A Queer Pilgrim

The Supreme Court of the US (SCOTUS) came out with one of its rulings this week, which was not to take up the case of a Virginia school board that, after protests by parents, prohibited transgender students from using public school bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity. This case is now over six years-old, when then-high school student Gavin Grimm filed a federal lawsuit over the Gloucester County school board's refusal to allow him to use the boys' bathroom. By not taking up the case, SCOTUS allowed the lower court's ruling stand. In essence, Gloucester County school board was in the wrong. But here's the magnificent part of it: all public schools across the country now have to allow transgender young people to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. This is true even in North Carolina, which was well-known for its bathroom bill--HB2--about a decade ago.  I know that the Oregon-Idaho United Methodist Chur...

In 2007, my book On Being a Gay Parent was published by Church Publishing Book. I wrote the book because I could not find any similar books to read as I was making my way through the new terrain of being an out gay parent to two wonderful, ornery, fun, challenging, growing children. I was parenting with my then-partner, along with their mom in Chapel Hill, NC. All three of us chose to live in the same place in order to be parents to the children, rather than being a plane-flight-away kind of parent. This choice came with sacrifices in terms of employment for me, but it was the right choice in hindsight. The book On Being a Gay Parent  was also a response to the work that Dan Savage was doing in Seattle, with his husband, who were raising a child. Dan is a self-confessed former-Irish Catholic, and had strong feelings about the Church. I wanted to present a story that was more pro-faith, pro-community, though my challenges with the institutional church were and are always front ...

  I met my partner Christian via a gay app. It is one of the primary ways that many of us--LGBTQIA+ and non-LGBTQIA+--meet one another these days. Gone are the days of going to a gay bar, or meeting over a social hour, or a "blind date" (weird, not necessarily politically correct term). We met. We liked each other from the start, and the rest, as they say, is history. I continue to meet other gay men via these apps. It is a way of making social connections, to see who else in one's social group is gay. Heck, I've used one or two of these apps in churches and large gatherings, and I am always a little surprised to see the number of gay men in certain settings, and have mentioned that more than once. There is something about me that doesn't like or respect a "closet." There are more and more dating apps for LGBTQIA+ people, including the old familiars that have "updated" their websites, like "OK Cupid" as well as other new websites for ...

In celebrating Pride month, outside of a New Season grocery store in Tualitan, Oregon, there was a rainbow sign with the message "No Pride For Some of Us Without Liberation For All of Us. Marsha P. Johnson." There was a lot being said in that sign. So much was going on in the sign that I stopped and took a picture of it, with the intent of doing exactly what I am doing: writing about it.  The phrase reminds me of Alexandre Dumas and the Three Musketeers expression, "One for all and all for one." Or the Apostle Paul writes to the church in Corinth, " If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it" (1 Cor. 12:26, NRSV). There is a theme of solidarity, unity in diversity, an inseparable bond between people, come hell or high water. Let's begin with the author of the phrase Marsha P. Johnson, a well-known gay civil rights leader, who was in Stonewall Inn the night it was famously raided by the pol...

On my Facebook feed on June 1st, the first day of "Pride Month," there were many pastors who posted the message, "This Pastor Loves You." Many were the same pastors who offered to do weddings soon after Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett was sworn in, and a threat to LGBTQIA+ weddings was heightened. It seemed a little too reactionary at the time, and many of the pastors who were offering their services were late to the game of supporting LGBTQIA+ people in the past. I couldn’t post this image or message without comment. Why? Because some of the pastors who posted this message did not love me or like me, and told me so. Some fought me overtly or covertly in my previous work as the LGBTQIA+ Advocacy Coordinator in the OR-ID United Methodist Church Conference. I know a lot of them to be some of the nicest people when they are in front of you, and stab you in the back when one turns around. "Nice" Christians can drive me crazy somedays. In Pride Month, many ...