A Queer Pilgrim

"Let us now sing the praises of famous people, our ancestors in their generations" (Ecclesiasticus/Sirach 44:1). As 2021 draws to a close, and we await the beginning of 2022, this is a time to remember who, in the LGBTQIA+ community, and among our allies, are no longer with us. Some of them were truly "larger than life," while others entertained us, and still others were without a name, but their presence in this world, mattered. One of those who was larger than life was the late-Archbishop Desmond Tutu of the Anglican Church of South Africa. There is no doubt that he was instrumental in the awakening of racism in South Africa, leading the anti-apartheid movement, side to side with Nelson Mandela. After Mandela became President of South Africa, he asked his friend, Archbishop Tutu, to head of the successful Truth and Reconciliation Commission process in the country, dredging up memories that revealed the deep, festering wound of that country, brought on by racism an

With this calendar year coming to what feels like a quick close, I thought I'd end this year with three stories that show that there is progress being made towards treating those of us who LGBTQIA+ people as equals. In parts of the world, people are continuing to advocate for change from the "status quo," and doing the right thing for and with LGBTQIA+ people. The first story has to do with Canada, and the abolishment of so-called "conversion therapy" as a valid and scientifically sound way of working with LGBTQIA+ people. Prime Minister Trudeau calls the practice "despicable and degrading." As of Dec. 9, 2021, according to the Senate of Canada, conversion therapy is understood to be prohibited, by law, in Canada. So-called conversion therapy relied on the assumption that sexual orientation can be changed or "cured," which is an idea discredited by major medical and psychological associations the US and the United Kingdom, along with Canada.

Writing in Portland, Oregon, the home state and hometown of Darcelle, the world's oldest drag queen, 91 years "young," and thus one of the longest running drag show impresarios, in which the very theater that Darcelle performs in was recently made a historic national landmark, I was struck by the initial story about the Rev. Craig Duke of Newburgh United Methodist Church (UMC) in Evansville, IN, as well as Penny Cost, another certified candidate for ordination in the UMC at Hope UMC in central Illinois. I was delighted to see that there were two UMC religious leaders who had found their calling in life, which was mixed with their drag queen persona. I knew about Pastor Duke not only from Facebook and other people in the UMC, but because of the HBO series, "We're Here," in which a traveling group of drag queens--Eureka O'Hara, Shangela, and Bob the Drag Queen--interview various drag queens in rural parts of the US, among unknown, very small villages and h