adopting a child, losing three different partners, the pain of church politics and the power of God in her life. Short, easy-to-read chapters show her sense of humor. Endorsed by Soulforce founder Mel White. Published by Get Success Inc. (print) and Ronin Robot Press (Kindle).



Up for discussion


“An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures” by Ann Cvetkovich.

American Academy of Religion groups on Queer Studies in Religion and Sacred Text, Theory and Theological Construction invite papers that find theological or biblical applications for the ideas in Ann Cvetkovich’s two books “An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures” and “Depression: A Public Feeling.” Click to read the Call for Papers.

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Related links:

Top 25 LGBTQ Christian books of 2015 named (Jesus in Love)

Top 25 LGBTQ Christian books of 2014 named (Jesus in Love)

Top 20 Gay Jesus books (from Jesus in Love)

Queer Theology book list (from Patrick Cheng)

Jesus in Love Bookstore (includes LGBT Christian classics)

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.

http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Saint Walatta Petros: African nun shared a lifetime bond with a female partner in 17th-century Ethiopia

February 4, 2016, 11:16 am

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Saint Walatta Petros is a 17th-century Ethiopian nun who had an intense lifelong friendship with another nun amd led a successful movement to drive out foreign missionaries.

Controversial evidence of same-sex love in her history is revealed in her biography, which was recently published in English for the first time: “The Life  and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros: A 17th-Century African Biography of an Ethiopian Woman” by Galawdewos.  It is translated and edited by Wendy Belcher, associate professor of African literature at Princeton University, and Michael Kleiner.

Walatta Petros is recognized as a saint by the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church, which honors her for preserving early African Christian beliefs by expelling Jesuit missionaries from Portugal. Her feast day is Nov. 23.

Her biography, written by her disciples just 30 years after her death, is the earliest known book-length biography of an African woman. Written in 1672, it includes the earliest known depiction of same-sex desire among women in sub-Saharan Africa. That section was censored until last year, when the first English translation was published.

Portrait of Walatta Petros (Wikimedia Commons)

Walatta Petros (1592 - 1642) was a noblewoman who married at a young age. Her name is a compound meaning “Daughter of (Saint) Peter” and cannot be shortened. She gave birth to three children who all died in infancy. Then she then left her husband, shaved her head and became a nun.

Walatta Petros’ hair is shaved to prepare her for becoming a nun (Credit: SLUB Mscr.Dresd.Eb.415.e,2)

The biography vividly describes the day she met Eheta Kristos (1601-1649), another noblewoman who had given up married life to become a nun. Her name means “Sister of Christ.” The moment they met sounds like love at first sight:

“As soon as our holy mother Walatta Petros and Eheta Kristos saw each other from afar, love was infused into both their hearts, love for one another, and... they were like people who had known each other beforehand because the Holy Spirit united them.”

Before long they moved in together. The text uses language that evokes a marriage bond, saying that they “lived together in mutual love, like soul and body. From that day onward the two did not separate, neither in times of tribulation and persecution, nor in those of tranquility, but only in death.”

Belcher’s introduction points out that it would be “anachronistic” to identify Walatta Petros as a lesbian because it is a 20th-century Anglo-American term. Instead she says in the introduction that the two nuns were “involved in a lifelong partnership of deep romantic friendship,” noting that and they were committed to celibacy and asceticism.

Indeed the chapter newly translated as “Our Mother Sees Nuns Lusting After Each Other” describes how Walatta Petros objected to such behavior. The saint herself tells the story in the text:

“It was evening and I was sitting in the house, facing the gate, when I saw some young nuns pressing against each other and being lustful with each other, each with a female companion. Therefore my heart caught fire and I began to argue with God, saying to him, ‘Did you put me here to show me this?’”

The footnote in the book explains that the phrase “my heart caught fire” might have a double meaning: “On the surface, it expresses her anger against God for showing her this scene, but the words chosen also suggest that she is angry because she felt desire upon looking at the scene.”

Some Ethiopians reject this interpretation, and Belcher’s website includes a page devoted to the “Controversy over Sexuality in the Gadla Walatta Petros.”

The church that Walatta Petros served was one of the earliest forms of Christianity, the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church. It was established officially in the fourth century but may trace its roots back to the Ethiopian eunuch who was baptized by Philip in the New Testament. There were only a few such pre-colonial Christian churches in the world.

During Walatta Petros’ lifetime, Jesuit missionaries came from Portugal and tried to convert the Ethiopians to Roman Catholicism. The Ethiopians found heresy in some Catholic doctrines, such as Original Sin. Instead the Ethiopians believed in transformation of human beings by grace. Walatta Petros led a successful nonviolent movement that expelled out the Jesuits in 1632 and preserved Ethiopia's ancient form of Christianity.

In addition her biography describes how she founded seven religious communities -- the first in Sudan and the rest around Ethiopia’s large Lake Ṭana.

The account also humanizes the saint with lively dialogue and colorful details from daily life. Some chapter titles reveal that conflicts similar to those encountered by women church leaders today. such as “Male Leaders Work Against Our Mother” and “Envious Monks Attack Our Mother’s Authority.”

Christ gives Walatta Petros souls in the likeness of crystal vessels (Credit: SLUB Mscr.Dresd.Eb.415.e,2)

There are also charming scenes of Walatta Petros’ spiritual life.  Most dramatic is her debate with Christ when he asks her to care for souls that appear in the form of doves and shining crystal vessels.

After more than two decades as a nun, Walatta Petros fell ill and appointed her long-time companion Eheta Kristos as her successor to head the religious community. Walatta Petros died on Nov. 24, 1642 after a three-month illness. She was 50 years old and had spent 26 years as a nun. Belcher points out in her introduction that their loving bond lasted until death:

“Upon her deathbed, Walatta Petros’ last thoughts and words were about her friend, worrying about how Eheta Kristos would fare without her, saying three times, ‘She will be disconsolate; she has no other hope than me!’”

Ehelta Kristos went on to lead the community for almost seven years until her own death on April 2, 1649.

There are no known images of Eheta Kristos, but she is undoubtedly one of the mourners in the image of the whole community mourning when Walatta Petros died.

The community grieved for Walatta Petros (from Gadla Walatta Petros MS F, image 64)

Death does not end Walatta Petros’ biography, since it also serves as a hagiography. The book continues with 27 miracles that she performed after she departed to eternal life. They include dramatic healings as well as more down-home assistance such as repairing a broken jar of ale and recovering a stolen book of poems.

Belcher, who spent much of her childhood in Ethiopia and Ghana, learned the Gəˁəz language in order to translate the biography known as Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros. She and Kleiner also worked on the translation with other experts, including an Ethiopian priest. She is one of the few Westerners who have studied the 340-year-old parchment manuscript, which is housed in a monastery near Lake Tana. Belcher visited local nuns and monks while searching for copies of the manuscript at Ethiopia’s remote monasteries.

She discusses Walatta Petros and Eheta Kristos in depth in her lecture on “Same-Sex Intimacies in an Early Modern African Text about an Ethiopian Female Saint,” which is available as a YouTube video. She also has an article coming out on the topic “Same-Sex Intimacies in the Early African Text Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros (1672) about an Ethiopian Female Saint” in Research in African Literatures, June 2016.

The new book on Walatta Petros is lavishly illustrated with images from illuminated manuscripts, some of which are posted here today. This 500-page book is much more than a translation, featuring thousands of footnotes and hundreds of pages of contextual and scholarly information based on comparing twelve different manuscripts.

Some manuscripts and the new book conclude with two praise poems about Walatta Petros. One celebrates the saint from head to toe, including her breasts and womb. The other is a hymn that begins:

Hail to you, Walatta Petros, a garden! Wrapped in heavenly scent,
you are shade for the doves, from the heat of misery
that fills our world.

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Top image: Walatta Petros receives souls in the form of doves as a gift from Christ (Credit: SLUB Mscr.Dresd.Eb.415.e,2)

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This post is part of the LGBT Saints series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints, martyrs, mystics, prophets, witnesses, heroes, holy people, humanitarians, deities and religious figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and queer people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Facebook rejects gay Passion of Christ book ad as pornography

February 8, 2016, 5:57 pm

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Facebook rejected a new ad for our gay Passion of Christ book this week, calling it an “adult product” and referencing their ban on pornography.

“Ads may not promote pornography of any kind, whether artistic or commercial,” states the Facebook guideline referenced in the rejection notice.

Our book is not porn! It is a religious art book that presents the story of Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection from an LGBT viewpoint.

Facebook won’t let us pay to advertise “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision” by myself (Kittredge Cherry) and artist Doug Blanchard. So please send your friend to the book’s website (passionofchristbook.com) and invite them to like its Facebook page.

Paintings in the book depict Jesus as a gay man of today in a modern city. Nudity is similar to standard Christian crucifixion scenes. The only image in the book that might be considered sexually suggestive (but not porn) is when Jesus kisses God during his Ascension to heaven.

The rejected ad shows a shirtless Jesus on the cross with this text: “LGBT Passion of Christ: Meet a modern Jesus in ‘The Passion of Christ.’ Recommended book for Lent and Holy Week.” It links to the book’s website: passionofchristbook.com.

Some ad formats also include this extra text: “Powerful paintings show a gay vision of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Diverse friends go with him from suffering to freedom. Includes 24 paintings and meditations. ‘Accessible but profound.’”

The ad itself doesn’t seem remotely pornographic or sexually suggestive -- unless the censors at Facebook misunderstood the word “Passion.” Do they think it only means sexual desire? “Passion” also means the suffering and death of Jesus.

Do they believe that everything “LGBT” is automatically sexual and pornographic?!

Maybe gay visions of Jesus just scare them.

Strangely Facebook stated that saying “Practice safe sex with our brand of condoms” is OK, while “LGBT Passion of Christ” is obscene.

The LGBT Passion of Christ is apparently more dangerous than safe sex to the censors at Facebook!

Since the ad’s image and text are pretty tame, it seems that Facebook is not just rejecting this particular ad, but ANY ad for the book because they imagine it must be an “adult product.”

This rejection is an important reminder that the gay Passion book is still needed. I forget how radical is to show a queer Christ. I honestly thought this Facebook controversy was behind us.

When the book was first published in 2014, Facebook rejected a different ad for the same book by using a different excuse. They said it was too “shocking” because it showed a wounded Jesus carrying his cross. They claimed it violated their guideline against images that “may shock or evoke a negative response from viewers.” Specifically they stated that it violated their prohibition on images of “dead or dismembered bodies, ghosts, zombies, ghouls and vampires.”

Doug appealed their decision while I contacted the Lambda Legal Defense Fund and the LGBT news media. Facebook backed down and approved the ad after Gay Star News contacted the social networking site for comment. For the whole story, see the previous post “Victory! Facebook approves gay Passion of Christ ad.”

Here is the entire text of this year’s rejection message:

Your ad content violates Facebook Ad Guidelines. Ads are not allowed to promote the sale or use of adult products or services, including toys, videos, publications, live shows or sexual enhancement products. Ads for family planning and contraception are allowed if they follow our targeting requirements.
Before resubmitting your ad, please visit the Help Center [link] to learn more and see examples of ads that meet our guidelines.
If you’ve read the guidelines in the Help Center and think your ad follows the rules and should have been approved, please let us know.

Clicking the “Help Center” link leads to this text:

Adult Products
Ads may not promote pornography of any kind, whether artistic or commercial. Ads may not feature nudity, adult toys, adult products, or images of people participating in activities that are excessively suggestive or sexual in nature.Ads promoting sexual health products or services, such as contraceptives, lubricants, gels, or sexual health resources may be allowed and must be targeted to people over the age of consent for sexual activity in the target jurisdiction or, if applicable, of age to avail of sexual health services and products in that jurisdiction.
Acceptable: "Free condoms at your local student health center.""Practice safe sex with our brand of condoms."
Unacceptable: "Condoms to enhance your pleasure."
To read more, visit the Facebook Advertising Policies.

I planned to get the Passion book ad running before Ash Wednesday (Feb. 10), which begins the Lenten season of prayer and reflection on the Passion of Christ.

Instead I am writing to Facebook appealing their decision. It’s time to contact Lambda Legal and the LGBT news media again too.

You can show support by telling your friends about the website that Facebook won't let us pay to advertise.


****
Update on Feb. 10, 2016

Great news: Facebook approved the ad after I submitted an appeal!

Here is the text of my successful appeal letter:

Please approve my ad for “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision.” The ad does not promote an “adult product” or pornography. It advertises a religious art book that tells the story of Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection from an LGBT Christian viewpoint.

The word “Passion” does not always mean sexual desire. “Passion” also means the suffering and death of Jesus. You can look it up in any dictionary.

As you can see, the ad does not feature nudity or a sexually suggestive situation. It shows a modern Jesus on the cross wearing pants but no shirt.

I don’t understand why you rejected this ad. Do you think everything LGBT is pornography?! It is not.

The artist, the publisher and I are prepared to contact Lambda Legal Defense Fund over this unfair and discriminatory rejection. Thanks for reconsidering my ad.

___
Related links:

Here we go again (Counterlight's Peculiars)

News release Feb. 9, 2016: Facebook rejects gay Passion of Christ book ad as pornography

Facebook rejects gay Passion of Christ book ad as pornography (news release)

February 9, 2016, 5:45 pm

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News release sent today:
LOS ANGELES, CA -- Feb. 9, 2016 -- Facebook rejected an ad for an LGBT book about the Passion of Christ, calling it an “adult product” and pointing out their ban on pornography.

Authors Kittredge Cherry and Doug Blanchard are going to appeal the decision.

“Our book is not porn!” Cherry says. “It is a religious art book that presents the story of Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection from an LGBT viewpoint. Does Facebook believe that everything LGBT is automatically obscene?!”

They had planned to get the Passion book advertisement running tomorrow for Ash Wednesday, Feb. 10.

Paintings in the book depict Jesus as a gay man of today in a modern city. Nudity is similar to standard Christian crucifixion scenes. The only image in the book that might be considered sexually suggestive (but not porn) is when Jesus kisses God during his Ascension to heaven.

The rejected ad shows a shirtless Jesus on the cross with this text: “LGBT Passion of Christ: Meet a modern Jesus in ‘The Passion of Christ.’ Recommended book for Lent and Holy Week.” It links to the book’s website: passionofchristbook.com.

Some ad formats also include this extra text: “Powerful paintings show a gay vision of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Diverse friends go with him from suffering to freedom. Includes 24 paintings and meditations. ‘Accessible but profound.’”

“This rejection is an important reminder that LGBT interpretations of Jesus are still radical and very much needed,” Cherry says.

Douglas Blanchard is a gay artist who teaches art and art history at the Bronx Community College of the City University of New York. Kittredge Cherry is a lesbian author and art historian who founded JesusInLove.org, an online resource for LGBT spirituality and the arts. She was ordained by Metropolitan Community Churches. “The Passion of Christ” (ISBN 194067140X) was published by Apocryphile Press.

For more info, visit the Jesus in Love Blog (www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com) or the book website (passionofchristbook.com).

###

* Book website: www.passionofchristbook.com

RIP Ibrahim Farajajé: Queer theologian, AIDS activist, interfaith scholar, spiritual leader

February 9, 2016, 8:58 pm

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In memory of
Ibrahim Farajajé

queer theologian, HIV/AIDS activist, professor, artist, activist and spiritual leader

Died Feb. 9, 2016

I light a memorial candle for Dr. Ibrahim Abdurrahman Farajajé (formerly Elias Farajajé-Jones), queer theologian, HIV/AIDS activist, professor, artist, activist and spiritual leader.

He died last night (a few minutes after midnight on Feb. 9) surrounded by family and friends at Alta Bates Medical Center in Oakland. He had been hospitalized since mid-January after a massive heart attack. He was 63.

He spent 21 years as professor of cultural studies at the Starr King School for the Ministry, a Unitarian Universalist/Multireligious member school of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. He was planning to retire at the end of the 2016-17 academic year.

I knew him as Elias, and I remember him as a great thinker who embodied fluidity of sexuality, race, religion, language and much more.

His eclectic and seemingly endless scholarly interests included heteronormativity, multireligiosity, transphobia, ‘earthodoxy’-religion and care for the Earth, immigration policies, hasidic/sufi overlaps, death penalty abolition, colonisation, gynephobia, and Buddhist/Muslim intersections. He knew 16 languages. He considered himself to be a “scholartivist” -- scholar, artist, activist and spiritual leader.

Elias made a big impression on me personally when I first heard him speak at a Metropolitan Community Church conference in the 1990s.

I took the initiative and invited him to submit a liturgy for “Equal Rites: Lesbian and Gay Worship, Ceremonies and Celebrations.” As co-editor of the book, I worked to ensure that his unique voice was included in the book.

In his bio for the book, he described himself as “a queer-identified bisexual / two-spirit person” of African and Cherokee ancestry.

As I remember it, Elias was the last of about 30 contributors to submit his manuscript. I was thrilled when it came by fax in a large typeface, using up the entire roll of fax paper!

It was titled “Invocation of Remembrance, Healing and Empowerment in a Time of AIDS.” His opening words then are strikingly appropriate as we celebrate the life of the theologian who wrote them:

To the living and the dead, we bear witness. We gather in an act of remembrance of all of our ancestors and in a particular way of all those LGBT people of color who have died in the struggle with AIDS, breast cancer, and ovarian cancer, but also of those who were denied adequate health care and were target of racism, sexism, poverty, violence, homohatred, and other evils. Ours is a remembrance rooted in a spirit of solidarity and a spirit of resistance -- a resistance that strengthens and empowers us to live and act boldly….

He also wrote the foreword to “Sexuality, Religion and the Sacred: Bisexual, Pansexual and Polysexual Perspectives,” edited by Loraine Hutchins and H. Sharif Williams (2012).

His voice lives on in a video interview and in the hearts of those who knew him.


___
Related links:

News brief: Starr King announces death of provost Ibrahim Farajajé (Unitarian Universalist World)

Oral history of Ibrahim Farajajé (LGBT Religious Archives Network)

Our Great Loss (sksm.edu)

Ibrahim Baba: May His Memory be a Blessing (chochmat.org) - includes memorial service info

____
This post is part of the GLBT Saints series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints, martyrs, mystics, prophets, witnesses, heroes, holy people, humanitarians, deities and religious figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and queer people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Ash Wednesday: Queer martyrs rise from the ashes

February 10, 2016, 9:48 am

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Today on Ash Wednesday queer martyrs rise from the ashes as we recall the thousands who were executed for homosexuality throughout history.

This is not just a historical issue. The death penalty for homosexuality continues today in 10 countries (Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Mauritania, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, and United Arab Emirates).

Christians traditionally put ashes on their foreheads as a sign of repentance on Ash Wednesday. It is an appropriate time to reflect on the sins of the church and state against queer people, including the burning of “sodomites” and thousands of executions for homosexuality over the past 800 years.

Some of the executions for sodomy were recorded by artists, either long ago or in recent times. This post features images, both new and historical, to remember and honor those whose lives were desecrated and cut short.

The whole sad history of church- or state-sanctioned executions of queer people stretches from the 13th century almost to the present. For the first 1,000 years of church history, Christianity was relatively tolerant of homoerotic relationships.

Then came campaigns of terror that started to use the terms “heresy” and “sodomy” interchangeably.  Eventually hostility began to be directed at same-sex erotic behavior in particular. Terence Weldon of Queering the Church discusses the fateful period when the atrocities began in a well researched overview titled “Lest We Forget: The Ashes of Our Martyrs”:

In 1120, the Church Council of Nablus specified burning at the stake for homosexual acts. Although this penalty may not immediately have been applied, other harsh condemnations followed rapidly. In 1212, the death penalty for sodomy was specified in in France. Before long the execution of supposed “sodomites”, often by burning at the stake, but also by other harsh means, had become regular practice in many areas.

The church contributed to the deaths of thousands for homosexuality over the next 700 years. Witch burning occurred in the same period and claimed the lives of countless lesbian women whose non-conformity was condemned as witchcraft. (Current events in Uganda and elsewhere prove that some are STILL using Christianity to justify the death penalty for homosexuality up to the present day.) As Weldon concludes:

Obviously, the Catholic Church cannot be held directly responsible for the judicial sentences handed down by secular authorities in Protestant countries. It can, however, be held responsible for its part in fanning the flames of bigotry and hatred in the early part of the persecution, using the cloak of religion to provide cover for what was in reality based not on Scripture or the teaching of the early Church, but on simple intolerance and greed.

It is important as gay men, lesbians and transgendered that we remember the examples of the many who have in earlier times been honoured by the Church as saints or martyrs for the faith. It is also important that we remember the example of the many thousands who have been martyred by the churches – Catholic and other.

Sodomy is often considered a male issue, but the facts of history make clear that queer women were persecuted under sodomy laws too. The meaning of sodomy has changed a lot over the centuries. The “sin of Sodom” in the Bible was described as arrogance and failure to care for travelers and the poor.

“Catharina Margaretha Linck, executed for sodomy in Halberstadt in 1721” by Elke R. Steiner. Steiner’s work is based on Angela Steidele’s book"In Männerkleidern. Das verwegene Leben der Catharina Margaretha Linck alias Anastasius Lagrantinus Rosenstengel, hingerichtet 1721." Biographie und Dokumentation. Cologne: Böhlau, 2004. ("In Men's Clothes: The Daring Life of Catharina Margaretha Linck alias Anastasius Rosenstengel, Executed 1721.")

German artist Elke R. Steiner illustrates the last known execution for lesbianism in Europe. Born in 1694, Catharina Margaretha Linck lived most of her life as a man under the name Anastasius. She was beheaded for sodomy on Nov. 8, 1721 in Halberstadt in present-day Germany. Linck worked at various times as a soldier, textile worker and a wandering prophet with the Pietists. She married a woman in 1717. Her mother-in-law reported her to authorities, who convicted her of sodomy with a "lifeless instrument," wearing men's clothes and multiple baptisms. The subject is grim, but Steiner adds an empowering statement: “But even were I to be done away with, those who are like me would remain.”

“Catharina aka Anastasius Linck” by Ria Brodell

Genderqueer Boston artist Ria Brodell portrays Linck and several other historical women who were killed for sodomy in her “Butch Heroes” series. They include Katherina Hetzeldorfer of Germany, drowned in 1477 for female sodomy, and Lisbetha Olsdotter aka Mats Ersson of Sweden, who was decapitated in 1679 for cross-dressing and other crimes.

“The Shameful End of Bishop Atherton and his Proctor John Childe,” hanged for sodomy in 1641 in Dublin (Wikimedia Commons)

John Atherton, Anglican bishop of Waterford and Lismore, and his lover John Childe were hanged for “buggery” in 1640 in Dublin, Ireland. The bishop was executed under a law that he helped to institute! The picture comes from an anonymous 1641 booklet titled “The Shameful End of Bishop Atherton and his Proctor John Childe.” The title tries to shame and blame the victims, but the shame belongs to the church and society who killed them for who and how they loved.

Balboa executing two-spirit Native Americans for homosexuality in 1513 in Panama -- engraving by Théodore De Bry, 1594 (Wikimedia Commons).  

The Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa found homosexual activity among the Native American chiefs at Quarqua in Panama. He ordered 40 of these two-spirited people thrown to his war dogs to be torn apart and eaten alive to stop the “stinking abomination.” Executions for homosexuality continued during the “Mexican Inquisition,” an extension of the Spanish Inquisition into the New World. In one of the most notorious examples, 14 men were executed by public burning on Nov. 6, 1658 in Mexico City.

The knight of Hohenberg and his servant, accused of sodomy, were executed by burning in Zürich in 1482. (Wikimedia Commons)

The knight of Hohenberg and his servant, accused sodomites, were executed by burning before the walls of Zurich, Switzerland in 1482. Source: Diebold Schilling, Chronik der Burgunderkriege, Schweizer Bilderchronik, Band 3, um 1483 (Zürich, Zentralbibliothek)

Execution of sodomites in Ghent in 1578 -- drawing by Franz Hogenberg (Wikimedia Commons)

Five Catholic monks were burned to death for homosexuality on June 28, 1578, in Ghent, Belguim.

"Timely Punishment..." shows Dutch massacre of sodomites in Amsterdam in 1730-31 (Wikimedia Commons)

A total of 96 gay men were executed for sodomy in the Netherlands years 1730-31.

More recent examples include the Holocaust or "homocaust" of persecution by the Nazis, who sent an estimated 5,000 to 60,000 to concentration camps for homosexuality. Executions on homosexuality charges in Iran continued to make news multiple times since 2011.

Many more die in attacks fueled by religion-based hate, including those killed in the arson fire at the UpStairs Lounge, a gay bar in New Orleans.

Milder forms of anti-LGBT persecution continue in the church. Now it is common to freeze LGBT people out of church leadership positions. Gay pastor and author Chris Glaser writes about the exclusion from clergy roles as a “fast imposed by others” in the following prayer based on the practice of fasting during Lent, the season of individual and collective repentance and reflection between Ash Wednesday and Easter.

One: Jesus,
     our fast has been imposed by others,
     our wilderness sojourn their choice more than ours.
Many: Our fast from the sacraments,
     our fast from ordination:
     our only choice was honesty.
One: With the scapegoats of the ancient Hebrews,
     sexual sins of generations
     have been heaped upon our backs,
     and we have been sent away,
     excommunicated, into the wilderness to die.
Many: Yet we choose life,
     even in our deprivation
One: Jesus, lead us to discern our call
     parallel to your own:
     rebelling against the boundaries,
     questioning the self-righteous authorities,
     breaking the Sabbath law
     to bring healing.


This prayer comes from “Rite for Lent” by Chris Glaser, published in Equal Rites: Lesbian and Gay Worship, Ceremonies, and Celebrations. Glaser spent 30 years struggling with the Presbyterian Church for the right to ordination as an openly gay man before he was ordained to the ministry in Metropolitan Community Churches in 2005. He writes progressive Christian reflections at chrisglaser.blogspot.com.

“Faggots We May Be,” a 2015 poem by Georgia poet S. Alan Fann, makes connections between gay men burned to death, global warming and the Rainbow Christ.

It is horrifying to remember the "burning times," especially for those LGBT people who consider themselves part of the Christian tradition. Let us rise from the ashes with these verses from the Bible:

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
For thou hast no delight in sacrifice; were I to give a burnt offering, thou wouldst not be pleased.
[Psalm 51: 10, 17]

Is such the fast that I choose,
a day for a you to humble yourself?
Is it to bow down your head like a rush,
and to spread sackcloth and ashes under you?
Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to God?
Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up speedily.
[Isaiah 58:5-8]

___
Top image credit: Dutch massacre of sodomites, detail (Wikimedia Commons)
___
Related links:

“Burned for sodomy” (Queering the Church)

Lest We Forget: The Ashes of Our Martyrs (Queering the Church)

The blood-soaked thread (Wild Reed)

List of people executed for homosexuality (Wikipedia)

LGBT Victims (Gay History Wiki)

List of unlawfully killed transgender people (Wikipedia)

Victims of anti-LGBT hate crimes (Wikipedia)

“Victims of Hate” gallery on Facebook

Here are the 10 countries where homosexuality may be punished by death (Washington Post, Feb. 24, 2014)

Significant acts of violence against LGBT people (Wikipedia)

BURN BABY BURN: A Knight, a Squire, a Bishop, a Steward, Five RC Monks and Millions of murders initiated by bigots at Church! (Eruptions at the Foot of the Volcano Blog)

The Gay Holocaust (Matt and Andrej Koymasky)

Catharina Margaretha Linck, Executed for Sodomy (Queering the Church)

A History of Homophobia, 3 The Later Roman Empire & The Early Middle Ages (Rictor Norton)

A History of Homophobia, 4 Gay Heretics and Witches" (Rictor Norton)

Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook (Rictor Norton, editor)

“Pilloried” - a poem by Andrew Craig Williams

Queering All Saints and All Souls, Celebrating the Queer Body of Christ by Adam Ackley (Huff Post) (litany also suitable for Ash Wednesday)

Blessing the Dust: A Blessing for Ash Wednesday by Jan Richardson

Iran's New Gay Executions (Daily Beast, 8/12/2014)
"Two men, Abdullah Ghavami Chahzanjiru and Salman Ghanbari Chahzanjiri, were hanged in southern Iran on August 6, possibly for consensual sodomy..."

Four Iranian men due to be hanged for sodomy (Pink News, 5/12/2012)
"Iran court sentenced four men… to death by hanging for sodomy… named ‘Saadat Arefi’, ‘Vahid Akbari’, ‘Javid Akbari’ and ‘Houshmand Akbari.’"

Iran executes three men on homosexuality charges (guardian.com 9/7/2011)

International Holocaust Remembrance Day: We all wear the triangle (Jesus in Love)

Ex-gay movement as genocide (Jesus in Love)

Book: Homosexuality and Civilization by Louis Crompton
____
This post is part of the LGBT Holidays series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series celebrates religious and spiritual holidays, holy days, feast days, festivals, anniversaries, liturgical seasons and other occasions of special interest to LGBT and queer people of faith and our allies.

Success: Facebook approves controversial ad for gay Passion of Christ book

February 11, 2016, 10:51 am

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Great news: Facebook reversed its decision and approved the controversial ad for our book "The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision" yesterday on Ash Wednesday.

They rejected it as pornography as reported earlier, but I sent and appeal letter and it worked. The ad is up and running now.

Paintings in the book depict Jesus as a gay man of today in a modern city.

Here is the text of my successful appeal:

Please approve my ad for “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision.” The ad does not promote an “adult product” or pornography. It advertises a religious art book that tells the story of Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection from an LGBT Christian viewpoint.

The word “Passion” does not always mean sexual desire. “Passion” also means the suffering and death of Jesus. You can look it up in any dictionary.

As you can see, the ad does not feature nudity or a sexually suggestive situation. It shows a modern Jesus on the cross wearing pants but no shirt.

I don’t understand why you rejected this ad. Do you think everything LGBT is pornography?! It is not.

The artist, the publisher and I are prepared to contact Lambda Legal Defense Fund over this unfair and discriminatory rejection. Thanks for reconsidering my ad.

And here is Facebook's response. Note: Cherry is my last name, but people get it mixed up all the time and think it's my first name:

Hi Cherry,

Thank you for notifying us about your ad disapproval. We've reviewed your ad again and have determined it complies with our policies. Your ad is now approved.

Your ad is now active and will start delivering soon. You can track your results in Facebook Ads Manager.

Let me know if you need any further clarifications or assistance from me. Have a great day!

Did you find our support helpful? Please give us feedback.

Thanks,

Anna Pebbles

___
Related links:

Facebook rejects gay Passion of Christ book ad as pornography
(Jesus in Love)

Here we go again (Counterlight's Peculiars)

News release Feb. 9, 2016: Facebook rejects gay Passion of Christ book ad as pornography

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15 LGBTQ Christian Valentine’s Day gifts, movies and books

February 11, 2016, 6:46 pm

≫ Next: Brothers by affection: Saints Polyeuct and Nearchus

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Celebrate Valentine’s Day the LGBTQ Christian way with this list of 15 gifts and movies.

Show love to your sweetheart in a style that honors both LGBTQ identity and Christian spirituality. These unique finds can express LGBTQ romance without forcing couples to forget their faith. They range from the silly to the sublime, devout to semi-secular, subtle subtexts to out-and-proud.

Use this diverse guide to treat your beloved (or yourself!) with these gifts, and snuggle together to binge on date-night movies.

It’s hard enough to track down an LGBTQ film with a happy ending, let alone one that’s religious too. This list includes a few rare exceptions that show same-sex or queer love in a church/faith context without ending in total tragedy.

Do you have other suggestions? Leave a comment and let us know!


1. Movie: “Latter Days”

Gay Mormon romantic dramedy “Latter Days” was the most often-suggested movie for this list. A closeted Mormon missionary moves to Los Angeles to spread his religion. Opposites attract when he meets a handsome West Hollywood party boy, ironically named Christian.





2. Book and Music: “Patience and Sarah” by Isabel Miller

One of the first lesbian historical novels to have a happy ending, “Patience and Sarah” is a classic with Christian themes that are usually overlooked. In 19th-century New England, love blossoms between Patience, an educated painter of Bible scenes, and cross-dressing farmer Sarah. The first picture that Patience paints when they move in together is the embrace of Biblical women Ruth and Naomi. If you read it long ago, it’s well worth a second look.

“I Want to Live,” a duet from the opera based on “Patience and Sarah,” is on the album “Lesbian American Composers.”





3. Book: “The Song of Songs: Love Lyrics from the Bible”

What could be better than erotic love poetry direct from the Bible itself?

Oh, for your kiss! For your love
More enticing than wine,
For your scene and sweet name --

That’s just a small taste of the Song of Songs, one of the most celebrated ancient love poems. Some scholars (such as Angela Yarber and Paul Johnson) believe the Song of Songs may have originally written as same-sex love poetry between two women or two men.

The problem is that almost every book on Songs of Songs imposes a hetero interpretation and spiritualizes it as Christ-Church metaphor. The best version is “The Song of Songs: Love Lyrics from the Bible,” translated by Marcia Falk, a feminist scholar who did her doctoral thesis on Song of Songs. Her book is not cluttered with hetero commentary and its lovely design leaves lots of white space. It even has the Hebrew text on facing pages. Lesbians will feel at home with this woman-oriented edition, but it should work well for almost anyone on the LGBTQ spectrum. The poetry is written as a dialogue between lovers. Try reading it out loud to each other on Valentine’s Day.






4: Shirts: “I love my boyfriend” or “I love my girlfriend” with I Corinthians 13

These bold shirts were not designed for same-sex couples, but they become instantly queer when a gay man wears “I love my boyfriend” or a lesbian wears “I love my girlfriend.” Be sure to order the size for the opposite gender. They’re not just cute. They also boast one of the world’s best known descriptions of love, which happens to come from the Bible: I Corinthians 13: 4-7: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

5. Icon: “Saints Polyeuct and Nearchus”

Some of the oldest role models for LGBTQ couples are same-sex pairs of saints. Third-century Armenian martyrs Polyeuct and Nearchus are a prime example of same-sex lovers in the early church. With their heart-shaped haoes, Polyeuct and Nearchus look the most like Valentines, but other male couples are also available as icons, including Sergius and Bacchus, Biblical heroes David and Jonathan, Russia’s Boris and George and Wenceslas and Podiven. Available on mugs, candles, shirts, cards, plaques, and framed prints, only from TrinityStores.com.

6. Icon: “Saints Perpetua and Felicity”

Saints Perpetua and Felicity look like a black lesbian couple in this icon by Robert Lentz. They were brave North African martyrs who died in each other’s arms in the third century. With their heart-shaped haloes, Felicity and Perpetua look the most like Valentines, but other female couples are also available as icons, including Ireland’s Brigid and Darlughdach and Germany’s Hildegard of Bingen and Richardis. Available on mugs, candles, shirts, cards, plaques, and framed prints, only from TrinityStores.com.







7. Movie: “Strawberry and Chocolate (Fresa y Chocolate)”

In 1980s Cuba, a flamboyant gay artist who paints Christian religious themes befriends a straight Marxist man, amid the background of Santería practices. Diego’s Havana apartment is a combo of a religious shrine, art gallery and library in this bittersweet film. In Spanish with English subtitles.






8. Candy: Rainbow chocolate hearts with mint crosses in Bible-shaped tins

Chocolate makers haven’t caught up with the rising tide of welcoming churches and LGBT people of faith yet, so you’ll have to mix and match to create LGBTQ Christian confection. These rainbow milk chocolate hearts go well with the Bible-shaped tins filled with mint crosses.





9. Movie and book: “Blackbird”

A fervently religious high school choir boy grows up in this interracial gay romance set in the Deep South. Oscar winner Mo’Nique and Isaiah Washington play the parents whose 17-year-old son learns that love is part of God’s plan. The film is based on the first black gay coming-of-age novel, “Blackbird” by Larry Duplechan.





11. Music: “I’m Blessed” by Marsha Stevens-Pino

Openly lesbian contemporary Christian singer-songwriter Stevens-Pino makes same-sex love sound divine in songs such as “I’m Blessed” from her album “I Still Have a Dream”:

God, You’ve given treasure beyond knowing, beyond price,
No one else could ever measure her worth in my life,
And I know it’s not by chance Your mission from above,
I have been entrusted with this woman that You love.





12. Movie and music: “We’re All Angels” with Jason and DeMarco
Gay Christian pop music duo and real-life lovers Jason and DeMarco are profiled in this documentary film. And out their song “This is Love.”





13. Movie, book and music: “The Color Purple”

Love between women is at the heart of this tale of two sisters in America’s rural South: abused child-wife Celie (played by Whoopi Goldberg) and Nettie, a missionary to Africa. Watch for the transformative romance between Celie and Shug Avery. While it’s not focused on institutional religion, much of the novel is structured as letters to God. It includes many down-home spiritual words of wisdom, such as, “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. People think pleasing God is all God cares about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.” Based on the novel by Alice Walker. Now a Broadway musical too.





14. Book: “Inclination” by Mia Kerick

A gay Catholic Korean high school student adopted into an Italian American family falls in love, gets bullied and faces opposition from his church in this young-adult novel by an author who focuses her fiction on the emotional growth of troubled young people.





15. Book: “Jesus in Love” by Kittredge Cherry

A queer Christ has today’s sexual sophistication as he lives the Bible story in first-century Palestine -- including his love for John the beloved disciple, Mary Magdalene and the omni-gendered Holy Spirit. Speaking in first person, Jesus blends male and female as he does humanity and divinity. He transcends gender identity, sexual orientation and ultimately death itself. Virtually all mystical traditions speak of sexual ecstasy as a metaphor for union with the divine, but in Christianity the concept has been buried. “Jesus in Love: A Novel” reclaims this lost treasure.


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Related links:

Top 25 LGBTQ Christian books of 2015 named (Jesus in Love)

Top 25 LGBTQ Christian books of 2014 named (Jesus in Love)

Top 20 Gay Jesus books (from Jesus in Love)


Image credit: Pride Heart (Wikimedia Commons)


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This post is part of the LGBT Calendar series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series celebrates religious and spiritual holidays, holy days, feast days, festivals, anniversaries, liturgical seasons and other occasions of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people of faith and our allies.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Brothers by affection: Saints Polyeuct and Nearchus

February 13, 2016, 9:41 am

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Saints Polyeuct and Nearchus

By Brother Robert Lentz, OFM. © 1995, trinitystores.com

Saints Polyeuct and Nearchus were Roman soldiers in 3rd-century Armenia and “brothers by affection.” They are a prime example of same-sex lovers in the early church. Polyeuct’s feast day is Feb. 13.

The earliest account of Polyeuct’s martyrdom, a 4th-century Armenian biography, says that they were “brothers, not by birth, but by affection” and enjoyed “the closest possible relationship, being both comrades and fellow soldiers.”

St. Polyeuctus (Wikimedia Commons)

Nearchus was Christian, but Polyeuct was not. The men had a strong desire to spend eternity together, so Polyeuct converted from paganism to Christianity, the faith of his beloved Nearchus. With a convert’s zeal he attacked a pagan procession.  He was beheaded for his crime in the year 259 in the western Armenian city of Militene. Shortly before he was executed, he spoke his last words to Nearchus: “Remember our secret vow.” Thus Polyeuct is known as a protector of vows and avenger of broken promises, in addition to his role as a probable “gay saint.”

Yale history professor John Boswell names Polyeuct and Nearchus as one of the three primary pairs of same-sex lovers in the early church. (The others are Perpetua and Felicity and Sergius and Bacchus.) The love story of Polyeuct and Nearchus is told with extensive historical detail in two books, “Same Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe” by Boswell and “Passionate Holiness” by Dennis O’Neill. He is founder of the Living Circle, the interfaith LGBT spirituality center that commissioned the above icon of the loving same-sex pair.

The icon is by Brother Robert Lentz, a Franciscan friar and world-class iconographer known for his innovative icons. It is one of 10 Lentz icons that sparked a major controversy in 2005. Critics accused Lentz of glorifying sin and creating propaganda for a progressive sociopolitical agenda, and he temporarily gave away the copyright for the controversial images to his distributor, Trinity Stores.

Polyeuctus and Nearchus by Jim Ru

Artist Jim Ru was also inspired to paint Polyeuct and Nearchus. His version was displayed in his show “Transcendent Faith: Gay, Lesbian and Transgendered Saints” in Bisbee Arizona in the 1990s.

O’Neill reports that French writer Robert Dartois recently took the story of Polyeuct and Nearchus from “Passionate Holiness” and turned it into a libretto, which was then set by the Swiss composer Thierry Chatelain as the oratorio “Polyeucte et Nearchus.”

There are many variations in the spellings of their names, such as Polyeuctus, Polyeuctes, Polyeuktos and Nearchos and Nearch. Polyeuct’s feast day is Feb.13 in the Catholic calendar, but falls on Jan. 9 in the Eastern Orthodox tradition and Jan. 7 in ancient Armenian calendars. The feast day for Nearchus is April 22.

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Related links:

Saints Polyeuct and Nearchos, 3rd Century Lovers and Martyrs (Queer Saints and Martyrs -- And Others)

Homosexuality and Tradition: Polyeuct and Nearchus (Pharsea's World)

Hermanos de afecto: Santos Polieucto y Nearco (Santos Queer)

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This post is part of the GLBT Saints series at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints and holy people of special interest to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

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Icons of Polyeuct and Nearchus and many others are available on cards, plaques, T-shirts, mugs, candles, mugs, and more at Trinity Stores


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Marcella Althaus-Reid: Queer theology pioneer

February 20, 2016, 9:02 am

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Marcella Althaus-Reid

Marcella Althaus-Reid was a queer theologian whose controversial books include “Indecent Theology” and “The Queer God.” Born in Argentina, she became the first woman appointed to a chair in the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland in 2006. She held that post when she died at age 56 on this date (Feb. 20) in 2009.

Althaus-Reid (May 11, 1952- Feb. 20, 2009) was baptized as a Roman Catholic and grew up in Buenos Aires. She earned her first theological degree there from ISEDET (Instituto Superior Evangelico de Estudios Teologicos), Latin America’s renowned center for studying liberation theology, which emphasizes God’s “preferential option for the poor.”

Next she gained recognition for working on social and community projects in the slums of Buenos Aires. As she continued her studies, Althaus-Reid applied the principles of liberation theology to women and sexual minorities, including LGBT people.

Her first book, “Indecent Theology,” was published in 2000 and established her international reputation as a self-proclaimed “indecent, Latina, bisexual theologian.” The book challenges the sexual oppression behind traditional Christian concepts of decency and introduces theology rooted in the context of people whose sexual freedom has been limited. In 2003 she wrote “The Queer God,” in which she aims to liberate God from the closet of sex-negative Christian thought and embrace God’s role in the lives of LGBTQ people.

According to her obituary in the Herald Scotland, Althaus-Reid was a member of Moderator Nancy Wilson’s advisory theological team in Metropolitan Community Churches and felt at home in MCC’s Edinburgh congregation although she was formally a member of the Quakers and the Church of Scotland.

Her writing style is dense and her books continue to be controversial, even among LGBT people of faith. But nobody denies that Althaus-Reid took risks to raise important issues based on queer life and spirituality.

Her originality and flashes of insight are expressed in the following quotation from “The Queer God”:

“Our task and our joy is to find or simply recognise God sitting amongst us, at any time, in any gay bar or in the home of a camp friend who decorates her living room as a chapel and doesn’t leave her rosary at home when going to a salsa bar.”

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Links to books by or about Marcella Althaus-Reid:

Indecent Theology: Theological Perversions in Sex, Gender and Politics

The Queer God

From Feminist Theology to Indecent Theology

Liberation Theology and Sexuality

Dancing theology in fetish boots: Essays in honour of Marcella Althaus Reid

More books by Marcella Althaus-Reid

La teología indecente: Perversiones teológicas en sexo, género y política

Il Dio queer


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Related links:

"Marcella Althaus-Reid: Saint of a sexually embodied spirituality" by Hugo Córdova Quero (Jesus in Love)

Prof Marcella Althaus-Reid obituary and memorial page: Light a candle or add your own tribute

Remembering Marcella Althaus-Reid, “Indecent theologian” (Queer Saints and Martyrs - And Others)

“En La Caminata: Remembering Marcella Althaus-Reid” by Alejandro Escalante (Indecent Theology blog)


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This post is part of the GLBT Saints series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints, martyrs, mystics, heroes, holy people, deities and religious figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and queer people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Advocate.com covers gay Passion of Christ controversy

February 24, 2016, 4:15 pm

≫ Next: Malcolm Boyd: Pioneering gay Episcopal priest who ran with Jesus

≪ Previous: Marcella Althaus-Reid: Queer theology pioneer

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Advocate.com posted a big article today about how Facebook rejected an ad for our book “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision.”

“These portraits still strike a nerve,” the Advocate points out. Indeed a debate on Facebook is raging with many impassioned comments for and against the art book, which shows Jesus as a gay man of today in a modern city.

Jesus.
Posted by The Advocate magazine on Wednesday, February 24, 2016

The Advocate.com article puts our experience into the context of other LGBT artists who face the same problem when they try to promote their art on social media.

See it at this link:
http://www.advocate.com/art/2016/2/24/passion-christ-gay-vision

Founded in 1967, the Advocate is the oldest and largest LGBT magazine.

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Related links:

Success: Facebook approves controversial ad for gay Passion of Christ book

Facebook rejects gay Passion of Christ book ad as pornography
(Jesus in Love)

Advocate.com features "Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More"

Malcolm Boyd: Pioneering gay Episcopal priest who ran with Jesus

February 27, 2016, 12:02 am

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Malcolm Boyd is a pioneering gay Episcopal priest and author who died at age 91 on this date (Feb. 27) in 2015.

His best-known book is “Are You Running with Me, Jesus?” a collection of conversational prayer-poems with a million copies in print. He wrote 35 books, including “Gay Priest: An Inner Journey.”

His eclectic life journey included working in the film industry with silent screen star Mary Pickford before his ordination in 1955.  Boyd became a “Freedom Rider” for civil rights in 1961, and officially came out as gay in 1977.

I knew Malcolm personally as a fellow author, a colleague in LGBT ministry, and a good-natured friend who shared my passion for Taize music. One of the last times I saw him was at the 2008 Lambda Literary Awards ceremony, when he received a Pioneer Award and I was a Lammy finalist.

Malcolm Boyd, left, and Kittredge Cherry share a smile at the Lammy Awards in 2008 (photo by Audrey)

At my invitation, Boyd contributed to my book “Equal Rites: Lesbian and Gay Worship, Ceremonies and Celebrations” and was the keynote speaker at a Taize Festival that I organized in Los Angeles in the 1990s. In a wonderful keynote speech, he described his stay at the Taize monastic community in France in 1957.

I remember the fun and excitement of attending his Los Angeles reading for “Amazing Grace: Stories of Lesbian and Gay Faith,” which he edited with Nancy Wilson.

His 1965 classic “Are You Running with Me, Jesus?” includes “Prayers for Sexual Freedom” with a section that begins “This is a
homosexual
bar, Jesus.”

Malcolm wrote two prayers for “Equal Rites.” I was pleased when he agreed to contribute to the book, and even more delighted when I read his manuscript. Unlike most writers, he submitted text that required no editing because it was already perfect. Here is an excerpt from his “Coming-Out Liturgy”:

Leader: Have you decided that you want to come out?
Participant: I have.
Leader: What do you want to come out of?
Participant: Repression.

Leader: What kind of repression?
Participant: I am a gay man / a lesbian. I have suffered the repression of not feeling that I could share my true identity with other people.
Community: We welcome you.

Leader: Have you felt isolation and loneliness?
Participant: I have. The cold waters of fear have covered my body and wounded my soul. I have sensed desolation and utter aloneness. I have suffered misunderstanding and even been greeted by others as someone who was a total stranger to me...
Community: We offer you validation for yourself as you have been created and celebration of your gayness as a gift of God.

Leader: What do you seek now to do with your life?
Participant: I seek freedom. I want to be myself and find acceptance and love. I never want to have to wear a mask again. I want other people to appreciate me for who I really am. I want to make an honest contribution to life in an open way, without any lies or ambiguity.
Community: We offer you the assurance of freedom....
Participant: I am ready now to set my feet on the path to freedom.

He and his longtime partner Mark Thompson married in 2013 after same-sex marriage became legal in Califorina.

Boyd’s life story is told in the book “Black Battle, White Knight: The Authorized Biography of Malcolm Boyd” by Michael Battle, an Anglican/Episcopal priest who has served the church in many capacities. The title reflects the dialogue between Battle, a younger black heterosexual priest, and Boyd, an older white gay priest who gave him unparalleled access to his personal recollections, writings, and archival records.
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Related links:

Rev. Malcolm Boyd’s Funeral Celebrated the Priest, the Poet and the Activist (Frontiers)

Malcolm Boyd dies at 91; Episcopal priest took prayer to the streets (Los Angeles Times)

Rev. Malcolm Boyd, LGBT Icon, Civil Rights Activist and Hollywood Producer, Dead at 91 (Frontiers)

Malcolmboyd.com

Malcolm Boyd profile at LGBT Religious Archives Network

Malcolm Boyd, the overlooked gay activist who pushed boundaries by Jay Michaelson (Religion News Service)

If a Tree Falls in the Forest... Remembering Rev. Malcolm Boyd by Nancy Wilson (Huffington Post)

Malcolm Boyd: Reflections from me and Louie Crew by Susan Russell (Inch at a Time)