The Republic of T.

My Prayer

A book that I'm reading, Work As A Spiritual Practice, opens with something that was familiar to me as soon as I saw it, but the way it was presented took me by surprise. What surprised me were some words that I have been using as a kind of mantra for years now.

It started after 9/11, when the time came for me to get back on a plane again, and I had to find a way to deal with the apprehension I was feeling. I remembered something I'd read by Buddhist author Sylvia Boorstein, who wrote about dealing with her own apprehension by silently repeating a mantra to herself:

Peel Me a Grape?

While doing some blogging for work, I came across an article I'd read previously but for some reason neglected blog about here, concerning a someone less carnal interpretation of what might await Muslim jihadist martyrs in the afterlife.

It has long been a staple of Islam that Muslim martyrs will go to paradise and marry 72 black-eyed virgins. But a growing body of rigorous scholarship on the Koran points to a less sensual paradise - and, more important, may offer a step away from fundamentalism and toward a reawakening of the Islamic world.

Some Islamic theologians protest that the point was companionship, never heavenly sex. Others have interpreted the pleasures quite explicitly; one, al-Suyuti, wrote that sex in paradise is pretty much continual and so glorious that "were you to experience it in this world you would faint."

But now the same tools that historians, linguists and archaeologists have applied to the Bible for about 150 years are beginning to be applied to the Koran. The results are explosive.

The Koran is beautifully written, but often obscure. One reason is that the Arabic language was born as a written language with the Koran, and there's growing evidence that many of the words were Syriac or Aramaic.

For example, the Koran says martyrs going to heaven will get "hur," and the word was taken by early commentators to mean "virgins," hence those 72 consorts. But in Aramaic, hur meant "white" and was commonly used to mean "white grapes."

White grapes. Actually, I like white grapes. Now I imagine a plate of the waiting for me as a relief from the summer heat, fresh and so cool that droplets of moisture are beginning to form on their clear and perfect skins. I imagine biting into one and feeling the satisfying burst of sweetness, the refreshing juice filling my mouth as I swallow it and reach for the next one.

Tell me that's not sensual. OK, maybe not worth blowing your body to bits or flying into a plane into a skyscraper, but at least a sweet relief from a hot evening in the desert.

I will, however grant the author's final point. I doubt that 72 white grapes in the afterlife will inspire many to martyrdom, if this interpretation of the Koran becomes more widespread.

Bush & AIDS

Being so preoccupied with the Bush administration's mishandling of the "war on terror" and the situation in Iraq, I realize I haven't said much about the administration's policies regarding HIV/AIDS, though it's an important issue to me and one I worked on for a number of years. This occured to me upon reading a couple of articles concerning Bush's recent statements on HIV AIDS.

First, I thought it telling that Bush chose a black church as the setting for his remarks.

President Bush proposed Wednesday that the executive branch assume significant control over the program that has been the backbone of federal assistance for Americans infected with AIDS

Bush said that the $2 billion Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act, which since 1990 has been the government's largest subsidy of medical and other services specifically for HIV-positive people in the United States, "takes too little account of the most urgent needs." He said the administration should have greater power to decide where the money is distributed and how it is spent, focusing more on paying for medicine and doctors' visits than on social services.

Bush made his proposals at a black church there during a speech that interwove themes of AIDS and religion.

I found it interesting for several reasons. First, because because of the disproportionate rates of new HIV/AIDS cases among African Americans, and second because of the (predominantly white) religious right's ongoing efforts to use religious beliefs to try and activate African Americans on their issues. Additionally, I found it interesting because when it comes to HIV/AIDS in African American communities, African American churches have often been reluctant to address HIV/AIDS issues because of intense reluctance to deal with issues of sexuality that are inherent in many issues related to the epidemic. Often those issues are met with outright hosltility.

I can't help but wonder how many people living with HIV/AIDS would feel some trepidation upon approaching religious organization in search of social services.

Bush, again, argued for religious groups to deliver more social services, saying, "People shouldn't fear the fact if there's a cross on the wall and an AIDS program in that building."

Bush's statement, to me, ignores the reality that many people—particularly those who are gay, lesbian, or transgendered—will be afraid because of previous negative encounters with religious institutions and self-professed "people of faith". In smaller, rural communities—where faith-based service programs might be the only game in town—people whose experience with religious institutions has been hurtful or negative may simply decline to seek services. That may in turn mean less acess to treatment, as some activists point out the relationship between social services and successful treatment.

Terji Anderson, executive director of the National Association of People With AIDS, criticized treating social services for people with HIV "as somehow icing on the cake," saying that some people cannot get to doctors without transportation or child care for which the law now pays.

So I'm less than convinced—to say the least—that Bush's proposed changes will do anyone much good, except for churches that are successful in getting some of that government cash. I will give Bush a tiny bit of credit for ceasing to beat the "abstinence-only" drum for at least a minute.

President Bush said on Wednesday for the first time that the United States should "learn from the experience" of countries like Uganda in fighting AIDS and embraced the use of condoms to prevent its spread, a sensitive issue among conservative groups that have fought the adoption of any strategy that does not focus on abstinence.

…Mr. Bush said. "They've started what they call the A.B.C. approach to prevention of this deadly disease. That stands for: Abstain, be faithful in marriage, and, when appropriate, use condoms."

And I didn't think Bush could surprise me. Still, I'd like to hear him expound on when he thinks condoms are "appropriate." I bet his base would too.

Getting Religion

As a gay man who was brought up Baptist, in the South, I think I might be excused if I have some a tendency to be somewhat cynical about organized religion. My experience of it was…well…bruising, to say the least. But I every once in a while, I hear something that makes me consider being a little less cynical; like religious leaders speaking out against the Federal Marriage Amendment.

Texas Has a Nitwit In It

It's sad, truly sad, when people go out of their way to show just how backwards and ignorant they truly are.

Unitarian Universalists have for decades presided over births, marriages and memorials. The church operates in every state, with more than 5,000 members in Texas alone.

But according to the office of Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, a Denison Unitarian church isn't really a religious organization -- at least for tax purposes. Its reasoning: the organization "does not have one system of belief."

Never before -- not in this state or any other -- has a government agency denied Unitarians tax-exempt status because of the group's religious philosophy, church officials say. Strayhorn's ruling clearly infringes upon religious liberties, said Dan Althoff, board president for the Denison congregation that was rejected for tax exemption by the comptroller's office.

"I was surprised -- surprised and shocked -- because the Unitarian church in the United States has a very long history," said Althoff, who notes that father-and-son presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams were both Unitarians.

His church is just one of several Unitarian congregations in North Texas, including churches in Fort Worth, Arlington and Southlake.

They grow just about everything big in Texas except, it seems, brains.

Since Strayhorn took over in January 1999, the comptroller's office has denied religious tax-exempt status to 17 groups and granted them to more than 1,000, according to records obtained by the Star-Telegram. Although there are exceptions, the lion's share of approvals have gone to groups that appear to have relatively traditional faiths, records show.

But of the denials, at least a fourth include less traditional groups, the records show. In addition to the Denison Unitarian church, the rejected groups include a Carrollton group of atheists and agnostics, a New Age group in Bastrop, and the Whispering Star Clan/Temple of Ancient Wisdom, an organization of witches in Copperas Cove.

Some of the denials occurred because of missing paperwork or other problems, according to the comptroller's office. A few, like the denial for the New Age group and the witches group, were decided because their services were closed to the public, according to documents.

But the denials of the Red River Unitarian Universalist Church in Denison and the North Texas Church of Freethought in Carrollton, as well as an earlier denial by Sharp for the Ethical Culture Fellowship of Austin, were ordered because the organizations did not mandate belief in a supreme being.

Of course, then Buddhism, Taoism and a whole host of other eastern religions would be denied tax exempt status. I suppose I should cut Strayhorn some slack. I grew up in the bible belt. I was raise to spend my whole life in one very narrow groove. There was a time I didn't have a concept that there were any other valid ways to look at the world other than what I was brought up to believe, let alone know anything about Unitarians or that they existed at all. I've learned a lot since then. I've explored various paths of belief, and learned enough to know one thing: you could fill the universe with the stuff that I don't know.

Still, it was my friend Scott who introduced me to the Unitarian Universalist denomination. And it was a good thing for me, because it changed my view of religious people at a time when anyone belonging to an organized religion would have sent me running in the opposite direction. Nowadays, a Unitarian church is about the only kind of church I feel even remotely comfortable in. I know I'm going to be welcome there, and that my family is going to be welcome. But that's because of what the Unitarians promote:

1. The inherent worth and dignity of every person;


2. Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;


3. Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;


4. A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;


5. The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;


6. The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;


7. Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Certainly you can see why Strayhorn would want to do whatever she could to protect the good people of Texas from such ideas. Nothing personal, but I think Strayhorn's tinfoil hat is on just a little too tight.

Holy Crap

Via Lean Left.

This just scares me.

It was an e-mail we weren't meant to see. Not for our eyes were the notes that showed White House staffers taking two-hour meetings with Christian fundamentalists, where they passed off bogus social science on gay marriage as if it were holy writ and issued fiery warnings that "the Presidents [sic] Administration and current Government is engaged in cultural, economical, and social struggle on every level"�this to a group whose representative in Israel believed herself to have been attacked by witchcraft unleashed by proximity to a volume of Harry Potter. Most of all, apparently, we're not supposed to know the National Security Council's top Middle East aide consults with apocalyptic Christians eager to ensure American policy on Israel conforms with their sectarian doomsday scenarios.

But now we know.

"Everything that you're discussing is information you're not supposed to have," barked Pentecostal minister Robert G. Upton when asked about the off-the-record briefing his delegation received on March 25. Details of that meeting appear in a confidential memo signed by Upton and obtained by the Voice.

The e-mailed meeting summary reveals NSC Near East and North African Affairs director Elliott Abrams sitting down with the Apostolic Congress and massaging their theological concerns. Claiming to be "the Christian Voice in the Nation's Capital," the members vociferously oppose the idea of a Palestinian state. They fear an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza might enable just that, and they object on the grounds that all of Old Testament Israel belongs to the Jews. Until Israel is intact and David's temple rebuilt, they believe, Christ won't come back to earth.

Abrams attempted to assuage their concerns by stating that "the Gaza Strip had no significant Biblical influence such as Joseph's tomb or Rachel's tomb and therefore is a piece of land that can be sacrificed for the cause of peace."

Three weeks after the confab, President George W. Bush reversed long-standing U.S. policy, endorsing Israeli sovereignty over parts of the West Bank in exchange for Israel's disengagement from the Gaza Strip.

I've always had a sneaking suspicion, a truly sick feeling, that the Bush administration was basing policy decisions on stuff just like this. If there's any truth to this Village Voice article, I may just be sick.

The Apostolic Congress dates its origins to 1981, when, according to its website, "Brother Stan Wachtstetter was able to open the door to Apostolic Christians into the White House." Apostolics, a sect of Pentecostals, claim legitimacy as the heirs of the original church because they, as the 12 apostles supposedly did, baptize converts in the name of Jesus, not in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Ronald Reagan bore theological affinities with such Christians because of his belief that the world would end in a fiery Armageddon. Reagan himself referenced this belief explicitly a half-dozen times during his presidency.

While the language of apocalyptic Christianity is absent from George W. Bush's speeches, he has proven eager to work with apocalyptics�a point of pride for Upton. "We're in constant contact with the White House," he boasts. "I'm briefed at least once a week via telephone briefings. . . . I was there about two weeks ago . . . At that time we met with the president."

I want to go hide under the bed. The rest of the article just shows how truly unhinged these people are. And they have this president's ear. Just one more reason to send Bush back to Texas come November, and these people along with him.

(Not) Getting Religion

How appropriate that while I'm in the middle of reading about constitutional law, I should come across this story of the Supreme Court not reinstating prayer at VMI.

The Supreme Court said Monday it will not consider reinstating mealtime prayers at a state-funded military college, turning aside an appeal from Virginia officials who wanted to preserve the tradition.

…A lower federal court had found VMI's mealtime prayers violate the Constitution, and the high court's action means that ruling will stand.

VMI's nightly prayers were recited by a student chaplain after cadets marched into the mess hall. The prayers, one for each night of the week except Saturday, mentioned God but not Jesus or other religious figures. All the prayers concluded with the phrase, "Now, O God, we receive this food and share this meal together with thanksgiving. Amen."

The case arose when two cadets asked the school to change the prayer ceremony, and sued when VMI refused. The American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) represented the students.

"As we've said all along, a state institution may not endorse particular religious beliefs, and that constitutional principle has been clearly established for a long time," said Rebecca Glenberg, legal director for the Virginia ACLU. "The Supreme Court apparently has recognized that that principle applies to VMI just as it does to any other state institution."

VMI's students were not required to recite the daily prayer, or even to listen to it, lawyers for the school had argued in asking the Supreme Court to intervene. Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore also argued that the ruling against VMI threatens prayers at other institutions, including the Pentagon (news - web sites) and the Naval Academy.

Of course Rehnquist and Scalia—of the court's nuckle-dragger contingent—dissented. It's reassuring to know that the Supreme Court still recognizes the separation of church and state. Still, in a year when there's the possibility of George W. Bush being re-elected, and more than likely getting the opportunity to appoint a few justices, it's chilling to think that another such case before a court occupied by Bush appointees might very well go the other way.

As for VMI, it's all well and good that "VMI's students were not required to recite the daily prayer, or even to listen to it," but having the prayer in the setting of a group gathering, like when the cadets are gathered in the mess hall raises questions. Are the cadets required to be there? If so then having a prayer read aloud on that occasion creates a situation in which all cadets are required to hear the prayer being read, if not to "listen" to it. As far as I'm concerned, the difference between hearing and "listening" is a semantic one at best. So not being required to "listen" doesn't make much difference. (I suppose they could hum their favorite songs or recite the Gettysburg address in their heads if they don't want to "listen" to it.)

Even if cadets are not required to be in the room for the reading of the prayer, and they have the option of stepping outside of the room while the prayer is read, they are then put in the position of having to single themselves out from among those who are participating. Thus making potential targets of themselves, in an culture of "obedience and conformity," as one judge put it.

So, I'm somewhat relieved at the way the Supremes ruled on this one, but I'm still holding my breath as to what the court will look like, and how it will rule, in the coming years.

Whosoever Will

Though I'm a practicing Buddhist these days, I was raised in the Baptist church, in a very traditionally religious family. To this day, my parents have a bible verse in the outgoing message on their answering machine. The one thing I remember about that part of my upbringing was the music. The church was the first place I opened my mouth and sang. And years later, when I reached a point of alienation, realizing that I would never fit into or be accepted into that world as who I was, the music still got to me at times. Even now, I own a couple of CDs from that genre of music. Still, for me, it is mostly music about the past.

So, when I saw an article about Transcendence, the nation's first all-transgender gospel choir, I had to stop and read it.

"God said, 'whosoever,' " [Bobbi Jeah Baker] said. "That means transgender people."

Transcendence Gospel Choir follows in the footsteps of gay and lesbian choirs around the country, which -- for 25 years -- have been using music to gain acceptance and visibility, express pride and offer hope to the hopeless. In just three years, the transgender choir has grown from a ragtag assemblage unsure of how to use their voices into a gospel powerhouse with fans and concerts and a walloping sound.

"If any message of any song I sing helps someone get out of their inner locked-up cage, that's what I'm for," Baker said, "because it took me a while to get free."

Last year, after the group recorded its first CD, "Whosoever Believes," Zwazzi Sowo, a fellow member of City of Refuge, bought nearly a dozen copies to give as gifts to family members -- straight and gay alike. When Sowo's brother died, she brought a CD to his grieving widow, a religious African Methodist. The music will heal your heart, said Sowo, never explaining the "trans" part of "transcendence." Her conservative sister-in-law learned every song on the CD and later asked Sowo to thank the singers from her church. Sowo had to smile.

"For them to take a stance and just to claim who they are in song is so powerful," Sowo said. "When you're hurt or marginalized, a lot of times what you do is shrink and try not to be seen so you don't hurt so much. But their music is about expansion and stepping into it. It's about growth. ... It's here to heal the world."

Sometimes I stand amazed at how much the world has changed just in my lifetime, and at the degree of courage people find within themselves to simply be who they are.

Bobbi Jean Baker, a former crack addict who completed a 23-year sentence for robbery and second-degree murder in 2000, said that after joining the choir, "I went from being a nobody to being a somebody."

On the CD, Baker is the soloist on the song "I Almost Let Go," which she sees as a personal anthem.

"I felt like I just couldn't take life anymore," the lyrics go. "But God held me close/so I wouldn't let go."

"Transcendence opened my eyes to a whole new gamut of life," Baker said. "I saw people, and some looked just like me. They had similar experiences, and they were living as to who they are."

Becoming more spiritual helped Baker, who has nine brothers and six sisters, reconnect with her family. Most of her siblings bought the CD. Her oldest sister refused to speak to her after her gender transition, but recently, they started talking, and she invited Baker to her daughter's wedding.

"I'm going," Baker said, "as who I am."

I think there's another CD I need to add to my collection.

Black, Christian, and Gay

I came across this article in my daily blog reading via Negrophile. I wanted to post it here, because it's not often that one sees black gay couples covered and portrayed in this manner in the media. So, maybe a few more people will see it who wouldn't have seen it otherwise.

Michael Belcher and Walter Houston stand in the cold outside the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in downtown Detroit. Surrounded by strangers, they're in the midst of a gay marriage rally.

For months, Belcher, 33, and Houston, 43, have watched similar rallies on TV. They've seen the crowds of mostly white men and women holding picket signs, shouting for equal rights, lining up for marriage licenses.

That's fine for San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, they say.

But this is Detroit -- a city that's more than 80 percent African American, heavily soaked in a Christian tradition and chilly toward the gay community.

"We're gay and we're black and we're Christian," Houston says, back at the couple's first-floor flat in northwest Detroit. "God wants us to do this. This is something we prayed for." The couple couldn't let white activists fight alone.

"God bless them," Houston says. "I'm glad they're there. But they cannot represent our community."

In the gay marriage struggle, Belcher and Houston represent a segment rarely seen in the national debate, but one that is important, especially in Detroit.

Last year, the couple exchanged vows in a commitment ceremony in a small church in Ferndale. They're hopeful that their ceremony will be fortified by a marriage license. But Belcher and Houston have more to overcome than legal hurdles; they're also fighting culture. They are a minority within a minority.

The article also underscores the particular dilemma black gays, and specifically this couple, find themselves upon coming out.

The African-American community and Christian churches they grew up in don't accept them because they're gay, they say. And because of their race, they don't always feel comfortable in the gay community.

Coming out as gay or lesbian can be especially difficult for African Americans, says Beverly Greene, a psychologist at St. John's University in New York who specializes in counseling gays and lesbians of color.

"More is at stake," she says. "They don't have as many places to go in the gay and lesbian community." Black gays and lesbians often depend more heavily on their community than white people do, says Greene. And the mainstream African-American church has traditionally been a safe harbor, a key social institution, not just a place of worship.

It also provides a glimpse into the church the couple attends, one where they have managed to find acceptance; safe harbour, if you will.

It's worth reading, if only because it's a rare positive portrayal of black gay men in committed relationships. Check it out if you have time, and share it with someone else.

There's been a discussion going on at a burst of light following Oprah's show featuring black "men who have sex with men" on the "DL." Donald asked of Oprah,

Be bold and present our lives more fully. We are your brothers, fathers, uncles, cousins, teachers, bosses, assistants and your best friends. And some of us have taken the responsibility for raising the children that our communities tend to forget. Be bold and present the similarities of our lives. We love the women in our lives; we love you. Don't use us to regress back into a sensationalism that is beneath you - prove that you can see all of us, who we are wholly, our highs and our lows, our entire lives. True, it is up to us to tell our own stories, but we depend on you to tell the truth from your vantage point. Oprah, I beg you to do everything you are empowered to do to tell the whole truth.

And Ronn added,

Also, I think an old Roger Grimsby quote sums it all up when it comes to Oprah: "You can show as much bias with what you DON'T report." By focusing on such narrow parameters when it comes to BGM/SGL communities, Oprah does play into homophobic mindsets. I would love for a show focusing on positive role models from the same.

I think portrayals like the one of the couple in this article, which are rarely seen, might be what they have in mind. And if Belcher and Hudson were featured on Oprah, I'd tune in.

The Belief-o-Matic

Via The Aerie.

Borrowing an idea from Jim, I took the Belief-o-Matic test from Belief.net. I've taken it before, and the results are pretty much always the same. Here they are, with a links.

1. Mahayana Buddhism (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (95%)
3. Neo-Pagan (94%)
4. New Age (93%)
5. Liberal Quakers (90%)
6. Theravada Buddhism (88%)
7. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (84%)
8. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (82%)
9. New Thought (80%)
10. Taoism (79%)
11. Scientology (73%)
12. Hinduism (70%)
13. Jainism (67%)
14. Bahá'í Faith (63%)
15. Secular Humanism (62%)
16. Reform Judaism (57%)
17. Sikhism (55%)
18. Orthodox Quaker (51%)
19. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (41%)
20. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (35%) 21. Nontheist (32%)
22. Jehovah's Witness (31%) 23. Orthodox Judaism (29%)
24. Seventh Day Adventist (22%)
25. Islam (21%)
26. Eastern Orthodox (12%)
27. Roman Catholic (12%)