I'm Interested in Jesus' Love Life BECAUSE I Love Jesus

I love Jesus (not in the imaginary friend way of my childhood, but I love searching for him in history and I love how I come to life when I make certain discoveries...my christology is rooted in a 1st century flesh and blood revolutionary more than in a cosmic Olympian type figure). 

Because I love Jesus I am very interested in his revolutionary, anti-imperial politics, in his work as a healer/exorcist/lay philosopher, in his risk taking, in his intimate/personal connection with the God of his understanding, in his insistence on flouting cultural taboos, in his willingness to rethink and dialogue with interpretations of his inherited scriptures and traditions, in people coming to believe he might be the messiah (and his possibly coming to agree with them), with people’s continued experience of him (or his memory or his values) beyond his execution, and I am interested in his personal relationships...
his closeness to a beloved disciple, his friendship with Peter, his place in a chosen family in Bethany, his interesting relationship with a woman from Magdala, his repeated encounters with a mysterious young man in Mark’s gospel, what it meant for him to look at him “and love him”, what it might mean for him to be called “son of David” (whose love for Jonathan was notorious)...

Because I love Jesus I love exploring his life, his intimacies, his sexuality. Like his ancestor David, he might have been bisexual, or he may have been gay, or he may have been straight, or he might have flowed up and down the continuum. 

Because I love Jesus, I want to know more about him. Just as those who love me must love the Queer me (because that’s the me there is), to love Jesus is to try to know him, and the him there is to know might be gay or bi...its definitely Queer (regardless of the attractions he felt). 

My soteriology is about “wholeness”...and since Jesus is part of the way that I found my path to wholeness (which includes my sexuality), I want to know the whole Jesus (as much as is possible with the years and myths that lie between us) which includes his sexuality. I don’t care if he was celibate or not, that’s none of my business, but he had human feelings and connections and covenants, and those do matter to me a great deal.

I am what I am...which is a lot

I am Queer. I am on the gender continuum (two spirit). I am an Anglican Universalist Humanist New Thought Christian Pluralist. I am by both accident of birth and full participation an American citizen. I am fully human (this will be news to certain kinds of religious extremists and politicos). I am a person who benefits from unearned white privilege who is trying to dismantle racism (society's and my own). I am a person who has lived with HIV for decades. I am married and there are two Y chromosomes in my marriage. For some reason, TODAY, I felt the need to be crystal clear about all of that.

Today's Sexy Lenten Bible Reflection

Today's Sexy Lenten Bible Reflection
by Durrell Watkins

"There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses." Ezekiel 23.20

People who use the bible to justify their own prudery don't realize how earthy, human, lusty, and scandalous the scriptures are (which is precisely why I love them):
from oral sex,masturbation, the admiration of male and female body parts, and outdoor love making in the Song of Songs/Song of Solomon,
to God's "womb" being mentioned in the book of Job,
to Mary's (then) scandalous out of wedlock pregnancy (no matter how divine the sperm donor is said to have been, Mary never became Mrs God),
to Jonathan and David's obvious same-gender love affair,
to King David dancing naked in the street,
to Onan's coitus interruptus,
to Levirate marriage (where a man is compelled to have sex with his widowed sister-in-law! - see Onan),
to Jesus being with a naked man in the dark in Mark 14,
to penises (male circumcision) being discussed openly and in great detail with some frequency,
to the Apostle Paul in Acts visiting LESBOS (Mytelene),
to Solomon having 1000 spouses (and several people having multiple spouses, but Solomon totally wins)!

And those are just some of the examples where bodies and sexuality are celebrated or at least discussed openly without condemnation; there are also reprehensible sex-acts (in my judgment) that are, nevertheless, stated as matters of fact without a lot of commentary or condemnation in the bible, such as:

Samson accusing his enemies of plowing with his heifer (an insulting way of accusing them of being in bed, either figuratively or literally, with his wife),
Abraham pimping out his wife Sarah,
and Lot having incest with his daughters (in a story often used to condemn homosexuality even though consensual same-gender sex is NOT part of the story, but those who refer to Sodom and Gomorrah never seem to be blasting Lot for sleeping with his daughters...of course, the off-spring of those unholy unions just happened to be the enemies of the writer of the story, so its more of an ethnic slur against neighboring peoples than a story about sexual morals anyway).

There are times when sex is condemned, but it always when the sex is non-consensual, in violation of a covenantal relationship, or exploitive, an example being when ex-Temple prostitutes convert to Pauline Christianity and St Paul tells them to cover their hair until it grows out so they will no longer be mistaken with their former profession.

In addition to those incomplete lists, there are also the times that sexuality is implied:
What was Jesus' relationship to his "beloved" disciple; what was his relationship to Lazarus; and what was his relationship to Mary of Magdala?
What is the significance of Ruth making a vow to Naomi that is often repeated in heterosexual wedding ceremonies today?
What was Paul's thorn that prayer could not remove?

And let's add just a touch of irony to the whole thing by recalling the preferred translation used as a weapon against sex-positive people in general (and same-gender loving people in particular) is the King James Version, named for homosexual Queen James himself!

I mean, be as puritanical as you want to be, but find some reason other than the bible for it, and at very least, please stop using the bible as your excuse for denying same-gender loving people dignity and equal rights.

In Metropolitan Community Churches we see sexuality as a gift to be cherished and celebrated. Loving, consensual, adult relationships, sexual or not, regardless of the gender identities of the people in the relationships, are not condemned by scripture, by sound reasoning, or by Metropolitan Community Churches. Isn't it time to stop blaming sexual misgivings on the bible?

We don't need to look up the "rules" for sexual relationships in an ancient book where the most righteous often had sex lives seldom seen today outside the porn industry! We can sort out what is fair, just, loving, and good for ourselves and then hold ourselves and one another accountable, insisting only that our sexual relationships be (as one community puts it) "safe, sane, and consensual."

We can be moral, responsible, loving, kind, generous, faithful, bound by promises that we freely make, and live in joyous, sensual relationships. Spirituality and sexuality do not pose a dichotomy. I am proud to be part of the MCC tradition that has affirmed that boldly and consistently since its founding on Oct 6, 1968!

Gay is Perfectly Normal

Some one stated on another blog that no one is born wanting to have sex with a cow (I swear, that was his statement) and then added that no on is born wanting to have sex with someone of their own gender (he seems to believe that gender is fixed and binary, I disagree).   He went on to say that homosexually is aberrant and that "sexual orientation" is a superstition (I wonder if that includes heterosexual orientation!). He then insisted that his readers face these "facts."  My response was as follows:


"No one is born wanting sex at all. Infants are not yet sexual. However, we do develop into sexual beings, and a significant percentage of every population in every era of human history (and in every animal population as well) develop same-gender love and attraction, and are probably biologically predisposed to do so. This isn't new information...The Kinsey Reports of the 40s and 50s, Dr Hooker's research in the late 50s, the American Psychiatric Asso in 1973, the American Psychological Asso in 1975, and every major mental health organization (including the World Health Organization) in the west and many throughout the entire world have confirmed this.


There is nothing aberrant about mutually beneficial and agreed upon relationships. The gender identities of those in a relationship are not what make those relationships sacred. The "fact" is that some people are gay, it's perfectly natural for them, and it harms no one to acknowledge that. You can hate gays if you want, but you can't blame nature or God. You'll have to own your own prejudice." - Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins


It's My Life, Not an Issue
WRITTEN FOR GAYSOFLA.COM
http://gaysofla.com/articles/commentary/255-its-my-life-not-an-issue.html


Debate Over Hate?http://kweerspirit.blogspot.com/2012/08/debate-over-hate.html


Five Ridiculous Anti-Gay Marriage Arguments Challenged
WRITTEN FOR GAYSOFLA.COM
http://gaysofla.com/articles/72-kweerspirit/252-five-ridiculous-anti-gay-marriage-arguments-challenged-.html


The Struggle Continues
WRITTEN FOR GAYSOFLA.COMhttp://kweerspirit.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-gay-struggle-continues.html

Why MCC?http://kweerspirit.blogspot.com/2012/08/why-mcc.html

Sad? Silly? Crazy? Cruel? The Pope's Attitude Is Anything But Good

According the AP, "marital fidelity and a 'moral view' of sexuality are the best strategies to stop the spread of AIDS," said Pope Benedict while welcoming Namibia's and South Africa's new ambassadors to Vatican City. “Only a strategy based on education to individual responsibility in the framework of a moral view of human sexuality, especially through conjugal fidelity, can have a real impact on the prevention of this disease,” Benedict said. Apparently the moral view, for the pope, doesn't include the use of life-saving condoms.

Maybe it's just me, but i'm a little annoyed with someone who takes a life-long vow of celibacy presenting himself as the authority on human sexuality. And I'm furious that decades into the AIDS crisis, "conjugal fidelity" is the best response a major religious leader can offer. The Pope's advice is flawed for AT LEAST three reasons:

1. Covenantal fidelity is just that...faithfulness to a covenant. The covenant two people make may exclusive..."You and me and no others will we see." But a covenant can also exist between three persons..."We three are all it will be" or even between four persons, "Us four and no more." You see, covenants are negotiated and honored by the people living with them.

I'm a little conservative about this personally, and prefer the two person model, but other relationships are built on different values and seem to do fine. Fidelity isn't about how many people make up the relationship. Fidelity is about keeping your promises. Such fidelity will provide emotional safety within a relationship, but will not magically protect one from AIDS. If the covenant allows for "extra curricular" sexual activity, or if someone within the covenantal relationship is HIV positive, fidelity to the promises made will not prove to be an anti-viral strategy.

2. That leads to the second reason this out-dated, hopelessly irrelevant papal point of view just doesn't work. Even in the most conservative, old-fashioned (by Western Christian standards), narrow way of thinking, monogamy is not a magic barrier against a virus. If there are two people in a relationship, and they choose (and I insist that it is their choice to make, not the pope's) to be monogamous, but one of them is HIV positive, monogamy will not keep the virus in one body while preventing it from spreading to the other. Condoms, by way of contrast, will.

3. Finally, I do agree that a "moral view of human sexuality" is needed. And the moral view would suggest that we should not value dogma over human lives. Condoms save lives. Let's use it as a mantra: Condoms save lives! Condoms save lives! Condoms save lives!
It's the 21st century and time to acknowledge that human sexuality is good, human-beings are capable of negotiating their own relationships and the terms of those relationships, and people shouldn't have to die because a celebate man nearing the end of his life doesn't understand that.

Now, let me be clear...celibacy is a perfectly valid life-style choice (as long as it is freely chosen and not demanded).
Monogamay is a valid choice...if that is what both parties in the relationship mutually agree to.
Open relationships can be moral, again, if the parties agree that is what they want and they are faithful to whatever rules they agree on in order to keep them emotionally safe in the relationship.
And, loving relationships that invovle more than two people (such as a three person relationship), if the relationship is mutual and life-giving, can also be healthy, moral, and holy.

Life and love and human sexuality are more complex than the pope's antiquated rule book from patriarchy's hey-day seems to allow. Yes, people in relationships should keep their promises, and we should trust them to make promises they can keep, but my relationship (or yours) is really not the pope's business. And regardless of the promises people make to each other, condoms must be available for their physical safety. I'm just not willing to risk human lives to protect the rules that give the pope his power.