From Selma to Palm Sunday: A gay vision

News photos of the recent Selma march bear an uncanny resemblance to the Palm Sunday painting in a gay vision of Christ’s Passion painted 14 years ago.

President Obama led the crowd marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 7 for the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” -- a civil rights march that ended there in violent confrontation with police.

New York artist Doug Blanchard used photos of civil rights marches as inspiration when he painted “Jesus Enters the City” and other images in “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision.” He shows Jesus as a gay man of today in a modern city. All 24 paintings are included in a new book with reflections by lesbian theologian Kittredge Cherry.

It is eerie how much images look alike. The Selma march and the Palm Sunday painting both show a thin black man in a white shirt and tie walking beside a person in a wheelchair at the front of the crowd. Even the bridge in Selma looks similar to the arch that Blanchard imagined. He painted this in 2001 -- before 9/11 and long before Obama was president. It’s like he saw the future.

One big difference is that Jesus is missing from the news photo. Blanchard’s Christ figure is not the Obama look-alike, but a young gay man riding a donkey in the middle of the crowd.

In the Bible the Palm Sunday march into Jerusalem leads up to Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion. Let’s hope the similarity does not go that far.

A full reflection on “Jesus Enters the City” will launch a series on the gay Passion of Christ at the Jesus in Love Blog on Palm Sunday, March 29. Daily reflections will continue through Holy Week until Easter.

The image at the top of this post comes from “Introduction to the Queer Christ,” a Slate Project video by Sara Shisler Goff. She combines an Associated Press photo by Jacqueline Martin with “Jesus Enters the City” by Doug Blanchard and prophetic words by martyred civil rights icon Martin Luther King: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

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Related links:
Fifty Years After 'Bloody Sunday,' Obama Calls Selma a Place Where Meaning of America Was Defined (ABC News)

Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision book website

My first LGBT Pride march, 1986

Kittredge Cherry, second from right, at the Lesbian and Gay Freedom Day Parade in San Francisco, on June 29, 1986. Her partner Audrey is third from right.

One of the happiest days of my life was my first lesbian and gay freedom march in June 1986. (Back then, 26 years ago, we didn’t yet use the terms “LGBT” or “Pride.”)

My partner Audrey and I had recently moved to San Francisco after a rough coming-out process with our families and friends. We found a new lesbian- and gay-affirming community by joining Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco. But we were still afraid when our new friends invited us to march in the Freedom Day parade with them. We were held back by the years spent hiding our love in closets of shame. We told our friends that we would watch the parade from the sidelines.

When the big day came, I was stunned to see queer people of all kinds proudly marching by the hundred while thousands more clapped and cheered. The people in the parade showed me a seemingly endless variety of ways to be gay, from “dykes on bikes” to outrageous drag queens. News reports estimated the crowd at 100,000. It seemed like LGBT people had taken over the whole city, marching down Market Street while rainbow flags hung from the street lights all the way to City Hall.

Then we saw our friends approach with the Metropolitan Community Church banner. Audrey and I couldn’t watch from the curb any longer. We decided together instantly: “Let’s go!”

We ran into the street and grabbed the banner. My heart soared. A friend snapped a photo to record our joy. It truly was Freedom Day, the day that this lesbian broke free of shame and learned to let her love shine.

The smile on my face says it all: I'm free to be me!

Pride photo: Maybe Jesus Was Gay

“Just a Thought” by San Diego Shooter Nathan Rupert

“Maybe Jesus Was Gay” declared a festive sign in the 2010 San Diego LGBT Pride parade July 17.

It was carried by the group from Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Carlsbad, CA.

Progressive Bible scholars believe that the gay Jesus is a real likelihood, and artists are envisioning it. Chicago Theological Seminary professor Theodore Jennings explores the Biblical hints about Jesus’ homosexuality in “The Man Jesus Loved.” I gathered some of the best queer Christ images into my book “Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More.”

Special thanks to Eric Isaacson for alerting me to the photo above and taking the photo below. You made this post happen!

Video: I’m a lesbian, and I believe in equality

I made a new video for the National Equality March supporting full equality for all LGBT Americans. The video is part of the “I Believe in Equality” campaign to prepare for the march on Oct. 10-11 in Washington, DC. Every Equality March video features somebody making a short statement for justice: “My name is ____ (your name), I am ____ (your sexual orientation or gender identity), I am from the __th Congressional District of ____ (your congressional district number and your state), and I believe in full equality for all straight and LGBT Americans.” I expected the videos to be similar because we all follow the same script. But the videos are surprisingly varied! In fact, I am one of the few who says, “I am a lesbian.” There are many variations beyond the “classic” categories of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. Some participants identify themselves as “genderqueer” or “pansexual transman” -- and I was also pleasantly surprised to see many straight allies in the videos. Click here to see a diverse group of “I Believe in Equality” videos. For the video, I fulfilled my long-time dream of creating a T-shirt with the JesusInLove.org logo. I’m wearing my new T-shirt in the video -- and you can get one, too. Click here for info on how to order a JesusInLove.org T-shirt. The shirt can be customized into a variety of sizes, styles and fabrics. The logo includes a pink triangle as the “V” in the word “love.” Gay prisoners wore pink triangles in Nazi concentration camps. Following Christ’s example, JesusInLove.org joins queer people in transforming suffering into power. Are you going to attend the National Equality March? If so, please contact me so we can post your reports, photos and videos here at the Jesus in Love Blog.

Signs of pride: “Maybe Jesus was gay!”

Church members carried a sign saying “Maybe Jesus was gay!” at the San Diego Pride march, according to a tip sent by a Jesus in Love supporter.

Does anybody have a photo of it? If so, please contact us so we can share it on this blog.

2010 UPDATE:
You can now see the photo at this link:
http://jesusinlove.blogspot.com/2010/08/pride-photo-maybe-jesus-was-gay.html