by Chris Hughes

Two years ago, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Mercer University hosted A [Baptist] Conference on Sexuality and Covenant, which drew hundreds of Baptists of all stripes to the First Baptist Church of Decatur, GA. From its inception, the conference drew a variety of responses from Baptists both young and old, both inside and outside of CBF life.

Some, like me, thought this was a promising signal that CBF might re-think an anti-gay hiring policy passed in 2000, something that could significantly change the direction of the conversation of human sexuality in more moderate Baptist circles. Still, others hoped to look at a wider array of sexuality issues and matters of covenanted relationships, issues that impact nearly every congregation. CBF leadership emphasized that the purpose of the conference was to begin a healthy conversation about human sexuality and covenant, and also to model a way of holy conversation that may prove helpful for such divisive issues now and in the future.

Whatever the case may be, the leaders of the conference set a tone of trepidation for the conference, dismissing hopes that this might be a moment of major policy shift in the Fellowship. “This is not a conversation about organizational hiring policies or official statements from CBF. Rather it is a chance to equip leaders and model conversations that can take place in local churches,” said one conference organizer.

Thus we were ushered into the conversation with fear and trembling, as all issues of faith, polity and personal experience indeed deserve. From my perspective, what the conference lacked in structural changes, it more than made up for in the intangibles. Each plenary was, in fact, modeled as a holy conversation. We invited the Spirit into our conversations with prayer and singing. After each presentation, we took moments of silent meditation, allowing each speaker’s words to settle into our hearts and for the Spirit to form and re-form us into a new creation.

More importantly, for presumably the first time ever, openly gay Baptists were allowed to share their experiences in an officially sanctioned CBF event. In small break out groups, we were asked to speak to one another face to face about our personal concerns about sexuality. We were no longer speaking in the theoretical; anything we said about sexuality had to be aired in a room that might include people who are LGBTQ, people who are celibate, people who are divorced or re-married, and people who are strongly opposed to any perceived threats to traditional understandings of sexuality and covenant.

Still, there has been a significant, though less tangible, changes in people’s understandings of sexuality. If the crises of sexuality and covenant were the impetus for the conference, they have only confronted the Church all the more in the past two years. Now, a majority of Americans live in states where same-sex marriage is legal or where prohibitions against same-sex marriage have been struck down. DOMA has been stripped of its central prescriptions for the norm of traditional marriage and the federal government has extended equal rights to gay and lesbian men and women of service. The moves of governments and legislatures towards sexual equality are gaining more traction and same-sex marriage will be the legal norm within a few years. 

Though progress is slow, more congregations are having conversations about this and a few are even making bold moves towards are more open stance on sexuality. The past few weeks have been rife with leaders even among the conservative Southern Baptist Convention who are changing their views based on personal connection and interaction with LGBTQ people. A groundswell is occurring in congregations and it is based on face-to-face interaction with the people they were once afraid to engage. 

What does it all mean for the future of people who are LGTBQ and the Church, and more specifically churches in CBF? First, it means that it is time for us to talk again. At the Conversation two years ago, there was great promise for continuing conversation about these issues and others that may face CBF churches. With so many changes, it’s time for us to revisit that promise. It was indeed a great time for holy conversation and I think it’s time we had more. 

Second, it means that the changes in the traditional understanding of sexuality are all the more acute and the time for churches to play the middle ground has passed. For centuries, the Church has ostracized and even persecuted sexual minorities. As the changes advance outside the walls of the Church, we are confronted with the difficult task of shaping a response. Will we be the ones to follow the scandalous Gospel of Christ to love all or will we stand on the sidelines and muster up our best apology down the road? 

Finally, it means that these changes, perhaps like all major changes in the Church, will not come from the top down, but from the bottom. We who are advocates with LGBTQ people in the church can change the conversation, not by pressuring leadership or fighting for policy changes, but through personal conversation. We can be a presence at congregational, denominational and network gatherings and make sure people know they are not speaking in the abstract, they are speaking with the very flesh and bone of people whose lives are impacted by the Church’s neglect of sexual minorities. St. Paul said it best: “For now, we see through a glass darkly but then we will see face to face.” Yes, I believe it’s time to lift the veil and make room for more holy conversation. 

by Robin Knauerhase, AWAB Board member

“College sophomore Jayce Marcus wants to live in the dorm with his buddies” doesn’t sound like much of a headline.  It’s the norm for young men across the world.  But George Fox University, a small Christian liberal-arts school in rural Oregon, doesn’t see it so plainly.  AWAB board member Robin Knauerhase attended an April rally in Newberg, Oregon, to express her personal support for Mr. Marcus and to represent AWAB in the community.  Participants in the rally silently marched from a city park to the entrance of the university, delivering 14 large cardboard boxes representing 14,000 signatures on a change.org petition asking the University to reconsider its policy.

At issue: Jayce is a transman.  He was assigned female at birth, but now identifies as a male in all aspects of daily life.  The GFU administration has determined that he is not allowed to live in a male dorm, citing the school’s “theological and philosophical statements.”  Their press release states “George Fox strives to be a Christ-centered community and our residential facilities are single sex because of our theological commitments”, while missing the point that Jayce is – in his own eyes and in the eyes of the Lord – a man.

Although he matriculated as a female, entering a Bachelor’s program in psychology, Jayce has since “come out” as transgender.  He has transitioned socially, and has begun medical/physical and legal transition to male, including a year of hormone-replacement therapy.  By every facet of appearance –  dress, deportment, actions, attitudes, voice – he is an energetic young man who’s enthusiastic about life, his studies, and his Christian faith.

The university has offered some accommodation, including a one-year waiver (“conditional, subject to change at any time”) which would allow Jayce to live with “opposite-sex” students in private off-campus housing.  The conditions originally included that he and officials meet with potential roommates to “affirm [the roommates] understand his story and are willing to live with him” and that roommates have “informed their parents of this living arrangement.”  GFU Student Life has also offered to let him inhabit “a single apartment in on-campus housing” separate from the communal dorms.

After not reaching satisfactory accommodation with the administration, Jayce and his attorney (GFU alumnus Paul Southwick) have filed a complaint with the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights and the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.  Precedent has some exemptions for religious institutions for questions of discrimination about admissions, but requires that institutions “treat their students without discrimination on the basis of sex with respect to non-admissions decisions, including student housing.”

Thankfully, God has given Jayce a positive attitude, as well as the support of friends and the campus’ unofficial LGBT student group.  KATU news quotes Jayce as saying “It's been great, the amount of people that have signed my petition. The amount of people that have messaged me over Facebook and emailed me showing support and standing behind me. It lifts me up when I have a bad day.”

While the situation is unfolding, we can take time to view it as an exemplar of injustice resulting from friction between some segments of Christianity and contemporary social issues.  And, at the same time, to be thankful for groups like AWAB which espouse the love of Christ in the affirmation of LGBT people worldwide.

In His Service,

Robin Knauerhase

(With explicit thanks both to Portland’s PQ Monthly (www.pqmonthly.com) and to KATU News (www.katu.com) as resources for verification of facts and quotes.)

by Jill McCrory

Ten years ago one lone church in Washington DC reached out at the Capital Pride festival, offering communion to anyone who would accept.  In 2004 seeing a Baptist church amongst the booths for equality was a peculiar site, and as Calvary Baptist members offered communion, many folks reacted with genuine shock.  A year later when Riverside Baptist and Washington Plaza Baptist marched in the Pride parade with the PFLAG contingent, onlookers could be heard to say "Baptists?"  As the years went by and we added people and churches, we added our own parade contingent and showed up with more presence at the festival.  This past year, five churches exhibited in the festival and six marched together in the parade. 

Over that ten years churches from Washington, DC (Calvary, Riverside, and Covenant), Virginia (Ravensworth, Commonwealth, Washington Plaza), and Maryland (New Hope) joined AWAB as fully inclusive and welcoming.  In 2014 three more Maryland churches (Empowerment Liberation Cathedral, Luther Rice Memorial, and Twinbrook) have or are expected to come into the organization.

These churches met together on March 29th at Covenant Baptist UCC to get to know one another better in order to work together in the future to be an even bigger witness in our area and to provide hope and resources to other churches and our LGBTQ brothers and sisters.  We met together as clergy, lay leaders, and members.  We were a mix of gender identity, sexual orientation, culture, background, and tradition.  Over 50 folks joining together to praise God for what God has done here and what will be done in the next ten years.

This was the vision that I heard AWAB leaders express when we first began exploring being the "Voice" of LGBTQ Baptists.  We envisioned a day when the DC/Maryland/Virginia area would include many AWAB churches spreading from the suburbs of Maryland through DC and to the suburbs of Virginia.  And now that we have achieved this, the question many be "Is it still important to show up?" and "Do we need to grow larger?"  The answer, of course, is yes to both.

I will believe that it is important to show up as long as young people line the streets of Washington, DC and are thrilled and surprised to see 30, 40, or even 50 Baptists marching with signs that proclaim inclusion.  When people break through the parade barriers and run up to us and hug us, some in tears, saying "thank you."  When, as we offer communion to parade participants, they share with us that they haven't been offered communion in years.  When festival goers stop by and want to have real conversations and are led to visit our churches and see for themselves that all are included.  When, as I married two men who had been together 30 years on the festival stage the first year that marriage was legal in DC, thousands of people came and cried, cheered and celebrated their legal union. 

We do need to grow larger, and stronger, and yes, more diverse.  Our transgender community needs to see that our welcome includes them as well as the gay, lesbian and bisexual community. We need to be large enough to be the witness for inclusion throughout our area and in a very visible and vocal manner.  We need to be large enough to reach out to the other Baptist churches in the area and work with them to go through the process that leads to becoming an AWAB member church.

The first ten years have been a wild ride.  AWAB has been visible not only at Capital Pride, but in the DC Council, Annapolis, Richmond, on the Supreme Court steps, in interfaith worships, conferences, workshops, and more.  I can't even imagine what we will look like in the next ten years -- but I'm looking forward to witnessing it as we continue to be AWAB of the DMV.

Jill McCrory is pastor of Twinbrook Baptist Church and has served as consultant, board member and Board Chair of AWAB.  

The spirit blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. Jn. 3:8

I must admit that I have been blown by the spirit some these past few years.  Not in the way we often think of this - tossed about willy-nilly - but rather, blown from places of NO to places of MAYBE and now places of YES!  I experience this as being born of the Spirit.  It brings a grace that allows me to remain engaged even in the face of some odd moments and opportunities.  Let me tell you a bit more about what I mean.

In January I went to the Emerge! Minister's Conference in Orlando, FL.  This is something I am required to do as I work toward getting my ordination recognized by Rochester Genesee Region of the ABC-USA.  What I had avoided (for fear of a slogging) between 1998 and 2004, and what I was denied from 2005-2012 (after I came out), was an amazing grace-filled time with friends familiar and new!  From the moments when people (like Roy Medley) looked down at my "new minister" tag and said, "What is that? You aren't a new minister," to the conversations about AWAB with people who had never heard about us, it was a time of the Spirit making mischief and blowing me  across boundaries unforeseen.  

Here are a few highlights that I can share...

• I had an amazing conversation with folks from International Ministries about international partnerships and the possibility of working with IM as we support inclusive Baptists globally.  I had an amazing conversation with Pat Hernandez, Director of Women in Ministry, about how gender and sexuality are intrinsically tied.  We shared our delight in the new Women's Caucus (approved in October!) and will be dreaming about what can come next.  
• I had many conversations with people from across the denomination about AWAB's ministry of inclusion and how we are not looking for homogeneity within the ABC-USA, but rather how we simply want to be included as equals.  Many of my conversations recognized the pain from the past as well as the places that remain painful still. Many involved the pain around racism from within the LGBTQ community and how we can build bridges to healing.  
  

From Florida I went to Denver to meet with a funder and from there I went to the Bay Area in CA for our Welcoming Church Program Leader's meeting. 

Here are the highlights from that part of the trip...

• I preached at Shell Ridge Community Church in Walnut Creek, CA.  It is always a delight to be with friends! 
• I met with Moa Imchen, a Ph.D. student at ABSW from Nagaland who is the incoming chair of the Asian Caucus in the ABC-USA. He is a W&A pastor and is looking to help open the conversation within the Asian Pacific Islander community with us.
• I lunched with the Bay Area clergy and met Tim Brown, the new Executive Director of Growing Healthy Churches, a new non-geographic region that came out of the conservative split in CA.  The story is too long to share here but he and I exchanged information and will be looking at how GHC and AWAB might partner on church planting and clergy health.  The Spirit blows where it will!
  
• Perhaps my favorite conversation on this trip was with Don Ng, the new President of the ABC-USA.  He is a true ally and friend and has said he will be the president of ALL American Baptists, not just some!  This is a powerful word being brought to the denomination by a prophetic leader who is truly born of the Spirit.   

I cannot tell you where these conversations will lead but I can tell you that the wind is blowing within and among us in new and powerful ways!  The line from John I quoted is taken from a larger passage where Jesus is visited at night by Nicodemus, a Pharisee, and the powerful dialogue ensues about the Kingdom of heaven and how we must be "born from above."  Jesus is trying to tell Nicodemus that all of the Law cannot confine the Spirit no matter how hard the Temple leaders may want to.  

Our witness has been the same these past 40 years, the Spirit will blow and be with those whom are born from above regardless of their sexual or gender identity and expression.  I pray that our faithfulness to this witness will bring a great harvest of hope, peace, and grace in 2014.  

Honored to serve you!
Robin

By Brian Henderson

Mahatma Gandhi said, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” For me, these words epitomize the now late Rev. Dr. George H. Tooze, Jr.

Dr. Tooze (“George”) died on Saturday, August 3, in Farmington, ME, surrounded by family and friends after a valiant battle with stomach cancer. George served American Baptist congregations for 40 years and since 1997 George gave much time to the Ministers and Missionaries Benefit Board serving as president of the Board of Managers since 2003.

Among George’s many contributions to American Baptist Churches, USA, his magisterial seven-volume series, The Life and Letters of Emily Chubbuck Judson (Mercer University Press) will be for a very, very long time the sole, scholarly source on the life of a remarkable force within our baptist history.

George was a force of history himself. George was an ally to the LGBTQ community. He inspired me to learn as if we will live forever and to live as if we are to die tomorrow. Through my own coming out journey, George was right there encouraging me, affirming me, loving me through. When I doubted my future, George, in his ever so magnanimous way, would say, “Keep on going Brian. You’re doing the right thing no matter what any one else says, feels, or believes.” Keep on going Brian. I will not soon forget these words.

Perhaps these are words for us all. Keep on going. George keeps going now for sure…going to a place we too will one day experience. For the present, however, may we keep living as if we’ll die tomorrow and learning as if we’ll live forever.

Be encouraged. You’re doing the right thing. Keep on going.

I love you George.

Rev. Brian Henderson, DMin is AWAB's Development Coordinator.  He lives in Denver, CO and is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Denver.  

By Robin Lunn

Today we will hear from the US Supreme Court their ruling about the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8.  These two cases will be watershed rulings on the status of LGBTQ people as it pertains to marriage in the US.  However, today my Civil Union/Marriage to my wife of 13 years will not suddenly become legal.  The tide has not come in.  It is simply making a turn toward what will one day be the norm. 

Perhaps it is so in every generation that this moment of national momentum compels people to define the decision (the right of a woman to vote or have reproductive choice, the right of an African American to vote or go to a better school) as complete and not a stepping-stone along a much longer path toward equality.  Like with voting and desegregation it was the beginning of an intense period of push back that, in some places, still persists today.  Yesterday’s decision on the Voting Rights Act and all of the state based restrictions on a woman’s right to reproductive choice are examples of how these decisions were moments (albeit very important ones!) in a much longer arch of history that is bending toward justice but that demands our vigilance, our persistence, our commitment. 

Today we will hear what the status of those California marriages are and how the states must respond to the unconstitutionality of DOMA.  Today we will know how to spend our energy in the days and months and years ahead.  Today we will see if we move forward, stay static, of go backward as separate and unequal members of this country.  Today we will hear from the US Supreme Court their ruling about the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8. 

This IS the day that the Lord has made!  Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

by Cody Sanders

With the public apology of Alan Chambers for the pain and trauma caused to LGBTQ people through his leadership in Exodus International and the subsequent decision to close operations at Exodus, LGBTQ people are faced with an important question: Is forgiveness possible?

It's a strange turn of events, if you consider the role reversal involved. For decades, "ministries" affiliated with Exodus have been proclaiming the availability of God's forgiveness for the "sinfulness" of LGBTQ "lifestyles" if only we would repent and amend our ways. Now, those who once so stridently called for our repentance are now the repentant, confessing their wrongdoing to the LGBTQ people whose lives they have diminished. But what are LGBTQ people to do with this apology?

We can doubt the sincerity of Chambers' apology and speculate about the potential for retooling and rebranding the "ministries" that continue to exist in the wake of the Exodus demise. And we certainly won't be so foolish as to think that the end of Exodus is the end of the insidious practice of "reparative" or "conversion" therapies. The shock and defiance expressed in the press release of the Restored Hope Network (the other major propagator of all things "ex-gay"), lamenting the close of Exodus as they would the "unnecessary death of a dear friend" and chalking it up to the theological shortcomings of Exodus leaders, insists that ex-gay "ministries" will live on.

But can we take Chambers' apology and the closing of Exodus as an opportunity for a response beyond skepticism or even celebration? If so, is forgiveness a constructive possibility?

Who Can Forgive?

For some, forgiveness will always remain impossible, a reality that should be recognized upfront. For those who have spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours in therapy trying to repair the damage done to them by "reparative" therapy; for those whose relationships were severed because their loved ones were stolen from them by the false promises of ex-gay ministries; for those whose friends and loved ones took their own lives after years of enduring the psychological and spiritual torment of efforts to shame and change their sexual and relational lives; for all of these and more, forgiveness may remain a necessary impossibility. For some, it's understandably too much to ask.

But who can forgive? Must one have come into direct contact with an Exodus-endorsed "ministry" in order to be in a position to forgive? Or might any LGBTQ person whose life has been touched by the anti-LGBTQ rhetoric propagated by these groups be a legitimate candidate to offer forgiveness? While those who have endured the brunt of ex-gay ministries seem the most likely candidates to enact a process forgiveness, it is important to recognize that the damage done extends far beyond the confines of the ex-gay ministries themselves.All LGBTQ people live in a religious and social sphere shaped by rhetoric that has located us in a targeted position in relation to our heterosexual and cisgender neighbors, causing LGBTQ people to appear as "appropriate" targets for exclusion, prejudicial treatment and violence.

So every LGBTQ person must wrestle with the question: Is forgiveness possible?

Why Forgive?

While Chambers' sorrow and remorse are clear in his apology (for his activities, but not hisbeliefs), the notion of "forgiveness" goes unmentioned. As LGBTQ people everywhere celebrate by reveling in the rubble of the once-towering figure on the treacherous ex-gay landscape, forgiveness seems a subject far from our minds, too.

It is no wonder, though, that forgiveness isn't mentioned much in this circumstance. Our notion of forgiveness has been diluted by our cultural tendency toward the individualization and psychologizing of notions that might otherwise be considered collective and political. Forgiveness too often seems overly pious or a cheap form of therapy, good only to soothe the souls of those who have been wronged in ways that cannot be rectified.

But can forgiveness be more than this? Might we overcome our anemic versions of forgiveness-as-forgetting, forgiveness-as-therapy and forgiveness-as-saccharine-sweet-piety with a serious conversation about the potential of forgiveness as a tool for justice?

Forgiveness-Toward-Justice

In order to realize the potential of forgiveness as a tool for justice, some of our common cultural and religious notions of forgiveness must be questioned and challenged by more robust understandings. Here are a few suggestions for what forgiveness as a tool for justice might mean for LGBTQ people in relation to Chambers and Exodus:

1. Forgiveness-toward-justice says, "We, too, recognize that you did wrong -- very wrong." In our day-to-day interactions, we hear numerous apologies from our family, friends and co-workers. Often, these are for small slights or mistakes that are barely noticeable and to which we often respond with, "Oh, no problem. Forget about it." But forgiveness is not forgetting (despite what cultural wisdom suggests). To Chambers, we will never say, "Oh, no problem. Forget about it." Enacting forgiveness requires that we openly recognize that a serious wrong has taken place, that there are real victims whose well-being has been put in jeopardy. Forgiveness-toward-justice is most certainly not forgetting!


2. Forgiveness-toward-justice says, "Your wrongdoing has caused irreparable damage and thus cannot be simply ignored." If it were a simple slight, we would hardly need to expend the energy to discuss the meaning of forgiveness. We could just move on with our lives with a "no harm, no foul" attitude. But for Exodus, we are dealing with a complex wrongdoing that not only affects individual lives but weaves a web of marginalization and violence throughout our society, the threads of which no LGBTQ person can ignore or escape. Forgiveness -- more than shrugging it off, forgetting it or acknowledging the apology without any further action -- stands with the apologetic perpetrator in open and vocal recognition of the fact that the wrongdoing in question must be taken very seriously.


3. Forgiveness-toward-justice says, "We will not hold your wrongdoing against you forever." This is the hardest part. But it also seems the crux of forgiveness. While forgiveness isn't forgetting and refuses to hide the scars caused by a perpetrator's wrongdoing, it also cannot forever insist upon casting the perpetrator in light of the perpetrator's past. Forgiveness allows room for the perpetrator to actuallychange. Forgiveness is enacted with the hope that the perpetrator will change. Forgiveness-toward-justice -- neither sentimental nor pious -- also recognizes that change is difficult and requires the support and accountability of those who cannot forget the complex wrongdoing leveled against them but who commit to creating space for the perpetrator to live life differently, moving into a more just future.


4. Forgiveness-toward-justice says, "We will work with you to cultivate a better future for all of us." To my mind, the most important line in Chambers' apology is this one: "I pledge that future endeavors will be focused on peace and common good." If, through a process of forgiveness, LGBTQ people can openly and publicly acknowledge with Chambers, "Yes, you did wrong, and the wrong was a complex wrongdoing that has caused irreparable damage that your words can never mend," and can make the difficult commitment not to hold his wrongdoing against him into perpetuity, then comes the hard work. Forgiveness as a tool for justice will position many of us in closer proximity to those with whom we once worked at cross-purposes, now (hope against all hope) hopefully on a parallel trajectory toward "peace and common good." While we cannot forget the past and are committed to holding perpetrators accountable never to return to past wrongdoing, a process of forgiveness invites a working together toward a more hopeful, more just future.

How Do We Forgive?

But if forgiveness is not simply personal, sentimental or therapeutic -- if it is to operate as a tool for justice -= there must be some way for LGBTQ people to enact this forgiveness openly. We have teachers we can look to in our efforts (Tutu and the Amish, for example). But each circumstance necessitating forgiveness is different, and considerations of forgiveness invite LGBTQ persons into a process of thoughtful imagination over how topublicly convey a commitment to forgiveness toward the realization of a more just world. We are no strangers to public demonstration for recognition, rights, justice and the prideful celebration of our lives. Perhaps we can begin adding creative demonstrates of forgiveness-toward-justice to our repertory.

After we've grappled with the possibilities of forgiveness for Chambers and Exodus, we will be left to deal with the mutated forms of anti-LGBTQ disdain that continue to ripple in the wake of a sinking Exodus (both in the U.S. and worldwide). Beyond Exodus, there remain numerous churches responsible for a history of terror and injustice against queer people -- a history for which repentance may never come.

Those who have so cruelly called for our repentance, those who thought that forgiveness was theirs to broker, are now the ones in need of a queer forgiveness. Perhaps through a queer forgiveness, religious communities intent on maintaining a heterosexist status quo will accept an invitation from an unlikely source into a more just future that they alone could not imagine.

This blog was originally posted on Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-cody-j-sanders/for-exodus-international-is-forgiveness-possible_b_3493625.html   It is used here by persmission.  Cody is a Ph.D. candidate and a Board member for AWAB.

by Bishop Allyson Abrams, AWAB Board member and Senior Pastor of Zion Progress Baptist Church in Detroit, MI

Love. The love of the one who makes us smile, the one who makes us laugh, the one who makes us feel like we are the only person in the world.  The one who makes us wonder, why did God wait to bring this person in our lives?  The one who makes our toes curl and shiver every time we think about them, hear their voice, see their face, or have intimate moments. Yes, love is what every human being should be afforded while on this earth and on this journey called life. And once we find that true love, we want to make it official and spend the rest of our days enjoying them and experiencing life with them. However, it seems that some people only believe that this bliss or joy should be extended to those of different genders.

The first time I heard the word “partner” for same-sex couples, my friend referred to her mate in that way. I must admit, I questioned how could this term be appropriate for same-gender loving couples. Was it a business relationship? To me, partner is so formal, while wife or husband is so personal. And who refers to the one they love in a formal way? The ones we love we call “baby,” “sweetie,” “honey,” “sugar,” “darling,” and “my dear.” It seems to me that this “partner” term was given to those same-gender loving couples to diminish the true love and awesome power that they experience when being with one another. Yes, there is a partnership involved.  But I think it’s time to recognize that same-sex couples are as “qualified” for marriage as heterosexual couples. Love in my faith tradition is represented in heart, soul and spirit.  It is that love – that love that binds and unifies heart to heart and spirit to spirit that obligates me to say to my friend, “Yes, you have a partner and you also have a wife.”

We are in the 21st century, and the way I see it, it’s time to dump DOMA simply because it discriminates against those who deserve to have their relationships recognized in whatever way they choose – which should include as marriages. It’s time to dump DOMA because it hurts and humiliates those who know love and who practice showing it each and every day. It’s time to dump DOMA because it alienates and afflicts those who love with their heart and are simply in need of their rights being extended to them. It’s time to dump DOMA and celebrate the manifestation of love in every relationship.   It’s time to afford every human the opportunity to marry and be respected as loving families who contribute to the wonderful world that God created and are a part of making it go around.

Dump it, and create a better world for all human-kind!

Bishop Allyson Abrams
This blog first appeared February 8, 2013 on the blog at People For the American Way website.  

by David Weasley

Okay, here’s the overly-cute truth of it: I love being married.  Now, I don’t think marriage is for everybody- I don’t think it’s part of God’s plan for all of us to be cutely married to some cute person and have a bunch of cute kids.  As you can tell, that’s all a little too cute for me.  And, more importantly, it doesn’t fit what I know of God and God’s call: we have gifts that differ, and we have calls that differ.  In relationship as in profession.

But I love being married.  I love that my lover is not only someone that I get to live with, to celebrate and mourn with, to share all kinds of things with, but also someone that I’ve publicly proclaimed and promised with, someone who stood up with me in front of all our family and friends, and said that we are going to be married.  That we promised to always seek one another’s well-being.  It’s powerful.  And the tax breaks and insurance benefits: also great, it’s true.

And I’m thinking about my marriage, both because in another month or so we’re celebrating our tenth anniversary (of dating, anyway) and because it’s Valentines. I love Rachael a ridiculous amount.  I love her all the time, and if someone tried to stop me being married to her, I would reconsider my commitment to non-violence.  She is someone that I absolutely go to the mat for- she’s someone that I pull out all the stops for.  

Now, some of my friends can’t get legal married in Illinois.  I am super hopeful that’s going to change soon, and I’ve been working and praying hard for that to change.  And people I love and trust have been working way harder than me, for way longer than me, to bring about this reality.  But, sadly, I know, that even if my friends can get married in Illinois, it’s going to be a while until their marriage is recognized at a federal level.  And maybe longer still til all my friends in every state can get marry person to whom their heart is called. 

Here’s how I’m thinking about it these days: I am called by God to be a pastor.  Trust me on this, I argued it out, and wrote papers, and fought it myself for years and years, but here I am.  Similarly, I am called by God to be married to Rachael Weasley.  I argued that out too, with myself and with other people. (That “committee”, of myself and Rachael and the people I trust, was much less formal than my ordination committee, but the stakes felt even higher!) If you tell me that I’m not called to be a pastor, I will probably just laugh at you.  If you tell me that I’m not supposed to be married to Rachael, I will tell you you’re wrong.  And so will a lot of other people.
Valentines Day makes me sappy, I guess.  I love my partner, in a full and complicated and wild kind of way.  But it also makes me angry.  It turns out that there exist some people who would walk up to my friends and tell them that God doesn’t want them to be in a committed relationship, to publicly proclaim their love, to share such simple minutia as chores and tax returns and dinner and health insurance.  So Valentines Day makes me sappy, but it also makes me angry.  It makes me want to get to work.

(Now is an extremely timely moment to give some money to AWAB, but also to give some money to Equality IL: www.eqil.org)

David Weasley is an ordained Baptist minister and the Chair of the AWAB Board.  He is currently serving as Director of Youth and Family, Outreach and Mission at Zion Lutheran Church in Tinley Park, IL.

From a blog posted on Religious Dispatches by Cody Sanders

I was on my way to bed when I walked by the desk to take one last look at the computer screen—and now, tonight, I can’t sleep. And it’s not just the the sleep-thwarting glow of the screen. Tonight, my customary frivolous scroll through my Facebook feed turned up a story I hadn’t expected to see.

Josh Pacheco, age 17, from Fenton, Michigan, killed himself.

I don’t know Josh or his family. And I’ve never even been to Michigan. 

But every queer person knows Josh Pacheco. Josh was a junior in high school and had just told his mother that he was gay. Like so many mothers, she wasn’t too surprised and was very supportive of her son. What did surprise her—what she didn’t know until very recently—was that Josh was the victim of persistent physical bullying and verbal harassment at school. Her son was a victim of violence.

Queer Suicide

“Queer” is not synonymous with “suicide,” as it has begun to seem. Not every queer person is on the brink of despair and self-destruction. Not every queer person is bullied by their peers or rejected by their parents. Not every queer person is vulnerable to depression or has a suicide plan at the ready.

But queer suicide should alarm us. It should keep us up at night. 

The string of gay teen suicides in 2010 drew our national attention to the prevalence of anti-gay bullying. Some schools instituted comprehensive anti-bullying initiatives. Psychologists and social workers busied themselves with research into the risk factors for suicide among queer teens. Many churches took public stands against the bullying of queer kids. 

These are all helpful responses, and I hope our collective efforts continue, but I’m not sure we’ve spent enough time understanding the problem. 

Violence against queer people runs much deeper than physical bullying, verbal harassment, or even hate crime murder. It is a violence that takes place at the level of the psyche, the soul—at the very level at which our sense of “self” is constructed within our relation to society.

It is a type of violence that cannot be assessed by examining bruises. Violence against queer people in any form is an ideologically aggravated, theologically intensified violence— legitimated by a discourse about queer people that is already embedded in the lives of both attacker and victim.

Click here to read more

Rev. Cody J. Sanders is an ordained Baptist minister and a Ph.D. Candidate in pastoral theology and pastoral care at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, Texas. He is editor of the forthcoming revised edition of Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Resource for Congregations in Dialogue on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity published by theAlliance of Baptists, the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists, and theBaptist Peace Fellowship of North America.