For the Bible Tells Me So …
For The Bible Tells Me So – Trailer
For more information go to: For The Bible Tells Me So…
Can the love between two people ever be an abomination? Is the chasm separating gays and lesbians and Christianity too wide to cross? Is the Bible an excuse to hate? Winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Seattle International Film Festival, Dan Karslake’s provocative, entertaining documentary brilliantly reconciles homosexuality and Biblical scripture, and in the process reveals that Church-sanctioned anti-gay bias is based almost solely upon a significant (and often malicious) misinterpretation of the Bible. As the film notes, most Christians live their lives today without feeling obliged to kill anyone who works on the Sabbath or eats shrimp (as a literal reading of scripture dictates).
Through the experiences of five very normal, very Christian, very American families — including those of former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt and Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson — we discover how insightful people of faith handle the realization of having a gay child. Informed by such respected voices as Bishop Desmond Tutu, Harvard’s Peter Gomes, Orthodox Rabbi Steve Greenberg and Reverend Jimmy Creech, FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO offers healing, clarity and understanding to anyone caught in the crosshairs of scripture and sexual identity.
Bishop Orama's Courageous Biblical Christianity
Originally read on:“The Anglican Scotist”
Probably by now you have heard that Bishop Orama of Oyo in Nigeria claimed
Homosexuality and lesbianism are inhuman. Those who practice them are insane, satanic and are not fit to live because they are rebels to God’s purpose for man…
Though one hopes Orama was completely misquoted, still, one might reasonably suspect that this opinion is authentic to Nigerian Anglicanism and the Global South faction; it might well be that strong, international criticism will serve not to change the opinion, but merely silence it, driving it underground where it can continue to operate unseen and unheard.
I. Curious Conservative Reactions
While some Western conservatives might disavow Orama’s comments, one might be forgiven for wondering why they would bother. Here’s Father Kendall Harmon of T19:
These words are to be utterly repudiated by all of us–I hope and trust.
Well, why is that? He wrote (beackets added):
[1]We are all in the global village now, like it or not, and the world is indeed flat. So what we say needs to take seriously the resonances that it may bring out in contexts other than our own. There could hardly be a worse statement in a Western context than to say of ANYONE that he or she is “not fit to live.” [2] It immediately brings to mind the Nazi language of Lebensunwertes Leben (“life unworthy of life”) and in flood images and activities too horrendous and horrific for any of us to take in even at this historical distance from the events themselves.
According to [1], the problem is that others will hear–we live in a global village after all, and comments like this will gain a wide enough audience to most likely hurt the Separatist cause. Why? Part [2] gives Father Harmon’s answer: it will remind hearers of Nazi language. And of course he is right about that. Bishop Orama is not a Nazi or fascist so far as I know, but he has no trouble employing their Eliminationist rhetoric. Some bishop.
But I am utterly stunned by Father Harmon’s reasons for repudiating Bishop Orama’s rhetoric. There is nothing specifically Christian–no laudable Biblical principle–invoked in Father Harmon’s words. And there is nothing significantly moral either. The trouble with Bishop Orama’s words is strictly instrumental: it will hurt the cause by bringing to mind Nazi depravity. I suppose such an instrumental reason could have a moral resonance for Father Harmon: the end–Separation–justifies the means perhaps. He did not say that Bishop Orama was in error, or that Bishop Orama’s words were unscriptural or anti-Christian. The problem? Bishop Orama could hurt the cause.
Here is Greg Griffith of Stand Firm (I do not know if he is ordained like Father Harmon: no disrespect intended):
[1] About the horrible nature of the remark, the injury to the Christian witness it does, and yes, even the “rhetorical violence” it commits… I agree completely.
[2]Describing homosexuals as “unfit to live,” or implying that that sentiment is in any way part of the Gospel message, is where I get off the bus. “Life not worthy of living” is the phrase Nazis used to describe Jews, dissenting Christian clergy, the physically handicapped, the mentally retarded, and anyone else who might spoil their vision of a pure Aryan world.
[3]If being homosexual makes one unfit to live, then being the kind of sinner Bishop Orama is makes him similarly unfit to live; and of course, that is not the Gospel of Jesus, not the Good News we have been entrusted by Christ to carry to the world.
I think it is pretty clear that Griffith does alot better than Father Harmon in stating his reasons for repudiating Bishop Orama’s remarks. The remark has a “horrible nature” perhaps due to its “injury” to Christian mission and its “rhetorical violence.” On the latter count, Griffith invokes comparisons with the Nazis in [2]. He goes further than Father Harmon, saying explicitly that the Nazi message of Elimination is not part of the Gospel message: thanks for that. Finally, in [3] there is some kind of half-baked argument that Bishop Orama deserves to die if homosexuals deserve to die–and that this is not the Gospel message.
While Griffith’s response has unmistakable specific moral content, and even refers to the Goispel message, still it leaves one wondering. What exactly in the Gospel message contradicts Bishop Orama’s message? It is odd–even comic–to see biblical conservatives in the tradition of Barth and Childs run to secular notions of moral good when push comes to shove. Guys, one does not need to hear the Good news of Christ to condemn Nazis, their Eliminationist rhetoric, and rhetorical violence: one can do that on purely secular moral grounds.
II. Throwing Down the Gauntlet
When push comes to shove, and Bishop Orama’s remarks constitute a shove, does the Gospel vision of these–or any–Separatist, Anglican, biblical conservatives have the resources to issue a specifically Christian moral repudiation? Can they do better on this count than, to choose another extreme, Borg and Crossan?
Show me. I do not think you can do it, because any sound, specifically Christian moral argument that implies the events of GC2003 are permissible for Christians counts as an utter failure of the Separatist biblical vision. In other words, to make the argument condemning the bishop’s remarks, you will end up conceding too much, and if you do not conceed too much, you will not be able to condemn the remarks.
Where is the crux of the problem? The problem is that Bishop Orama has the Bible–as construed by responsible Separatist interpretation–on his side. Leviticus is clear:
If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.
All Scripture is of a piece, and Christ did not come to obliterate any part of the Law–not a single iota! Bishop Orama respects the Bible enough not to claim to be a biblical Christian and just pretend. His Bible says homosexuals must die–what does Father Harmon’s Bible say? Or Griffith’s? After all, Scripture is clear in Leviticus. The difference might be simply that Bishop Orama has the courage to be consistent and lift up his vision of Scripture for all the world to see, whereas other self-styled conservatives insist on hiding this unsavory part–ashamed–under a bushel.
Careful: an appeal to Authority, like the authority of a great old interpreter, is a fallacy. You ‘d have to extract the authority’s argument and let the argument stand on its own merits, and you had better hope it stands.
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From:
Father Jake Stops the World
There’s been quite a bit of discussion over the last 24 hours regarding Bishop Orama of Nigeria’s disturbing remarks. There have been condemnations of the declaration that gays are “unfit to live” from all corners of the Episcopal Church. For that we can be thankful.
Yet, even in light of these condemnations, this incident has given me cause to wonder if the sentiments expressed by Bp. Orama are really an isolated incident, or are they more broadly accepted, but just not so bluntly stated?
Mark Harris points us to an interesting article in the Boston Globe, which includes this paragraph describing a reporter’s experience at St. Stephen’s Anglican Church in Nairobi, Kenya:
…Criticizing the Episcopal Church’s embrace of gays and lesbians, the Rev. Samuel Muchiri told the 1,000 worshipers “we in Kenya feel this is not what God wants.” An usher advised a visiting reporter to “remember that Sodom and Gomorrah was demolished because there were homosexuals.” Another warned that the reporter could be assaulted if he asked worshipers about the issue, and said that America’s permissiveness toward homosexuality had led Osama bin Laden to attack…
Where are they getting these strange ideas? To some degree, they are probably being taught this by their leaders. For instance, in the same article, the Archbishop of Kenya made the following statement:
“God cannot be mocked,” said Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya. “Here, in the context of Kenya, if we take somebody who is polygamous and we make him a lay reader or a priest, we would be doing the wrong thing. . . . If I know somebody is a homosexual, and I make him a lay reader, or I make him a priest, or I make him a bishop, I am sanctioning what he is doing as right. I am saying ‘no’ to this, and the church is saying ‘no’ to this.”
Peter Akinola, the Archbishop of Nigeria, is also notorious for his hateful words regarding gay and lesbian Christians. With leaders like Nzimbi and Akinola at the helm, it is not surprising that bishops and clergy might feel free to perpetuate ideas such as gays and lesbians being unfit to live, and that they could be assaulted because they caused 9/11.
I think that the leaders giving either explicit or implicit permission for such rhetorical violence is a big part of the problem. But I think there is something more to it than that. In the Boston Globe article, the Primate of the Southern Cone, Gregory Venables, know as one of the more careful voices among the extremists, points us towards that “something more”:
…”Sadly, the sexuality issue isn’t the issue – it’s about Scripture,” said Archbishop Gregory J. Venables, the primate of South America. “What’s happened in the States is that they’ve moved away from the view that God has revealed himself in Scripture, and they’re rewriting that with post-modernity relativism”…
The erroneous accusation that “the States” have “moved away from the view that God has revealed himself in Scripture” might sound like nonsense to us. Most Episcopalians that I know, including myself, affirm that the Holy Scriptures are to be regarded as divine revelation, which completes natural revelation. Our difference of opinion is over the matter of how we interpret this revelation.
And, it is on this point that the Global South extremists find allies among some North Americans.
This causes some problems in the current discussions regarding rhetorical violence, and gives us reason to seek further explanations regarding some of the condemnations of Bp. Orama’s remarks. Anglican Scotist offers us a good explanation of why this supposed stance rooted in “biblical authority” is problematic:
…When push comes to shove, and Bishop Orama’s remarks constitute a shove, does the Gospel vision of these–or any–Separatist, Anglican, biblical conservatives have the resources to issue a specifically Christian moral repudiation? Can they do better on this count than, to choose another extreme, Borg and Crossan?
Show me. I do not think you can do it, because any sound, specifically Christian moral argument that implies the events of GC2003 are permissible for Christians counts as an utter failure of the Separatist biblical vision. In other words, to make the argument condemning the bishop’s remarks, you will end up conceding too much, and if you do not conceed too much, you will not be able to condemn the remarks.
Where is the crux of the problem? The problem is that Bishop Orama has the Bible–as construed by responsible Separatist interpretation–on his side. Leviticus is clear:
If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.
All Scripture is of a piece, and Christ did not come to obliterate any part of the Law–not a single iota! Bishop Orama respects the Bible enough not to claim to be a biblical Christian and just pretend. His Bible says homosexuals must die–what does Father Harmon’s Bible say? Or Griffith’s? After all, Scripture is clear in Leviticus. The difference might be simply that Bishop Orama has the courage to be consistent and lift up his vision of Scripture for all the world to see, whereas other self-styled conservatives insist on hiding this unsavory part–ashamed–under a bushel.
Careful: an appeal to Authority, like the authority of a great old interpreter, is a fallacy. You’d have to extract the authority’s argument and let the argument stand on its own merits, and you had better hope it stands.
The reality, which most thoughtful people accept without a second thought, is that scripture contains all things necessary for salvation, but also includes lots of other stuff as well. The argument has never been “The bible said it, I believe it, that ends it.” Otherwise, we’d be executing disobedient children, to give but one bizarre example of the biblical mandate. The debate has been over how to define what exactly is “necessary for salvation,” and what is “other stuff.”
Apparently, there are some bishops, such as Orama, who have not been informed of this particular nuance in the discussion regarding scripture. That is a rather frightening realization, it seems to me.
Regarding our continued discussion of this topic, I want to draw your attention to a recent reflection from Elizabeth Kaeton entitled What the Anglican Communion Can Learn from Dog Fights. Elizabeth affirms what the Anglican Scotist has pointed out:
…People like Fred Phelps don’t make up the hateful words on the signs they hold up during the funerals of people with AIDS or soldiers who have died in Iraq. That self-proclaimed but unlicensed minister of God takes them right out of “The Good Book.”
It is Levitical logic, of course, almost pristine in its purity and simplicity. Indeed, some of us in the LGBT community have said to our orthodox and conservative sisters and brothers that if they really believe every literal thing in Scripture, then they are compelled to pick up a rock and stone every last LGBT person to death…
But then Elizabeth continues with some thoughts that I think it is important for us all to hear:
…The worst thing we mongrel dogs can do is to allow ourselves to be baited into a blood-sport by those who glorify and are entertained by violence.
We must resist that temptation with every thing that is in us. This is not about us. It is not about homosexuality or even scriptural interpretation.
This is about power and violence and we who claim the high calling of Christ Jesus must be about peace and justice, mercy and compassion, and walking humbly with God.
This is neither our fight nor our sport. Let’s not dignify it with our blood. Let us not insult the blood that was shed for our salvation.
Let us, instead, like our Samaritan sisters and brothers in Christ, use our wit and our intelligence.
The Samaritan woman, that mongrel dog, said to Jesus, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” (Mt. 15:27)
And Jesus said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” (Mt 15:28)
May it be so for us in our day and time.
And may God have mercy on us all.
I understand that some will need to express their outrage and indignation. But let’s not allow ourselves to be baited into pointless arguments that just may tempt us to toss out our own forms of rhetorical violence.
This is not some kind of rhetorical game. We must stand against violence and oppression. But let us make our stand with intelligence, wit and dignity.
J.
Labels … Let us Reflect on them …
Krystalnacht – The Night of the Broken Glass…
The Beginning of The Holocaust
Work Makes You Free …
A Survivor from Buchenwald
Yad Vashem – Jerusalem Holocaust Memorial
Auschwitz – Concentration Camp
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The Red Ribbon – Synonymous for AIDS
The Pride Flag – Proud Symbol for all things Gay
The Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt – For all those who died from AIDS
My friends,My family, My brothers and sisters…
The JEW – The Star of David used during the Holocaust …
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You who live safe
In your warm houses,
You who find, returning in the evening,
Hot food and friendly faces:
Consider if this is a man
Who works in the mud
Who does not know peace
Who fights for a scrap of bread
Who dies because of a yes and a no.
Consider if this is a woman,
Without hair and without name
With no more strength to remember,
Her eyes empty and her womb cold
Like a frog in winter
Meditate that this came about:
I commend these words to you.
Carve them in your hearts
At Home, in the street,
Going to bed, rising;
Repeat them to your children,
Or may your house fall apart,
May illness impede you,
May your children turn their faces from you.
Primo Levi
Survival in Auschwitz
The Homosexual – Also Used during the Holocaust …
A Young Man – Hungarian Jewish Boy -
From Fateless, the Motion Picture
The Label Chart Used By the Nazi Party within
the Death Camps and Concentration Camps to
Identify people…
Location, Ethnicity, Area, Orientation, Religious Affiliation
There weren’t only Jews in the Camps…
The ACT UP slogan for Gay and AIDS circa 1980
What Would Jesus Do???
This is my Label – I earned every hour of it, with Pride…
We Should Be Proud, but we should remember what labels have done to millions world wide over the Decades. I think it is time to move past them, to stop labeling and Outing people. I think we need to learn to live together PEACEFULLY in order to stop the killing of ALL people around the world…
THAT WE SHOULD REMEMBER – SO THAT WE NEVER FORGET!!
Crazy – Servant of the Bones…
Cue the music – start the fog machine – blue light GOBO slow pans across the floor through dimly lit space, and the first beat comes…
I am alone, it is early, the bar is not yet open, but I am there alone. Just me, the music and the spirit of God. Well, what little spirit of God there was at that time of my life. It is mid-summer in Ft. Lauderdale. I have just told Todd that I was going to die…
He wept.
Over the next few weeks, the teaching would begin. The team rose to the call, one of the boys was sick and was left on the side of the road with nothing but what little dignity was left in his soul. All I needed would be provided come hell or high water. Wild Horses would never stop the charge for life. We were all sick, we were all dying. Save for two people in the entire organization. My champions would save me, if I wanted it or not. Death was not an option and I would either get it or I would die…
So it began…
At that time, the temple of sin was alive and things happened so quickly that if you blinked you would miss it. The temple was filled with every earthly delight, Bosch would have been pleased with our Garden of Earthly desires, carnal, profane and truly sinful. I loved every minute of it.
The rule was set…
You have a life, outside the temple. When you come to work, you leave your baggage at the door, do not bring it in here. No exceptions. Come to work, and you will serve me your Master and do whatever you are told without question without complaint, is that clear!
Yes Sir…
I took that time of my life as sacred and profane, but that is another story. You can read about the Sacred and the Profane over there in Pages… This is another thread to a long running story of how this boy was made a man, a saved man, a profane man, and in the same vein Sacred. You never know where your lessons are going to come from, and you are grateful for the wisdom and time people took out of their lives to care for you and teach you lessons that nobody else was going to teach you. So pay attention Little One.
This is your life we are talking about…
The gobos are tracking across the floor slowly through smoke and mirrors as the music plays just for you. I learned very early on, in that space that music would identify particular moods, paint particular pictures. Farkle and I had a ritual. He IS the only one left from the fray of men who lived and died from the temple of sin. We began each shift in our own way, begging god another night, another day, another minute. I was surrounded with warriors fighting their own significant battles with AIDS. I was not hit by the KS demon. I was not plagued by things I saw and witnessed, thank the creator. It was ugly. It was brutal and it was most importantly the fight of the century for all of us. Many men went to their deaths in our arms. We bathed them, clothed them and in the end we buried them.
Angry Larry…
When I got sober there was a man with AIDS named Larry, he was a drunk like me. But he was unique. He sat with a bottle on the table and a loaded revolver to shoot himself. He carried that gun with him and showed it to every one of us, and he told us relentlessly that he was going to kill himself. He got sober with the rest of us. Over the years following his spiritual awakening, he did something that no one else thought to do.
People with AIDS were being left in the streets. Mortuaries would not process sick people, they would not touch a body that had been infected with AIDS. Families would not bury their children. We did that. Larry opened his services to the community and he became another champion of the cause. I knew him. He eventually got rid of the gun, so I heard.
For a few minutes during transition, I would warm up the smoker, fire up the turntable and start the computer so that I could worship my God to the music of my soul. I did that every night. I worshiped whatever was going to save me.
I was servant to the men. I was servant to my Master. I was a slave for God, be he dressed or undressed. You never saw God until you witnessed true beauty of the soul in all its carnality. There is something sacredly profane about this part of my life. What went on inside the temple stayed in the temple. Many months would pass and I battled my demons of alcoholism before I finally fell into the pit of death, and there happen to be somebody watching from the sidelines.
Danny saved me that night. He was the man who cradled me in his arms, oxygen mask on my face and had called the paramedics to try and revive me. Danny took me home that night, and did not leave my apartment for a week. He fed me, bathed me and cared for me, under that watchful eye of my Master Todd. When the word was spoken, action was taken, and hell hath no fury if you did not jump when told to. Todd was very protective over his boys and men. Especially me…
We were reminded that Todd had lost love to AIDS. Bob was buried across the street in the cemetery that faced our building. It was hard – it was painful, and it was sacred. Kevin and Larry did things for me that no man ever did for me in the real world. We were the three musketeers. We were the team to beat in bar management and service. We ran a tight ship and we were accountable, respectable and reliable. We proved a mighty force against the odds we all faced.
Let’s get it on…
Shift was begun at eight. The wells were filled the beer was stocked and the ice bins were full. Put your money in the drawer and let’s get the music thumping. Like clockwork at the strike of eight bells the first note hit the turntables. They were lined up around the building. Cars were parked all over the place. The temple worship had begun. Heaven was found amid the souls of suffering men who knew they were all marked for death, but for tonight, whatever you desired was fulfilled. You could drown away your sorrow and dip into the well of living water if you wished as well. You have never lived until you party like your dying with crowds of undulating flesh as far as they eye can see. The ghosts of those men now inhabit the fantasies and dreams I have still to this day.
One by one, two by two, they died in our arms. We held them until they took their last breaths. Memorialized in the careful and blood soaked threads of quilts, as the years went by, they started collecting by the dozen, then by the hundreds. If you’ve ever seen the entire quilt unfurled, all the men who were part of my life in those first years of my epidemic life, they are all together in death, as they were in life. Memorialized until the end of time. And we remember each of their names.
So many young boys torn from life before they knew what hit them. Men who infected them had died as well. Many of my friends were taken on trips that were detrimental to them, and just robbed them of life that was still left to live.
Todd saw to it that I would never go there…
You come to work, dress as you will, you obey me and do not waver from my eye, for I know your carnal desires and you are too young to tempt the devil with his dance. Because I surely did not know what could befall me if the right charmer enticed me into his web of desire, and they all knew I was fair bait. But in order to dine from my buffet, you needed explicit permission of my Master, who never allowed any man to defile me like many had been. I was off limits. I never crossed the line provided because that meant disrespect and I could never bear to break my Master’s heart with disobedience.
I loved Him, and He loved me – I had many problems. I was depressed and angry and resentful. I had the scars of traumatic visions of my dead lovers corpse in my head, and the words of his mother still ring in my ear today “I hope that every night until you die, that you see the corpse of my dead son in your field of vision.” That curse still lives with me and will go with me to the grave. Five day old corpses are not pretty. I had to identify the remains when all was said and done. Save that he was wearing jewelry that I could identify and part of him was still recognizable – God forgive me…
I remember that day, it was early afternoon the morgue called me from work to come and do the deed. I drove in and looked upon him in that room, I wept tears that burned into my soul forever. I just could not imagine – the pain was so hard to bear. I drove over to the bar. Bill was working behind the bar. I drank until I could not stand up on my own. I drank for a week, straight…
Todd and Bill needed to find me a solution and quick, because I was on the outs.
I started suicide therapy in a group setting that lasted 32 weeks. Nothing like rehashing death week after week, until the pain was purged from your soul, but is it ever? Months went by until I got my news.
But they cared for me in all my brokenness. A young angel would earn his wings back. Come hell or high water. In the end, when all was said and done, at the end of the day I survived, but so many did not. And each night I offer them prayers in hope that when I meet my death that all of them will be waiting for me in the Temple Of Earthly Desire in the promised land of the Kingdom of God, where the sacred and profane are mingled with the blood of the Almighty and the blood of my friends who have gone before me, on that day we will be cleansed of our sins.
And forgiven by God…
Amen
Goodnight angels of men
Gay Bishop Announces Civil Union, Infuriates Church Conservatives
I support the V. Rev. Gene Robinson. Good for him and his partner.
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
(London) The only openly gay bishop in the worldwide Anglican Church has unveiled plans for a civil union with his longtime partner, unleashing an attack by church conservatives who call it a publicity stunt.
New Hampshire’s Episcopal Bishop, Gene Robinson, tells the British Broadcasting Corporation that he and his partner of 18 years, Mark Andrew, 53, will have a civil union shortly after the state’s civil union law goes into effect next year.
“The decision to take advantage of the new law that will come into effect in New Hampshire on January 1 is simply our taking advantage of the kinds of rights which are now being made open to gay and lesbian people in New Hampshire,” Robinson tells interviewer Michael Buerk in the program to be broadcast August 28.
The timing would bring it just weeks before bishops from around the world are to meet in London for their once-a-decade meeting called the Lambeth Conference.
Conservatives pressing the church to outlaw gay clergy accuse Robinson using the timing in a bid to gain a political advantage, something Robinson disputes.
“I am certainly not doing that to rub salt into anyone’s wounds, but no one should expect me to penalize me and my partner when these rights are being offered,” he said.
“I believe that Peter Akinola, the Archbishop of Nigeria, one of the primary spokespeople against my election [as bishop], I believe he is following his call from God as best as he can, I just wish he could believe I am following my call from God as best I can.”
Robinson first raised the possibility of entering into a civil union when he testified in April before a New Hampshire committee hearing leading up to the vote that passed the law.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, the titular leader of the worldwide denomination has been trying to keep the Church from splintering over Robinson’s election in 2004.
While Robinson will be allowed to attend the Lambeth Conference, Williams will not allow him to participate or vote.
A similar restriction has been placed on bishops consecrated in the US by Akinola.
Despite claims by the dissident faction that they are not seeking a schism of the worldwide Church when leaders gather next year for their once-a-decade meeting bishops representing almost half of the denomination’s 77-million members will be absent.
Last month the steering committee for the Global South Primates, made up of churches mainly in the developing world and the most conservative in the worldwide Anglican Communion, said last month its bishops will boycott the meeting because the Episcopal Church, is allowed to participate.
On Thursday Akinola issued a statement saying the “the moment of decision is almost upon us” about whether Anglican conservatives and liberals can stay together.
The statement went on to say that theological conservatives cannot stand by as the U.S. Episcopal Church – the Anglican body in the U.S. – and the Anglican Church of Canada move toward full acceptance of gay relationships.
“We earnestly desire the healing of our beloved communion but not at the cost of rewriting the Bible to accommodate the latest cultural trend,” Akinola said. “We cannot turn away from the source of life and love for a temporary truce.”
©365Gay.com 2007
Finding the Perfect Church…
I have asked this question of some of the ministers that write for our sphere. For many years I have searched for the “Perfect Church.” Growing up in a predominantly white, middle class neighborhood gave rise to attending church with my friends. And that served me very well for most of my young adult life.
Labels had not been applied to us in this period of our lives so we were free to worship wherever we chose to. And in most cases our parents followed along, because the church was not only a religious landmark, but also housed Youth Ministry that everyone was part of for several years through high school and junior college and even for myself, Seminary.
After leaving seminary with a bad taste in my mouth for Catholicism, and Church, I walked away from God and his church. I thought that I had been slighted by clergy and I was pushed against the “choose us or get out” wall. It took me many years dealing with the truth to walk back into church.
This was always my childhood home, the Church I called home. It was the place that God and I communed. And after my leaving seminary – this was the church that I returned to many years later, as a weary, AIDS suffering sinner. I was sick, and I had been away, and I met a man who changed my life when I saw him say mass in this space with his crutches and MS. I vowed never again to complain about things in my life. And I have kept that word so many years later.
Being Gay, had its issues with Church. But not to the men who led this church forward. I was a part of this church and this is where I would find prayer, support and salvation.
As I grew into my 30′s I hit several questions in my life about faith, recovery and living with AIDS. I’d like to say that I found all my answers in “church” but that would be false. I was living in an area of town that did not afford me the ability to get to church any more. So I was not attending “church” where I had been for so many years. It was just logistically impossible to get there in time for mass.
During my second recovery, I was seeing a therapist and I had friends who were talking care of me at the time. I was having my visions and spiritual experiences outside the church I may have left the church “physically” but not emotionally and spiritually.
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Faith is like a garden. Each one of us inhabits the garden of our own making. We tend that garden daily. In the morning we walk through misty, dew covered flowers and plants, and as the day wares on the sun tracks across the sky as we sit in that garden. I believe that everyone is born into some kind of spiritual tradition, more than most may speak of but nonetheless, someone puts the seed of faith within us at some point.
If you were like me, you were baptized, first communion ed and confirmed in the Catholic faith. Some were baptized in the baptist faith and others were raised in the faith of their parents or extended families. But we all carry that seed within us.
For many, being Gay and Christian or Being Gay and Catholic was something we battled with because of the politics of the church. Now in my 40′s I can tell you that I will not walk into, better yet worship in a space that does not welcome me fully into communion. I used to compromise my ethics and my politics because I was attached to the Catholic faith by an unbreakable umbilical cord that still exists today.
When I got sick, the priests told me to come to church and I did because they were 21st century men in an archaic world of Catholicism. That lasted as long as it had to to keep my in line with my faith and connected TO my faith. God was in the church, praying with others took place in the church. Mass took place within the church. And I was ok with that way of life.
When I got sober in 2001 I was filled with questions. My faith was strong because I KNEW who God Was and who god Is still. I did not need the physical building to give me what I had created and cultivated internally over many many years of spiritual exploration. You see, faith is not something you feed once a week in a worship service. Faith is not something you partake on any given Sunday.
I was sober a four months when I came to visit Montreal in the Spring of 2002. It was Ash Wednesday when I arrived. I celebrated Easter here and I loved it. This is such a rich religious city. Later I would meet a Jesuit priest who would give me the same puzzle piece he gave all the other boys I later met on the path later on.
This is where it all starts…
I had a reason to come here and I knew after two weeks of being here, that I needed to stay here. I went back to Florida, packed all that I could and I left, never to return. Lies my mother told facilitated my move out of the United States.
I started my journey of faith in the Church Basilica of Notre Dame. It took me weeks to start putting the faith puzzle together. and now six years later, I can tell you that there are still pieces of the puzzle missing.
I had to get used to living in Montreal, Pre-Iraq War. I had to find my place in the greater scheme of things. And that took a long time. I had my citizenship on February 17th 2003, and I was sober 14 months. I decided that I would go back to school. My chosen major in the beginning was Psychology, that quickly changed to Religion.
These were the years that demonstrations were taking place in the streets and Americans were being warned to sew Canadian flags on our backpacks, so as not to acquire the ire of Canadians in Montreal, because protests against the war were daily occurrences. I did that and I participated in those demonstrations. But eventually I would hit several crises points in my life, ONE would be “where do I fit in?” I had to find my place in the community and that took two years upon beginning University. I remember sitting in Donald’s office asking the all important question: “I don’t know where I fit in and I have one foot in the South and one foot in the North – I don’t know where I should be?”
He was always apt to tell me these key words:
“If you find yourself in between and you can’t decide where to go or move, then sit where you are and survey all that you see before you. FEEL your feelings and get in touch with your dis-ease with where you are. Consult your map and ask your questions of the people on the path, then when you are ready, plot your next step, but not before you are sure of your footing.”
I met a man of faith in the Chaplaincy office. I was a man of faith and I was sure in my faith as any other man or woman was. The one difference? I was a sure gay man living with AIDS. I made no excuses and expected no special treatment, just love and acceptance, which I found in Fr. Ray Lafontaine. Still to this day, as a fellow Christian and Catholic priest in my life, he challenges me in my faith to find the answers for myself.
I attended his church at Loyola on Sunday evenings. And that worked for me because there were others like me in the church and we were all accepted.
****
That haze of Summer lasted for two years. In that time I started working on my religious beliefs. And I maintained my sobriety by attending meetings in the basements of many of Montreal’s most beautiful churches. When Father Ray was moved to St. Monica’s church and new priestly blood was flushed into the chapel, I met my faith match…
Having been singled out over my marriage to my husband and the vile words shared with me by the existing chaplain of the University, I walked away from Church once and for all. Although when Fr. Ray and Fr. Paul said mass, I would always attend.
Having studied religion for so many years of my life, and having lived with AIDS for so many years, I knew several things. 1. I knew who God was. 2. I knew who God is not. and 3. I knew who I trusted to support me in my faith journey.
I have been separated from Church for a long time now. It took the invitation of friends to attend a mass said by the Very Reverend Gene Robinson in the Summer of 2006 at Christ Church Cathedral to seriously contemplate a return to Church. In 2003 I was married in the very Catholic Space at Loyal, much to the consternation of Georges Pelletier. We did it just to make a statement of faith, because the entire Loyola community was there to stand with us and profess our faith and love before our families, friends and God himself.
The only time I ever walked into a church, during my time in the field, was with my Great Aunt Georgette, may she rest in peace… I would pray in the mother house chapel with her and I would attend mass there as well. The last time I attended mass in the Mother House Chapel was the day we buried her in August of 2006.
I would never walk into another Catholic Church after her funeral. Although I still maintain a working relationship with men of Catholic faith, I don’t go to mass in the Catholic Church. The other day that marked a change in my Catholic belief system was the day that the Late Pontiff John Paul II died, and I attended mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
You see, while I was studying Religion in university, I was studying my past, making peace with it and learning why things happened the way they did for me, and I was afforded this historical review because of the professors that I studied with for the last four years. I polished my religious skills and I mastered my Christian faith.
I was getting sober in church basements and I was ministering to people in the field. I never walked away from God again. I knew better, and he would always wait for me to find Him. Some of you know about the last five years. Some of you sought me out from the field for spiritual guidance. And I was there for you without question.
I always knew where God resided within me. I knew where to find God, outside myself. I can walk into any church in the city and talk to God. And I can talk to God at any given moment of my day or night, because I have built a temple of God within me.
We are all temples of the spirit of God. Most of us do not know this truth. So I share it with you now. We are all created in the image of God, and therefore we carry the image of God within us. We are walking talking miracles of God’s love and grace. My garden of faith is Eden within me. And I share that garden with anyone who wants to come and walk amongst the flowers. I do not need a building or the perfect church to settle my restless heart.
I’ve spent the last five years searching for God in the sacred churches of Montreal. He was always there where ever I looked for Him. As for the perfect church? You will never find it, because of the true nature of men and women. Humans are imperfect sinners who need to be taught what is right from wrong. And those who come to church already have their preconceived notions of who their God is, and what they will be willing to accept, in the way of Christian teachings, dogma and practice.
So take a church full of imperfect humans and ask them to build for you the perfect church! With all the heads buzzing in the church, each with their notions of church and God, and what do you have? A room full of buzzing heads, who could not agree on what they would call church, and I am sure that their conception will not be what you had in mind either. The perfect church does not and will never exist…
Where did Jesus do his best work? In the field, over dinner in sinners houses. Working with the homeless and the poor and sick. How many times does Jesus step into a church in biblical writing? And what does he say about the ‘church?’ What would he say about all of the terrible incarnations of Church we have today – in the world?
I do believe that God and Jesus weep at the way Christianity is lived out in the millions of lives of people around the globe. We know the scripture, we know the reason yet we can’t see past the noses on our faces and we cannot take the plank out of our own eyes before we try to help another, so what does that say about active Christianity???
I’ve been in the process of Spiritual direction for some time now, ever since coming to Montreal many years ago. I have sought the advice of many people over the years. And I work with others “in the field” every day…
Where is my “Church?” If I had to give you an address, that would be the Christ Church Cathedral because the bishop has said to the LGBT community that we are just as important to the church as any one else. That he supports us and wants us to participate in community and be active participants in our own faith. I am 40 now, and I have my morals, beliefs and values, and if I choose to leave the Catholic faith based on principle I can do that today, because of the certainty of WHO I am and What my faith means to me, because I am ‘out of communion’ with Benedict’s Church, and I can live with that today.
****
But I don’t need a building to worship God. I don’t need the perfect church to teach me God’s word. I don’t need the perfect minister to keep me on the path of Godly living. Why, you ask? Because I can do all these things on my own. I celebrate my Christianity every day through prayer, word and action. I live my faith – therefore it is in front of me every day for all to see. I practice my faith. I talk the talk and I walk the walk, daily…
This is not a task I ask you to ponder on your own and it is not for the feint of heart either. But in order to build your inner church, you must start with a foundation, a garden. Mark out the space in your heart. Till the soil and plant your seeds. Give them plenty of water and sunlight and then pray over them…
We each have the capability to till our own gardens of faith within us. Because until you have a strong garden of faith within you, will you be able to find a church that will serve you, because without the understanding and cultivation of your own garden, do you remove the judgments within your heart of men and ministry.
If you are looking for the perfect minister of Christ, he will not appear, save Christ himself. We are flawed human beings, and therefore we must understand that and with that knowledge we can better serve the community at large, and if we able to serve the community at large, we can then see God for ourselves where ever we go, and in whatever church we visit.
The best work of the field is done in the most imperfect churches, because most people know that perfection is unattainable. Your Heavenly Father is perfect, so we have every ability to be as perfect as our heavenly father is perfect. But that will take a lifetime to achieve.
In order to find church outside of you, you must first build church within yourself. You must find your definition of God, you must let your faith garden grow. You must be strong in your faith because without strong inner faith, you will not have strong outer faith for community. Without using the gardening tools that God has given you, how can you practice your faith? You must find Sacred Space within yourself, and you must build sacred space for yourself, while you are in the field.
Because, what good would looking for the perfect Church do for you, if you do not have a handle on your own inner faith to begin with??? Build your inner church and invite God to inhabit your sacred space. Get to know this God of your own understanding. There are certain things a Christian must do every day…
- Read Scripture every day
- You must Pray every day
- You must Meditate every day
- You must Actively Practice your Faith every day
Because the simple act of prayer – asking God for those things that weigh heavily on our hearts, must be followed up with a period of silent “Listening” for God’s voice to speak to you. Because sometimes we get the answer… ‘keep praying, not today, NO!’ Cookie cutter Christianity is too easy. You must live your faith actively in community, that is one sure way to find Jesus in the field.
Start with your garden
Plant it, Till it, and let it grow
Listen to your heart song
and share it with the world
Take off the blinders on your eyes
and see the world in its imperfect state
Find Christ in the field and walk with Him
talk the talk and walk the walk
practice your faith in ACTION
in time your heart will soften
and you will see God
and you will find that
‘Perfect Church’
is but
‘Perfect Union with Christ’
AND
One day
A church will find its way to you
Because you will be ready to serve…
Ministry
“He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8
I never thought that doing something good for another would turn around and bite me in the ass. Christian ministry and emergent churches are the new faces of Christian worship and ministry. What I am is immaterial to Who I am. In the past few months as my degree was conferred to me by a University, I was thrust into a position of ministry leadership, not by my own choice, but by popular acclimation of the group who thought that I was the most logical person to lead them, in the wake of a colleague dying.
I have been working in my field here in Montreal for over five years. I work with the addicts, the alcoholics, the sick and the dying. I have probably spent more years in the ACTIVE practice of Christian Charity longer than most of you would even care to consider. When my friends were all dying of AIDS who do you think ministered to their souls, took care of their physical bodies, fed and bathed them and in the end buried them when parents of Christian faith walked out on them and left them in the streets to die alone!
My work was something that my peers and my supporters highly encouraged. I looked all over the world for the model that I would adopt to begin my work here. That church was RE:HOPE in Glasgow.
Let me stop for a moment and say this loud and clear. Just because I am a gay man, does not infer that any people I choose to support, or pray for, or attempt to raise funds for, speaks of the sexual orientation of anyone. There are straight writers on this blog and there are gay writers. They all have good messages and are people that I respect and admire. We all learn from each other.
So I know that RE:HOPE is trying to raise 12,000 GBP for their trip to the Holy Land this fall and I went OUT of my way to try and help them, because it was an easy choice and it was the right choice. I used the term “Partnered” and that has come back to me also.
You may not agree with some of my theology, and the obvious sane fact that I am a gay man of faith – speaks of just how much work I have done in 40 years of life to find my way through Christianity and Catholicism. I take what is good and I leave what is bad.’
Christianity isn’t perfect, and it is truly flawed. But Christ is perfect in his simplicity and direct in his message. People are flawed too in their beliefs and theology. People are imperfect yet God is perfect…
People have commented and Scott has commented about my choice of words and today he writes me to admonish me and to tell me about being careful of what I write, I got that.
What troubled me more – and to the point that – because I am a gay man in Ministry, some have gone as far as to question the sexual orientation of Scott Burns. I have to say that I am disgusted by this little piece of information. Don’t people have better things to do with their time than to wonder about the sexual orientation of people? Have we not grown past this little issue? Are we all adults here?
I’ve never met Scott, but I believe in his ministry. Enough to put my own reputation and this blog on the line in the sense of credibility and respect. So what, I am Gay and Scott is not? Does my support of his ministry automatically make him gay or make him suspect? Have we backtracked that much in the year 2007, that doing good Christian work comes with parameters and judgments by some? Of course it does, I should know that.
All of you out there are Christianity Majors and have decades of Christian study and worship under your belts, right? All of you have spent years in University studying Church history, Christian History and Christian Origins. right??? And all of you have spent time in a Catholic Seminary in the pursuit of priesthood as well, I suppose?
I do not make choices rashly or out of one side of my brain. You may not agree with my stance of Church, and you can question my “take” on Christian Theology. I have spent over 20 years of my life studying religion, in seminary and in University so I do know much more about church and Christianity, than the run of the mill lay person or arm chair Christian.
Living with AIDS – over 14 years now gives me certain understanding of what charity and forgiveness and true unconditional Christian love is. I know what doing the right thing is, if you lived with the threat of death every day of your life, knowing just what is going to kill you and how, you either do one of two things, you find FAITH fast or you give up and die.
I took the high road. Seeking ministers, priests and bishops who were accommodating and understanding. I am part of the Anglican faith now because I was told, unequivocally that the Montreal Diocese agrees with the blessing of Same Sex unions. I, in fact, am Married, and have been for now three years. We had a United Church wedding before God and our families.
So if you have a question about my Christian faith – You Ask Me! If you have a problem with me You Tell Me.
I cannot believe that trying to help another ministry would come back with questions, inferences and disagreements. I love it when people come to read, and many do each day. I reach out to millions with this blog, we have even saved a few lives here and there with the work that we do here.
All my kids and my peers and supporters who are part of this ministry are straight. One of them is in Seminary this fall. NONE of them question my ability to serve based on my sexual orientation. My exploration of faith has brought me to this point. And I will even go so far as to say that I probably have a better Christian practice than most of you out there, because you have to deal with doctrine, theology and teaching.
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I study Theology and though I may not agree with it, and for the most part I do not agree with any church that limits its membership to those who believe and are straight from those who believe and are gay. I have struggled with this issue for the whole of my life. And I have made peace with it.
I CAN reconcile being Gay and Being Christian, IF You CANNOT then that is your issue, not mine.
I do what I am called to do. I serve where I am called to serve. And I love unconditionally because I am commanded TO! I read scripture too and those six references to same sex, homosexuality and sleeping with a man as to a woman are all scriptures that I have spent a great deal of time, during my studies, trying to understand. I don’t think that you have spent as much time studying scripture as I have in 25 years.
Nobody has the right to judge what kind of Christian I am – or question the ministry that I work with. The reason that we have emergent churches and church plants and Christian ministries popping up all over the world is in response to the way Christianity has played out over the centuries. Nobody is pleased or agrees with the model we have, so we set out and create our own. I have done that after reaching the conclusion after prayer, study and academic work to know that Church Christianity will not work for me – it never has.
I have been a Catholic all of my life, I spent a year in a Catholic Seminary as well and I left because I would not serve Man and also because I was not a pedophile and I was not going to spend another year keep secrets for my fellows and the Catholic administration.
The members of the Anglican faith, here in Montreal, have been planting seeds in my heart for a year. They allowed me to come and go as I please. And they loved me unconditionally. And now I have made a conscious choice to become part of the Anglican communion because the Bishop himself has given the LGBT community a green light in his church. I have already written about this.
Can a Gay Man be spiritually centered – Yes of course he can. Can a gay man lead a church, Many do, quietly. I can tell you how many gay priests we have in Montreal and how many are open about it and they still have parishes and communities. I can tell you that I know a handful of Christian Ministers who will speak on my behalf and tell you that I am as true to Christian faith as I can be.
I hook up with a church I see does good work and I try to style a ministry by its example, maybe partner wasn’t the right term but still, I pray for that community and I work for the betterment of that community and I work tirelessly trying to help them.
I write letters to my supporters on my time to help You, and I get a letter of “this weighs on my heart too much” ok, that’s your issue not mine. I was just trying to help you out of a situation that you placed yourself in, then you wrote about it and asked for help, how many of us listened to you and went out of their way to help you???
And I am admonished for doing something charitable and good. I am told that Some do not agree with my theology! That’s your issue not mine. Some do not agree that a Gay man can be a good example to the people he leads, because of the inherent problem with being gay!
I will tell you here and now that sexual practice in my marriage is between ME – MY GOD and My Husband, and nobody else. Go read my writings on the Sacred and the Profane. Maybe you will learn something about how much I respect the two states of grace. You cannot have the Sacred without the Profane, because they inform each other.
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They are married in a coexistence of grace.
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I would like to know from you, my readers just what objections you have to what I am, Who I am and what I choose to do for a living? I put those buttons on my blog because the ministries that are there need support either financially or Spiritually. I won’t make that mistake again…
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I choose to support the needs of many and they should be grateful that a stranger would put himself out there to help another human being because he believes in the ministry of Christ. So until further notice I will remove all connection and fund raising for any ministry accept my own.
If you cannot understand what it really means to be a Christian and you can’t accept that maybe a Gay man with religious leanings, a full degree in Christian Religion Study and a further pursuance of a Pastoral Ministry Degree in Theology can lead and be a good example and a wise leader, then I invite you to be on your way.
Don’t waste another moment reading here and please, do us all a favor, do not return to this place, because we have no use for you either.
Yesterday I turned forty years old, and I had my own issues with faith, life and death, but to receive a letter of concern, admonishment and as I read it a separation in Theology and Christian faith practice insulted me. And to know that people who have come by here have questioned the dignity of another minister AND question his Sexual Orientation just because his visage and ministry appeared on the side bar of this blog made me sick to my stomach. I thought we were all adults here and that we were grown up enough to lay down our judgments and issues for the shared communion of Christianity. I guess I was mistaken.
Like I said, if you’ve got a problem with me, that is Your Problem not mine. If you don’t have the balls to approach me and state your case, that is also your problem not mine. If you question the way I practice my Christianity, that is also your problem, not mine.
If you do not know enough to understand that I have struggled with Christianity for the whole of my life and that I probably know MORE about the intricacies and minutiae of Christianity than you do – that’s not my problem.
God speaks to me – and he knows I am Gay, He also knows I am HIV positive, so do all my kids, my friends, my peers, and even my husband. They all love me just the same. God Loves me Unconditionally. There is no separation between God and Myself.
I don’t have time to sit here and write sermons like this and justify why I can practice Christian faith because of …. to you. I don’t need to. You can sit your happy ass down and write me and tell me of your concerns with my theology and practice and if I feel moved I will write you back, or even take the time to embarrass myself in front of you by writing a rant like this one again!
I know a lot more about Christian Theological issues than you might think. I have battled with the best and the brightest when it comes to theological and ministerial discussion. And we agree to disagree. The Catholic Church allows me access to the sacraments because it is a RITE of my Catholic upbringing, I was baptized into the church and in all my years only ONE priest saw fit to condemn me openly and with that condemnation he lost his parish and his people, they all left his church! In the Anglican faith I am in full communion with the Bishop’s church and it is high about time. God WEEPS at the intolerance and judgment of Christians all over the world. And we pray for them just the same.
I have studied Papal History and I continue “on my time” to further that theological education outside the classroom. I know all about the Churches laws and decrees, I have studied at great length – the life of John Paul II one of the most important Popes in Modern History second only to John XXIII. I don’t agree with all of his writing, especially about women, birth control, homosexuality and assorted other dimensions of his writing, but you must admit that in the hallowed darkness of his chapel the Pope begged God for forgiveness for some of what he did in public, forced to speak so many words at the consternation of the Holy See and those Bishops and Cardinals who were close to the See of Peter. So I know all of your arguments.
Christianity MUST evolve or else crumble in the ruins of its own intolerance and judgmentalism and condemnations. The Church must change to accommodate the many people who have grown up in a faith and as adults we are divided from the faith because of the stance of those conservative men in certain positions. The curret Pope Benedict will never earn my allegiance or respect, because he is a dog of a man. HE is responsible for much of what John Paul II wrote as he was the man in the position of keeper of the doctrine of the faith, now he is Pope, God help us all…
Faith for me as a gay HIV Positive man is cut and dry. You do good for others, and you love others and you maintain a humble presence in the world and you do no harm. I think that this simple theological model works. Don’t quote me mumbo jumbo theological ideas because all the theology in the world will not change the man I am today and what I choose to do with my life.
Theology is too wrapped up in rules and dogma. I am wrapped up in simple Christian faith for simple Christian people. Faith is simple. Talking the talk is one thing, Walking the Walk is surely another. I can do both – I can talk the talk and I do walk the walk. You ask any of my people about what I do day in and day out, and just how much of my time I spend helping others because I am called to do that and I am sure you would be pleasantly surprised. Men of faith should be this “giving” of their time and talent for the little pittance I make in return. I work my ass off to the bone day and night, I write, I work with others because work was done for me when I needed it to. Ministry is not just about preaching the Gospel to people, but getting down in the gutter with them. How many Christians get out there and really get their hands dirty? Not Many.
So I see a group that gets their hands dirty and I start talking them up and I pray for them and I try to raise funds for them. I do that for my group too. All is not words and bible, show me the money at the end of the day – I don’t make nearly enough to support my house yet, and I have another 18 months to go before I hit my Masters and Pastoral ordination, but I am in the field, I have been in the field for years.
I have been a Christian presence in my Gay Community since I was a young boy, And I was in the trenches when Christians were fleeing like in the exodus from infected sons, daughters and children. I stuck and stayed. I raised money, stood in picket lines and I was there through the worst time when Christians turned their back on men and women who were sick and dying. I WAS THERE! I cannot tell you the countless and thankless hours that I spent in service to my community because NOBODY else would dare touch us or help us. So speak to me about active Christian Ministry. Tell me you know from what people like me lived through in our own lives! Tell me you know the words that self righteous Christians used to condemn people and people lost their jobs, apartments, lovers, family and friends. Were you there?
I can tell you about Christian families that THREW their sons on the STREET, Churches who REFUSED to perform funerals, Christian men and women who worked in funeral homes that REFUSED to process AIDS infected dead boys and men.
This is a double sided issue. Men acted with one another. Men did what they did. Do we condemn them as well? They are all DEAD and I am still alive, so God in his wisdom still sees good in me to fill my lungs with air and gives me life each day. I know how I was infected. I was trying to help another sick soul who LIED to me and then killed himself and I found out After the fact!! So fuck me right? I got what was coming to me right? I was a sinner just like the others. So fuck us !!! right??
Good Christian men kept me alive when all I wanted to do was die already. They believed I had a place in God’s kingdom, even if we did not go to any certain church. I learned Christian Charity from the best. I learned what Jesus meant by Loving others as I loved myself the hard way. I had no choice because good upstanding self righteous Christians could not stomach the horror and filth – the sickness and death. Yet, they could walk into church on Sunday’s and quote scripture and condemn from their Holy Pulpits and pews, UGH it makes me SICK to think about the past…
I can tell you that some of us angry gay men who were Christians who went to school to become morticians so that they could start funeral parlors to give our friends proper burials and I know renegade priests who WOULD perform funerals for us and the minions of people who worked behind the scenes behind the Christian iron curtain who DID walk the walk when we needed it.
I can also tell you about cemetery workers who refused to dig graves and those religious men who stood in the way of us burying those people in hallowed graves. Shall I continue? I can tell you about ministers, Christian ministers TODAY who still condemn us. And you want me to follow their theology?
I think Not!!
And I know good Christian people who loved me when my parents disavowed me and wrote me off as infected goods. I was not immune to judgment and condemnation. I got it from my own family which speaks to the effect that my family has no role or place in my life today – and I am 40 years old and I am still here writing this story.
I was there with Jesus, changing diapers, cleaning up shit and puke and feeding people – And I sat with them until they died, while Christians all over the world sat on their tuffets condemning us and alienating and judging us and telling us that
“AIDS was God’s punishment for our sinful lifestyles.”
I SPIT on the people who did that and I will SPIT on whomever says that to me today.
And God WEPT!!!
Christians could learn from the ministerial work we did in the trenches when it really mattered. So nobody owns the right to judge or critique my Christian life, ministry, theology or practice. Because when I take my last breath – it will then be God and I in a discussion of life review and I know for sure that he will look at me and say:
“Well done, good and faithful servant!”
1 Corinthians Chapter 13:1-3
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”
Deuteronomy Chapter 6:4-7
Hear, Israel: Yahweh is our God; Yahweh is one, and you shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. These words, which I command you this day, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.
End of Sermon…
OUTMASS 2007 at Christ Church Cathedral
The 2007
O U T M A S S
Christ Church Cathedral
635 Rue Ste. Catherines
Montreal
Saturday July 28, 2007
at 7:00 p.m.
Bring a friend and celebrate!!!
The Reverend Canon Joyce Sanchez will be Officiating
and the Bishop will be giving the sermon.
If you are in Montreal for Pride, please join us.
OUT MASS 2006 with the V. Rev Bishop Gene Robinson
of New Hampshire…
Don't Quote Me: O'Reilly's Fear Factor
, Contributing Writer
July 17, 2007
After Ellen on Logo.com
“In Tennessee, authorities say a lesbian gang called GTO, Gays Taking Over, are involved in raping young girls. And in Philadelphia, a lesbian gang called DTO, Dykes Taking Over, are allegedly terrorizing people, as well…”
— Bill O’Reilly, introducing a segment of the June 21, 2007 broadcast of The O’Reilly Factor called “Violent Lesbian Gangs a Growing Problem.”
The sky is falling.
Really, it is. Bill O’Reilly says so almost every night on The O’Reilly Factor, so it must be true.
Young or old, according to Bill, we’re all on a fast track to doom. If Islamic terrorists don’t blow us up, we’ll be brainwashed by evil secular progressives or, worse, as Bill recently reported with the help of Fox News analyst Rod Wheeler, our children will be raped by lesbian gangs carrying pink Glocks.
The sky is falling; close your legs.
Bill O’Reilly is Fox News’ No. 1 trumpeter of disaster. Not since Chicken Little have we seen a character so focused on generating hysteria without cause — and so successful at it.
Approximately 3 million people tune into The O’Reilly Factor each night for the day’s news and, more importantly, their daily dose of terror.
Bwaa-a-a-ahhhh!
One night, when I have nothing better to do, I’ll tune into his show, not just to witness Bill overstepping the bounds of reason, truth and journalistic ethics, but also to count the times he says “terror,” “terrorize,” “terrorists,” “evil,” “harmful,” “harm’s way,” “chilling,” “un-American,” “they want to kill us” and “they hate us.” I’ll also take a toll of the number of times Bill says “I’ll go after them!” and “We’ll put a stop to [fill in the blank].” My pen won’t leave the paper, no doubt.
But while it’s clear to some (like myself) that O’Reilly’s methods of seduction are obviously calculated to reach viewers at a core, subconscious level, Bill’s fans don’t see that they’re being manipulated. And therein lies the not-so-secret secret of O’Reilly’s popularity.
There’s something hypnotic about Bill’s language and speech patterns — his pacing, repetition, inflection, sense of urgency and confidence in impending disaster are mesmerizing. When he says, “you know what I’m talking about,” “decent Americans know I’m right,” or “clear thinking people understand,” it’s as if he’s swinging a pocket watch in the lens of camera and saying, “When I count to three, you will cluck like a chicken!” To the tune of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” of course.
But Bill’s best skill just might be convincing people that not only does evil lurk around every corner, but also that he’s the patron saint of media — the only journalist smart enough, experienced enough and trustworthy enough to be “looking out for you.” And that self-sanctification is key to his act.
O’Reilly can’t tell viewers that they’re going to hell in Hillary Clinton’s handbasket or at the end of an angry lesbian’s pink pistol without also throwing them beads of hope — assurances that he can make it all better if you just believe in him. If he didn’t offer them freedom from the harm that he claims is everywhere, Fox’s slogan would be, “We Report; You Die.” And who’d tune in for that?
So in his aggressive efforts to appear “fair and balanced,” Bill also has to be right — even after it’s been proved that he’s wrong.
O’Reilly’s interview with Rod Wheeler in the now infamous recent O’Reilly Factor segment called “Violent Lesbian Gangs a Growing Problem” would have earned him a failing grade at any respectable journalism school in the country. We know this because Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report wasted no time in detailing all that was unethical and flat-out wrong with the segment.
Here’s a synopsis of the Report‘s findings:
• Bill began his report saying: “29-year-old Wayne Buckle was attacked by a lesbian gang here in New York City last August. Four of the women received prison sentences.” The truth is, there is no evidence that the women are members of a criminal gang, and O’Reilly failed to report that the attack was prompted by Buckle spitting, cursing and flicking a cigarette at the women after one of them rebuffed his sidewalk sexual advances.
• Wheeler asserted that in the Washington, D.C., area alone there are more than 150 lesbian gangs. But Detective Patrick Word, president of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Gang Investigators Network, an intelligence-sharing organization of 400 criminal justice professionals in the D.C. area, told the SPLC, “Our membership reports only one lesbian gang.”
• O’Reilly’s assertion in the introduction to Wheeler’s interview that a lesbian gang in Philadelphia called Dykes Taking Over is “terrorizing people” was based on only one source: WCAU-TV, an NBC affiliate in that city. The station reported back in 2004 that a small group of eighth-grade girls at a local middle school were allegedly “bullying, groping and harassing” other girls in gym class with “gay remarks.” The report made no mention of the eighth-graders using pink pistols or other weapons.
• O’Reilly’s assertion that a Tennessee lesbian gang called Gays Taking Over is “involved in raping young girls” was based solely on a Feb. 28 (sweeps-week) television report called “Violent Femmes” from WPTY-TV, an ABC affiliate in Memphis. The report featured dramatic re-enactments (shot in grainy black-and-white footage) of high school bathroom rape scenes. Under pressure from local gay and lesbian activists, the station manager admitted that reporters had neither independently verified the claims nor obtained any documentary evidence to substantiate them.
• Wheeler asserted that some of the lesbian gangs “carry pink pistols” and call themselves “the pink pistol-packing group.” But there have been no media reports at all of lesbian gangs committing violence while armed with pink-painted 9 mm pistols.
Both O’Reilly’s and Wheeler’s statements were so highly and widely criticized (and laughed at), that Bill had to admit that he blew it.
Scratch that. He had to admit that someone blew it.
So on the July 9th Factor, Bill threw Wheeler under the bus in a discussion with GLAAD’s Senior Director of Media Programs, Rashad Robinson. “We don’t want to make mistakes, and we don’t want our analysts making mistakes,” said O’Reilly. “Detective Wheeler apologized and put it on his website.”
O’Reilly’s apology? Don’t hold your breath, because according to Bill, Wheeler was not entirely off the mark. “I’ll grant you that Detective Wheeler got a little carried away,” he told Robinson. “But here in New York City a group of lesbians attacked a man. Then in Tennessee there was a lesbian gang, another one in Philadelphia. There’s no question there are some gay gangs, primarily lesbian, causing trouble. We reported it, and we should have reported it.”
Oh, I get it.
You’re traveling through another dimension — a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind …
Twilight Zone; No Spin Zone. Same thing.
I admit, The O’Reilly Factor is entertaining — so entertaining, in fact, that I truly believe that Bill O’Reilly has a future in Vegas opening for Criss Angel: Mindfreak. But — and I hate to keep harping on this — it’s far from a respectable news program.
Yet I can’t tell that to Bill’s fans.
Despite pages and pages of proof that Bill O’Reilly repeatedly sensationalizes and misinforms, and that he has nothing but contempt for journalistic ethics, his fans are convinced that he’s a credible newsman who is committed to making America safe for them. They believe him when he says that our country is embroiled in a culture war fueled by a liberal media plot, and that Fox would never air a story that was not fact-checked.
And that makes my skin crawl. I itch from the inside out, just like I did when the verdict was read in the O.J. Simpson trial.
Night after night, O’Reilly chokes the life and purpose out of journalism, and Fox News chief Roger Ailes does nothing but pucker his chapped lips as Bill bends over. Ailes’ failure to insist that O’Reilly report every story accurately, comment responsibly and honor even the most basic standards of ethics is a shameful and grotesque abuse of power.
But, hey, the sky is falling!
Be afraid, people. Be very afraid, because the minute you don’t feel terrorized is the minute you’ll stop tuning into The O’Reilly Factor and get a life — one that isn’t dreadful. And there will be none of that.
Hate Crimes Bill Stalled
Posted: July 19, 2007 (Washington) The hate crimes bill stalled yesterday after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) withdrew a defense measure to which the hate crimes bill was attached, reported Southern Voice.
“The Senate obviously devoted all of its attention to the Iraq war,” said Brad Luna, spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, told the Voice. “This had nothing to do with the hate crimes bill.”
Democrats were seven votes short of passing the defense bill, which called for the removal of U.S. troops from Iraq by spring 2008.
A spokesperson for Reid said it could be a “long time” before the Nevada senator brings the defense bill back to the floor for a vote, which could lead to an indefinite hold on the hate crimes bill and dozens of other amendments that senators were seeking to attach to the defense measure, the Voice said.
The House passed an identical version of the hate crimes measure as a freestanding bill earlier this year.
Activists are working with Democratic leadership to determine if there is a more effective way to secure passage of the hate crimes bill.
©365Gay.com 2007
AIDS Lab – Jewish General Hospital
June 28, 2007 - New HIV/AIDS Bio-containment Laboratory opens at the Jewish General Hospital’s Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research
Testing and research into HIV/AIDS have taken a major step forward with today’s opening of a new $5 million HIV/AIDS Bio-containment Laboratory in the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research (LDI) at the Jewish General Hospital (JGH).
The laboratory, whose development was spearheaded by Dr. Mark A. Wainberg, Director of Research at the JGH, will be used to grow the HIV/AIDS virus and to test tissue samples to determine how patients respond to various types of medication.
This is the fourth and most sophisticated laboratory of its kind at the LDI since the hospital began its pioneering work in HIV/AIDS under Dr. Wainberg’s supervision in the early 1980s.
“The Jewish General Hospital and the Lady Davis Institute deserve a great deal of credit for having recognized the importance of HIV/AIDS research so soon after the outbreak of the epidemic 25 years ago, and for continuing to support major, ongoing initiatives to fight the disease,” Dr. Wainberg said.
Dr. Wainberg, an internationally recognized expert on HIV/AIDS, added that the new laboratory, which is affiliated with the McGill AIDS Centre, is among the few Level 3 facilities in a Canadian hospital. In such a facility, safety precautions are so strict that Health Canada has permitted the HIV/AIDS virus to be studied and stored there. It is also one of only two centres in Quebec that are authorized to perform clinical genotyping – i.e., checking the virus’ genetic sequences to determine whether it has mutated so as to become resistant to anti-viral drugs. This test is an essential component of HIV therapy.
A total of 82 people have been trained to work in the laboratory, which received $2 million from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation for construction and equipment. The rest of the funding was provided by the JGH Foundation and various donors.
High hopes for new AIDS lab
| By Anna Bratulic, The Suburban |
|
Renowned AIDS specialist Dr. Mark Wainberg says the opening of a new Staff and equipment moved into the $5 million facility housed “We’re very proud to announce the opening of this new lab, which The lab is among a handful of similar labs in the country Wainberg says the old lab was running the risk of falling short “We really needed to have a new lab in order to meet all the Research will focus on understanding immune responses Wainberg doubts a cure or vaccine will be found in his lifetime In Canada, where there are an estimated 65,000 people While both are HIV viruses, they respond differently to treatment. “It turns out that the way the virus becomes resistant to the drugs He added that some of the researchers at the new lab will be Research will also study ways to detect infection earlier than Current screening methods can only detect antibodies that Wainberg added that the upgraded facilities will hopefully make |
Enter the Inquisitor to Baltimore …
Cleric Who Led Witch Hunt for Gays Named Baltimore Archbishop
by The Associated Press
(Baltimore, Maryland) The pope accepted the resignation of Cardinal William Keeler as archbishop of Baltimore on Thursday and named Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien, who leads the U.S. military archdiocese, as his successor.
Keeler turned 76 in March, a year past the normal retirement age for bishops.
O’Brien, 68, served as an auxiliary bishop in New York before taking over the Archdiocese for the Military Services in Washington in 1997. He coordinated a major evaluation of U.S. seminaries in 2005-2006, ordered by the Vatican in response to the clergy sex abuse scandal.
The seminary review, completed last year, gave special attention to what seminarians are taught about chastity and celibacy. It also looked for evidence of homosexuality in the schools.
In a 2005 Associated Press interview, O’Brien said that most gay candidates for the priesthood struggle to remain celibate and the church must “stay on the safe side” by restricting their enrollment. The Vatican reaffirmed that year a longstanding church policy of keeping men with “deep-seated” homosexual tendencies from becoming priests.
O’Brien, a New York native, said he would be leaving his Washington post with mixed emotions.
“I just loved the military,” he said. “The service has taught me so much.”
Keeler, a native of San Antonio, was appointed archbishop in Baltimore in 1989 and marked his 50th anniversary in the priesthood in 2005. He submitted his resignation last year to the Vatican when he turned 75, as required by the church.
In May, Keeler said he planned to remain in Baltimore as head of the Basilica Historic Trust after his successor was named. He oversaw the restoration of the historic church.
The Archdiocese of Baltimore serves 510,000 Catholics in Baltimore and nine counties in central and western Maryland, according to the archdiocese Web site.
The Archdiocese for the Military Services serves about 1.5 million Catholics, including all in the military and their families.
©365Gay.com 2007
BREAKING NEWS: Senate May Vote on Hate Crimes Today
The U.S. Senate could vote as early as today on a key piece of hate crimes legislation that would protect gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people from bias-motivated violence. The House of Representatives has already passed this crucial bill — and if the Senate passes the bill, it will mark the first time in history this legislation will have passed both houses of Congress in the same session.
UPDATE: BREAKING NEWS: Senate hate crimes bill has been filed as an amendment to the Dept. of Defense Reauthorization Bill
July 11, 2007
Chris Johnson
Minutes ago, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) offered the Senate hate crimes bill, the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act, as an amendment to the Department of Defense Reauthorization bill currently being debated on the Senate floor. The House of Representatives version of the bill passed with strong bipartisan support on May 3. The Senate bill, S. 1105, could be voted on as early as today. Joe Solmonese issued a statement on today’s filing.
The right wing is in high gear on Capitol Hill today to fight the bill’s passage and Senate leaders need to hear strong – and repeated – messages of support for the hate crimes bill from our side.
Call your senators ASAP at 202/224-3121 and urge them to vote in favor of the Matthew Shepard Act, S. 1105.
We’ll be closely following the proceedings on the Matthew Shepard Act and the Defense reauthorization bill today and will provide updates as they’re available….
(Photo – l to r: Joe Solmonese, Judy Shepard, Sen. Edward Kennedy. Photo by Mark Murrmann)
This report comes to us from: Wild Monkey Dance…
Gay Marriage Protestor Files Papers To Run For Miami Beach Mayor
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: July 6, 2007 – 5:00 pm ET
(Miami Beach, Florida) A Miami Beach man who has angered gays, his neighbors and city hall over a huge banner denouncing same-sex marriage filed his papers Friday to run for mayor in November.
As 365Gay.com reported on Tuesday, the banner which runs the entire width of Bill Smatt’s lot proclaims “God created Adam + Eve, not Adam + Steve.”
The banner has raised the hackles of LGBT rights groups and Smatt’s neighbors, several of whom have complained to city hall.
The city has issued Smatt with five code violations. He says he has no intention of removing the banner and will fight the city in court.
The 76-year old Smatt, with a long white unruly beard, says he is “a messenger from God.”
But the Jamaican-born Smatt says he isn’t a homophobe.
Gay leaders in Miami Beach would beg to differ.
It isn’t the first time he has placed an anti-gay banner in front of his home.
When he lived in Miami’s Belle Meade area in 1998 he hung a banner across his fence reading “Belle Meade, City of Sodom and Gomorrah. Vengeance is Mine Sayeth the Lord.”
Smatt says if elected mayor he will shut down Miami Beach’s domestic partner registry that was created in 2004.
He wants to clean up the gay club and beach scene in Miami Beach and says he would ban skimpy bathing suits for men and women.
His campaign Web site says that he would increase the pay for police by 100 percent and abolish property and school taxes for Miami Beach residents.
Three other candidates are already in the mayor’s race – Commissioners Matti Bower and Simon Cruz and resident Raphael Herman.
©365Gay.com 2007
History – Anniversary – Photography …
Callie I loved him, knew him, Mourned him
Carl was sick, and he died.
All the men in this quad were from the bar
Jorge, Ricky and I worked in Reservations at(then-RCCL)
on Dodge Island.
Who did not KNOW who VITO was?
Stories from the Quilt
Pedro Zamora – Activist, The Real World
Dennis Johnson, the bar owners lover – is spoken
of in my memoirs from the Patti Labelle Concert
at the James L. Knight Center – Before he died.
***********************************************
Where were you on July 4th, 1994?
We you with your family and friends celebrating the July 4th Holiday? Did you BBQ in the back yard, or maybe someone else’s home? Did you see the fireworks, like many of us did?
That was 13 years ago…
I should be dead and buried already.
Over in the Pages under “History” you can read all about it, or re-live it if you wish. To remind all of my readers why my header image is what it is right now, to remind me where I have been and to keep me vigilant of where I am and grateful for being able to look ahead to the future.
Because doctors believed that I would live – That I had that “spark of life” not to mention a different strain than the rest, that something “other” than AIDS that killed all of my friends.
Those are my flowers on his quilt – he visited many displays
when it came to Miami
Embracing the Exile …
From the Text: “Going to Heaven, The Life and election of Bishop Gene Robinson,” by Elizabeth Adams.
Reference: John Fortunato Embracing the Exile: Healing Journeys for Gay Christians, written in 1982.
From Going to Heaven Pg. 53 – 55
Fortunato’s book speaks of “exile” as the place where so many gay Christians find themselves. To be both gay and Christian, accepting and rejoicing in both one’s homosexuality and Christianity as gifts from God, “is to place ourselves on the outskirts of the community we most care about,” he wrote. He said that “embracing the exile” demands not only the belief that living on the fringes of the spiritual community can be endured by gay Christian, but that “being banished can be viewed as an incredible spiritual opportunity to learn to “love anyway”:
“For gay Christians to be able to love, give, and find meaning in a world that rejects and isolates them, the cruel gash separating their sexuality from their spirituality must be healed. Their freedom to love and give in a hostile world hinges upon their coming to believe in their wholeness and in their having a rightful place in God’s universe.”
“Here” Gene said, finding the section he had been looking for. “Let me read this to you.” He read, and I listened, with growing emotion. The passage was John Fortunato’s description of his own, intensely powerful mystical vision of a conversation with God: the moment when he finally realized that, as a gay man, he was acceptable to the God he lived and whose love he desperately wanted to know, feel, and believe in.
In this vision, Fortunato expresses to God his doubts and fears that the Christians who call homosexuality an abomination might be right. God gently answers, “How can love be wrong? It all comes from Me,” and goes on to dispel Fortunato’s fears about his own wholeness and worthiness as a person capable of giving and receiving love. Fortunato is overwhelmed, and asks, “but what am I supposed to do about ‘them’ — the people who hate and vilify me?” And God answers, “I have given you my gifts: I’ve given you my light; love them anyway.”
Gene then turned the book’s epilogue, titled “into the Lions Den,” in which Fortunato’s revisits this vision and asks, “How? How do I ‘love them anyway’?”
“You begin by just being who you are.” God said, “a loving, caring, whole person, created in my image, whose special light of love happens to shine on men, as I intended for you.”
“Is that all?” I asked, fearfully.
God shook his head. “No, You must also speak your pain and affirm the wholeness I have made you to be when they assail it. You must protest when you are treated as less than a child of mine.”
“Is there more?” I asked.
“Yes,” God said gently. “And this is the hardest part of all. You must go out and reach them. Help them to know of their dependence on me for all that they really are, and of their helplessness without me. Teach them that their ways are not my ways, and that the world of their imagining is not the world I have made. Help them to see all that Creation is One, as I am One, and that all I create, I redeem. And assure them by word, and work, and example, that my love is boundless, and that I am with them always.”
Fortunato protests, saying “They won’t listen to me, they’ll laugh at me and persecute me.” And God’s “radiant face” becomes very sad, and he answers, “I know. How well I know.”
That was the breakthrough. Fortunato writes:
Now I knew. Now I understood. And it was as though large chunks of who I had been, began falling away, tumbling through time and space and eternity. I just let them fall. No fear now, no resistance, so sense of loss. All that was dropping away. It was unnecessary now, extraneous. I began to feel light and warm. Energy began to surge through my whole being, and widen me as though I were a rusty old turbine that had been charged up and was starting to hum.
Then two strong, motherly arms reached out and drew me close to the bosom of all that is, and I was just there, just being, enveloped in being.
And we wept.
For joy.
When Gene finished reading, I wiped my eyes, and looked at him in silence. He nodded, solemnly. “That was it; this was the pivotal point in my journey,” he said. “That unlocked the rest of my life. Pure and simple. Literally, my life changed upon finishing that book.
Up until that point, Gene had wanted to believe the Good News – that he was actually loved by God, just as he was – but after reading the book, he actually did believe it. He finally had the courage and faith to accept his orientation, to reconcile it with his spirituality, and move forward with those two truths at the center of his identity.
There is nothing else to say…
Photo Essay #2: When the Moon is in the 7th House …
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars…
The Moon was Full over Montreal, and I sat on my Lanai and took pictures for over an hour. This is my second photo essay of the night. These photos are colorized and just some hue and saturation adjustments to bring out the clouds in the sky were made. They aren’t the best photos – but I think they are good for a novice. It was quite a meditation as one waited for the clouds to pass by to get the right shot. Amazing… Enjoy!!!
Let Pride Begin in Montreal – 29 July 2007
L.G.B.T.A.
To The Rescue
Montreal’s Gay Pride Parade
Is On…
L.G.B.T.A LINK HERE
The Parade will take place on
July 29th 2007 at 1 p.m.
on Rene Levesque – heading West
***********************************************
It seems that LGBTA has come forward to stop the infighting between the Diverscite and local merchants in the Village. On the local news feed, I heard some say that Montreal doesn’t need a gay pride parade any more because gay marriage is acceptable, so why bother any more?
This from CFCF News (CTV News Affiliate in Montreal)
Gay pride parade back on !!!
Montreal’s gay pride parade is back on again. The parade will be held the afternoon of Sunday, July 29. A new organization, LGBTA Montreal, was formed to organize the parade, that will kick off a week of gay pride events in the city.
After years of infighting between various gay groups, it had been announced the parade would be cancelled this year. In the past, it has drawn hundreds of thousands of people, gay and straight alike.
New HIV Medication Regimen
|
For more information on these meds and test regulations and availability worldwide go to this link: http://www.mcgill.ca/microimm/department/associate_adjunct_prof/wainberg/ Most doctors around the world have access to test information and access points for these meds as some of them have not been approved in the U.S. and in other parts of the world. I DO NOT know if these meds will be made available in Africa as of yet, as most of them are still in test phase. I don’t have information as to where these meds are being researched world wide, but Dr. Wainberg can help you with your inquiries. I would talk to your front line primary HIV / AIDS doctors and inquire about the new meds on the formulary and in test and research phases. NOTE: That your labs will be checked prior to being given access to new meds and they are quite strict here by lab results and acceptance parameters. |
Ugh. So it begins again.
This Friday I will begin these new drugs when my local pharmacy receives some of my meds. These four drugs based on my Geno-Pheno typing information on my last checkup tells us that these drugs used in conjunction should produce great results as my doctor is confident that this mixture of meds will work. He attended a seminar this week about these meds and studies have been very promising.
Some of the meds, as stated below are not YET on the market, even here, but I am getting them through expanded release on governmental approval, and a selection process based on current lab work collected at the clinic site. Drugs released to patients on expanded release are closely monitored and approved based on current labs that will be checked every six weeks, once treatment has begun.
I have to drop labs once this week for baseline numbers – then repeat labs every six weeks after treatment begins.
I have already begun to loose weight now that I am off the Zerit, Videx EC and Viracept regimen that I was on. I have been on a drug vacation for a month now, as my body is starting to change. I am also on a new diet – less sugar, diet drinks and juices, and a lower cholesterol and carbohydrate meals.
Here is the drug information for those of you who might be interested.
1. TMC 125 (Etravirine) 100 mg. Twice a Day (BID)
What is Etravirine?
- Etravirine is in a category of HIV medicines called non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs). Etravirine prevents HIV from entering the nucleus of healthy T-cells. This prevents the cells from producing new virus and decreases the amount of virus in the body.
- Etravirine will need to be used in combination with other drugs. Clinical trials will evaluate its effect in combination with other drugs, including protease inhibitors (PIs) and nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs).
What is already known about Etravirine?
- The etravirine dose being studied in phase III clinical trials is two 100mg tablets taken by mouth, with food, twice a day.
- Like other NNRTIs, etravirine might interact with other medications, including those used to treat HIV. It is important that your personal physician and/or the research nurse or study investigator be aware of all drugs you are taking, including those you buy without a prescription.
- It is expected that etravirine, when combined with two nucleoside analogues, will have strong activity against HIV in people who have never taken an NNRTI in the past.
- In clinical trials, the 800mg twice-daily dose was considered to be the safest and most effective. However, a new formulation of etravirine is being tested. Instead of 800mg twice-daily, the new formulation will allow for a much lower dose: 200mg twice-daily.
- It is not clear how effective etravirine is against strains of HIV that are already resistant to currently available NNRTIs. All of the currently marketed NNRTIs are highly cross-resistant to each other. Test tube data suggest that etravirine might be effective against strains of HIV that are at least partly resistant to any of the approved NNRTIs. But this cannot be determined until information from clinical trials is made available.
2. TMC 114 ( Prezista – Darunavir) 600 mg. Twice a Day (BID)
What is Prezista?
- Prezista is an anti-HIV medication. It is in a category of HIV medicines called protease inhibitors. Prezista prevents cells infected by HIV from producing new virus. This reduces the amount of virus in your body.
- Prezista must be used with low-dose Norvir® (ritonavir) and in combination with at least two other anti-HIV drugs.
- Prezista, manufactured by Tibotec (a division of Ortho Biotech Products), was approved for the treatment of HIV by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on June 23, 2006. Prezista, combined with Norvir, is only approved for HIV-infected adults who have tried other anti-HIV drug regimens in the past. This includes people who have HIV that is resistant to more than one protease inhibitor. It is not approved for HIV-infected people starting anti-HIV treatment for the first time.
What is known about Prezista?
- Prezista has a different structure than other protease inhibitors and is active against strains of the virus resistant to other protease inhibitors that are currently available.
- The correct dose of Prezista is 600mg twice a day (two 300mg tablets twice daily) plus 100mg Norvir twice a day (one 100mg capsule twice a day). Norvir is necessary to help keep levels of Prezista high in the blood, which is very important for the drug to be effective.
- At the present time, Prezista is only approved for HIV-positive people who have tried other anti-HIV medications in the past. However, once-daily Prezista is currently being studied in clinical trials for HIV-positive people starting treatment for the first time (two 400mg tablets combined with one 100mg Norvir capsule once a day).
- Prezista, combined with Norvir, should be taken with food. The type and amount of food is not important. In other words, Prezista/Norvir can be taken with a full meal or a light snack.
- Prezista is recommended by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) for HIV-positive people who have tried and failed other protease inhibitors in the past. It is not recommended by the DHHS for patients who are new to anti-HIV treatment or starting a protease inhibitor for the first time.
- Clinical trials have demonstrated that Prezista is an effective option for patients who are not likely to respond to older protease inhibitors, especially when it is combined with other anti-HIV medications that a patient’s virus is still at least partially sensitive to.
- Prezista works best when it is combined with anti-HIV drugs that the virus is still sensitive to. However, this can be challenging for HIV-positive people who have tried several anti-HIV drug regimens in the past. Drug resistance tests, such as genotypic assays and phenotypic assays, and treatment history, can be very useful in figuring out which anti-HIV drugs the virus is still likely to respond to.
TMC114, now called Prezista, has since been licensed in Canada, while access to TMC125 remains restricted, and I am receiving it on expanded release through the clinic.
3. Integrase Inhibitor ( MK0518 – Raltegravir) 400 Mg Twice a Day (BID)
I am receiving this drug via expanded use through the clinic.
One of the critical steps in the HIV life cycle is the integration of the virus’s genetic information into the host cell DNA. This allows the host cell to turn into a “HIV factory” and produce many, many virions each hour. The enzyme integrase is the enzyme that accomplishes this task. Integrase inhibitors serve to stop this enzyme.
Integrase inhibitors are oligonucleotides, which are small segments of DNA or RNA that are synthetically prepared. Modified oligonucleotides can serve to block RNA/DNA interactions and modify protein or enzyme synthesis.
One drawback to integrase inhibitors is that it only has one chance to act for each cell. If it fails, any further attempts are futile since the genetic information is already incorporated. In contrast, NRTI’s have thousands of opportunities to act during the process of reverse transcription.
From: Wikipedia
The integrase protein contains three domains:
- an N-terminal HH-CC zinc finger domain believed to be partially responsible for multimerization,
- a central catalytic domain
- a C-terminal.
Both the Central catalytic domain and C-terminal domains have been shown to bind both viral and cellular DNA. Currently no crystal structure data exists with Integrase bound to its DNA substrates.
Biochemical data and structural data suggest that integrase functions as a dimer or a tetramer.
Additionally, several host cellular proteins have been shown to interact with integrase and may facilitate the integration process.
Integration occurs following production of the double-stranded viral DNA by the viral DNA polymerase, reverse transcriptase.
Integrase acts to insert the proviral DNA into the host chromosomal DNA, a step which is essential for HIV replication.
Integrase catalyzes two reactions;
- 3′-end processing, in which two deoxynucleotides are removed from the 3′ ends of the viral DNA.
- the strand transfer reaction, in which the processed 3′ ends of the viral DNA are covalently ligated to the host chromosomal DNA.
Integration of the proviral DNA is essential for the subsequent transcription of the viral genome which leads to production of new viral genomic RNA and viral proteins needed for the production of the next round of infectious virus.
Essentially, integrase is a key step in allowing viral DNA to become a permanent member of the host genome. This integrated proviral DNA is then translated using host cell machinery (see translation) into viral proteins.
HIV integrase is a 32 kDa protein produced from the C-terminal portion of the Pol gene product. Integrase, therefore, is an attractive potential target for new anti-HIV therapeutics.
In November 2005, data from a phase 2 study of an investigational HIV integrase inhibitor, MK-0518, demonstrated that the compound had potent antiviral activity, and the manufacturer, Merck, is undertaking further clinical studies. [1][2]
It is important to note that there are currently no FDA-approved integrase inhibitors available to the public.
4. Norvir (Ritonavir) 100 mg. Twice a Day (BID) Protease Inhibitor
What is Norvir?
- Norvir is an anti-HIV medication. It is in a category of HIV medications called protease inhibitors (PIs). Norvir prevents T-cells that have been infected with HIV from producing new HIV.
- Norvir is manufactured by Abbott Laboratories. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved it for the treatment of HIV infection in 1996.
- Norvir is one of the two drugs in Kaletra®. Kaletra contains the protease inhibitor lopinavir and small amounts of Norvir.
What is known about Norvir?
- The official Norvir dose for adults is six 100mg capsules twice a day. However, this dose is rarely used anymore because it is associated with a number of side effects. However, Norvir is still being usually used at much lower doses (one or two 100mg capsules twice a day) to help boost the levels of other protease inhibitors in the bloodstream.
- Norvir has been approved for use in children 1 month of age and older. The dose will depend on the child’s body size. The dose should be between 350 to 400mg per square meter of body area, twice a day. As the child grows, the dose will increase. However, the dose should not exceed 600mg twice a day. The starting dose should be 250mg per square meter of body area. Every 2 to 3 days, the dose should be increased by 50mg, until a total of 400mg per square meter of body area is reached. For children who cannot tolerate a dose of 350 to 400mg per square meter of body area, alternatives to Norvir should be tried. To learn about treatment options for children, click here.
- Norvir, even if low doses are used with another protease inhibitor, should be taken with a meal or light snack.
- Refrigeration of the Norvir capsules is recommended but is not necessary if they are used within 2 months and stored below 77° fahrenheit (25° celsius).
- All of the protease inhibitors are broken down (metabolized) by the same family of enzymes in the liver. In order for the protease inhibitors to be metabolized by these liver enzymes, they must first either slow down its activity or speed it up. All of the currently approved protease inhibitors slow down the activity of these liver enzymes. Norvir is the most powerful of all the protease inhibitors in this regard, even when low doses of the drug are used.
- In turn, Norvir can prevent other protease inhibitors from getting to the enzyme, causing levels of these other protease inhibitors to increase in the bloodstream. This can make the other protease inhibitors more effective against HIV. It also means that lower doses – or less frequent daily doses – of these other protease inhibitors can be taken. This is why low doses of Norvir are often combined with other protease inhibitors: to make them more effective and easier to take.
Anglican Bishop Michael Ingham on blessing same-sex unions
Globe and Mail Update
June 26, 2007 at 12:16 PM EDT
Canada’s only Anglican bishop to authorize the blessing of homosexual unions says the refusal by his fellow bishops to approve the rite for the national church is the product of institutional inertia rooted in homophobia
Bishop Michael Ingham of the Vancouver-area diocese of New Westminster says homophobia, hiding behind interpretations of scripture, remains an acceptable prejudice in Canadian Anglicanism.
“There are members of our church who staunchly defend that. In my view, [it] is a total misreading of scripture and a misuse of the Bible to oppress people. But they clearly want to continue to do that.”
A recent motion before the church’s triennial general synod — or governing body — to allow individual dioceses to permit blessings of same-sex unions was approved by clergy and laity, but vetoed by a slim majority of bishops, who voted 21-19 against it.
The Rt. Rev. Michael Ingham, Anglican bishop of New Westminster
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Earlier, however, the bishops had voted by the same margin in favour of a resolution stating that the blessings were not in conflict with the church’s “core doctrine.”
Bishop Ingham has kindly agreed to take questions from the readers of globeandmail.com this week on the issue.
Your questions and Bishop Ingham’s answers will appear at the bottom of this page no later than Friday.
globeandmail.com has also invited a bishop who voted against the motion to approve the blessing of same-sex unions to take your questions.
The Rt. Rev. Michael Ingham has been bishop of the diocese of New Westminster since January 1994. Before that, he was Dean of New Westminster and Rector of Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver.
He was born in Yorkshire, England in 1949. He studied at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, receiving an M.A. in Politics and Philosophy and a B.D. (First Class) in Theology.
Before being ordained, he did postgraduate work at Harvard University where he studied contemporary American theology. He also spent a semester at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem studying Judaism.
Bishop Ingham was ordained as a priest in Ottawa in 1974 and has served in parishes in Ottawa, Burnaby and West Vancouver. From 1989 to 1992, he was the principal secretary to the Primate of Canada in Toronto, and in that capacity travelled widely throughout the Anglican Communion.
He is the author of two books. Rites For A New Age, an introduction to the Book of Alternative Services, which was published in 1986, and Mansions Of The Spirit, an introduction to inter-faith dialogue, which first appeared in 1997.
Bishop Ingham is married to Gwen and they have two daughters.
Same-sex blessings consistent with core doctrine
Winnipeg, June 24, 2007 — Members of the Anglican Church of Canada’s General Synod in Winnipeg agreed Sunday that the blessing of same-sex unions is not in conflict with the church’s core doctrine, in the sense of being credal. Debate resumed Sunday morning after being suspended late Saturday. The motion carried reads: “That this General Synod resolves that the blessing of same-sex unions is not in conflict with the core doctrine (in the sense of being credal) of the Anglican Church of Canada.
The motion was carried by a vote of 152 for, 97 against in the house of clergy and laity and by a vote of 21 for and 19 against in the house of bishops.
Here is the resolution as amended (in italics).
That this General Synod resolves that the blessing of same-sex unions is
consistentnot in conflict with the core doctrine, in the sense of being creedal, of The Anglican Church of Canada.
Clergy and Laity – 152 aye / 97 nay
Bishops – 21 aye / 19 nay
ACC accepts the St. Michael Report
From Father Jake Stops the World:
The resolution, as originally proposed, is here. It was amended (in italics) as follows:
BE IT RESOLVED:
That this General Synod accept the conclusion of the Primate’s Theological Commission’s St. Michael Report that the blessing of same-sex unions is a matter of doctrine, but is not core doctrine in the sense of being credal, and that it should not be a communion-breaking issue.
Report of the Primate’s Theological Commission of the Anglican Church of Canada on the Blessing of Same-Sex Unions
The St. Michael Report
‘But as for you, teach what is consistent with sound doctrine.’
(Titus 2.1)11. The Commission has concluded that the blessing of same-sex unions is a matter of doctrine.2 In reaching this conclusion, the Commission has been conscious of the range of interpretations given to the term ‘doctrine’, and it has attempted in what follows carefully and prayerfully to understand the complexity of the nature of doctrine and its relationship to this divisive issue. We are particularly concerned to call the whole Church to engage in furthering the discussion of this issue in a sustained, prayerful, respectful and non-polemical manner, in the earnest hope that it will lead to a clearer discernment of ‘sound doctrine’ and to our goal of wholeness in Christ (Is 55:6; Ps 27:8; Col 1:28; Prov 8:17; Eph 2:10).
The St. Michael Report can be found here.
Live coverage of General Synod can be found here.
