Dry Bones Dance

Book suggestions wanted

    I'm looking for book suggestions in my continuing quest to exorcise Big Daddy in the Sky from my psyche:  Do any of you out there have any books (or easily accessible articles) on queer theology you would recommend?  I am not interested in books dealing with the morality of homosexuality, or advocating for or against ordaining gay clergy, gay marriage, etc.  I'm interested in theology from a LGBT/queer perspective. In an ideal world, said book would not be written in painfully convoluted academic jargon or 800 pages long, but perhaps that's too much to hope for. 

    Remember that, while I do know the five points of Calvinism and am familiar with the Weslyan quadrilateral, I have not been to seminary and my eyes tend to glaze over when there is an excess of -ologies, -isms, and exhaustive discussions of Greek grammar. Think In Memory of Her, but gay. If you have any suggestions, leave them in the comments section and it will be much appreciated.

Giving myself an early Christmas present

    I’m single with no kids and spending the holidays with my biological family is not an option.  For people like me, the holidays can be hard.  It’s easy to feel left out of the whole season.  Do I spend the day with a friend or two, feel like a stray at someone else’s family gathering, or blow off the holiday entirely and go to the beach or go hiking? And what about church – shouldn’t I at least go to church on Christmas?  What does it say about the state of my soul if I don’t?

    I don’t even do much Christmas shopping.  I give and receive few gifts, and I hate the mall when it’s NOT Christmas, so if you’re one of the handful of people on my gift list, you’re as likely to get chickens for a family in Honduras  as you are to get a new pair of earrings or a sweater.  I do, however, give myself a gift every year, and this year, I have decided to give myself the gift of not judging myself on how I handle the holiday season.

Day of Action for the DRC

Today was Amnesty International's Day of Action for the Democratic Republic of Congo, so I wanted to mention the situation here.  I get a LOT of e-mails urging me to take action on this or call my congressional representative about that, and I am careful about what I forward and what I don't.  I had a friend who used to send me those chain e-mails regularly until I gave her a strong talking to, and I don't want to be the social change version of "Send this e-mail to ten friends and Google will give you money - really!" 

For obvious reasons, however, violence against women and children is an issue that is close to my heart, and the situation in the DRC is truly horrific. Tens of thousands of children are being kidnapped and turned into child soldiers or sex slaves, and rape is being systematically used - by both sides - as a weapon of war to demoralize and break apart communities:

Proposition 8 and collateral damage

    Because I feel I do not have enough hysteria in my life, I will move on from abortion to the passage of Proposition 8.  (In case you missed this, Proposition 8 was an initiative we voted on in California that changed the state constitution to state that marriage is only between a man and a woman.  By a margin of 52% to 48%, it passed and eliminated the right of gay couples to marry that the state supreme court established in May of this year.  It will probably go to the courts again, and there has been a whole lot of ugly and buckets of money swarming around this proposition.)

    Like abortion, gay marriage is a tremendously polarizing issue, and like abortion, it’s actually a lot more complicated than a lot of people seem to think, whether it’s proponents that can’t seem to figure out why the GLBT community is so mad to the “How could almost 70% of black people vote for Prop. 8?!  It’s a civil rights issue!” comments to the “Say no to hate!” signs.

    Somewhere between my daily e-mails from MoveOn and Progressive Christians Uniting, and the fear-mongering of James Dobson and Chuck Colson and co., there are real people with real concerns.  For many in the GLBT community, the passage of Proposition 8 was both surprising and painful.   Sometimes, the political is personal. It HURTS to have Proposition 8 on the books, and no matter how many times Prop. 8 supporters say that it isn’t about hate, it sure feels like it – particularly given the history between churches and the gay community.  For the 18,000 gay couples who got married and who are now in legal limbo, there are also very real practical ramifications of this decision. 

    On the other side, many of the people who supported Proposition 8 don’t particularly enjoy having their churches picketed or being labeled as bigots.  They absolutely don’t view their vote as an act of hate.  They feel that they are pro-family and pro-religious freedom, not anti-gay.