Do you have to get divorced every time you move?

Are you married?

If so, when's the last time you had to get divorced and remarried just because you moved within the United States?

If you're in an opposite-sex couple and you're married, chances are you got married, and no matter where in the US you've moved, you've stayed married.  It's probably never occurred to you to get divorced and remarried just because you were moving to another city or county in your state, or to another state.

Sounds pretty silly, actually, right?

At tax time, my second-class citizenship rears up and smacks me in the face

Tax time is interesting in our household.

My wife and I are not married as far as the federal government is concerned.  Because we're a same-sex couple. 

We're married as far as our religion is concerned.

We're everything-but-married as far as the state we live in is concerned -- our state has a civil union law, court-mandated to be everything but marriage in name. 

This has some fascinating tax implications.

And they rear up and smack us in the face at tax-time.

Closing Minute of Midwinter Gathering 2011 [of FLGBTQC]

Closing Minute of Midwinter Gathering 2011

As F/friends arrived at Summit Conference Center in Haw Rivers State Park near Greensboro, NC for the annual Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender and Queer Concerns Midwinter Gathering of Friends 2011, there were warm greetings and welcome hugs for both long-time and first-time attenders. Friends looked forward to exploring together the planning committee’s theme, “Reclaiming the Past – Proclaiming the Future.”

Two panel presentations, one led by older seasoned Friends of the FLGBTQC community and a second led by younger seasoned Friends, helped us first begin the process of reclaiming our past, and then considering what we might proclaim for our future.  We were moved by stories of the faithful and powerful witness of early members of this community who made it possible for us to grow more closely into who God calls us to be today. We were equally moved by younger F/friends who boldly challenged us to joyfully move into our future, asking who might still be waiting to be welcomed to our table. They invited us to continue to grow in Spirit, faithfulness, and as a beloved community that is called to be radically inclusive by witnessing to the both the oppressed and the oppressor with radical love.  

During meetings for worship, worship sharing, memorial meeting, and meetings for worship with attention to business, we became aware of the breath of the Spirit moving among us, ministering through us and to us, giving us glimpses of a vision we seek. We were challenged to continue in Friends’ rich tradition of walking cheerfully in the world (even in places that may not be welcoming or safe),
seeking and speaking to that of God in everyone.  There is still work to be done.

We sought ways to include our youngest members more fully in our community, welcoming them into our worship. And during meals, over puzzles and card games, while walking in the beauty of the state park, during precious one-to-one conversations, dancing together, and joyfully celebrating during the talent show and auction, we all have continued to deepen and broaden this beloved community –
rooted and grounded in Divine Love and Joy. 

We ask ourselves, “What is it we are called to proclaim for the future?”  Perhaps it is the same Truth that early Friends proclaimed, that early members of our FLGBTQC community felt led to build upon, that we too feel planted in our hearts.  We are invited by That Which Has No Name to live in the radically inclusive Love offered freely to us with each breath, and to find ways to share it with each other and the world. We have celebrated where we have been and where we are today, and we look forward to a time when we will even more closely reflect who we are called to be.  Opportunities of radical Love are always before us, and our work will continue as we leave this beloved community to return to our homes, our meetings, and the wider world.

Our business coming to a close, we now adjourn planning to meet again Seventh Month 3 to 10 at the 2011 Summer Gathering of Friends General Conference at Grinnell College in Grinnell, IA.

Deborah Fisch, co-clerk

A note about the Epistle: please share it!

Please share the Epistle!  

It's vitally important to get the word out that there are communities of faith that are affirming of lesbians, bisexual people, gay men, transgender people, and queer people.  

Please help spread that word.

If you are a Friend, please share FLGBTQC's Epistle with any Quaker groups with which you have a relationship -- your Monthly Meeting, Yearly Meeting, (Quarterly or Half-Yearly if they're active,) any Quaker email lists you're on, etc. 

If you're a member of another faith community, please feel free to share it there.  

Do you blog, or LiveJournal, or DreamWidth, etc?  Twitter?  Buzz?  If the Epistle spoke to you, please consider sharing it there. 

It's also been posted on Facebook; you can share it there. 

You can link to it directly from the page at FLGBTQC:
http://flgbtqc.quaker.org/2011epistle.html

You can forward it from the posting on my blog (see the buttons at the end of the post). 

Thank you! 

An Epistle from Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns, Midwinter Gathering 2011

An Epistle from Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns

Midwinter Gathering 2011

To All Friends Everywhere,

We send you love from Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Concerns Midwinter Gathering, held from February 18-21st, 2011 in Browns Summit, North Carolina.

There was a time when we could not say our name. We dared not say our name -- even in the Religious Society of Friends. We were the Committee of Concern. This community has grown up around the concept of “radical inclusion” – the willingness to welcome new and different kinds of people into our community even when we had not expected them, recognizing the expansion of our understanding of who we are as a form of continuing revelation. Some of those who helped form this community continue to actively be a part of our community, for which we are blessed. Others have moved on. Still others have passed on. Yet all these Friends are still very much with us, standing in their own integrity, and calling us into our own.

We came together once again to witness to the power of radical love and radical inclusion to transform and sustain us spiritually – both individually and as a community and to discern how we are called to deepen our commitment to that call. Framed by our theme, “Reclaiming our Past; Proclaiming our Future,” we heard stories of what happens when we do this well. When we are faithful, we recognize that love is a practice, that in relationship we reveal and discover our true selves. We share the stories and truth emerging from our lives; when needed, we say to one another, “You’re standing on my foot! Please get off!” And then we talk about it. We experience the gifts of receiving and giving love that is shaped by the quirks and flavors of each of our individual essences; in so doing, we invite each other into wholeness, greater integrity, a fuller understanding of who we are as a community, and even greater integrity, and thus the cycle begins again.

As we shared our truths with one another in worship, Spirit revealed to and through us how wholeness, community, love, and integrity are intimately intertwined with each other. As one Friend said, “With Quakers, I cannot lie about who I am.” He spoke about how Friends from this community “kicked me out of the closet” – not through violence, but through holding him to a higher standard of integrity and by loving him for exactly who he is. Another Friend gazed into the eyes of each speaker on a panel of our elders, expressing how she could feel the flavor of each life moving through her, transforming her. A third urged that in an unsafe and sometimes hostile world, we must nevertheless go cheerfully where we are led, understanding that only as we bring our full selves forward can we make the world safer for those who will follow. A fourth speaker, an attender for whom this gathering was hir* first experience of Quakerism, spoke powerfully at the end of the gathering of how way had opened for hir* to be here, and a sense of how “I am supposed to be where I am right now. Life is overwhelming but I can do it.” Young and young adult Friends spoke deeply of the condition of a continuum of sexual and gender identities and the urgent necessity of a place of full and unconditional love and acceptance to call forth one’s true self. They spoke of the blessing of a safe space where they could be fully known, of the feeling that FLGBTQC was a place where there was no “card check,” where all were welcome, warts and all, where they could bring their whole selves forward.

We also know our own stories of the pain it inflicts when radical love and inclusion are absent – experienced within this community and others. We know that we have work to do to more faithfully practice radical love and inclusion with people of color and Young Adult Friends and Young Friends, and those who may yearn for but not be aware of or have access to our community.

We ask for the prayers of all Friends everywhere as we do our work, and we ask you, as way opens, to support us and join with us in our struggle. We offer you our unfolding witness and testimony to the power of radical love and inclusion in this community and an invitation to join in this experience at gatherings in the future. Co-clerks can be reached via telephone at 267-270-2315 or email at flgbtqc@gmail.com. Our website is http://flgbtqc.quaker.org/.

On behalf of Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Concerns,

Deborah Fisch, Co-Clerk

Kody Hersh, Co-Clerk



* Many people who identify as neither men nor women prefer to be referred to by non-gendered pronouns, and this attender is among those people. The word "hir" in this case is grammatically equivalent to "her" as the possessive ("this is hir [item]") and object form ("I gave it to hir") but carries no connotation of a female or male gender.

Notes from FLGBTQC Mid-Winter Gathering

notes from my Book of Shadows (spiritual notebook) from the 2011 Mid-Winter Gathering of Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns.  

As soon as our Epistle is available, I will post it here.  - sm 

Meeting for Worship Sunday

the idea that one "ought" to write, blog, etc., from love rather than from anger

--> anger springs from love, is a sign that something needs to change --> I would not be angry if i did not love

--> would not be angry on my own behalf if not for self-love; would not be angry on behalf of my Quaker communities if I did not love Quakerism or my Pagan communities if I did not love Paganism and if I did not love the Goddess (each other, this beautiful Earth)


writing about being at FLGBTQC Mid-Winter and my experience being here

--> what is it that is so wonderful about FLGBTQC?  it's hard to explain to people who haven't experienced it, or to someone who's come and who's maybe been put off by another who's rubbed them the wrong way

-- so far this weekend, we've talked quite a bit about this community as someplace where we feel known, with our imperfections, and loved
-- I certainly feel this way

-- worship

-- worship for business

(-- no "card check" at the door)


reminder from worship: community is one of the testimonies


large-group worship sharing

how we collectively hold the integrity and centeredness of our worship as something important

-- conversations I've had today with Friends about how theaological diversity, and sharing that with each other, is one of the gifts of FLGBTQC

--> these two things -- integrity and centeredness of Quaker worship, and theaological diversity -- are not in conflict; but rather, they complement and enrich each other

I am hearing: it is important to ask to be held in the Light on the list-serv

*post the intergenerational worship post on the blog --> radical inclusion

Singing the Goddess

(fun!)

Recommended article: T. Thorn Coyle's "Duality and Diversity: Gender at Pantheacon"

T. Thorn Coyle's "Duality and Diversity: Gender at Pantheacon"

The theme of gender at Pantheacon started for me on Friday afternoon, when I was able to catch most of Dr. Charlie Glickman's presentation on "The Mystery and the Masculine." I walked into a lively discussion about stereotypes, gender, and where we might find a place inside or outside of the box, and how breaking out of the box sometimes offers a full range of deep and powerful archetypes. Why was I drawn to this presentation? Not only do I like and respect Charlie, but I carry a great deal of the masculine within me; as a matter of fact, I used to get mistaken for a man with great frequency. I don't anymore, though most people still recognize that strand of my energy signature. I feel comfortable presenting in a more "female" way these days and my power is more fully integrated so my overall energy outlay is smoother. But you still won't catch me in a skirt unless I'm doing high femme drag. And that is rare.

I spoke in Charlie's class about Z Budapest saying last year that I was not a masculine woman, presumably because I wear lipstick now, and my jeans are no longer two sizes too big. No, I'm not butch like my butchest of friends, but the reason I identified as masculine at the first was in an attempt to do damage control around some masculinity bashing that had been going on. As I still swim strongly with that current, I outed myself on the panel and was then smacked down. Not for long, as you might imagine.

Read more...

Writing my principal

I am beginning to write on this blog about my experiences in high school.  I've received some gentle, powerful, thoughtful responses, both in comments and privately.  Thank you.  It's helping me do more work on this. 

Before reading this post, I invite you to read the two I've written so far.  While you can absolutely read this one free-standing, the prior two provide some good background:

• Another cost of bigotry, classism, bullying, homophobia, and heterosexism
• Reactions to "The Prep School Negro"

Today's post is a letter, one that was surprisingly scary to write.  Some part of me still feels like that scared high school froshling or sophomore who's being blamed for being bullied.  (And I was blamed for being bullied.)  Some part of me almost expects them to say, "Well, what do you expect?  You did
turn out to be a lesbian."  To which my grown-up self says, "That attitude is exactly why LGBTQ teens have an even-higher risk of being bullied and of committing suicide than their straight and cisgender peers.  That needs to stop." 

Why this post, now? http://www.writeyourprincipal.com/, and the encouragement of my Garrison friends on Facebook and of Andre Robert Lee.  Thank you.

October 12, 2010

Melinda Bihn

Head of the Upper School

G. Peter O’Neill, Jr.

Head of School

Garrison Forest School

300 Garrison Forest Road

Owings Mills, MD  21117

Dear Ms. Bihn and Mr. O’Neill,

            I’m a 1986 alumna of Garrison Forest School.  Several things are prompting me to write to you today: the Write Your Principal Project (www.writeyourprincipal.com); conversations I had during this year’s National Coming Out Day; the increased attention currently being paid to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer teenagers who have recently committed suicide; and the heartbreaking fact that even after those deaths, more LGBTQ teenagers are committing suicide every day. 

But what’s prompting me most of all to write are the conversations I am starting to have with other Garrison alumnae about our experiences of bullying when we were at Garrison – and in particular, the pain from anti-lesbian bullying I experienced when I was a Garrison girl.  That pain remains with me to this day, poisoning the legacy of what was in so many other ways a wonderful education, and poisoning my present-day relationship with GFS. 

            When I was at Garrison, great care was paid to the issue of teen suicide.  However, no care at all was paid to the fact that LGBTQ teens were at a much higher risk of suicide than their straight and cisgender peers. 

What’s more, bullying against perceived lesbians and against girls and women who didn’t conform to gender stereotypes was rampant during my four years in Garrison’s Upper School.  Both students and adults were targets, and both students and faculty perpetrated this kind of bullying.  This created an unsafe climate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students, faculty, and staff, as well as for members of the Garrison community who were straight and cisgender allies. 

            Nationally, LGBTQ teens are still at a higher risk of suicide and at a higher risk of experiencing bullying than are their straight and cisgender peers. 

·       According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, LGBTQ youth are 3-4 times as likely to attempt suicide as straight and cisgender youth – not as a result of being LGBTQ, but as a result of bullying and harassment. 

·       The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network’s 2009 National School Climate Survey found that, due to perceived sexual orientation or to gender expression:

o      85% of LGBT students experienced school harassment within the last year

o      61% felt unsafe at school

o      30% had stayed away from school for at least a day within the last month due to safety concerns

o      LGBT students who experienced increased rates of harassment and victimization experienced increased levels of depression

o      GLSEN also reported on positive steps schools can take to enhance students’ safety. 

            I graduated in 1986; it’s now 2010.  So I ask you:

1)    What has changed in the nearly 25 years since I graduated from Garrison? 

2)    How is Garrison safer now for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and ally students, faculty, and staff? 

3)    How does Garrison prevent – and when prevention fails, how does it stop – bullying against LGBTQ and ally members of the Garrison community? 

4)    How does Garrison support LGBTQ and ally students, faculty, and staff? 

I very much look forward to hearing from you. 

Yours truly,

Staśa Morgan-Appel

Class of 1986

Reprise: "Not the National Coming Out Day conversation I expected"

I wanted to share again my post from last year for National Coming Out Day.

...I'm always surprised when people who know me at all well are surprised to find out I'm a lesbian. It's less startling, but still frustrating, when people are surprised I'm bi, because there's still an assumption of monosexuality in this culture: either you're homosexual or you're heterosexual. Folks who are startled to learn I'm bi either know I've had successful romantic relationships with men and assume those are invalid now (because I must be monosexual), or assume that because I have been involved only with women since they've known me and am not that interested in men, I must be monosexual.

But those are still the conversations I more or less expect to have. The kind where I refer to my partner or spouse in conversation at an event, the other person asks what my husband does, and I say, "My wife is a mathematician," and they blink. The kind where someone I've known for a long time says in shock, "You had a husband!?," and I say, "Yes, my first partner was male, and yes, I was out before we got together. He took me to my first Pride event."

But these conversations have progressed and changed over time. For example, more and more over the last few years, the conversations I've been having around the fact that I'm a lesbian center around civil rights, and especially marriage equality.

And while there's one little thread on my Facebook Wall about National Coming Out Day and how people identify and what labels mean (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer), there's another, completely different, conversation I've ended up having about the reality of my life as a lesbian in today's society.

And it really does feel like a coming-out conversation: Here is my reality. Here is the truth of my experience.

And as with many other such conversations over the years, I'm finding someone I'm talking with disbelieves the uncomfortable truth...

Click here for more.

What about National Coming Out Day?

So, today's National Coming Out Day. 

What does that mean? 

For me, that meaning has evolved over the years.  I wrote a little last year about how that's changed -- how my conversations have changed from stark conversations about existence ("I didn't know you're bisexual/a lesbian") to more nuanced conversations about the day-to-day reality of my life and the legal realities of second-class citizenship ("For $100 you can get the same benefits as legal marriage!") (Yeah, right...). 

But I'm curious.  What does National Coming Out Day mean to you?  If you're a lesbian woman, a gay man, a bisexual woman or man, a transgender woman or man, a queer woman or man, a cis ally, a straight ally, someone who's none of those things, someone who's confused about it all -- what does National Coming Out Day mean to you? 

Recommended post: "She Geek: Women and Self-Labeling in Online Geek Communities"

Victoria Janssen pointed this out to me, and I was impressed by both the research and the analysis. 

My intent in this project was to examine the labeling of female-oriented geek spaces on the internet. What I found was that self-labeling of geek women often defeats the potentially subversive act of creating a female-oriented geek community.

I would argue that the mere creation or and participation in geek communities labeled “for women” are aggressive acts towards male-dominated geek culture. One of the reasons we can see these communities as a challenge to mainstream geek culture is the still-prevailing myth of internet neutrality.

Read more...

Enjoy...

Whose reality?

This started out as a comment on someone else's blog, but then I realized it ought to be a short post on my own blog:  

I often hear people trash both theism in general, and Quaker non-theism in particular, as something that just cannot possibly be true at all, if it cannot be true for the speaker or if the speaker cannot understand it.  Yet, as a broader society, and as a Religious Society, we don't have that standard for, say, Christianity.  (If someone can't understand Christianity, or if it's not true for them, society locates the problem with them, not with Christianity.)  Why can't non-theist Quakerism (or Pagan Quakerism) be true and valid for someone else even if I just cannot grasp it?

Perhaps I have more humility here because I'm already used to that experience with other things that plain don't make sense to me, but obviously have great meaning, and work in real-life practice, for other people.  And therefore I accept them, even if I don't understand them, or agree with them, or even if I think they're kind of (or way) out in left field. 

This is part of the reality of life for folks who are minorities. 

Whereas, the belief, the fundamental assertion that if I can't believe it, or if it doesn't make sense to me, then it's just plain not true in an essential, basic sense, often comes from a position of some kind of dominance, privilege, or power-over that needs to be protected.  It's part of the experience of being a member of dominant culture. 

On the Prop 8 ruling (Perry v. Schwarzenegger)

Two seemingly-unlikely courtroom bedfellows, David Boies and Ted Olsen, speak with Rachel Maddow just after the federal court decision regarding California's Proposition 8 banning same-gender marriage. 

(If you've never read Ted Olson's piece "The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage: Why same-sex marriage is an American value," I highly recommend it.) 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

For info about the MA court case they refer to regarding the court finding the federal Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional, click here. 

For the NY Times basic story about the Prop 8 ruling, click here. 

If you'd like to read the ruling itself, click here.  I haven't read the whole thing yet, but from what bits I have read, and from the exclamations and excerpts erupting from the other end of my living room as well as the analysis I keep seeing, it's an amazing read.  You can skip the mind-numbing legalese and just read the juicy parts, which I'm told (by many friends) really are beautiful, even to the lay reader, from a legal standpoint.

If even that much legalese is too much, try starting with these two NY Times articles -- this editorial, which does some legal analysis of the discrimination angle, and this analysis article, which tackles some of the legal and judicial structure around what happens at the levels of different courts, why and when "findings of fact" do and don't matter, and why some people are so excited about that beautiful legal language I mentioned above. 

Sure, this is going to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal, and sure, it might well be going to SCOTUS after that, and sure, Walker (the judge in this case) placed an immediate temporary stay on his ruling pending appeals, so nothing practical changed right away.

But none of those things diminishes my joy.  This legal ruling states very clearly that California's bar to same-gender marriage discriminates irrationally against me, and my sisters and brothers, in a way that can't be justified legally.

It states very clearly something that should be a reminder to all of us when it comes to other issues as well:

“Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and women.” 

Recommended interview: Richard Cizik on Fresh Air, 7/28/10

I caught the beginning of this interview, and to my surprise I listened to the whole thing.  I was glad I did. 

I recommend it.  Especially if you identify as an Evangelical Christian, or if you have strong feelings or strong opinions about Evangelical Christians.

If you listen long enough to get beyond the civil union issue and into the breadth of the interview, you might be surprised. 


As a lesbian, as a Quaker, and as a Witch, I appreciated a lot of what Cizik said.  

For 10 years, the Rev. Richard Cizik was the chief lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents roughly 30 million constituents across the United States.

But he was forced out of that position in December 2008, after remarks he made on Fresh Air about his support of gay civil unions, among other things.

On Wednesday, Cizik returned to Fresh Air to discuss how his life has changed since he left the association and why he started a new group called the Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, which he hopes will be an alternative to Christian groups that focus on the culture wars.

For interview highlights, click here. 

For options to listen to the interview, click here. 

For a transcript, click here.

...And why is this important?

Yesterday, I posted information about the Mid-Winter Gathering for Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns, as well as information on "What is FLGBTQC?"

Why is this important?  A couple of reasons: 

1) If you are a person of faith who is questioning your sexual orientation, your gender identify, or both, it is important to understand that you do not have to give up your relationship with God (or the Goddess) when you come out.

I have come to realize over the last 20+ years that I was truly lucky, and truly blessed, when I came out. First, it never occurred to me to give up my faith because I am bisexual or or a lesbian; second, I came out into a community of faith.

When I realized I love other women, I never thought to choose between my relationship with God and being who I truly am: coming out deepened and enriched my spiritual life.

I also knew other lesbian and bi women, as well as gay and bi men, who were involved in Christian, Jewish, and Pagan spiritual communities. What's more, within a year, my Jewish (now former) partner found for me a lesbian, gay, and bisexual Christian faith community where I felt at home almost immediately, and where I later served in leadership.

This was not how the story went back then for all, or even most, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer folks when they came out.   

Even today, one of the biggest struggles LGBTQ people of faith face when coming to terms with their sexual orientation, their gender identity, or both, is the notion that accepting who they are means giving up God. 

This is simply not true. What's more, it's cruel.

There are a lot of LGBTQ spiritual and religious organizations. Off the top of my head, I know about, or can find, Christian, Jewish, Pagan, and interfaith organizations; and I also know how to use my Google Superpowers (thanks, Peterson, for introducing me to that term!) to find other kinds:

• Christianity: There are a number of organizations within Christian denominations that are specific to LGBTQ inclusion and equality; there are individual churches, and networks of churches, within Christian denominations that are "welcoming," "open and affirming," etc. (the language varies) of LGBTQ people; there are Christian churches and denominations are that are primarily LGBTQ-welcoming but open to all.

• Judaism: There are Jewish LGBTQ organizations, synagogues, and shuls, within different kinds of Judaism.

• Paganism: There are Pagan LGBTQ organizations, circles, covens, groves, etc., within Pagan umbrella organizations and within different Pagan traditions.  

• Islam: I'm afraid I don't know much about the Muslim LGBTQ movement, but I do know there is one.  I welcome input from readers who are involved or have friends who are involved.

There's no way I can provide an exhaustive list of resources, but they are findable with the use of the aforementioned Google Superpowers. And folks are certainly welcome to add info in the comments on the resources you've personally found the most useful.

My specialty areas are Quakerism, Paganism (particularly, Feminist Witchcraft), and to some extent Feminist Judaism, so the resources I've listed so far on my website are primarily Quaker and Pagan.  As always, if there are resources I've missed that you'd particularly like to see me list, please do let me know.

2) FLGBTQC is open to everyone.

FLGBTQC is open to all Friends. There is no "card check" at the door. You can't necessarily tell who fits which particular labels. A number of folks don't fit any of those labels. And some folks are even straight. 

These are some of the things I love about FLGBTQC.

Yes, it's definitely LGBTQ space.  And there's room for all Friends.

And, come to think of it, you don't technically have to be a Quaker to be part of the FLGBTQC community. You just have to come to our events and, well, participate in our community.

And we do have pretty awesome Meetings for Worship with Attention to Business.  

I had an interesting conversation with a Friend recently.  We've both served as treasurers of Quaker organizations, and I was bemoaning how hard it is to make numbers line up in nice, neat rows at the end of a fiscal year, even when they've behaved well all year.  Ze responded by saying, rather airily, that ze hadn't found it that difficult, even when ze was treasurer of zir Yearly Meeting.  "Well, I'll be sure to bring your name to the attention of FLGBTQC's Nominating Committee for treasurer next cycle!" I laughed.  Ze got very serious.  Oh, no, ze wouldn't be at all appropriate, being straight, ze said.  "Whyever not?"  I asked.  Because ze wouldn't be a good representative of the organization, ze feared, being straight and all.  "Does that mean our clerks who've been in opposite-gender legal marriages haven't been 'good representatives of the organization'?" I asked, honestly curious.  Oh, no, ze replied, I'm sure they've been excellent representatives of the organization.  I was kind of left scratching my head. (It turned out ze was trying to respect what ze thought was separate space.)

In all actuality, it's the not-part-of-the-FLGBTQC-community part that would be the barrier, not the straight part.  I don't think I communicated the no-card-check-at-the-door, you-can't-make-assumptions part, very well.  I hope I'm doing that better right now.

3) Equality for LGBTQ people isn't here yet, folks. It's not even here for all LGBTQ Friends.

I know it's tempting to focus on equality in civil marriage as the be-all and end-all of LGBTQ equality.  I know it's really, really tempting to say, "We have a minute in our Meeting supporting same-sex marriage, so in our Meeting, LGBTQ people have full equality," or, "We marry same-gender couples in our Meeting, so in our Meeting, discrimination's not an issue."  Or, "There is a [lesbian, gay man, trans person] in a position of leadership in our Meeting, so LGBTQ folks know they're welcome here." 

Did African-Americans achieve full equality when every African-American person became able to marry legally and religiously?  (We'll leave aside for now the question of whether or not that's really true in 2011 America.)  Has racism in the United States ended with an African-American President of the United States?  Put that way, it seems obvious that homophobia and heterosexism won't end when same-gender couples can marry legally and religiously, or with LGBTQ persons in civil or religious leadership positions.

But about your Meeting: 

• Are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer persons represented proportionately in your Meeting's positions of leadership?  On your committees?  

• Do couples who make long-term commitments and get married do so in the Meeting?  Do individuals, couples, and other families who raise children raise them in the Meeting?

• If your Meeting is in a state where same-sex couples cannot marry legally, and couples go to states with civil marriage, do you coordinate with other Meetings so their civil marriage is under Friends' care?  Do you witness to the discrimination same-gender couples face in civil marriage?  

• When newcomers who are lesbian, gay, bi, queer, or trans come to the Meeting, do they stay, or do they wander off?  

• Does your Meeting have a statement of welcome on its website (if you have one) and in its entryway for LGBTQ folks and for people of color, and is your Meeting accessible to people with mobility limitations and by public transit?  

• If your Monthly Meeting is part of a Yearly Meeting where there is conflict around the welcome or full equality of LGBTQ persons, and your Monthly Meeting is in unity about lifting up the equality of all people, then it is particularly important that you have a statement of welcome on your website (if you have one) and in your entryway for lesbians, gay men, bisexual people, and transgender people.  Language in the minute and epistle from the Central Committee of Friends General Conference in 2004, available here, may be helpful for you.  

Did African-Americans achieve full equality in our Meetings when slavery ended?  We are learning, thanks to the tireless work (okay, the sometimes exhausted work) of Friends like Vanessa Julye and Donna McDaniel, authors of Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship: Quakers, African Americans, and the Myth of Racial Justice, that the Quaker narrative about the testimony of equality and how we walk our talk -- or the testimony of integrity -- don't always go hand-in-hand.  That's an uncomfortable truth, and it's uphill work. 

Being welcoming to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people is part of being welcoming to people of color, people with disabilities (obvious and "hidden" ones, as well), and people of different ethnicities, ages, genders, races, kinds of families, kinds of theaologies within Quakerism, traditions with Quakerism, and more.

It's part of the spiritual hospitality that makes for robust Meetings, deep and centered worship, and robust Quakerism.

Okay, you ask, what if my Meeting doesn't have a marriage minute?  What if we honestly don't welcome LGBTQ folks openly and fully?  What if we wish we did, but we're just not in unity, and we're not going to pretend otherwise? 

Be honest about that.  You may be pleasantly surprised by the gifts the Spirit brings you.

What is FLGBTQC?

What is Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns?

Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns is a Quaker faith community within the Religious Society of Friends. FLGBTQC deeply honors, affirms, and upholds that of God in all people.

We seek to know that of God within ourselves and others. We seek to express God's truth in the Quaker and in the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transsexual/transgender communities, as it is made known to us.

It is our hope to offer an oasis to those who have been spurned by the world at large. We are learning that radical inclusion and radical love bring further light to Quaker testimony and life. Our experience with oppression in our own lives leads us to seek ways to bring our witness to bear in the struggles of other oppressed peoples.

We gather twice a year, at our Mid-Winter gathering and at the Friends General Conference Annual Gathering of Friends in the summer. At these times we worship together, discern our corporate witness through Meeting for Worship with attention to business, share our individual journeys, celebrate our lives, heal old wounds, and draw sustenance from the Spirit for our work and life in the world. After almost thirty years, we are still learning to spread love in the face of rejection and hostility and to embrace new friends. We have found faith and voice to speak truth to power and the courage to be open to new revelation.

(adapted from a minute approved 15 Second Month 1999)

For more information about FLGBTQC, Quakers, where to find us, how to get involved, etc, click here: http://flgbtqc.quaker.org/whatis.html.

FLGBTQC 2011 Mid-Winter Gathering

Reclaiming the Past
Proclaiming the Future

Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns

Join us at the Summit (Brown's Summit, NC)
http://tiny.cc/1mvsc
Newly Remodeled!

February 18-21, 2011

for

Mid-Winter Gathering

Need more info?
(MidWinter2011@gmail.com)

Invisibility: life, death, and reporting

A friend of mine, someone I care about, posted these three links about an apparent murder in Queens, two from the NY Times and one from the NY Daily News, to her Facebook Wall. Stunned discussion ensued.

I don't have anything terribly insightful or articulate to say about this. I am appalled. I expected better of the NY Times, but as one person pointed out, the NYT may have simply pulled the report off the police blotter, and they certainly posted a correction.

But, still. Argh, argh, argh.

The incredible disconnect between the first article and the other two. The disconnect between the reality of the person living her life and the perception of the world around her. The incredible, double invisibility.

I am sick and tired of being told the very reality of my actual experience doesn't exist because it doesn't match the pre-conceptions of reality other people, especially people in positions of power over me, hold. And I'm cis-gendered; I have that privilege. This dehumanization of a trans sister is appalling.

And it's not like it's new.

I am so, so sorry.

Man, 29, Found Stabbed to Death at Home in Queens

Transgender woman Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar found dead, naked in ransacked apartment

Detectives Investigate Killing of Woman in Queens

This American Life #374: "Somewhere Out There," Act Two, "Tom Girls"

I don't always listen to "This American Life," but it happened to be on when I got in the car after Meeting, and the segment was interesting, so I kept in on (even though I really wanted to be listening to Bruce Springsteen).

And, how I was both blindsided and rewarded by the second segment, "Tom Girls."

I'm curious -- anyone else who listened to it, how was it for you?

The Conservative Case For Gay Marriage - Newsweek.com

This is a powerful article. h/t Dominus.

Blessed be, and my gratitude to Ted Olsen.

- sm

The Conservative Case For Gay Marriage - Newsweek.com

Marriage is a civil bond in this country as well as, in some (but hardly all) cases, a religious sacrament. It is a relationship recognized by governments as providing a privileged and respected status, entitled to the state's support and benefits... Where the state has accorded official sanction to a relationship and provided special benefits to those who enter into that relationship, our courts have insisted that withholding that status requires powerful justifications and may not be arbitrarily denied...

Conservatives and liberals alike need to come together on principles that surely unite us. Certainly, we can agree on the value of strong families, lasting domestic relationships, and communities populated by persons with recognized and sanctioned bonds to one another... Even those whose religious convictions preclude endorsement of what they may perceive as an unacceptable "lifestyle" should recognize that disapproval should not warrant stigmatization and unequal treatment...

And, while our Constitution guarantees the freedom to exercise our individual religious convictions, it equally prohibits us from forcing our beliefs on others. I do not believe that our society can ever live up to the promise of equality, and the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, until we stop invidious discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

If we are born heterosexual, it is not unusual for us to perceive those who are born homosexual as aberrational and threatening. Many religions and much of our social culture have reinforced those impulses. Too often, that has led to prejudice, hostility, and discrimination. The antidote is understanding, and reason. We once tolerated laws throughout this nation that prohibited marriage between persons of different races... It seems inconceivable today that only 40 years ago there were places in this country where a black woman could not legally marry a white man. And it was only 50 years ago that 17 states mandated segregated public education—until the Supreme Court unanimously struck down that practice in Brown v. Board of Education. Most Americans are proud of these decisions and the fact that the discriminatory state laws that spawned them have been discredited. I am convinced that Americans will be equally proud when we no longer discriminate against gays and lesbians and welcome them into our society...

Americans who believe in the words of the Declaration of Independence, in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, in the 14th Amendment, and in the Constitution's guarantees of equal protection and equal dignity before the law cannot sit by while this wrong continues. This is not a conservative or liberal issue; it is an American one, and it is time that we, as Americans, embraced it.