Conservafools: If You Really 'Support Our Troops', Stop Hatin' On Islam

One of the things I'm concerned about is the anti Islam attitudes that have been stoked by conservafools around the country for political purposes.

Of course the neo-Know Nothing conservasheeple have responded by using the zoning hearing process in California, Kentucky and Tennessee to deny their ability to be built, attacking or picketing mosque construction sites, and other disturbing nationwide incidents.

In other New York incidents 21 year old Michael Enright was arraigned on hate crimes charges for slashing cab driver Ahmed H. Sharif August 24 after asking him if he was a Muslim. Another is in jail after barging into a local mosque, shouting anti-Islamic slogans, and urinating on prayer rugs.

Another pipe bomb was detonated outside a mosque in Jacksonville, FL a few months ago.

There's also some fools in a conservachurch in Florida who are planning a 'Burn a Quran Day' on September 11, which they are trying to turn into the conservafool national holiday after Ronald Reagan's birthday.

What the conservafools fail to realize is that the Internet runs both ways and this 'hate on Islam' rhetoric isn't occurring in a vacuum. Devout Muslims around the world have computers too and surf the web. They read what our right wing fools do get rightfully pissed off and want to strike back at Americans.

And who are the Americans the adherents of Islam have the easiest access to attack? Our troops on the ground in Afghanistan and military personnel around the world.

That concerns me since I and other people have family members currently in the military. Those deployed in Afghanistan have a rough enough time there without you right wing idiots inciting and antagonizing the 1 billion people who are Muslims.

Religious freedom cuts both ways. Muslims here in the States have every right under the First Amendment to practice their faith without interference from you Islamophobic fools.

If you claim to support the troops, you'll chill with the Islamophobic rhetoric.

'Religious Freedom' Cuts Both Ways

"It is my hope that the mosque will help to bring our city even closer together, and help repudiate the false and repugnant idea that the attacks of 9/11 were in any way consistent with Islam. "Muslims are as much a part of our city and our country as the people of any faith - and they are as welcome to worship in lower Manhattan as any other group." NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

For all the screaming the conservafools are doing about the so called Ground Zero Mosque which is actually two blocks away from the WTC site, what isn't being said or mentioned by all the haters is there are strip clubs and other sexually oriented businesses in the same two block zone near the World Trade Center site.

Interestingly enough, right across the street from the WTC on Warren Street sits the Masjid Muhammad, a mosque that has been at that spot since 1970 and gets 1000 worshipers for Friday prayers?

The bottom line is that the Constitution's First Amendment is clear on this point.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

'Religious freedom' is not a free pass or shield for conservafools to hate on people or groups they don't like. It means exactly what it says as a constitutional value that you can't prevent the free exercise of religion.

So when the haters show the same zeal in eradicating sexually oriented businesses like the New York Dolls strip club from the area, then and only then will I consider their arguments against the mosque and cultural center as anything other than political posturing and Islamophobia.

TransGriot Update: Keith Olbermann had a special comment on his show about this issue as well.

Whatever Happened To 'Whosoever Will'?

I have never read the verse where it says, "Though shalt discriminate against those not like me." I have never read the verse where it says, "Let's base our public policy on hate and fear and discrimination." Christianity to me is love and hope and faith and forgiveness--not hate and discrimination.

Texas state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, 2005

It's been a little over a month since I moved back to Houston, and one of the things I miss about Da Ville is my open and affirming Edenside church family and Rev. Sally McClain.

It got me thinking about what in Hades has happened to the Black Church?

It used to be an institution that embodies the slogan 'whosoever will'. Now 'whosoever will' has an asterisk by it.

Whosoever Will* except if you're gay, trans, liberal, ain't willing to give us your tax refund check...Well, you get the drift.

The Black Church has allowed itself to be infected by a virus called 'Prosperity Gospel'. It's basically what the late Rev. Ike used to preach back in the day on steroids.

It's also allowed itself to be infiltrated by the same white fundamentalist preachers who opposed our civil rights in exchange of cash to build and maintain those arena sized churches they run.

Some of them have willingly sold out our community to get faith-based initiative bribe money or suck up to GOP politicians who do not have our community's best interests in mind.

That has made many of these ministers who should have been front and center speaking out about the oppression of other human beings either reluctant to speak truth to power or depressingly hostile chocolate dipped tools laboring for the Forces of Intolerance.

It's not prudent in their minds to do so when they are paying notes on those palatial churches, getting handed large speaking fees to speak at conservafool political and religious conferences or trying to support a jet setting lifestyle and far flung teleministry complete with $1000 suits and flashy cars.

But back to discussing what happened to 'whosoever will'. For the four centuries that African descended people have been on the American continent, the church was the one institution that we had control over. It was the spiritual rock that we anchored our chaotic lives to. It produced some of our greatest leaders and served as a one stop social service and community center. It also was our sword and shield fighting against injustice.

Now it's becoming, as Dr. King once talked about, a 'dry as dust' religion.

But for too long it has been on the wrong side of the civil rights battle that TBLG people are waging against the same oppressive forces that tried to retard our civil rights advances and who would love to roll all African Americans civil rights back like they successfully did at the tail end of the 19th century.

The Black Church really needs to get back to the tradition of 'whosoever will' as soon as possible because all our people's civil rights may depend on it.

The Conservative 'Dry As Dust' Religion

Any religion which professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them, is a dry-as-dust religion.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

That quote describes not only the conservative movement as a whole, but conservative denominations of the various world religions.

I've been increasingly concerned about the conservatization and fundamentalist rhetoric coming out of the mouths of leaders of the various leading world religious denominations such as Roman Catholicism and Christianity, just to name two.

I've been displeased about the increasing frequency that they concern themselves with protecting the powerful against the powerless.

I'm not happy about their deafening silence when it comes to speaking truth to power about civil rights abuses, but they always got something increasingly stupid to say about moral issues.

In addition, what they call moral issues conveniently lines up with 'white wing' politicized choices about what is and isn't a moral issue.

It's maddeningly wedded to a disgusting 'prosperity gospel' being pimped in their arena sized churches that claims if you're poor, God is displeased with you.

Excuse me?

Seems like the only economic conditions conservachurches are concerned with are lining their own pockets, the superwealthy or the corporations and right wing politicians they support.

And don't even get me started about the immoral behavior they engage in while they hypocritically demonize it for others.

It's become abundantly clear over the last twenty years since Saint Ronald of Reagan became president that they and the conservative movement don't care about the poor, the uninsured, the homeless, anyone that isn't a white male and persecuted minorities. They gleefully participate in the demonization of them and the people who courageously stand up to critique this travesty of injustice.

When their demonization manifests itself into murderous violence directed at the marginalized groups they disparage, they either blame the victim or have nothing to say about it.

Is it any wonder why your conservachurches are experiencing flatlined or negative attendance growth? Is is any wonder why the young people you ran through and miseducated in your private 'Christian' academies are turning away from your 'dry as dust' organized religions in droves?

Conservatives have turned the word 'Christian' into a synonym for racist, ignorant, neo-Luddite, warmongering, gun-toting, Republican voting know nothings.

Thinking people, those of us who give a damn about humanity and young people increasingly don't want to be associated with that label.

Maybe except in Fulton, Mississippi.

You conservanegro ministers aren't off the hook here either.

You have taken a proud tradition of a Black church that actively fought two centuries for our freedoms and emasculated it. You now prostate yourselves to the same racist white conservative ministers and politicians that fought our civil rights movement for your own personal and political gain.

You have become the Pharisees and Sagicees. You are traitors to the Black community as well for facilitating the injection of the anti-gay hate that has long been a tradition of white fundamentalist churches into our community.

By doing so for your own selfish gains, you have put the Black community in the uncomfortable position for the first time in our 400 year history in the Americas of being seen as civil rights oppressors instead of civil rights warriors.

What you conservafools are doing is reprehensible. You're sowing bitter seeds of disharmony and discord that we don't need in a multicultural society that you will reap a negative harvest from.

You conservatives of all ethnic groups are to blame for turning a peaceful, socially conscious religion into an opiate for the conservative Fox watching masses.

And we liberal Christians are to blame for allowing this crap to happen on our watch in the first place.

So no, I don't believe in your conservative version of God or your Apostle Paul quoting representatives of it. You and your conservative religion and movement represent precisely what Dr. King presciently said it was, dry as dust.

You are also immoral, unjust and sacrilegious.

Catholic Church Already Hatin' For The Holidays

Can me and my transsistahs go through this holiday season without being verbally attacked by faith based haters, the Catholic Church, conservative media or conservative Black megachurch preachers?

Monica Roberts November 27, 2009

Nope.

The post I wrote asking if we could go a month without any holiday hatred being directed at transpeople isn't even a week old and the Catholic Church is already hatin' for the holidays.

Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan of Mexico, the emeritus president of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Health (1996-2009) said in an interview with Pontifex,

homosexuals and transvestites "will never enter into the reign of God," appealing to St. Paul

Barragan went even further in the interview and contradicted Catholic doctrine by stating that he believes that homosexuals are not born that way but become that.

And I thought the birthers were breathtakingly stupid.

The more the Catholic Church engages in hatin' on GLBT people, the more irrelevant they become to the younger generation that has grown up with GLBT people since elementary and middle school. They are also driving progressive Catholics out of the Church with their ultra conservative BS and mean spirited rhetoric as well.

DignityUSA definitely has its work cut out for it trying to roll back the tide of anti-GLBT hate flowing from the Vatican.

FYI Cardinal Barragan, only God will make that final judgment on who enters the Kingdom of Heaven. I have a sneaking suspicion there will be more than a few rainbow denizens walking through the Pearly Gates.

You know, after this Cardinal Barragan comment, I wonder what Papa Ratzi is going to say this Christmas Eve to top last year's phobic commentary.

I'll have to say my prayers for my transsisters residing in heavily Catholic countries. I fear that this transphobic commentary and whatever comes out of the mouth of Benedict XVI is going to result in another spike in the numbers of dead transwomen we'll have to memorialize next November 20.


H/T-Pam's House Blend

Donnie McClurkin's Hatin' Again

One of the things that I hate as a Christian is people who have used my faith as a shield to try to mask their bigotry and hatred of GLBT people.

I've also been distressed about this negative trend that started in the mid 90's. We have had increasing numbers of conservative Black megachurch pastors cooning for white fundamentalist pastors. They have not only acted as a conduit for injecting these misguided beliefs into our community, they have pimped their own hatred of GLBT people for media attention and faith based bucks.

I've also been angry about the appalling silence from progressive Black pastors and their failure to call out the conservafools for sullying the activist legacy of the Black church.

I don't like the conservative megachurch ministers or the 'prosperity gospel' they pimp from their pulpits. I believe it has been harmful to our community and the civil rights cause. It has caused a schism in the Black community and diverted the attention of the Black church away from its historic ongoing mission of speaking truth to power and standing up for the powerless.

In too many cases, these megachurch ministers have spent more time doing photo ops, kissing up to a party that has no love for us. and opposing the advance of civil rights rather than being on the front lines fighting for their passage.

They've spent so much time mouthing the words 'Thus sayeth the Apostle Paul' than saying 'Thus sayeth Jesus'

One of the people I really can't stand is so-called ex-gay Donnie McClurkin. He's a real life Amityville horror (was born in Amityville NY) who has a long history of anti-gay statements and Republican ass kissing.

But at the recent COGIC convention in Memphis he outdid himself by calling gay people 'vampires'.

Donnie, you need Jesus. As a matter of fact you need to be praying to God and asking to take the anti-gay hate away.

I as a proud African descended transperson have enough to deal with from white and Catholic fundies. Now here you go drinking the Hateraid Fierce from 55 gallon drums and stirring up the Black ones.

Some of my TransGriot readers over the last two days hit me up on Twitter and Facebook. They stated I should have made Donnie the Shut Up Fool! award winner for the week and I'm beginning to concur with you. His self hatred and jealousy of Tonex is so obvious at this point that even Stevie Wonder can see it.

But he's definitely in the running for the Shut Up Fool! Of The Year Award.

The sad thing is that McClurkin and ministers like him are turning gay and straight people away from Christianity in droves with this repeated anti gay rants.

It's also sad that people like Donnie McClurkin who claim to be 'Christian' are anything but that

Trans Faith Links

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. -- Genesis 1:27

I talked about faith in a recent post. If you're wanting to get your praise on and be part of a welcoming and inclusive faith community, here are some links to find them.


TransChristians


DignityUSA- GLBT Catholic Group


More Light Presbyterians


TransEpiscopal


TransTorah- Transgender Jewish site


Whosoever- Online Magazine for GLBT Christians


Metropolitan Community Churches


As I discover more interesting links I'll post them here.

Let's Talk About Trans Faith

One of the things I still chuckle about from time to time is the November 2007 JCPS school board hearing.

We were fighting to get the board to adopt an employment policy that protects GLBT people in JCPS employment (unfortunately trans people were cut out of it.) I still spoke in favor of it despite my pissivity over trans people getting cut out of the proposed policy.

Marti Abernathy sent me a link a month later to a YouTube video of my JCPS school board speech. When it got to the part of my three minute speech that noted that I was a proud African American and Christian, I heard somebody loudly shout in the video, "No way!'

Yes, way.

I was baptized in my home church in H-town on August 2, 1972. My faith has gotten me through some tough times in life and my own transition.

One of the things that I'm concerned about now we've got the undivided attention of the Forces of Faith-Based Intolerance, is their repeated attempts to twist scripture into a baton for beating up on trans people.

And these scriptures from Deuteronomy (where else) are the weapons of choice:

Deuteronomy 22:5 A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman's garment; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God.

Deuteronomy 23.1 No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.

So I guess y'all won't be letting Lance Armstrong or anyone else whose has testicles removed because of cancer or other reasons in your hate churches any time soon, much less any women wearing pants or pantsuits?

Oh by the way, right wing Christohaters, the words 'love the sinner but hate the sin' you peddle as your justification for your homophobia/transphobia do not appear together in a scripture anywhere in the Bible.

Thanks for playing, Catholic Church and fundies, but we have lovely parting gifts for you.

You've got two major problems in trying to run this 'use the Bible to beat up on transpeople' game.

The first order of business is that you have to make a case that transsexuality is wrong.

If you claim that I am a divinely inspired and divinely created being, how can me or any transperson simply living our lives be wrong, especially when the medical evidence is swiftly mounting that transpeople are part of the diverse mosaic of life?

The second part of that does not compute conservalogic is as a friend better versed in theological issues pointed out in this Rain and Clouds blog post, you have to show that being trans makes it impossible to have a relationship with God.

Wonder if that's why you fundies are desperately trying to rewrite the Bible and make it more conservative? Only proves to me the moral bankruptcy of the conservative movement because truth, as you are acknowledging by this attempt to rewrite scripture, has a liberal bias.

But since you fundamentalist peeps believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, that cuts both ways.

First up for the scriptural evidence leaning my way, Psalm 139;1, 13-16

Psalm 139:1, 13-16

"O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

Okay, now we'll move on to the scriptures that talk about the Biblical day equivalents of transpeople, the eunuchs..

Isaiah 56:4-5

4For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, 5I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

Then there's the story in Acts of Philip interpreting the Isaiah prophecy about Jesus to a eunuch on the road to Jerusalem from Gaza, and subsequently baptizing that eunuch.

Acts 8:26-39

26Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) 27So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” 30So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. 32Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. 33In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.” 34The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” 35Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. 36As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” 38He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. 39When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.

And if you're wondering what Jesus had to say about the issue, peep Matthew 19:12

For there are some eunuchs, who were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, who were made eunuchs by men: and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.

Since we know there are many places in the Bible in which scriptures contradict and cancel each other out, here's the antidote for whenever a Reicher throws Deuteronomy 23:1 at you.

Mark 9:43-47

If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell.

But if you're a real Christian, these two scriptures are the ones that matter.

Galatians 3:28

There is neither Greek nor Jew...there is neither male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.

John 3:16

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Christian does not mean 'white'-wing, fundamentalist, intolerant, gun-fetishist, Republican-voting, homeschooled, ignorant Know-Nothing. But that's what your crap over the last 40 years brings to most people's mind whenever the word is mentioned.

As a Christian trans person, I'm tired of my faith being used as a weapon to beat me and other people down with, a shield for ignorance and intolerance, and a vehicle for sowing division and discord.

Fortunately there are other Christians across many denominations who are just as tired of the crap as well and are seeking to include us and understand our issues instead of exclude and reject us.

It would surprise you to know I'm not alone in being a trans Christian. If you walked into our major trans conventions most of the people in attendance will not only repeat the same things I'm articulating in this post, but can also tell you what the Transgender Child's Prayer is:

Lord, please let me wake up and be a girl(boy) forever.

My faith has only become stronger as I've transitioned, become more confident in who I am and more spiritually attuned to the person I was born to be.

I am a Christian in the tradition of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who combined his unshakeable faith with superior intellect and a curious mind.

I am a Christian who believes that we should do more to include trans people and not exclude them.

I am a Christian who despises 'prosperity gospel' and thinks it has sidetracked the Black Church from its historic message of speaking truth to power.

So I'm naming and proclaiming this day that I am a Christian who happens to be a proud African descended transperson as well, and I'm not waiting for your right wing flavored dogma to catch up with reality.

The Prez Is Right-We AREN'T A Christian Nation

The Religious Reich got their panties all in a bunch when President Obama stated during his recent European trip that the US isn't a Christian nation.

He's absolutely dead on target.

The First Amendment to the US Constitution states, 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.'

That's part of the Bill of Rights for the Christoilliterate in the blogosphere. What that means is that peeps have the right to worship as they please and the government cannot establish an official state religion.

We have people of many faith in this country, including folks for whatever reason don't care to follow any religious teachings.

But to blow up the 'Christian nation' fallacy, peep this language from the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli.

Article 11 of this treaty states;

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Translation, the intent of the Founding Fathers was quite clear in this treaty, though only in force for a few years, that "the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."

This reassurance to Islam was written under Washington's presidency, and approved by the Senate under John Adams.

But I'll let the President speak for himself. Here's what candidate Obama said last year.



So the Christobigots need to stop telling the lie that 'we are a Christian nation'. The way they practice their right-wing version of it makes it blasphemous to even part their lips to say it.

Never Let Anyone Tell You God Doesn't Love You

Happy Easter everybody! I thought this would be an excellent time to drop a post about spirituality since this is a significantly special day for Christians around the world.

Back during the 2003 Derby I attended a star studded GLBT party. I had the pleasure of not only meeting the Lady Chablis and getting my personal copy of her autobiographical book Hiding My Candy autographed, I also had the pleasure of meeting the late Tammy Faye Bakker as well.

I had a wonderful conversation with the petite dynamo that turned to religion after she spent a few moments marveling at my 6'2" height.

We talked about the increasing negativity of the fundamentalist strains of many world religions, and their ratcheting up the faith based hatred of transgender people. She told me and later repeated it in her short speech to the assembled GLBT masses in the Olmsted that afternoon, "Never let anyone tell you God doesn't love you."

Tammy Faye was absolutely right. Whether you call the higher power God, Allah or Yahweh, know that God loves us just as equally as any cisgender person. If they say otherwise, they are violating a commandment.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Tammy Faye has a cogent point in that too many times we allowed the Religious Right to use the Bible as a baton to beat us down with spiritually. We have also failed to push back and forcefully call out the Religious Right's lies about transgender people as well.

But as former ESSENCE editor Susan L. Taylor once wrote, "We are not powerless spectators of life. We are co-creators with God. and all around us are the gifts, the clay, that we can use to shape our world."

For too long we have allowed the Forces of Intolerance to shape our world with their faith-based hatred because we were dispirited. We transgender people are children of God and spiritual people as well.

God loves us too. We transgender people need to name it and proclaim it to all who will listen. We also need to chuck the faith based shame and guilt and believe it with all our hearts as well.

We need to resolve on this Easter Sunday that we will henceforth tap into that spiritual power, stand tall, and begin to boldly use the clay and gifts all around us to do the world shaping to our benefit for a change.

Good News For Transgender Jews

Unlike Christianity and Islam, who have fundamentalist elements growing more hostile every day to transgender people, there's good news for transgender Jews, be they part of the Reform or Conservative movements.

In 2007 the Union For Reform Judaism in a groundbreaking move to recognize the experiences of transgender Jews, published several prayers for sanctifying the sex-change process.

The 500-page Kulanu: A Program for Implementing Gay and Lesbian Inclusion includes services for same-sex commitment and marriage ceremonies as well as advice for the inclusion of GBLT individuals in the community. A website called Transtorah.org was recently launched that is designed to serve as a resource for the Jewish community on transgender issues.

"I believe that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GBLT) Jews in our midst - our children, our relatives, and our friend - are in great need, as are we all of spiritual support," said Union of Reform Judaism President Rabbi Eric Yoffie in the manual's Statement of Purpose.

"In the ten years since the first edition of Kulanu was published there has been great progress in the way the Jewish community in general and the Reform synagogue community in particular has welcomed GLBT Jews," says the Union of Reform Judaism website. "This edition of Kulanu will continue to pave the way towards total inclusion of GLBT individuals and families in Reform Jewish Life."

While it may be news to Gentiles, the issues of transgender Jews were first addressed back in 1978. The Central Conference of American Rabbis deemed it permissible for one who had undergone a sex-change operation to be married according to Jewish tradition. In 1990, the CCAR allowed such individuals to be converted. In 2003 the union retroactively applied its policy on Jewish gays and lesbians to the transgender and bisexual communities.

Rabbi Elliot Kukla is a transperson who authored the blessings for transitioning genders. He was on the other side of the gender fence when he was ordained in 2006 by the Reform movement’s New York seminary.

He originally wrote the blessings for a friend who wanted to mark each time he received testosterone therapy and believes they are appropriate for multiple moments in the sex-change process, including “moments of medical transitions.”

On the Conservative Judaism side, there's been movement as well to consider transgender Jews place in the faith.

Rabbi Mayer Rabinowitz, an associate professor of Talmud at JTS, authored a rabbinic opinion, or teshuvah on transgender people that in 2003 was passed by the movement’s top lawmaking body.

Rabinowitz argued that Jewish law, or Halacha, should consider people who undergo sexual reassignment surgery in terms of their new gender.

Rabinowitz’s teshuvah states,

“Those who claim that we can not change God’s creation are closing their eyes to conversion, and to transplants as well as many other medical procedures which in fact do change God’s creation. Halakhah has always been macroscopic and not microscopic. Therefore, external organs determine the sexual status of a person.”

Rabbi Leonard Sharzer, who once was a plastic surgeon who performed SRS surgeries, is a senior fellow in bioethics at the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Religious and Social Studies at New York's Jewish Theological Seminary. He has written a teshuvah that built upon Rabinowitz's earlier one, but has yet to be submitted to the law committee.

Sharzer proposes that an individual claiming a transgender identity be considered the gender that person claims for himself or herself, regardless of whether or not he or she has undergone surgery.

As of yet, Ultra Orthodox people don't recognize the concept of transgender Jews. Avi Shafran, the director of Agudath Israel of America, said in a recent interview that under Jewish law, "and that’s all that should matter to an Orthodox Jew, if the physiology is clearly male or female, then they are considered that."

The recent transition of Joy Ladin at New York's Yeshiva University and other transgender Jews such as Israeli singer Aderet kind of throws a wrench in that line of thought.

Rabbi Kukla writes in the introduction to the Kulanu, which means 'all of us' in Hebrew, “The midrash, classical Jewish exegesis, adds that the adam harishon, the first human being formed in God’s likeness, was an androgynos, an intersex person,” “Hence our tradition teaches that all bodies and genders are created in God’s image whether we identify as men, women, intersex, or something else.”

It is something that all religious folks having issues with transgender people would do well to remember.

Israel's Transgender Community

When you mention the nation of Israel, you think about it in the context of the major world religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam and the holy sites for those religions contained inside its borders.

Scenes from Jerusalem and ultra modern Tel Aviv come to mind along with the seemingly endless cycle of violence that underscores the ongoing search for peace in this part of the world.

But until May 1998, the word transgender and Israel was something that you didn't think was synonymous. Then a transwoman named Sharon Cohen won the Eurovision song contest that launched the career of Swedish pop group ABBA and became an international transgender icon known as Dana International.

Her groundbreaking win let the world in on the little known fact that there are transgender people in Israel. While Dana's better known to the world transgender community, Nora Greenberg is better known to Israeli lawmakers and the nation's GLBT community.

Greenberg wears two hats as the transgender representative sitting on the national board of The Aguda, an association representing Israel's GLBT community that has been in existence since 1975. She's also the coordinator of the political lobbying group that represents the various organizations in Israel transgender community.

She's a post-op fighting for Israel's transgender people to have the ability to change their identity cards without undergoing surgery, and just like everywhere else on the planet, to have laws put in place to combat employment discrimination.

But despite the discrimination that transgender people face, Israel is considered the most tolerant country in the Middle East towards GLBT people. It's that tolerance that Israeli transpeople are banking on in addition to their emerging sense of community to create lasting change that allows them to contribute their talents to Israeli society.

Happy 50th Birthday Denise Matthews

Some of you may not recognize the name, but probably recognize that beautiful face. You may also recognize who she is if I say the name Vanity 6 as well.

January 4 marked her milestone birthday, and if you listen to the Niagara Falls, ON native tell her story or read her autobiography Blame It On Vanity, she'll probably tell you she's thankful she made it.

If Evangelist Denise K. Matthews is doing any touring these days, it's basically to spread the gospel. But back in the day she fronted Prince's girl group Vanity 6, was the crush of just about every Black male growing up during that era and admired by many in the entertainment world and beyond.

She overcame a less than pleasant childhood, drug addition, a turbulent romantic relationship, losing a kidney, suffering a stroke and heart attack. being rendered temporarily deaf and blinded by that stroke and nearly dying in 1994.

She survived all of that and is still standing. Denise is still as beautiful as ever, but her focus these days is spreading the Word from her Fremont, CA based ministry and making the inner Denise match the beautiful person we see on the outside.

And your fans still love you, Denise. Happy birthday.

Rev. Gene Robinson's Prayer

TransGriot Note: Well, unfortunately Rev. Gene Robinson's prayer mysteriously failed to make it on air for the HBO broadcast of this event. (I'm waiting with baited breath to see if the rainbow Obama haters blame him for HBO's frackup, too)

Anyway, for those of you who missed it, here's the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson's wonderful prayer with a hat tip to Episcopal Cafe for posting it.


A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama

By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire

Opening Inaugural Event
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

Talking About My Faith

Most Sunday mornings I get out of bed, get into diva mode and point my car in the direction of my open and affirming church to hear my pastor Rev. Sally McClain.

That's right, you didn't misread that. I have a female pastor. Quite frankly. she can say in a 25-30 minute sermon what it took some pastors in some Black churches I attended back home one to two hours to say. I'm one of four transwomen and three Black members who attend Edenside Christian Church.

See, I'm a little more complex than some of y'all thought, huh?

One of the things I've noted in my decade plus interactions with the transgender community is the bitterness and in some cases outright hostility toward people who profess to be Christians.

When I've attended various gender conferences in the past I've seen a variety of faith traditions expressed and embraced up to and including atheism and agnosticism. But say you're a Christian and you're looked at like you just dropped in from Mars.

Those strange looks also come from the Forces of Intolerance little 'c' Christians as well. The ChristoBorg had it implanted in their hive mind consciousness that we GLBT people aren't and couldn't possibly be Christians.

Au contraire, my brothers and sisters in Christ. I just don't believe in your warped, Scripture-twisting, vengeful God, hate filled version of it.

One of the most enjoyable parts of the JCPS employment policy battle a few months ago was when I got to see the YouTube video of me speaking in front of the board. At the point of my remarks in which I announced I was a Christian, a voice in the background says, "No way!"

Yes, way! I was baptized on August 2, 1972 at my home church in Houston. Deal with it.

I have had to call on that faith many times before, during and after my transition. It gave me clarity of thought when my mind was troubled or I was upset about things going on in my life. It gave me the strength and courage to become the Phenomenal Transwoman I am today when I was unsure, fearful and afraid that I could do it.

When I suffered through a six month employment drought and didn't know how I was going to pay next month's rent on my apartment or put food on my table when i exhausted the money I had saved up for surgery, people stepped up without me asking them to feed me or pay back money I'd loaned to them and forgotten about dating back several years.

Sen. Obama had this to say about faith in a June 26, 2006 Chicago Tribune interview:

I see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death. It is an active palpable agent in the world. Ir is a source of hope.

I agree with him. It is a source of hope. It is why I have the unwavering conviction and confidence that we transpeople will accomplish our legislative crown jewels. My faith is why I believe that the current negativity that we suffer from friends and foes alike will end. My faith is why I know that one day we will be fully functioning and valued members of society all over the world.

The day I stop believing that will be the day when I accept every myth and falsehood that our detractors say about us, and that ain't happening. Tammy Faye told me this when I met her in 2003, and I hold fast to this comment every time I hear the Religious Reich spewing forth anti-transgender Hateraid disguised in Christian drag.

"Never let anyone say that God doesn't love you, because He does."

Thanks Tammy Faye, Rev. Sally, Soulforce, Dignity, More Light, and every Christian theologian, pastor and real Christian who never lets me or any GLBT Christian forget that, feels that way, and backs up their words with positive actions.

Power of US Conference 2008

I'm a little bummed that I couldn't go to this event that's concluding in Baltimore today. I had the pleasure of being introduced to National Black Justice Coalition CEO H. Alexander Robinson at an event in Louisville a few years ago by Mandy Carter.

The Power of US conference in Baltimore combined their Black Church Summit event (the previous two were held in Atlanta and Philadelphia), a Health and Wellness Summit, and a leadership Development & Mobilization Summit.

I definitely wanted to be there for the leadership part of the conference. In addition to the folks I would have been met there through various networking opportunities, it's always nice to learn some new strategies, skills and tactics for passing progressive legislation. The bonus on this one is I would have gotten to meet fellow GLBT African-Americans from all over the country as well.

It would have also been nice to witness the Black Church Summit as well and see which sellout megachurch ministers (if any) showed up. Bishop Harry Jackson attended the Philly event, but less than 24 hours after he left Jackson was on conservative websites blasting it.

It also would have been interesting to check out the Health and Wellness part of it to see if they addressed health issues of concern to transgender peeps. Unlike a certain organization on Rhode Island Ave, the NJBC is part of United ENDA and is definitely worth donating some cash to if you feel inclined to do so.

Unfortunately my work schedule wouldn't allow me to attend this conference and I sincerely hope the NJBC is planning another one for next year.

The October 5, 1999 700 Club Show

TransGriot Note: With all the faith-based Hateraid being spewed at transgender people lately by fundamentalists and the Catholic Church, I thought it was time to post this transcript from a 700 Club show. Pat Robertson weighed in on transsexuality and stated the obvious on October 5, 1999. Note the parts I have in bold print.

-----------------------------------------

Letter Writer:
I'm 40 years old and have had a sex change. I've been watching your program and was wondering if God forgave me. Should I live as I am now or go back to my birth gender?


Pat Robertson:
This is a very serious question and I appreciate it. There are people who are born with various types of hormonal activity in their bodies and they feel more male than female, and more female than male. I know a plastic surgeon here, in this area who indeed does that sort of thing and, ah, to accommodate what is going on in peoples lives.

Terry Meeuwsen:
This is a very legitimate hormonal thing happening.

Pat Robertson:
Exactly. So, it is not a sin. So you don't need to feel guilty.

He goes on to say...

So you say, will God forgive me. Of course He will, He does. This isn't something that you have sinned and if you wish to get back and your 40 years old, it's not exctly too late. I know as I say, one man who can do a sex change reversal.

Terry Meeuwsen:
God is interested in what his heart, attitude is, speaking spiritually.

Pat Robertson:
God does not care what your external organs are. The question is whether you are living for God or not. Yes, He loves you. Yes, He forgives you and He understands what is going on in your body.

-----------------------------------------------------

Any wonder that the Forces of Intolerance quickly scrubbed this transcript snippet from the 700 Club archives? Pat has since tried to distance himself from these remarks, but it's out in The Net and the gift that keeps on giving. I used that last quote in March 2001 when I testified in my home state in favor of a streamlined name change bill that TGAIN was sponsoring.

I'd like to conclude this post with a scripture from Galatians 3:28 which reads, There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

What Kind of Prophet?

Reflections on the Rhetoric of Preaching in Light of Recent News Coverage of Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. and Trinity United Church of Christ

by The Rev. John H. Thomas
General Minister and President
United Church of Christ

Over the weekend members of our church and others have been subjected to the relentless airing of two or three brief video clips of sermons by the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ for thirty-six years and, for over half of those years, pastor of Senator Barack Obama and his family. These video clips, and news stories about them, have been served up with frenzied and heated commentary by media personalities expressing shock that such language and sentiments could be uttered from the pulpit.

One is tempted to ask whether these commentators ever listen to the overcharged rhetoric of their own opinion shows. Even more to the point is to wonder whether they have a working knowledge of the history of preaching in the United States from the unrelentingly grim language of New England election day sermons to the fiery rhetoric of the Black church prophetic tradition. Maybe they prefer the false prophets with their happy homilies in Jeremiah who say to the people: "You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine, but I will give you true peace in this place." To which God responds, "The prophets are prophesying lies in my name; I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds. . . . By sword and famine those prophets shall be consumed," (Jeremiah 14.14-15). The Biblical Jeremiah was coarse and provocative. Faithfulness, not respectability was the order of the day then. And now?

What's really going on here? First, it may state the obvious to point out that these television and radio shows have very little interest in Trinity Church or Jeremiah Wright. Those who sifted through hours of sermons searching for a few lurid phrases and those who have aired them repeatedly have only one intention. It is to wound a presidential candidate. In the process a congregation that does exceptional ministry and a pastor who has given his life to shape those ministries is caricatured and demonized. You don't have to be an Obama supporter to be alarmed at this. Will Clinton's United Methodist Church be next? Or McCain's Episcopal Church? Wouldn't we have been just as alarmed had it been Huckabee's Southern Baptist Church, or Romney's Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints?

Many of us would prefer to avoid the stark and startling language Pastor Wright used in these clips. But what was his real crime? He is condemned for using a mild "obscenity" in reference to the United States. This week we mark the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, a war conceived in deception and prosecuted in foolish arrogance. Nearly four thousand cherished Americans have been killed, countless more wounded, and tens of thousands of Iraqis slaughtered. Where is the real obscenity here? True patriotism requires a degree of self-criticism, even self-judgment that may not always be easy or genteel. Pastor Wright's judgment may be starker and more sweeping than many of us are prepared to accept. But is the soul of our nation served any better by the polite prayers and gentle admonitions that have gone without a real hearing for these five years while the dying and destruction continues?

We might like to think that racism is a thing of the past, that Martin Luther King's harmonious multi-racial vision, articulated in his speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 and then struck down by an assassin's bullet in Memphis in 1968, has somehow been resurrected and now reigns throughout the land. Significant progress has been made. A black man is a legitimate candidate for President of the United States. A black woman serves as Secretary of State. The accomplishments are profound. But on the gritty streets of Chicago's south side where Trinity has planted itself, race continues to play favorites in failing urban school systems, unresponsive health care systems, crumbling infrastructure, and meager economic development. Are we to pretend all is well because much is, in fact, better than it used to be? Is it racist to name the racial divides that continue to afflict our nation, and to do so loudly? How ironic that a pastor and congregation which, for forty-five years, has cast its lot with a predominantly white denomination, participating fully in its wider church life and contributing generously to it, would be accused of racial exclusion and a failure to reach for racial reconciliation.

The gospel narrative of Palm Sunday's entrance into Jerusalem concludes with the overturning of the money changers' tables in the Temple courtyard. Here wealth and power and greed were challenged for the way the poor were oppressed to the point of exclusion from a share in the religious practices of the Temple. Today we watch as the gap between the obscenely wealthy and the obscenely poor widens. More and more of our neighbors are relegated to minimal health care or to no health care at all. Foreclosures destroy families while unscrupulous lenders seek bailouts from regulators who turned a blind eye to the impending crisis. Should the preacher today respond to this with only a whisper and a sigh?

Is Pastor Wright to be ridiculed and condemned for refusing to play the court prophet, blessing land and sovereign while pledging allegiance to our preoccupation with wealth and our fascination with weapons? In the United Church of Christ we honor diversity. For nearly four centuries we have respected dissent and have struggled to maintain the freedom of the pulpit. Not every pastor in the United Church of Christ will want to share Pastor Wright's rhetoric or his politics. Not every member will rise to shout "Amen!" But I trust we will all struggle in our own way to resist the lure of respectable religion that seeks to displace evangelical faith. For what this nation needs is not so much polite piety as the rough and radical word of the prophet calling us to repentance. And, as we struggle with that ancient calling, I pray we will be shrewd enough to name the hypocrisy of those who decry the mixing of religion and politics in order to serve their own political ends.

Moni's Take on the Rev.Wright-Obama Controversy

As the child of a retired media personality, one of the things my father drilled into me and my siblings was don't believe what you read in the papers (and the Net), hear on radio and see on television at first glance. You have to always ask the who, what, when, where and why questions. You ask yourself why is this coming out now, what's their agenda, and who's behind it.

My father's words were ringing in my ears when I first heard about the alleged hostile remarks of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. I didn't go into 'Attack Obama' mode like it seems that some whites have done who were looking for ANY excuse to NOT support him. I went into critical thinking mode.

I also considered where this video was coming from. FOX News.

This is a proven Republican propaganda mill that has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to lie, obfuscate, and bend the truth to accomplish its mission of electing GOP candidates.

The GOP is scared shitless that they will have to face Obama in the fall and contend with the massive voter turnouts and new voters that he would not only bring into the process, but swamp their candidates in a Democratic landslide. GOP electability is dependent upon low turnout elections. The more people brought into the process, the higher the probability of Democratic candidates for office getting elected.

The GOP has a long, negative history of using race baiting to boost their electoral chances, bait and switch campaigning and voter suppression tactics in minority communities to win elections. They were faced with a situation in which their old tried and true tactics weren't going to work. They were originally salivating at the prospect of a race with Hillary Clinton and had to find some way to negatively define Obama without looking racist as they always do.

Enter Faux News, Rev. Wright and edited video played in an endless loop with faux indignation spewing out of various conservative commentators mouths. I do find it interesting that this selectively edited video comes out not long after the GOP had a closed door strategy meeting a few weeks ago about how they were going to combat Sen. Obama's surging popularity and was timed to appear while Sen. Hillary Clinton's executing her 'kitchen sink' strategy.

By the way, here's the so-called 'hate sermon' in context.



Since when did non journalism award winning Fox News become a trusted news source? I'm a little sick of news organizations like CNN and others treating the propaganda arm of the Republican party as a news source.

But back to this controversy. It's interesting as well that this so-called 'hate-mongering' pastor was invited to this September 11, 1998 White House gathering of clergy that President Clinton held during the height of the Lewinsky scandal (and BTW, Sen Hillary's just released First Lady schedules show that she was there in attendance.)

Ask yourself this question. If Rev. Jeremiah Wright is such a 'hate mongerer', then why was he invited to this event?

I also find the hypocrisy and racism inherent in this high-tech lynching of Rev. Wright breathtaking. The conservative media is all over the edited out-of-context video of Rev Wright's sermons, but no similar sustained foaming-mouth outrage from my white brothers and sisters is forthcoming at Rev. Rod Parsley or McCain spiritual advisor John Hagee, who have longer histories of saying anti-American statements and jacked up comments.

Gee, I wonder why?

Hagee and Parsley have in the name of God, accused Catholics of aiding in the Holocaust, said that the victims of Hurricane Katrina got what they deserved, advocates wiping out more than a billion Muslims, and the fact that John McCain has enthusiastically solicited the support of people he once called 'divisive and dangerous' in 2000 is ignored.

What's even sadder is that the parishioners of Trinity UCC are being savaged by race-baiting conservative pundits who have no clue, don't want to know or don't care about our culture. What's even sadder is that people in my own party are repeating the Faux News talking points ad nauseum without asking themselves why Rev. Wright and this church is being attacked.

I also have to laugh at the conservative definition of racism, which is basically any Black person who is not only unabashedly proud of their heritage, but has the cojones to criticize this country, point out the reality of the color line and how it affects everything in this country.

Hell, I've been accused by some peeps in the transgender community of being 'racist' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Jasmyne Cannick has also had the same 'racist' charge hurled at her because she's unapologetically Black as well and has called out the GLBT community on numerous occasions on her blog and in the various media forums she participates in for their racist behavior on various issues.

Y'all can fall for the Faux News okey-doke, or the bogus racism charges from Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly and the rest of the GOP-Conservative Noise Machine if you want to, but the facts are that racism is alive and well in this country. I've been saying it for years along with others and now this discussion is for better or worse, happening during a presidential political campaign.

One of the fears I'd expressed when I announced on the blog that I was supporting Sen. Obama in an earlier post was that some white people have higher than normal expectations for an African-American candidate than they do for a similar white candidate. An African-American candidate has to almost walk on water to get support from these peeps, and if they grudgingly give him that support, they are quick to abandon him if any bullcrap surfaces.

That is what I fear is happening now. I felt that much of the early white support for Obama was because of the fact he wasn't in their minds tied to the old Civil Rights Movement peeps, which some whites still harbor ill will to even in my own party. Obama also didn't feed into the 'angry Black' stereotype that some peeps still tar and feather any African-American who dares to think and candidly speak their mind with.

It's ironic that the best man for the job, who tried to avoid discussing race and run an issues-oriented campaign, may possibly end up not getting the nomination or end up in the White House because of the unresolved racial baggage of this country.

And that would be a tragedy.