KtBlog
God, Mammon, Bathrooms, and Basketball
In the Tuesday-morning quiet of a Chapel Hill that will be riding high from its NCAA championship win last night for the foreseeable future, the news arrives that the NCAA has lifted its ban on hosting games in North Carolina. You’ve heard the story: HB 2, the North Carolina law requiring transgender people to use…
On Love and Chicken Sandwiches
Dear Cathy Family of Chik-Fil-A Fame, Recent Donors of Chicken Sandwiches to Honor the Orlando Victims, in Spite of Their Gayness, or Perhaps Because of It, I Don’t Know: You might not remember me, but I remember you and your 15-passenger van unloading what seemed like four dozen children at our Christian family camp in…
An Open Letter to The Antioch Review
Dear Antioch Review, In your May 5th statement regarding the essay, “The Sacred Androgen: The Transgender Debate” by Daniel Harris, you celebrate an admittedly “deeply offensive” essay for “stirring debate.” In doing so, you note that a “key Antiochian value” is to offer a forum for free expression, to encourage critical thought and dialogue. I…
Cowboy for Christ
Gender-bending love at Bible camp. From Believer, Beware, now available as an e-book!
#radicalfeministthemes
The Vatican has announced a crackdown on US sisters, who, amongst other offenses like running hospitals and educating countless children and young adults, are possibly guilty of promoting “radical feminist themes.” This news kicked off a lot of frenzied tweeting on my part. I saw Doom arrive in the form of this announcement. I cried…
Telling Trans Stories
While reporting on trans issues, a friend connected me with Shay Kearns (aka Anarchist Reverend). In my email exchanges with this seminary graduate (M.Div from Union Theological Seminary in New York, NY), I found myself drawn to his exploration of a new way forward for queer theology; one that isn’t focused on apologetics but instead…
Love in Action, Except Not
For those who wonder how they can respond when they see Michele Bachmann’s husband and other ex-gay activists spewing hatred, the documentary This is Love in Action demonstrates what can happen when even a small band of Christians finally stands up and speaks for those who have no voice. The film chronicles the journey of Zach, a…
Nerdjacking Old Glory
An irritable butch dyke with a fifth of Southern Comfort does her duty at a Boy Scout jamboree.
Is SoJo a No-Go on LGBTQ Equality?
An online firestorm began over Mother’s Day weekend when the Rev. Robert Chase, founding director of Intersections, penned an article for Religion Dispatches documenting Sojourners’ rejection of an ad from Believe Out Loud that advocated full equality of LGBTQ people in the church. On the God’s Politics blog, Jim Wallis justified Sojourners’ decision not to…
Nuns are People Too
I am rarely moved to tears by prose. Put on The Umbrellas of Cherbourg or cue up “Space Oddity” by David Bowie and you will be guaranteed a few of them, if that’s what you want. You probably don’t. But when reading does cause me to cry, it’s somehow more real. It hurts. I can…
Westboro Baptist: God Loves Poetry
Last week, the Westboro Baptist Church announced plans to protest my university. Apparently, American University’s community is too open, too liberal, and ultimately too gay-friendly to go unaddressed. (See Josh Garrett-Davis’ essay on Westboro that appeared a year ago on KtB.) The campus is, naturally, in an uproar. Eager to live up to our reputation…
Condoms in the Vatican?
The pope recently said that condoms were not “a real or moral solution” to the AIDS epidemic, adding, “That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.” But he also said that “there may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can…
Freak Flags Flying
Being a parent is an endlessly surprising enterprise. My children perplex me in ways that are both deeply disturbing as well as off-the-hook, beyond brilliant. I can say with absolute surety that, at this point in my life, they are my best and most important teachers. In the last few weeks, as the spate of…
Transgender Day of Remembrance
November 20th marks the 12th annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day to memorialize those who have been killed by anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. This event began when 250 people gathered for a candlelight vigil in 1998 following the murder of Rita Hester, a woman who was transsexual and a fixture in the Boston rock…