MyOutSpirit.com Gay Spirituality Blog

That Didn't Take Long

For someone on the right to say it's all our fault. Katrina, that is. Queers, I mean.

   

An evangelical Christian group that regularly demonstrates at LGBT events is blaming gays for hurricane Katrina.      

   

Repent America says that God "destroyed" New Orleans because of Southern Decadence, the gay festival that was to have taken place in the city over the Labor Day weekend.

   

"Southern Decadence" has a history of filling the French Quarters section of the city with drunken homosexuals engaging in sex acts in the public streets and bars" Repent America director Michael Marcavage said in a statement Wednesday.

   

"Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city." Marcavage said. "From ‘Girls Gone Wild’ to ‘Southern Decadence’, New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. May it never be the same."

   

"Let us pray for those ravaged by this disaster. However, we must not forget that the citizens of New Orleans tolerated and welcomed the wickedness in their city for so long," Marcavage said.

   

"May this act of God cause us all to think about what we tolerate in our city limits, and bring us trembling before the throne of Almighty God," Marcavage concluded.

Well, at least they stopped short of wishing their "loving god" had waited until the city was full of homosexuals and then sent the hurricane.

Now let's wait and see how many conervatives come forward to denounce this statement.

LGBT People Responding to Katrina

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco has declared today a day of prayer.  Whatever your spiritual language, whether it is prayer, spells, energy, will, thoughts, intention, or something else, please join me in directing it towards all those affected by Hurricane Katrina.

When you are done praying, please consider the information in this e-mail that passed through my inbox today:

Please be part of the LGBT community's response to the loss and devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.  Hurricane Katrina has blazed a trail of destruction throughout Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.  Thousands of homes have been destroyed and several hundred lives have been lost.  Many of the survivors are homeless and in need of food, safe drinking water, and medical care.  It is estimated that tens of thousands will need temporary housing for months to come.  Rainbow World Fund has established a fund for donations to help the survivors of Katrina.  We are responding with food aid - donations through RWF will go to our partner America's Second Harvest (ASH), the nation's food bank network.  ASH is one of the most effective charities in the world.  ASH expects that at least ten food banks and hundreds of related agencies were hit by Hurricane Katrina.  Your donations will be used to provide meals and groceries, transport food to survivors, and secure additional warehouse space to assist food banks in resuming and maintaining operations.  100% of the funds you donate to the RWF Hurricane Katrina will go toward helping the survivors recover.

Donate at: http://www.rainbowfund.org/donate specify "Katrina" or send a check to "Rainbow World Fund", PO Box 14480, San Francisco, CA 94114.

What Is Truth?

I’ve noticed a recurring pattern among some of my fellow travellers on the spiritual path: an extreme reluctance to make a definite moral statement. I understand that in this postmodern age there is (supposedly) no such thing as absolute truth. And I can understand why many (especially in the GLBT community) are reluctant to make any definite moral statements: many of us have been abused or alienated by those who have used such “absolute” statements as weapons against us.

But it seems to me that if we never stand up for what is true – if we never speak our truth with conviction – we slip into a kind of moral vacuum, where every viewpoint is given equal weight, no matter how harmful the consequences of those viewpoints may be to others.

An example from the current news: Pat Robertson has called for the United States to assassinate the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez. As good liberal postmodernists who value tolerance and dialogue between those of differing paths, are we supposed to consider Pat Robertson’s viewpoint a valid one? Are we intolerant if we refuse to tolerate an intolerant viewpoint? Is it OK to call Pat Robertson (or at least his words) vile and loathsome, or are we judgmental and absolutist ourselves if we do so?

I have no answers, just concerns. I welcome your feedback.

U.S. Cedes Ground to Iraq Islamists

It would almost be funny if it wasn't so...well...not funny. It seems that, U.S. diplomats have thrown up their hands and conceded ground to Islamists in in the ongoing struggle to come up with an Iraqi constitution.

U.S. diplomats have conceded ground to Islamists on the role of religion in Iraq, negotiators said on Saturday as they raced to meet a 48-hour deadline to draft a constitution under intense U.S. pressure.

    

U.S. diplomats, who have insisted the constitution must  enshrine ideals of equal rights and democracy, declined  comment.

    

Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish negotiators all said there was  accord on a bigger role for Islamic law than Iraq had before.

    

But a secular Kurdish politician said Kurds opposed making Islam "the," not "a," main source of law -- changing current wording -- and subjecting all legislation to a religious test.

    

"We understand the Americans have sided with the Shi'ites," he said. "It's shocking. It doesn't fit American values. They have spent so much blood and money here, only to back the creation of an Islamist state ... I can't believe that's what the Americans really want or what the American people want."

 

Wapo and the Wacko

The hubby, who's becoming more web savvy, turned me on to this story when I got home this evening. "Did you see who got profiled in the Post?" he asked. I hadn't, so he pointed me towards the Post's profile of "reparative therapist" Richard Cohen.

   

   

"I'm a heterosexual and I want to give somebody hope. I want to say, 'I did it, you can do it, too,' " said Richard A. Cohen, one of the best-known reparative therapists, who practices out of a book-lined office in his home in a modest Bowie neighborhood. Cohen, 52, identifies himself as a former homosexual. He lectures widely, has written three books and serves as president of Parents, Families and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX).

Does it Matter Why?

I've been trying to decide how to respond to this Boston Globe article about what makes people gay. For some reason, the whole notion of finding the "cause" of homosexuality has always made me nervous, because to me it implies a "cure" lies somewhere -- which implies that there's something wrong or disordered about it. It doesn't help that the article begins by describing a boy who doesn't conform to gender expectations as having "childhood gender nonconformity." Even that rather innocuous term makes my skin crawl just a little.

More From Zach

A reader alerted me that Zach has updated his blog again, adding to his first post after his return from LIA/R. I've read through it several times now, and I don't have any doubts about it's authenticity. He sounds like a 16 year old who's been through and is still going through a tough time, particularly at home, and is still sorting it out and trying to find his way through.

It sounds like things haven't necessarily gotten better at home either. His comings and going, his communications and his blogging in particular -- which his father says he doesn't want Zach to do anymore -- are closely monitored by his folks now.
 

Reading it makes me wish there was something I could do. But I don't what that something could be. Maybe send him a message and hope it doesn't get lost in the hundreds of others he's undoubtedly getting? I just don't have any answers here. I just wish there was something I could do to make his situation better.

 

Johnny, Are You Queer?

Via MetaFilter comes James Dobson's checklist to help you find out if your kid might be gay.

I thought I'd go down the list and see how I did.

1. A strong feeling that they are “different” from other boys.

Oh yeah. Starting in kindergarten. It became more noticable as I got older. Believe me, other boys picked up on it too. The thing is, that it took some time before I absorbed the idea that there was anything wrong with being different from ther boys. It took some time for the other boys to absorb that idea, but they managed it sooner than I did. And when they did, boy did I get it. Before I could name my "difference" I was reminded of it, and punished for it on a daily basis. 
 

Our Space

It’s hard to be a gay blogger, especially one who has come out of an evangelical background, and not write about Zach Stark.  I’ve refrained from writing about him, partly because others were doing so, and partly because I am a bit gunshy when it comes to commenting on the lives of private individuals.

Unfortunately for Zach (but fortunately for the dialogue in this country), he ceased to be a private individual, at least in part, when he began posting on MySpace.  Now, having finished an 8 week stint at LIA/R, Zach is asking for his own space.

I, for one, am going to give it to him.  This has, however, given me impetus to think about my life as a sixteen-year old (a short ten years ago!) and my own journey “into the homosexual lifestyle” as Zach’s counselors might put it.  While I never went to a residential ministry like him, I did consider it—and my parents did suggest it at least once, offering to pay. 

Zach's Back

And posting to his blog, apparently. I received notice from MySpace this morning that Zach's blog had been updated, and visited to find that he'd not only written a new post, but also deleted all of his previous posts. I held off posting about it, and just left a supportive comment of my own, because I wanted to see how things went. Sure enough, he expanded the post, which had previously consisted of just the first two paragraphs. You can read it for yourself.