MyOutSpirit.com Gay Spirituality Blog

Is Mike Myers Film "The Love Guru" Laughing WITH or AT Spiritual Self-Help?

The movie doesn't open until June 20, 2008, but people are already talking about THE LOVE GURU and Mike Myers' latest outrageous character, Guru Pitka, "the 2nd Best Guru in India."

As you can see in the trailer below, the movie will be laugh-out-loud funny - that just goes with the territory in a Mike Myers film - but will it be helpful?

Oprah caught so much grief in the 90's when she had a segment on her show called "Remember Your Spirit," but she continued to inspire the world, most recently in partnership with Eckhart Tolle (read about it here in O Magazine).  Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, Louise Hay and others have achieved incredible success by helping people improve their lives, but many people still scoff at their work.  I have my own problems with "The Secret," but it's still helped millions of people feel more confident and focused and optimistic.

There are definitely ways to differentiate between what is helpful and what is not - for me, laid out most clearly in Ken Wilber's GRACE AND GRIT - and I would advocate that such discrimination is important.  THE LOVE GURU seems to point out the worst excesses of spiritual self-help, and maybe in that way will help people discriminate between what is actually useful and what is sugary slop!

Will Myers' horny guru do anything to help people in the real world or do you think the movie's mockery will take the spiritual self-help movement backward? 

How much can we laugh at ourselves?  Do we take spirituality too seriously?  THE LOVE GURU will be giving us the chance to hold it lightly!  Will you see the movie?  Does hearing that the movie is officially partnered with Deepak Chopra and Beliefnet (and that they asked MyOutSpirit for our input) change how you feel? 

JOIN MYOUTSPIRIT.COM NOW!

Ex-Gays Speak in CURE FOR LOVE, TV Premiere Saturday, April 12, 2008

Cure For Love is a new documentary about the "ex-gay" movement - a religious network whose goal is to help their members renounce homosexuality. The ex-gay movement now encompasses 120 ministries in the US and Canada and is active in 56 countries world wide.

The film follows two men who have experienced the ex-gay movement in different ways. One gets married, though he admits he is still attracted to men, and another struggles to embrace his homosexuality. The film premieres on Canada's Global Television, at 7pm Saturday April 12.

With startling honesty, the men tell their stories of struggle to reconcile their sexual orientation with their Christian values.

The film was written and co-directed by Christina Willings and Francine Pelletier. Christina is an Alberta-based writer and filmmaker and last week, Matt Forsythe of the National Film Board of Canada asked her a few questions about making the film.

It seemed painful for the Christian subjects to discuss their sexuality at times. What was the hardest part about interviewing these people?

I took myself outside between interviews and cried. Does that about cover it?

Seriously, the process was emotionally exhausting and wonderful at the same time. It was completely perfect that some of the subjects found the process of interviewing very healing.

This is the best possible scenario for me as a filmmaker. The hardest part was interviewing the 'practised Chrisitians' - it's very difficult to cut through the rehearsed testimonies and make authentic connections with people who are used to proselytising and/or defending their positions to people they are in the habit of mistrusting (non-Christians).

It was also difficult to see how little people value their own happiness, and their own right to sexual enjoyment/connection. Heartbreaking really. Evangelical Christianity seems to have as its underpinning, shame and chronic self-criticism - whether in the arena of sexual identity or not. After all...if we don't need redemption form our own sinful natures, then no one needs to die for us, and the bottom falls out of the whole thing.

The level of engagement that some Christian communities are taking with their gay members is suprising. What were the roots of Christian ex-gay organizations like Exodus and New Direction?

Christian communities are actually not engaging much with gay people. They have engaged with the 'threat' of same sex marriage and other progressive legislation initiatives in the past 10 years and have felt increasingly forced to deal with homosexuality - motivated primarily by the desire to "defend their turf". What this has meant for gay people within the church is that there is an opening of interest for them to stick their toe into and perhaps begin to engage people on a human level.

This actually mirrors the development of Exodus and New Direction [an ex-gay ministry] as both were originally organizations of a bunch of tortured gay people toiling away in obscurity before Focus on the Family identified the "homosexual agenda" as it's next big campaign and began to pump money into Exodus.

On the "left of the Christian right" are people like Brian and Anna - they work in the Canadian context where the battle is largely seen as having been lost. 

The key is that they are welcome as long as they are still seeking healing from their orientation.

The film shows two couples: one couple has “renounced” their sexuality and is apparently happily married and another couple has ceased questioning their gayness and accepted it. How did you find these subjects for your film?

Researcher Arlene Moskovitch found Brian and Ana through New Direction in Toronto. I found John and Darren and Ricky at Brian and Ana's wedding.

Are these religious therapy groups exclusive to Christianity or do we see these in other religions as well?

I have come across [similar] groups for Mormons and Orthodox Jews.
 

Cure for Love premieres on Global Television's "Global Currents," Saturday, April 12 at 7pm

The film will be released on DVDs and at festivals later this year. 

Cure For Love is produced by Earth to Sky Pictures Inc. in co-production with the National Film Board of Canada.

Gay Muslim Film Banned

The highly controversial and high profile documentary A Jihad for Love - the world's first feature-length film about Islam and homosexuality – has been banned by the censors from being shown at 21st Singapore International Film Festival where some 200 films will be screened.

The festival organizer told the Straits Times on Saturday that he was informed of the ban on Thursday over the phone by the Media Development Authority which oversees the censorship board.

A Jihad for Love was filmed over five years and in nine languages by India-born and raised director Parvez Sharma who traveled the world from India to Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, South Africa and France to interview devout Muslims who are lesbian, gay or transgender to speak about their faith and their sexuality. In the film, a gay South African imam argues that homosexuality is not banned while another imam rebuts his view.

The paper quoted the chairperson of the board of Film Censors Amy Chua as saying that the film was “disallowed in view of the sensitive nature of the subject that features Muslim homosexuals in various countries and their struggle to reconcile religion and their lifestyle.”

About 14 percent of Singapore's 4.4 million population is Muslim.

According to traditional interpretations of the Quran, homosexuality is strictly forbidden and officially carries the death penalty in some Muslim or Muslim dominant countries including Iran, Saudi-Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Mauritania, Sudan and Nigeria.

From Soulforce: Ask Time magazine to check Dobson's facts about LGBT families

By John G.

I don't want to harp on Mary Cheney's pregnancy, even though it has caused quite the stir in both the gay and anti-gay press.  However, I got an email from Soulforce today that I want to spread around.  Accurate representation in the press is remarkably important for queers everywhere, as outlets like Time do so much to shape the national dialogue on social issues.

From www.soulforce.org:

In the December 18th issue of TIME Magazine, James Dobson responds to the news of Mary Cheney's pregnancy by once again invoking "30 years of social-science evidence" to support his claim that children do best "when raised by their married mother and father."

In spite of Dobson's reputation as a benevolent family therapist, his views on lesbian and gay parenting do not reflect the mainstream of American professional organizations concerned with researching and promoting children's wellbeing. In a 2004 policy statement, the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy reported "no evidence that same-sex couples or family units vary significantly from heterosexual couples or family units in terms of aspirations, hopes and goals, or in outcomes for children."

When GetReligion attacks

By Joe Perez

Can you'all stand two posts in one week that point out the bizarre carping of Mollie, contributor to GetReligion? For those of you who don't know, GetReligion is the blog on "religion and the media" by conservative religionists. Their schtick is usually to show how virtually all stories in the "mainstream media" have an anti-religious bias of one sort or another.

Mollie Ziegler's thing seems to be to find stories that raise topics related to gay people and our lives and then she oh-so-politely attacks the journalists who wrote them for not interjecting enough venom and hate towards gay people. Oh yes, she says "objectivity" where I say "venom and hate." It's a tiny area of disagreement that I call a cross-altitude misunderstanding.

Queer spirituality in Time Out NY

Some great news.  As a part of Gay Pride, Time Out New York's June 20th issue will feature QueerDharma in an article written by Gay and Lesbian editor, Beth Greenfield.  The piece, she says, is about queer spirituality and its rapidly growing community.  No word yet on who else may be featured in the article, but it really is great news for those of us who have been working to raise the profile of LGBT spirituality in the media.

Thanks to Beth and Time Out for the article!  Can't wait to read it! 

Why won't The Revealer link to this blog?

The Revealer is a popular religion blog sponsored by New York University. They're frequently a source of stories that I write about, and a link to the blog appears on this site's blogroll. But The Revealer won't return the favor with a link to Gay Spirituality & Culture on its own blogroll. Big wup, right? I know... I know... Like there aren't more important things to write about. But indulge me in a moment of frivolity.

Brokeback Mountain

I saw the film this past weekend. I’m not going to attempt to review it; excellent reviews can be found almost everywhere. (A highly perverse review from the Traditional Values harpies can be read here).  Suffice it to say that it’s a very good flick and well worth your time and the price of admission. I read the short story before seeing the movie, and I thought the movie was faithful to the writing -- just expanding on it a bit here and there. I'm haunted by the film and eager to see it again.

Here in Atlanta Brokeback Mountain is showing in only one Midtown theater, although it’s showing on three screens. As far as I can tell, every screening was sold out all weekend. I’ve been going to this multiplex since it opened, and this is the first time I couldn’t find a place to park anywhere in the shopping center.  It's clear that the gay community has been very eager to see this story on the screen.

I've been very interested in reading reviews about the film. I think it's a good pulse-taking about how gay men are understood in society, or at least by film critics. The review have been positive, I think, but even then some writers couldn't resist nervous jokes about "gay caballeros" or "yippee yi oh ki gay."  This struck me as less homophobic than childish and over-anxious.

So much has been made of the "on-screen sodomy" that I was take aback (OK, a little disappointed) by how demure it was, really. So much attention has been paid to the sexual aspect of the connection between the characters, I suppose because people are astonished that two presumably straight male actors would agree to kiss for the entire world to see. But the story was about love, not sex. Typical; much of society looks at same-sex love and sees only "sodomy."

Beyond anything gay, though, I was struck by how the film explored masculinity and the other relationships between men. Other than the relationship between Ennis and Jack, all the relationships between men in the film were just cold and brutal. It is a bleak look at masculinity.

I’ve spoken with several people this week that identified with Ennis, the film’s shut-down main character. They spoke about how before coming out, life felt much like the one portrayed by this sad cowboy. I felt much the same, and am spending these days appreciating the 23-year-old version of me that faced down some big fears so long ago in order to make a happier life possible.

--John Ballew
  www.bodymindsoul.org

Pat Robertson Says Pie Not Delicious

From The Onion, "America's finest news source:"

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA—Televangelist Pat Robertson, who recently condemned the town of Dover, PA for accepting evolution and called for the assassination of leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, said during a Sunday broadcast of The 700 Club that pie is not delicious. "Pie is a corrupt and foul-tasting pastry-covered baked-fruit abomination that shall turn to ashes in the mouth of the misled eater," Robertson said during his 11-minute anti-pie tirade. "The pious eat not the pie, knowing it an unclean thing, nor the crust, nor the filling. Get thee behind me, pie!" Stunned 700 Club viewer Melody Blaker of Houston told reporters that that the evangelist had "abandoned common sense."

No word on cake, so far as I know.....

New Project Supports LGBT Spiritual Resource Providers

Become a member of myOutSpirit.com today if you want to attract more LGBT people to spiritual inquiry and practice!

Make sure your LGBT-affirming spiritual resource is listed in the myOutSpirit Directory of LGBT Spiritual Resources, and work with your peers to claim a place for spirituality at the center of LGBT life, culture and community.

Catagories in the Directory cover a broad range of LGBT-affirming spiritual resources that help LGBT people create lives of spiritual growth, sustainability, and physical, mental and social health. These catagories include LGBT-affirming:

• Yoga teachers and studios;
• Synagogues and sanghas;
• Temples and churches;
• Commitment ceremony officiants;
• Spiritual counselors and life coaches;
• Retreat centers;
• Conferences, retreats and other events;
• Spiritual teachers and gurus;
• Body-workers;
• Energy-workers;
• Healers;
• Authors and writers;
• Social justice programs;
• Theologians and philosophers;
• Artists, choreographers and musicians, and more!

Not an LGBT Spiritual Resource Provider?  You should consider joining the OutSpirit Partner Affiliate Program--you will get paid for promoting LGBT spirituality!

Visit myOutSpirit.com for full details about how you can get involved in this important new project.