A Queer Pilgrim

  In calendars--both secular and church calendars--a person who looks at the calendars knows when the usual holidays roll around, as well as special holidays or holy days of the year. In a church calendar, we know Easter and Christmas, we also know when it is "Disability Sunday," or "One Great Hour of Sharing" Sunday. Such reminders remind us, for a few minutes or a day, of the specialness of the day, and more or less guide our thinking. In the world in which we live, in this country, we have Black History Month (February), along with Pride month (June). This week happens to be Lesbian Visibility Week. It was created by Linda Riley, a lesbian, and publisher of Diva Magazine. While it was once a "day," she thought that the L in LGBTQIA2S+  had become more marginalized. She writes, "I am a proud cis lesbian and a proud trans ally. But many in the LGBTQ+ community were beginning to equate cis lesbians with transphobia, which is fundamentally untrue. I wa...

  Amid the news of "Don't Say Gay" bills, Florida legislators vs. Disney World, and anti-transgender athlete laws passed in various Republican state legislatures recently, I think it is a moment of checking in with other parts of this country, and of progress being made. I begin with our upcoming wedding this summer, July 9, 2022. Christian Halstead and I, Brett Mitchell, are going to get married. Same-sex weddings/marriage equality, has been the "law of the land" since 2015. In our preparations for the wedding, we have not run across anyone saying "no" to our invitation to help make our wedding memorable. The venue, owned by a gay couple, did not say "no" to our wedding. No photographer has said "no." The all-women catering company did not say "no." The florist did not said "no." The personal shopper at Nordstrom did not say "no." The musicians did not say, "no." And the DJ did not say, ...

There are some days in which the pathway of progress is a linear line going forward. There are other days in which progress is more circuitous, going backwards and forwards, up and down, taking baby steps, and sometimes running fast into the future. Sometimes the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice. But there are also people who try to stop the bend from happening at all, and, with equal force, try to stop it from bending at all. And there are somedays that moments in which the question is posed to us: I have some good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first? Good News? OK! The US Passports will now have space or a box to mark "Male," "Female," and "X" for those who are gender neutral/non-binary identifying. On March 31, 2022, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said: "We reaffirm our commitment to promoting and protecting the freedom, dignity, and equality of all persons--including transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conform...

Listening to gay-rights activist Michelangelo Signorile on Progress Radio on Sirius XM as I write this blog, I'm listenignto a story about the Texas children protective service authorities investigating a young family (Dad is a prof at the Univ. of TX in Austin), with a child who is transgender this last March because of Governor Abbott's decision to label gender confirming therapy as "child abuse." Also in the news: In Ohoi, they've just introduced a bill in their legislature that mimics the Florida "Don't Say Gay" bill, which is now law in FL, but will also include race issues. I guess it is "Don't Say Gay and Black" bill. Meanwhile, in Georgia, book banning is merrily rolling along in the state legislature, especially targeting books that are aimed at issues surrounding the LGBTQIA2S+ community and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) community. If a parent complains and says the book is "obscene," well then, ban ...

A blessed and happy International Transgender Visibility Day! March 31st is not only a national, but international, day, set aside for recognizing and honoring those who identify as transgender in our world. It is both a day to focus on the kinds of discrimination and bullying transgender people face in society, and the contribution of transgender people in society. The bullying and discrimination that transgender people face in this world is on full view in many conservative/Republican state legislatures with Republican Governors. Arizona just passed and signed into law a bill that discriminated against transgender athletes, as well as prohibiting gender confirming surgeries. Other states like TX and FL, AR and IA, along with the neighboring state of Idaho, have passed such bills/laws as well. Here's an article on the recently passed bill/law in Arizona: https://www.joemygod.com/2022/03/arizona-gov-signs-abortion-ban-bill-anti-trans-bills-and-bill-requiring-proof-of-citizenship-to...

Technically, I'm on vacation of sorts. Yet that doesn't mean I don't read the newspapers on-line, or surf various websites for stories about us in the LGBTQIA2S+ community who are people of faith. Amid the stories of Ukraine's tragedy, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's hearings, along with with "Don't Say Gay" bills in FL, popping up now in states like Georgia, and anti-transgender affirming care bills in TX and other states, along with LGBTQIA2S+ books being banned in libraries, with Governors signing anti-transgender athlete bills, there were two stories that showed that there are lights of good sense and hope also being lit across the land.  One good news story came from Washington state, next door to me in Oregon. The story was about Matthew Woods, a bisexual lawyer who lives with his same sex partner, who was denied a job as a lawyer, working with Seattle's Union Gospel Mission. Why? "' He was told before he applied that his application w...

Having faced discrimination and harassment because I am an openly gay man at a previous place of employment, in a religious-affiliated higher education context, my antenna goes off when I read of similar stories. It is amazing when private schools of higher education claim that they are, first and foremost, religious-affiliated institutions of higher education, and therefore have the legal right to discriminate against LGBTQIA2S+ people, even though they receive state and federal funds, and have powerful men's and women's basketball teams.  This is when so-called "religious freedom" becomes "religious discrimination" against LGBTQIA2S+ people.  In an article posted on the advocate.com website by Alex Cooper, he wrote about Michael O'Keefe, who had been teaching graphic design at the university for over 41 years who was fired on Monday, March14, 2022, from Oklahoma Christian University in Edmond, OK. His crime? Having gay speakers present in his class. It...