MyOutSpirit.com Gay Spirituality Blog

Archbishop Desmond Tutu "would not worship a homophobic God"

Archbishop Desmond Tutu took a strong pro-Gay stand in an interview last week with the BBC's Radio 4.  The 40-minute radio program, to be aired next Tuesday, will focus on the conflict over homosexuality in the worldwide Anglican Church.

"Our world is facing problems - poverty, HIV and AIDS - a devastating pandemic - and conflict. God must be weeping looking at some of the atrocities that we commit against one another. In the face of all of that, our Church, especially the Anglican Church, at this time is almost obsessed with questions of human sexuality..."

"If God as they say is homophobic I wouldn't worship that God."

BBC Radio 4 will air From Calvary To Lambeth on Tuesday, Nov 27 from 8pm-8.40pm and again on Sunday, Dec 2 from 5-5.40pm on Radio 4 FM. The programme can be heard online at bbc.co.uk/radio4. 

READ THE FULL STORY ON FRIDAE.COM

Jesus and Buddha on giving thanks

With the Thanksgiving holiday approaching, I wondered what the great spiritual teachers such as Jesus and Buddha said about gratitude and giving thanks.

 The answer: Not much.

 Today’s popular wisdom urges people to “count your blessings,” a technique that never helped me much when I was down. Ignoring painful realities felt like denial, not healing.

Jesus and Buddha both seemed to take a different approach.  Buddha spoke of the Middle Way, where people could be free from both desire and aversion, no longer caught up in seeking and counting blessings.

Jesus himself often gave thanks to God. Otherwise he called attention to the behavior that he witnessed. For example, he healed ten lepers, including one Samaritan, a member of a despised ethnic group, perhaps similar to queer people today. Only one, the Samaritan, bothered to say thanks.

Jesus spoke to the bystanders. “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”

To the leper he said, “Your faith has made you well.” (Luke 17:17-19)

Can’t relate to lepers? When I used a voice-recognition program to type the above scripture, it changed “clean” to “lean.” I smile when I imagine ten fat people made lean, a type of healing that’s much more familiar in America today.

Jesus seems to equate gratitude with faith. It’s an act of faith to give thanks as we navigate life’s vicissitudes, which Buddha identified as pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and dispute.

I’m grateful for the chance to try to walk the Middle Way with an attitude of gratitude this Thanksgiving Day. I also thank the people who build community by reading and commenting on this blog.
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PS: My two favorite resources on Buddhism are listed at the Jesus in Love Blog, where this essay is cross-posted.
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Kittredge Cherry is a lesbian author and minister who offers glbt spiritual resources at JesusInLove.org.

Republicans, why don’t you respect my gay marriage?

I ask the Republican presidential candidates about gay marriage in my new video for the CNN YouTube debate.

I’m a lesbian who’s been married to the same woman since my church wedding in 1987, but all of the Republican frontrunners have been divorced and remarried, sometimes more than once!

I want to know why they won’t give my 20-year marriage the same legal status that their marriages have.

If my video is chosen by CNN, it will be broadcast and answered on live TV on Nov. 28. You can see the video now by clicking the button in the middle of image above.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper will moderate the live debate between the eight major Republican candidates for U.S. president – Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Gov. Mike Huckabee, Rep. Duncan Hunter, Sen. John McCain, Rep. Ron Paul, Gov. Mitt Romney, Rep. Tom Tancredo and Sen. Fred Thompson. It will run live from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. (ET) on CNN on Wed., Nov. 28.

In the video I show the “Holy Union” certificate from my wedding at Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco in 1987 – long before “gay marriage” became a major political issue.

Politicians like to make it sound like all churches oppose “gay marriage” while the government at least recognizes “civil unions.” My video shows that progressive spiritual communities have been blessing GLBT unions for decades.

For example, a variety of wedding rites and relationship blessings for GLBT couples are included in my now-classic book Equal Rites: Lesbian and Gay Worship, Ceremonies, and Celebrations.  Someday I hope that the secular world will catch up with the church.

There’s still time for you to ask a video question, too. The CNN YouTube Debates site is accepting videos through Nov. 25.  If you do submit a question, please let me know so that we can support each other.

(cross-posted at the Jesus in Love Blog)

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Kittredge Cherry is a lesbian author who offers glbt-friendly spiritual resources at JesusInLove.org.

At Yale Divinity School, atheists find acceptance

Their acceptance by the other students and faculty doesn't surprise me. If anything, I'm surprised the number of atheists is so low (8 to 10 attend regular meetings) ...

clipped from www.journalnow.com Matt Riley, a second-year student at Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Conn., helps lead "The Left Behind," a club of atheists and agnostics at one of the nation's premier training grounds for clergy. Along with co-leader Christy Groves, Riley has given nonbelievers a place of their own on a campus that explores belief. He chose divinity school, he says, to obtain an "inside view." The club fosters dialogue between non-Christians and Christians on campus and staged "Div School Idol," a takeoff on American Idol in the chapel last spring.

Does sex addiction exist?

Experts are divided on the question of whether sex addiction really exists

clipped from www.msnbc.msn.com Hello. My name is Brian and I am a sex addict. It never occurred to me that I might be addicted to love. But then Marty Klein, a sex therapist in Palo Alto, Calif., and author of the book "America’s War on Sex," asked me to take a Web screening test created by Patrick Carnes, the best-known popularizer of the "sex addict" idea. I answered all the questions as honestly as I could, but some seemed awfully vague — "Do you often find yourself preoccupied with sexual thoughts?" — or rather commonplace — "Have you subscribed to or regularly purchased or rented sexually explicit materials (magazines, videos, books or online pornography)?" But then Carnes’ definition of sex addiction itself can be vague: "Sexual addiction is defined as any sexually-related, compulsive behavior which interferes with normal living and causes severe stress on family, friends, loved ones and one's work environment."

Gay Muslims Reveal Different Evolutionary Stages of Faith Development

An article from the New York Times called "Gay Muslims Find Freedom, of a Sort, in the U.S." describes the various attitudes towards homosexuality in Islam. Cataloged are a variety of perspectives that demonstrate various stages of increasing acceptance of homosexuality and unfolding truth. In terms of evolutionary holistic theory such as Spiral Dynamics, a variety of value memes are demonstrated ranging from red to blue to orange to green and turquoise.

At the bottom of the scale (red): tribalistic egocentrism - homosexuality is seen as an assault on the honor of the tribe

[Ayman] is convinced that a 22-year-old gay friend who died after a fall from an apartment building was the victim of an “honor” killing meant to clean the family’s reputation. “I still feel like I’m a Muslim; I don’t accept that anyone insults the faith,” said Ayman, who avoids attending mosque. “When I read what it says in the Koran, then I fear Judgment Day.”

In the middle of the scale (blue): mythic-membership traditionalism - homosexuality is regarded as behavior, behavior judged according to the dictates of a centuries-old tradition

The consultant, trying to reconcile being gay and Muslim, divides his sins into the redeemable and those warranting hellfire. “Anal sex for either a man or woman is wrong, so when I really think about it, I tell myself not to have sex,” he said, describing a failed four-year experiment with celibacy.

Higher on the evolutionary ladder (orange): myths scrubbed by rational reassessments, cleansing traditional prohibitions in the purifying fire of worldcentric reason

In traditional seats of Islamic learning, like Egypt and Iran, punishment against blatant homosexual activity, not to mention against trying to establish a gay rights movement, can be severe. These governments are prone to label homosexuality a Western phenomenon, as happened in September when Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, spoke at Columbia University. But far more leeway to dissect the topic exists in places where gay rights are more protected.

As a rule, gay Muslim activists lacked the scholarly grounding needed to scrutinize time-honored teachings. But that is changing, activists say, partly because no rigid clerical hierarchy exists in the West to bar such research.

Even higher (green): a pluralistic embrace of a variety of sexual orientations as perfectly valid ways of loving

About 15 people marched alongside the Muslim float in this city’s notoriously fleshy Gay Pride Parade earlier this year, with various men carrying the flags of Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine and Turkey and even Iran’s old imperial banner.

While other floats featured men dancing in leather Speedos or women with scant duct tape over their nipples, many Muslims were disguised behind big sunglasses, fezzes or kaffiyehs wrapped around their heads.

Even as they reveled in newfound freedom compared with the Muslim world, they remained closeted, worried about being ostracized at the mosque or at their local falafel stand.

Not described explicitly, but suggested: an even higher (turquoise) mystical vision of God's love that denies the validity of distinctions between gay and straight, and embraces same-sex desire and love as one of the fundamental ways that God's love is embodied...

Renowned poets wrote odes glorifying handsome boys. Some were interpreted as metaphors about loving God, but some were paeans to gay sex. Rafique and others argue that homosexuality became criminalized only under European colonialism.

“From the 10th to the 14th century, Muslim society used to be a far richer mix of the legal, the rational and the mystic,” said Rafique, an anthropologist. “They looked at sexuality as one aspect of life’s many possibilities, and they saw in it the hope for spiritual insight. I came across this stuff, and it helped me reconcile the two.”

Some mosques with a Sufi orientation extend a rare welcome to gay Muslims.

Susan Russell asks: What do gays mean by monogamy?

At "An Inch at a Time", Susan Russell (an ordained Episcopalian minister) discusses the M word:

So the other morning I was having breakfast with a clergy colleague and the subject of monogamy came up. It came up in the in context of a conversation about his concern (my clergy colleague's, that is) that we (the LGBT lobby, that is) had been "ambiguous" about what it was we were asking for in terms of the blessing of same-gender unions.

"Really?" I said. "What have 'we' been 'ambiguous' about?"

"Well, monogamy," he said.

"Monogamy?" I echoed -- thinking of all the things we could be accused of being ambiguous about that isn't one I'd have come up with on my list.

"Because monogamy means something different in the gay community," he said. (I think it fair to note here for clarification that my breakfast colleague was a straight, white, male, rector of a neighboring congregation.) "And if you're going to be clear about what you want from the church you have to be clear about what you mean."

Read the whole post.

Personally, I think Russell's response and the conversation in the comment boxes miss the mark. Russell's definition of monogamy as "one mate" doesn't really answer any of the subtle yet important questions raised primarily in relationships of two men. At any given time, gay men may be in relationship with a partner. However, among partnered gay men, sexual monogamy (exclusive sexual relations) becomes more and more rare as years pass. After five years in a relationship, the majority of gay men have one degree or another of "openness" in their relationships. At that point, the relationship may continue as a single pairing (monogamous) but sexually non-exclusive according to the negotiated terms between the partners.

Russell's response seems to feign ignorance of this very real phenomenon, and this very real concern. Would she exclude gay partnerships between two men (or any two persons) that are long-term, emotionally exclusive, stable, and healthy from a "blessing ceremony" because the partners have chosen to allow a limited and defined amount of sexual non-exclusivity (for example, by sharing a "three-way" with another man on occasion?)

Obviously, Russell doesn't want to look at this issue head on, and I don't blame her. If her answer is that relationships between men should not be blessed if they are open to any degree then she should come out and say so. There are plenty of partnered gay men who will be surprised to learn that in her view their relationships aren't worthy of a blessing.

What constitutes fidelity in a relationship? What is a healthy and emotionally loving and nurturing response? On the one hand, a heterosexual couple who have vowed to monogamy, but who in practice cheat on the other spouse, lie about it, and then ask God for forgiveness? According to conventional speech, their relationship is still "monogamous". On the other hand, you may have a gay male couple who have vowed, say, to a period of monogamy followed by a potentially open relationship. After the monogamous phase of their relationship is passed, they want to stay together, but would prefer to allow a limited amount of sexual non-exclusivity so long as it is done with honesty according to mutually agreed upon terms. According to conventional speech, their relationship is "non-monogamous" or "open". Apparently, Russell's theological view is that only the heterosexual couple's relationship should be blessed, and the gay male couple should receive no blessing.

Needless to say, in my view, such opinions haven't yet done the theology, and their claims to have done so are really dubious.  My own view, described in Soulfully Gay, is that monogamy is a stage in relationships that may or may not be best made into a permanent agreement, and the best covenant between the partners is one appropriate for their level of sexual and emotional maturity. Such a view doesn't easily translate into sound bites like "monogamy is one mate, case closed" but at least my view stands a chance at taking into account the very real complexity and richness of gay men's lives, and openness to the Spirit as it is revealed therein.

Excerpt from Soulfully Gay: On homophilia

The following prose poem is adapted from Soulfully Gay: How Harvard, Sex, Drugs, and Integral Philosophy Drove Me Crazy and Brought Me Back to God (Integral Books, 2007).

Love is not merely an emotion. Love is another name for the soul’s archetypal desire to be reunited with Divinity, Alpha and Omega, and the actions that are manifested as a result of that desire. In other words, love is another name for two archetypal directions of all reality. Love describes the process by which the soul reunites with Divinity.

There are two archetypal ways of loving: self-transcending and self-dissolving. In self-dissolving ways of loving, the self seeks to be reunited with the Alpha in inner-directed ways. Self-transcending ways of loving seek to be reunited with the Omega in outer-directed ways. There are actually an infinite variety of ways of loving, but it’s helpful to start talking about just two.

Gayness and straightness are each, in their purest archetypal forms, expressions of the two archetypal ways of loving. Gayness is another name for the self-dissolving form of loving: the desire to love in inner-directed ways, and the actions that spring from that desire. The movement toward Alpha. Another name for gayness is homophilia, or love of the same or similar.

Straightness is the self-transcending form: the desire to love in outer-directed ways, and the actions that spring from that desire. The movement toward Omega. Another name for straightness is heterophilia, or love of the self for other or the seemingly different. Heterophilia is the love of Divinity in otherness, and homophilia is self-love, or receptivity to Divine love in sameness.

Gays in Outer Space

According to the International Encyclopedia of Sexuality, it is unlikely that homosexual relationships have been consummated in outer space:

Connors et al. (1985) considered the possibility of homosexual relationships in space, although they considered heterosexual relationships to be the more realistic problem. At this time, it appears that homosexual activities in their varied forms are significantly less likely to have occurred in space, even if there are gay astronauts, simply because the majority of their colleagues are likely to be heterosexual; in addition, the process of coming out (making their homosexuality known to others) would very likely be the end of their career. However, homosexual sex may have occurred, because individuals are often able to find each other by conscious and unconscious subcultural cues. Then, allowing for the accidents of time and scheduling, potential homosexual partners may have been assigned to the same flight, guaranteeing training together for the mission and allowing them to be together in space for sex to occur. Again, it would not be politically expedient to prove that homosexual activities have occurred for the same reasons noted above for heterosexuals, but in this instance, there would also be the potentially greater harm that might come to a gay astronaut if his (or her) sexual orientation were unintentionally made public (although losing one’s career would likely hold true for heterosexuals as well, if the activity occurred outside the accepted bounds of marriage).

The number of women who are astronauts would make lesbians even less likely to be represented in the astronaut corps than gay men, and thus would make it less likely that lesbian sexual activity has occurred. Nevertheless, both lesbians and gay men are represented in other aspects of the space program. The likelihood of bisexuals who might be astronauts is more difficult to assess, because many bisexuals typically do not identify themselves as a distinct subculture, but tend to shift between heterosexual or homosexual affiliations. Bisexuals, female and male, who are attracted equally to females and males are less common than those who tend to focus on one sex or the other. With regard to multiple pairings, my comments with reference to heterosexual astronauts would also likely apply, although in the case of gay astronauts, more or less their whole sexual persona would need to be kept secret in the present social climate.