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Finding My Religion

This makes me want to start going to church again.

Unity Fellowship Church, housed in a gray former warehouse in East New York, is the New York outpost of the Unity Fellowship Church Movement, the only Christian denomination explicitly set up to serve gay, bisexual and transgender members of minority groups. Unity, founded in Los Angeles in 1982, has 12 churches nationwide, including two in New Jersey – one in Newark and another in New Brunswick.

(…)

A gay church in a battered neighborhood led by a black minister with AIDS may sound like something dreamed up by a politically correct screenwriter. But Unity is the very real, raucous spiritual home for hundreds who feel cast out by traditional churches, which for many people serve as the heart of the community and an extension of the family.

“There are churches here and there” that welcome gay worshipers, said Gerard Williams, an assistant minister who teaches the Sunday school course on homosexuality and the Bible at Unity, “but ain’t nobody going to love you like we do.”

Too bad it’s in East New York. Luckily there are lots of progressive churches (and other houses of religion) all over NYC. If you know of any good places of worship (in NY or elsewhere), feel free to leave their info in the comments.

I *heart* Mass

Because they *heart* marriage equality.

The Catholic Church? Not so much. They’re preoccupied with their homo witch-hunt, apparently looking to oust anyone with deviant tendencies from the priesthood after the well-publicized child sex abuse scandal. Nevermind, of course, that attraction to children and homosexuality are two very different things, and the disproportionate number of boys being molested likely speaks more towards access than proclivity. The Church is potentially even getting rid of the gays who haven’t been sexually active for more than a decade (or ever). Which is interesting, given that the Church requires gays to live “chaste” lives. So what about the whole “love the sinner, hate the sin” thing? Not applicable anymore, I guess.

Good News in California

A marriage equality bill passed through the California legislature today, making one more historical step in the direction of equality for all citizens. Unfortunately it looks like Ah-nold might veto it, but it’s a good thing nonetheless — remember the whole “state’s rights” argument that the right loves to make? Well the state legislature took this one on, and they’ve come down on the side of justice and equality. Of course, the usual suspects aren’t too thrilled with fairness and justice. Their response: The Democrats are hoes. Gay hoes.

“The only word I can see here is prostitution,” said Randy Thomasson, president of the Campaign for Children and Families. “Instead of obeying the voters and the Constitution, the Democratic politicians have prostituted themselves to the homosexual marriage agenda. It’s not gay, it’s bad.”

…I thought gay was bad?

No matter. Just compare that argument (whoring perverts! homosexual agenda!) to those put forth by proponents of the bill:

“Respecting other people’s rights is peace,” [Dolores Huerta] said. “Respecting other people’s rights to marry who they want is a constitutional right, it’s a human right and it’s a privacy right. “

and

“This is one of those times when history looks upon us to see where we are,” [Assemblyman Tom] Umberg said. “Ten years from now, there are a handful of issues that history will record where we stood, and this is one of those issues.

“History will record whether we pushed a bit, took the lead to encourage tolerance, to encourage equality to encourage fairness,” he said.

“The constituency I’m concerned about is a very small one,” said Umberg, “and that’s the constituency of my three children, should they decide to look back on my record … and reflect on where I was when we could make a difference.”

Beautiful.

Hell Froze Over

Falwell speaks out for “basic” gay rights:

Falwell, who in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, blamed the terrorist attacks on “the pagans, the abortionists, and the feminists and the gays and lesbians,” and who describes himself as “very conservative,” told Carlson that if he were a lawyer, he too would argue for civil rights for gays.

“I may not agree with the lifestyle,” Falwell said. “But that has nothing to do with the civil rights of that… part of our constituency…

“Civil rights for all Americans, black, white, red, yellow, the rich, poor, young, old, gay, straight, et cetera, is not a liberal or conservative value,” Falwell went on to say. “It’s an American value that I would think that we pretty much all agree on.”

Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said his group welcomed the apparent softening of Falwell’s position on at least some gay rights. “Like most Americans, it seems Rev. Falwell has reached the conclusion that everyone deserves basic rights,” said Solmonese. “I hope he also supports legislation that would deliver on these values.”

via Lynn

What Really Caused Katrina?

Water vapor, warm air, condensation and wind, you say? Oh you sad, sad blue-stater, you just don’t get it, do you? Courtesty of that science-loving radical right, we now know that hurricanes are caused by evil feminists aborting their babies for fun. Except, well, sometimes they’re caused by the sodomites. And occassionally, it’s boobies and Girls Gone Wild. Many of these same sinners also caused 9/11.

via Ryan.

And in other ridiculous right-wing news, does anyone here read The New York Post? I don’t (I think my 50 cents is better spent elsewhere, like on 1/10th of my coffee), but I do read it over the shoulders of other passengers on the subway (thank goodness for huge headlines, small words, simple ideas and big print!). One thing I noticed yesterday was that all the stories covering Katrina were under the page label “Our Tsunami.” Now, Katrina is a horrific tragedy. But is it really “Our Tsunami”? For one thing, it’s not a tsunami by any stretch. And must the right always co-opt someone else’s tragedy for their own gain? I realize in this case they’re just trying to sell papers, but comparing this hurricane to the South Asian tsunami is entirely innaccurate, totally disprespectful and pretty darn stupid.

Is he or isn’t he?

Well the New York Times says, you can’t tell. Thanks for the newsflash, guys.

The article is kind of silly, but the basic theme — that cultural definitions of masculinity are shifting, so that being less stereotypically blue-collar “masucline” isn’t necessarily bad — is interesting. It’s unfortunate, of course, that masculinity is broken down into categories of “gay” or “straight,” but I think it’s positive that the more historically negative of those categories is becoming less and less stigmatized.

“Have I been called gay a gazillion times?” said Robert Vonderheide, a straight man who is a sales representative for a several clothing lines in New York. “Yes. Do I give a damn? No.” He added, though, that it does not happen as much lately, as he sees less difference between gay and straight men in terms of how they express masculinity outside the bedroom.

There are many people who will argue that there are certain things that are unique to gay culture, and that allowing those things to be co-opted by mass “straight” culture is bad. But I’m not so sure. I don’t subscribe to the belief that culture is static in the first place; culture is constantly co-opted and split and borrowed and regenerated. It creates itself. What irritated me more about this article was the idea that masculinity is defined by consumerism. How were you able tell, back in the day, if someone is gay? Well, if he wore Marc Jacobs capris, carried a Prada messenger bag and was spotted at an upscale home furnishings boutique, he was definitely homo. But now, the article says, straight men are shopping like gay men — and so you can’t tell them apart! There are problems, of course, in the assumption that you could ever tell them apart in the first place, or that there is a single version of Chelsea-boy “gay culture” that relies on buying a lot of expensive shit and working out every day. But I think those critiques are obvious enough that I’m not going to level them here. So I’d rather ask, what does it mean that we as a society (or at least our paper of record) is defining perceived sexuality by what we buy? Feminism has long taken issue with the way that women are marketed at, and are used as marketing tools to sell things. So now that the “average” straight guy is being seen as just as much of a consumer as women — a role that before was set aside for the feminized (i.e., not really a “man” anyway) gay man — are we nearing equality? Is this the kind of equality we want?

I don’t think so. The solution to the problems of beauty pornography and a culture that sees women as tools of buying and selling for someone else’s benefit is not to drag men down into the same pit. Of course, they aren’t quite there yet:

“It’s easier for gay men to come out of the closet as slobs, just as it’s easier for straight men to be dandies,” said Brendan Lemon, the editor of Out, the gay men’s magazine. “One of the things that’s breaking down how gay guys are seen is that people know more kinds of men who are gay, nonstereotypical ones like soldiers and athletes rather than stylists and fashion designers and decorators.” The lack of any one gay sensibility has meant that Out and other gay publications have struggled to reconcile a host of identities, while gay-vague magazines like Details and Cargo, aimed squarely at savvy, fashion-conscious men, are having a heyday.

So yes, it’s good that this trend is breaking down stereotypes of what “gay” looks like. It’s good that it’s breaking down stereotypes of what “straight” looks like, and what masculinity is. I’m glad that gay boys feel more free to be slobs, and straight boys can go shopping without shame. Hell, I love boys who wear Le Tigre. So thank you, New York Times, for alerting me to the fact that some of them might be willing to make out with me. But it has to be asked, is this trend breaking these stereotypes down in any real way? Is the culture of masculinity really changing? Or is it just better dressed?