A Queer Pilgrim

I've dedicated Pride month posts to be positive in tone, and good news for LGBTQIA2S+ people and our allies. This is important to remember when the likes of the Texas GOP party is calling those of us who are LGBTQIA2S+, living an "abnormal lifestyle choice... We believe there should be no granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin, and we oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values." Here's the link to this reference:  https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/texas-gops-new-platform-calls-gay-people-abnormal-rejects-trans-identi-rcna34530. Here's the good, positive news! Pope Francis is speaking out in a new letter to the Catholic Church, in which he says that "God does not disown any of his children." In a letter to Father James Martin--a Jesuit priest who launched ...

In this month of Pride events, and in light of the violent threat to peaceful Pride events in Coeur D'Alene, ID by 31 men who call themselves "Patriot Front," along with other daily legislative threats against our community, there was the hopeful story from Utah of the upcoming Pride events in a land well-known for its Mormon heritage. Salt Lake City Pride was June 4-5, 2022, and it was quite a festive event, wrote religionnews.com reporter Jana Riess (June 10, 2022). Over 70,000 people attended the event, with over 300 booths. In Salt Lake City. Mormon country. Conservative. Republican.  There are also Pride events to happen in Ogden, UT, as well as Rexburg, ID, both Mormon enclaves. She reports that last June, and possibly this June, students from Brigham Young University held an unofficial Pride parade, with over 1000 students from the University along with allies. While it was not sanctioned either by the University or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (...

Amid the struggle for LGBTQIA2S+ inclusion in The United Methodist Church UMC), as well as the smaller Christian Reformed Church (CRC) of late, let alone the Southern Baptist, there has been a break-through in the largest Mennonite denomination in the US, the Mennonite Church USA! On May 29, 2022, in a special session fo the Delegate Assembly of the Mennonite Church USA, there was a resolution passed that the church would no longer "commit violence against LGBTQ people," and committing to LGBTQIA2S+ inclusion! 83% of the delegates meeting in the special assembly in Kansas City, MO, voted in favor of repealing the guidelines barring marriage for same-sex couples, while the resolution for LGBTQIA2S+ inclusion passed by 55.7% in favor. Ain't that Good News? Then, in another vote, the Mennonite Church USA also repealed instructions to pastors not to officiate at marriages between people of the same sex.  However the denomination's official confession--which views ma...

May was quite a month for those who focus on the "theme of the month." It was both Mental Health month, as well as AAPI or Asian American and Pacific Islander month. Of course, in terms of intersectionality we, in the LGBTQIA2S+ community, understand this is part and parcel of our community as well. I embrace the social construct and concept of intersectionality, and realize we are all our ethnicity, race, ability, disability, hearing, being deaf, age, socioeconomic class, and religion.  And now we turn to the month of June, known as Pride month. I know because Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and various websites and on-line publications I peruse daily have told me so.  For years, I saw all the rainbow flags brighten up my various social media pages on this month, and encouraged people to go beyond the waving of rainbow flags.  Recently, there was the global yet inarticulate "all means ya'll" phrase, meaning, on the one hand, that everyone--including LGB...