Monthly Archives: June 2011

Marriage Equality Comes to New York!


Yesterday, the New York State legislature passed and Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation that will give same-sex couples the right to marry! According to the Vermont Freedom to Marry press release: “Joining Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Washington, D.C., New York becomes the most populated state to achieve marriage equality, and more than doubles the number of both same-sex couples and of Americans living in a state with marriage equality.”

Other organizations that deserve your thanks and financial support for their hard work on this legislation include the Human Rights Campaign, GetEqual, Courage Campaign, Freedom to Marry, and Other Sheep. If you live in Buffalo, give a shout-out (and your vote) to Sen. Mark Grisanti, a Catholic Republican who cast one of the swing votes for the bill in the Senate last night.

The full text of the legislation is here. An excerpt:

Marriage is a fundamental human right. Same
sex couples should have the same access as others to the protections,
responsibilities, rights, obligations, and benefits of civil marriage.
Stable family relationships help build a stronger society. For the
welfare of the community and in fairness to all New Yorkers, this act
formally recognizes otherwise-valid marriages without regard to whether
the parties are of the same or different sex.

It is the intent of the legislature that the marriages of same-sex and
different-sex couples be treated equally in all respects under the law.
The omission from this act of changes to other provisions of law shall
not be construed as a legislative intent to preserve any legal
distinction between same-sex couples and different-sex couples with
respect to marriage….

***
…A MARRIAGE THAT IS OTHERWISE VALID
SHALL BE VALID REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THE PARTIES TO THE MARRIAGE ARE OF
THE SAME OR DIFFERENT SEX.
2. NO GOVERNMENT TREATMENT OR LEGAL STATUS, EFFECT, RIGHT, BENEFIT,
PRIVILEGE, PROTECTION OR RESPONSIBILITY RELATING TO MARRIAGE, WHETHER
DERIVING FROM STATUTE, ADMINISTRATIVE OR COURT RULE, PUBLIC POLICY,
COMMON LAW OR ANY OTHER SOURCE OF LAW, SHALL DIFFER BASED ON THE PARTIES
TO THE MARRIAGE BEING OR HAVING BEEN OF THE SAME SEX RATHER THAN A
DIFFERENT SEX. WHEN NECESSARY TO IMPLEMENT THE RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBIL
ITIES OF SPOUSES UNDER THE LAW, ALL GENDER-SPECIFIC LANGUAGE OR TERMS
SHALL BE CONSTRUED IN A GENDER-NEUTRAL MANNER IN ALL SUCH SOURCES OF
LAW.
…

It remains to be seen how broadly the religious exemptions will be construed. The relevant text reads:

A CORPORATION INCORPORATED UNDER THE BENEVOLENT ORDERS
LAW OR DESCRIBED IN THE BENEVOLENT ORDERS LAW BUT FORMED UNDER ANY OTHER
LAW OF THIS STATE OR A RELIGIOUS CORPORATION INCORPORATED UNDER THE
EDUCATION LAW OR THE RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS LAWS SHALL BE DEEMED TO BE
IN ITS NATURE DISTINCTLY PRIVATE AND THEREFORE, SHALL NOT BE REQUIRED TO
PROVIDE ACCOMMODATIONS, ADVANTAGES, FACILITIES OR PRIVILEGES RELATED TO
THE SOLEMNIZATION OR CELEBRATION OF A MARRIAGE.

Few would argue that clergy should be forced to perform marriages that don’t meet their denomination’s doctrinal requirements, or to use church property for the same. I would imagine that even without this provision, a First Amendment claim would be resolved in the church’s favor. But what other “privileges” or “accommodations” might they try to withhold? Could a religious hospital block a gay spouse from visiting and making medical decisions for an incapacitated partner? Hopefully, courts will construe this clause narrowly as only applying to the actual ceremony (“solemnization or celebration”), not to the legal status (“a marriage”) that follows from it.

All in all, a great day for justice and freedom! Hooray New York!

Thursday Random Song: Talib Kweli, “Cold Rain”


Some of the most creative rhyming among contemporary writers can be found in hip-hop and rap music, but it’s a guilty pleasure because of the misogyny, homophobia, and violence that the lyrics often glorify. A welcome exception is rapper Talib Kweli, who fits within the social protest tradition of slam poetry. His album The Beautiful Struggle is in my frequent playlist. He recently appeared on The Colbert Report to promote his new album, Gutter Rainbows. Enjoy this clip of him performing “Cold Rain”. Lyrics below courtesy of killerhiphop.com.

Cold Rain


Lets try something new
It’s been a long time coming!
Let me try something brand new
Hey yo Ski!
What you ever do, man?
Come on!
Yo, what we doing it for?

This is for all the day-trippers and the hipsters
Whores and the fashionistas
Spiritual leaders practicing all the laws of attraction
The teachers who read the passages from the Bhagavad Gita
That be bustin off Dalai Lama’s or flashing heaters
the last of the boosters
With the shooting, the thugging and all the booning and spooning
and all the crooning, and cooning and auto-tuning, alive
You be tellin, peddlin’ to consumers I’m helping them to see through it
get with this new movement,
Let’s move it!

Feel the cold rain
Still I’m standing right here
Even the winter summer days

Yeah I’m a product of Reaganomics
From the blocks where he rocking a feds like J Electronica
drop and make this a lock
if he promises where the heart is
whether Jesus or Mohammad
regardless of where the Mosque is (word)
They hope for the Apocalypse like a self-fulfilling prophecy
Tell me when do we stop it?
Do they ask you your religion before you rent an apartment?
Is the answer burning Korans
So that we can defend Islamics?
The end upon us with a hash tag, a trending topic
You take away the freedoms that we invite in the game
Then you disrespect the soldiers; you ask them to die in vain
In a desert praying for rain
The music’s like a drug, and they tend to take it to vein
It ain’t for the well-behaved
The soundtrack for when you’re great but its more for when you’ve felt afraid
More than your average rapper
So you sort of felt the way
The brain is like a cage, you a slave, that’s why they lovin’ you
This is the book that Eli that start with a K-W.

I do it for the trappers, other rappers
the Backpackers, the crackers
the n-ggas, the metal-packers
the victims of ghetto factories
I do it for the families, citizens of humanity
Emcee’s, endangered species like manatees
I do it for the future of my children!
They the hope for the hopeless
Karma approaches, we gon’ be food for a flock of vultures
The end of the World
Ain’t nothing left but the cockroaches
and the freedom fighters
We’re freedom writers like Bob Moses
the chosen, freedom writers like Voltaire
For my block, my borough, my hood, my city, my state, yeah
My obligation to my community is so clear!
yeah, we gotta save them, this opportunity so rare!
We do it so big over here that it’s no bare
To the punks, bitches, the chumps, the snitches, the sneak in the game
We let them live with all they’re weak and they’re lame
The bozo’s and joker’s, promoting when they’re speaking my name

Other Sheep Africa Leader Protects the Marginalized in Kenya


This article from Michgan’s MLive.com profiles the courageous work of Rev. John Makokha and his wife Anne Baraza at Other Sheep Afrika-Kenya, an independent offshoot of Other Sheep, the international ministry that advocates for GLBT Christians in the developing world. The former United Methodist minister currently serves at Riruta Hope Community Church, where his wife is a leader in the Riruta United Women Empowerment Programme.

Rev. Makokha recently completed a multi-state fundraising tour for Children of Africa Hope Mission, a charity that cares for AIDS orphans and homeless children in the slums of Nairobi. I had the pleasure of meeting him last fall at Rehoboth Temple Christ Conscious Church, a gay-affirming Pentecostal church in Harlem.

From the MLive article:

The Rev. John Makokha explains with obvious pride in his voice that his United Methodist church that’s nestled in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya, is a house of worship that embraces open hearts, open minds and open doors.

That’s a watchword widely supported in Methodist circles in the U.S.

But the catchphrase comes with a price for Makokha who, along with his wife, Anne Baraza, have dedicated their ministry to reaching out to gay and lesbian people in the East African nation where people can still be imprisoned or stoned to death for being homosexual.

For that reason, and several others, pastoring the church and his Children of Hope school has made it a tough row to hoe for him, Makokha said last Sunday at an adult education forum held at Westminster Presbyterian Church in downtown Grand Rapids.

Homophobia is the culturally accepted norm in Kenya, but it’s a standard tinged with irony, Makokha said. Gay political and church leaders stay lodged deep in the closet but are famous for publicly proclaiming gays, lesbians and bisexual people should be put to death.

And Makokha’s bishop has cut off funding to his church and his school for neighborhood children, many of them AIDS orphans.

“They say we are promoting sin,” said Makokha, 43, senior pastor of Riruta United Methodist Church, who is on a fundraising/public awareness campaign in the U.S. through June 15.

But Makokha, who also is director of the gay and lesbian advocacy ministry, Other Sheep Africa, says that mentality neuters the gospel.

“Jesus came for us sinners, whether they are heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, white, black, green, or whatever,” he said, a grin spreading across his face.

“In my church, we work for inclusive compassion. When Jesus came to this world, he came for all of us.”

Other Sheep Africa helps women whose husbands died of AIDS by securing micro loans so they can operate their own businesses making handmade necklaces and bracelets. It also teaches classes on human sexuality and human rights.

Two Poems from an Anthology to Benefit Refugees


Yes, loyal readers, it has been a long time since I blogged. I’ve been refreshing my vocation as a Christian writer at the Glen Workshop East, an experience I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone who has wondered how the identities “Christian” and “writer” can coexist harmoniously.

While I sort out my thoughts from this high-intensity week, please enjoy the following excerpt from The Last Stanza, a new poetry anthology edited by Dan Savery Raz of Danscribe Books. The Last Stanza features work by the members of StanzAviv, a creative collective of writers associated with Bar Ilan University and Tel Aviv University. StanzAviv members come from Israel, USA, UK, France, Canada, Latvia and beyond. Poets include Dara Barnat from Tel Aviv University’s English Faculty, literary translator Sabine Huynh, and Israeli poet Michal Pirani. The book also features atmospheric shots of Tel Aviv taken by award-winning photographer Nitzan Hafner. All proceeds from the sale of this book go to the ARDC (African Refugee Development Center), an NGO in south Tel Aviv that provides shelter, education, counseling and advice to refugees and asylum seekers in Israel. The ARDC was founded by refugees for refugees.

****


Finally
by Yedida Bernstein Goren

i am refugee, you were this too, yes? my friend
i ran, climbed, snaked to shaky part of your borderwall
oh israel holy-israel my mind breaking into pieces of glass
i hear jews are good people
months i journey hide every some hours
lost friends, brother, child back home
you also lose family shot at by crazed soldiers, yes?
we hear you did long long time ago 60 years
walking and walking and walking and walking
they aim bullets at me
they rape my woman
i stand there
my eyes stretch into my forehead, my pupils fall out my eyelids
i hold back the skyscream
trudge on with wife on back
over last sandkilometer
i reach you, finally, oh Israel
scarred, falling, hungry
you send me to holding station
like prison
you look down on me and wife
you so shy of kindtouch
so short on welcomewords
weeks months later
you tell us to leave on big plane
you pay
where, kind officer, do you think we should return to?

****

easyBank.com
by Dan Savery Raz

To check the balance of your account, press one.
To transfer money from one account to another, press two.
For lost or stolen cards, press three.
If you would like to pay your outstanding balance, press four.
If you like the word ‘muesli’, press five.
If you get scared by thunder and lightning storms at night,
   press six.
If you believe in a monotheistic God, press seven.
If you are an atheist or believe in many gods, such as the
   sun god Helios, press eight.
For reincarnation, press nine.
To listen to some ancient Tibetan Buddhist chants, press
   ten.
Trotskyites, press eleven.
Hermaphrodites, twelve.
For information on the displacement of the Aboriginal population
   of Australia in the late 18th century, press thirteen.
If you just want to get stoned, press fourteen
followed by the hash key.
If you treat your pet dog better than most human beings,
   press fifteen.
People that still carry some torch of hope for humanity, press
   sixteen followed by star.
For sarcasm or wit, don’t press seventeen whatever you do.
To speak to a customer service representative, call the
   premium number between 10 AM and 10.30 AM on Monday,
   Tuesday and Thursday.
To return to the main menu please text the words ‘Egyptian
   Mummification in the Predynastic Period’ to 666 or hold the
   line while we drill holes in your ear.
Thank you for banking with easyBank.com, finance at your fingertips.

Sealed as Christ’s Own Forever


Today, June 3, 2011, is the 10th calendar anniversary of my baptism into the Episcopal Church. The liturgical anniversary will be next weekend at Pentecost.

Baptism for me wasn’t then, and isn’t now, about being saved from Hell. At least not in the afterlife. Jesus did rescue me, in this life, from an abusive codependent relationship and the shame, perfectionism, and emotional chaos of mind that came out of that. His unconditional forgiving love allowed me to cling to hope and self-respect when my abilities fell far short of my goals.

What baptism primarily meant to me, in 2001, was coming home. Home to the artistic tradition where I’d always experienced my strongest encounters with transcendence. Home to a community of elders, living and dead, who had faced the same existential dilemmas and could give me companionship and guidance to move forward. In the same way that radical queer politics would do a decade later, the Protestant paradigm of sin and redemption began to cure me of the delusion that it was my personal responsibility to avoid failure and humiliation, at all costs. My “problem” was the human condition, and the followers of Jesus showed the way to not be defeated by it.

In Christianity, I saw a place where my countercultural values of chastity and emotional self-mastery would no longer be dismissed as the hang-ups of a socially immature young woman. Behind me stood a whole community that resisted compartmentalization of sex and spirit, and affirmed that the most intimate parts of ourselves were sacred and deserved to be handled with care.

This was the hymn I chose for my baptism service at the Church of the Ascension in NYC. (Love you guys!) It seemed like a special sign that it was today’s song for morning prayer at The Daily Office.

Now, in 2011, what does membership in the Christian church mean to me? Sometimes I feel that I’m in my Christian adolescence, as instinctively resistant to religious authority figures as I once was welcoming and trusting of their guidance. This questioning spirit even extends to God. I hold many orthodox beliefs at arm’s length now, looking at them from the reverse side, from the perspective of one who’s been made an outcast by the church or finds Christians personally so triggering that he can’t safely open up to the question of the doctrines’ truth. But it’s Jesus who has opened my heart to this perspective, Jesus who gives me the courage to “stand in the place of shame” (as gay Catholic theologian James Alison says) with the people who can’t rest in the assurance that they are God’s chosen.

I don’t know if it’s healthy anymore for me to think of the church as a substitute family, unless it’s a family of adults, not children who have no input into the parents’ rules. What happens at that crossroads where doctrinal disagreement threatens the community’s core mission, and separation is necessary for integrity? If we expect unconditional inclusion, like children in their parents’ house, we will feel terribly rejected–but perhaps we were expecting the wrong things.

I am an adult Christian, if I’m willing to be one. In an incorrigibly dysfunctional family, your choices are to stay and shut up, or walk away. Our faith communities can and do model a better way of processing our differences. Ten years later, I still feel just as blessed to play my part in that struggle to discern God’s will–though I sure do wish, sometimes, that it was more like sleeping in Mother Church’s lap.

Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written:

“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’

Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it. (Matthew 11:7-12)