A Queer Pilgrim

  Maybe it is because I am preparing to get married to Christian Halstead in July that I am reading up on weddings of same-sex couples. Or maybe it is because I needed to read of good news in a world in which members of the LGBTQIA2S+ people are being targeted with laws against our very being in the world.  Here's the good news: As of today, May 23, 2022, the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) has voted to allow clergy to conduct same-sex marriages for the first time! While LGBTQIA2S+ people could be out and ordained in the Church of Scotland, LGBTQIA2S+ people could not officiate at the wedding of same sex couples. For example, the Rev. Scott Rennie, who is 2009 became the first openly gay pastor in the Church of Scotland to have his appointment approved--despite protests by some section of the Church. He was not able to marry his husband in a religious ceremony, as he would have wanted. He told the General Assembly: "I sincerely hope the assembly will find it in itself t...

Many of us who have been reading and listening to leaders in the LGBTQIA2S+ community knew the work of the tireless advocate for social justice, Urvashi Vaid. I met her when she was working with the then-National Gay Lesbian Task Force, at one of the Creating Change conferences. I have used materials from the Institute for Welcoming Resources and Practice Faith, Do Justice resources when I was the LGBTQIA+ Advocacy Coordinator with OR-ID UMC Conference, an Institute which she helped create. In light of her death a week ago, I've read many great and beautiful tributes to this tireless worker for justice and equality. I thought the best way to honor her memory would be to write a blogspot on injustice in the US towards LGBTQIA2S+ people, as she herself would do, were she still with us. This case of injustice and homophobia takes place at the Christian Academy of Louisville, KY. As reported by Donald Padgett on the advocate.com on May 16, 2022, the students were asked to write an...

Amid the attack on transgender youth in the US, the leaked "majority opinion" written by Justice Alito, from the US Supreme Court that may spell the end of marriage equality in the US, and "Don't Say Gay" bills and laws being passed among Republican states, there was a breath of fresh air and hope and love that came through a Netflix series a few weeks ago: "Heartstopper."  The word, "heartstopper" means "something so frightening or emotionally gripping as to make one's heart seem to stop beating" (dictionary.com). This series is one in which the heart stops beating because of the love found between two young men at a contemporary "high school" in somewhere, UK. This television series is based upon the novel by Alice Oseman, a British writer of young adult books, who wrote it as a webcomic or graphic novel on the social platform Tumblr.  A few weeks ago I began seeing stories about the series on Netflix, and so one nig...

Discrimination against LGBTQIA2S+ professionals in higher education is nothing new. In places of higher education, as an out gay faculty member, I have faced discrimination in various forms. In one institution, I was denied tenure because I am gay, though the institution said it was because my fifth (5th) book was not "up to their standards." As to what their "standards" were, or if there was a manual outlining those "standards," there was not. I asked. It was subjective decision. At yet another institution of higher education, related to the Presbyterian Church (USA), I was badgered by the then-search committee to tell them why I was denied at the previous institution (because I'm gay, see previous story), even though if I were to tell them the real reason I would not have been appointed and also reported to my Presbytery leadership, in which the PCUSA, as a denomination and at that time, was hostile to out gay pastors. Besides, I still wasn't pub...