In this Issue:

Commentary: On Being Gay and Christian
Last Chance for Tickets: Valhalla is this Sunday!
Birds and Bees May Be Gay: Museum Exhibition
Documents Reveal Scope: U.S. Database on Antiwar Protests

Commentary: On Being Gay and Christian
by Rev. Michael S. Piazza

In 1981 I wrote my first published piece. It was a small brochure entitled “Homosexuality and Christianity.” More than one million copies have been printed in English, Spanish and French, and it is still one of the most often-visited pages on the Cathedral of Hope’s website – www.cathedralofhope.com.

Twenty-five years later, I am surprised to meet so many people who are still struggling with their sexuality and spirituality. So often, people I counsel, emails I receive, and conversations I have at the grocery store or restaurants come back to this issue in one way or another. Why? Why is it that this one issue seems to be so divisive for the church and such a point of struggle with so many people? Even lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people who are not struggling with their sexuality and spirituality are actually living lives in reaction to the issue. They are angry at organized religion, and the majority of LGBT people will have no part of church anymore. They have allowed their pain or fear to rob them of a community of faith and of a spiritual home. This is not a healthy resolution.

Human sexuality and spirituality are two very powerful forces in our lives. We keep them compartmentalized lest the two come together and create an explosion. Perhaps that is just what we need. Too often we hold out-of-date and dysfunctional beliefs about both sex and God. We act as if God doesn’t know we are sexual beings, didn’t make it so, and didn’t design us to enjoy it.

In what has been one of the Religious Right’s greatest deceptions, they have made the words “values” and “morality” synonymous in political terms with homophobia and anti-abortion. They have been much more effective than we give them credit for. To understand, try this test: If you heard the phrase “S/he is a sinner!” would you be more likely to think the person had been caught in some sexual act or not helping the poor? We have made virtue of unprovoked war and vice of unrestrained love. Even in the gay community, we are much more judgmental of someone who hasn’t lived up to our standards for sexual behavior than we are of someone who makes business decisions that are exploitive. Why is it that we pass judgment on a person who is “sexually promiscuous” (whatever that means), but joke about our community’s conspicuous consumption? What I am saying is that the fundamentalists—both Christian and Muslim—have succeeded in connecting sex and sin, even in the minds of progressives.

We must challenge our own judgments and assumptions if we are going to be free enough to help others examine theirs. Yes, what they say about homosexuality is irrational, but we can hardly argue with them if we continue to hold irrational beliefs of our own. We must renounce magical thinking and superstition. If we believe something is wrong we need to know why it is wrong, not just accept what we have always been told. We need to stop labeling something as sinful simply because it violates our own bias, and look again at the words of Jesus that are in red in the gospels. We are destroying our planet, killing one another, perpetrating injustices by race, class, gender and national origin. We are discarding the elderly and allowing children to die of starvation while we have an epidemic of obesity. If we are looking for things to label as evil or sinful, let’s not waste our energy worrying about what adults do with their genitals.

In the end, Jesus said little about sex, but a lot about how we treat the poor. These are the moral values I want our politicians to uphold. Maybe they are waiting for people of faith to go first.

<--back to top-->

Hope for Peace & Justice needs your support to continue to provide a progressive, religious response to the Religious Right. Donations, at any amount, are greatly appreciated. Click here to Donate to H4PJ.

Last Chance for Tickets
Valhalla is this Sunday!
Sunday, October 15, 7 pm
Trinity River Arts Center | $35

Support Hope for Peace & Justice by attending a special performance of Uptown Players’ production of Paul Rudnick’s epic comedy Valhalla. By purchasing your tickets to Valhalla through H4PJ, you help us raise money for important programs, seminars and workshops that help people find peace and work for justice. Your $35 ticket includes an invitation to a post-show dessert reception.

Valhalla intertwines two stories: the life of Ludwig of Bavaria, the 1880s Mad King responsible for building a series of storybook castles inspired by Wagnerian operas, and the fictional adventures of James Avery, a wild Texas teenager of the 1940s. These two characters are tracked from childhood through their deaths, and while they embody separate eras, they are ultimately revealed as time-traveling soul mates.

The play explores questions of beauty and madness, as both Ludwig and James pursue lives of operatic passion, bringing them in contact with such diverse figures as a high-school quarterback, the prettiest girl in Dainsville, Texas, most of the characters of Lohengrin, and princess Sophie, who declares herself “the loneliest humpback in Europe.” Valhalla is an epic comic tale that cleverly reveals the price to be paid for getting what you most desire. If you love camp, or wacky spins on literary history or gay stories with heart and LOTS of laughs, you’re gonna love Valhalla.

Click here to purchase your tickets.

<--back to top-->

Documents Reveal Scope of U.S. Database on Antiwar Protests
by Eric Lichtblau
Originally Published by The New York Times

WASHINGTON - Internal military documents released Thursday provided new details about the Defense Department’s collection of information on demonstrations nationwide last year by students, Quakers and others opposed to the Iraq war.

The documents, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, show, for instance, that military officials labeled as “potential terrorist activity” events like a “Stop the War Now” rally in Akron, Ohio, in March 2005.

The Defense Department acknowledged last year that its analysts had maintained records on war protests in an internal database past the 90 days its guidelines allowed, and even after it was determined there was no threat.

A department spokesman said Thursday that the “questionable data collection” had led to a tightening of military procedures to ensure that only information relevant to terrorism and other threats was collected. The spokesman, Maj. Patrick Ryder, said in response to the release of the documents that the department “views with great concern any potential violation” of the policy.

“There is nothing more important or integral to the effectiveness of the U.S. military than the trust and good will of the American people,” Major Ryder said.

A document first disclosed last December by NBC News showed that the military had maintained a database, known as Talon, containing information about more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” around the country in 2004 and 2005. Dozens of alerts on antiwar meetings and peaceful protests appear to have remained in the database even after analysts had decided that they posed no threat to military bases or personnel.

Some documents obtained by the A.C.L.U. referred to the potential for disruption to military recruiting and the threat posed to military personnel as a result.

An internal report produced in May 2005, for instance, discussed antiwar protests at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and was issued “to clarify why the Students for Peace and Justice represent a potential threat to D.O.D. personnel.”

The memorandum noted that several hundred students had recently protested the presence of military recruiters at a career fair and demanded that they leave.

“The clear purpose of these civil disobedience actions was to disrupt the recruiting mission of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command by blocking the entrance to the recruiting station and causing the stations to shut down early,” it said.

But the document also noted that “to date, no reported incidents have occurred at these protests.”

The documents indicated that intelligence reports and tips about antiwar protests, including mundane details like the schedule for weekly planning meetings, were widely shared among analysts from the military, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security.

“There is simply no reason why the United States military should be monitoring the peaceful activities of American citizens who oppose U.S. war policies,” said Ben Wizner, a lawyer for the A.C.L.U.

Joyce Miller, an official with the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group that learned that information on some of its antiwar protests was in the military database, said she found the operation to be a “chilling” and troubling trend.

<--back to top-->

Birds and Bees May Be Gay: Museum Exhibition
by Alister Doyle
Originally Published by Reuters

The birds and the bees may be gay, according to the world's first museum exhibition about homosexuality among animals.

With documentation of gay or lesbian behavior among giraffes, penguins, parrots, beetles, whales and dozens of other creatures, the Oslo Natural History Museum concludes human homosexuality cannot be viewed as "unnatural."

"We may have opinions on a lot of things, but one thing is clear -- homosexuality is found throughout the animal kingdom, it is not against nature," an exhibit statement said.

Geir Soeli, the project leader of the exhibition entitled "Against Nature," told Reuters: "Homosexuality has been observed for more than 1,500 animal species, and is well documented for 500 of them."

The museum said the exhibition, opening on Thursday despite condemnation from some Christians, was the first in the world on the subject. Soeli said a Dutch zoo had once organised tours to view homosexual couples among the animals.

"The sexual urge is strong in all animals. ... It's a part of life, it's fun to have sex," Soeli said of the reasons for homosexuality or bisexuality among animals.

One exhibit shows two stuffed female swans on a nest -- birds sometimes raise young in homosexual couples, either after a female has forsaken a male mate or donated an egg to a pair of males.

One photograph shows two giant erect penises flailing above the water as two male right whales rub together. Another shows a male giraffe mounting another for sex, another describes homosexuality among beetles.

Burn in Hell

One radical Christian said organizers of the exhibition -- partly funded by the Norwegian government -- should "burn in hell," Soeli said. Laws describing homosexuality as a "crime against nature" are still on the statutes in some countries.

Greek philosopher Aristotle noted apparent homosexual behavior among hyenas 2,300 years ago but evidence of animal homosexuality has often been ignored by researchers, perhaps because of distaste, lack of interest or fear or ridicule.

Bonobos, a type of chimpanzee, are among extremes in having sex with either males or females, apparently as part of social bonding. "Bonobos are bisexuals, all of them," Soeli said.

Still, it is unclear why homosexuality survives since it seems a genetic dead-end.

Among theories, males can sometimes win greater acceptance in a pack by having homosexual contact. That in turn can help their chances of later mating with females, he said.

And a study of homosexual men in Italy suggested that their mothers and sisters had more offspring. "The same genes that give homosexuality in men could give higher fertility among women," he said.

<--back to top-->