Gender and Sexuality

Electoral Pain — and Perspective

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Gay rights in Maine lost. For comment, it’s hard to beat Deborah Haffner, who starts with the good news:
The Good: Voters in Washington State affirmed the rights of same sex couples to “everything but” marriage. In Kalamazoo, voters affirmed a gay rights ordinance. Several openly gay candidates were elected to mayoral positions, several in the south. And the ugly Congressional contest in upstate New York resulted in a pro-choice Democrat being elected.

Gender and Sexuality

Borders vs Limits (Part 1)

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Think back to the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign. One of the issues that generated a lot of heat was the immigration debate. While the debate touched on several other issues, such as unemployment and national identity, at its heart the debate centered on this: the rights of those who were not U.S. citizens but live within its borders, or of those who do live outside its borders and are trying to get in. After all, borders are there to establish who’s in and who’s out, right? Now, fast forward nearly almost one year.

Christianity

Bishop Robinson: Get the Churches Out of the Civil Marriage Business

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Has any bishop said a wiser thing about marriage and the separation of church and state than this? Bishop Gene Robinson very simply and clearly points out that marriage is a civil act that the state deputizes clergy to perform. But it doesn’t deputize them to end it: you have to go to the courts for that. And of course you don’t need clergy to perform the wedding in the first place. He is going to ask his clergy in Maine New Hampshire [edit thanks to the comment below] to stop performing the civil part of weddings.

Earth-based Religions

"Global Weirding" and Public Opinion

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Earth Day 1970 found me protesting for greater environmental protections. But for many years afterwards, I figured that the issue was a no-brainer. You just don’t destroy the biosphere, the food and shelter your species depends on for survival. I put my efforts into the women’s movement instead, because there seemed to be a lot of inertia about women’s rights and society was crying out for greater gender equality. In retrospect, I was right about my second assumption — there was a lot of inertia concerning women’s rights — but I was wrong about my first — environmental action wasn’t a no-brainer after all.

Culture

Coming Out Day

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Sunday we’re celebrating “Coming Out Day” at First Unitarian in Madison, and I’ve been asked to tell my coming out story. Compared to many, mine is pretty painless. It’s a story of ignorance, invisibility, and ultimately of the ability to pass. You see, I’m a bisexual woman in a committed heterosexual relationship. I grew up in a small town in Upstate New York.

Earth-based Religions

Baking Cakes for the Queen of Heaven

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Teaching the “Cakes for the Queen of Heaven” curriculum (and blogging about it) lit a fire under me. The title of the course refers to a story told in the book of Jeremiah. This week I finally recorded the song I wrote about this tale on YouTube. Now others can learn the tune and sing it in their “Cakes” classes. [youtube: video=”m7Mv5bxeDEo&feature=channel_page”]
If you don’t know the story, here’s a synopsis: Jeremiah rants and rails against the Queen of Heaven, telling the people that worshipping Her is a betrayal of YHWH.

Culture

Sarah, the Priestess

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As I told you a few weeks back, the “Cakes for the Queen of Heaven” curriculum empowers women in remarkable ways. During last night’s class I discovered that it sometimes empowers in different ways at the same time. Our reading for the evening was a compelling story — the attempted sacrifice of Isaac by his father Abraham (Genesis 22). As told in the Bible, this tale contains no mention of Isaac’s mother Sarah. Instead YHVH tells Abraham to demonstrate his loyalty by making a ritual offering of his one-and-only child.

Culture

Body of the Goddess

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Today an email arrived that bowled me over. It’s from Shailja Patel. I love the synchronicity of its arrival. Balmurli Natrajan has been blogging about Hindu fascism from a secular perspective. Shailja Patel enlarges that point of view by adding a Goddess perspective.