In memory of Ugandan LGBT rights activist David Kato

In memory of
David Kato
Ugandan LGBT rights activist
Murdered Jan. 26, 2011

David Kato

I light a memorial candle for David Kato Kisule, a Ugandan LGBT rights activist who was brutally beaten to death on January 26. He is considered a father of Uganda's gay rights movement. Shortly before his murder David won a lawsuit against a magazine for identifying him as gay and calling for his execution.

American evangelicals who promoted the death penalty law for homosexuals in Uganda helped create the hostile atmosphere in which this hate crime occurred.

I offer prayers for David Kato, his family and friends, and all who share his passion for justice. May we honor his legacy by continuing to work for justice and equality for all. May David Kato find peace with all the other LGBT martyrs and saints who have gone before him.

Update on 2/7/11: I added a powerful video about David Kato from "The Rachel Maddow Show." Be sure to watch it to see scenes from David’s funeral and hear David’s own voice in an NPR interview about homosexuality in Uganda. At the funeral Ugandan clergy speak both for and against LGBT rights. Very moving!

More info is available at the following links:

Wikipedia

Wild Reed Blog

Walking with Integrity Blog: Martyrs of Uganda by Caroline Hall, president of Integrity USA

Counterlight's Peculiars Blog

Cool workshop: Queer Christ and the Queen

Her Majesty looks down on a nude black Jesus as Axel Schwaigert teaches

Queen Elizabeth seemed to look down in disapproval when images of Jesus as black, gay or female were shown at a European church conference recently.

The alternative Christ figures were shown by Axel Schwaigert in his workshop “Art That Dares: Images of the Holy” at the European Conference of Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC) held in Manchester, England in November.

Schwaigert, pastor of MCC Stuttgart, Germany, says he was so busy presenting the Europakonferenz workshop that he didn’t notice the odd contrast between Her Majesty and the controversial art.

An especially funny photo (above) shows a prim and proper queen looking down her nose at a triumphant black Jesus in all his naked glory. The painting is “Triumph of the Light” by Becki Jayne Harrelson.

Much of the art in the workshop has offended conservative Christians, but Schwaigert said that it inspired the people at his workshop, adding “Somebody immediately drew a transgendered female to male christ!”

Schwaigert went on to report, “I already suspected that people would not be shocked. We Europeans deal differently with nudity than the average American. But it was so interesting to see how people started to think... I showed one of the female christs, very beautiful and naked on the cross and somebody asked: and where am I? where is the middle aged women, slightly out of shape, with hanging [breasts]...? And that is exactly the kind of thinking we need: Where am I in all of that...”

Schwaigert hopes to lead the workshop again for more conservative audiences. His workshop included many images from my book “Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More.”

Axel Schwaigert discusses the female “Christ Sophia” icon by Robert Lentz

Christ’s torment and queer suffering: More on Wojnarowicz censorship

Christ with Ants from the David Wojnarowicz video
“A Fire in My Belly”

Insightful essays continue to be written about the Smithsonian’s censorship of gay artist David Wojnarowicz’ video “Fire in the Belly” because of its controversial ant-covered crucifix.

I have come to believe that conservative Christians condemned the Wojnarowicz video precisely because it equates Christ’s torment with queer / LGBT suffering. They do NOT want Christ to be identified with lesbian, gay, bi and trans people at all.

Here are highlights from some of the best new essays on the controversy and its LGBT Christian meanings. Click the titles to see the whole essay:

X-Ray of Civilization: David Wojnarowicz and the Politics of Representation
“What seems to be truly unconscionable for critics of Wojnarowicz’s art is its forceful imputation of the analogy between the Biblical torment of Christ and the contemporary suffering of queer bodies and subjects.”
by Leon Hilton of bullybloggers: the queer bully pulpit

Sacrilege Or Censorship? Christians Enraged by Art with Gay, Religious Images by Stuart Wilber of thenewcivilrightsmovement.com
“This was not the first time that an exhibition that included LGBT or religious imagery had been censored and undoubtedly not the last.”

Art, Censorship, and the Scandal of the Cross
“God doesn’t need Christians to act as intellectual property watchdogs.”
by Patrick S Cheng, gay Asian American theologian and author of Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology

Wojnarowicz’s Ant-Covered Jesus: Blasphemy or Religious Art?
“That Christ on the cross is actually dead, and the body so dead that ants might eat it, is both the most orthodox Christian statement, and the most scandalous.”
by S. Brent Plate, religion professor and author of Blasphemy: Art that Offends

For more info, see our previous posts: “Smithsonian censors gay artist when conservatives attack”.

Christ’s torment and queer suffering: More on Wojnarowicz censorship (Jesus in Love)

St. Aelred: Gay saint of friendship

St. Aelred of Rievaulx

By Brother Robert Lentz, OFM. © 1992

Courtesy of www.trinitystores.com (800.699.4482)

Collection of the Living Circle, Chicago, IL

Saint Aelred (1109-1167) is considered one of the most lovable saints, the patron saint of friendship and also, some say, gay. His feast day is Jan. 12.

Aelred was the abbott of the Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx in England. His treatise “On Spiritual Friendship” is still one of the best theological statements on the connection between human and spiritual love. “God is friendship… He who abides in friendship abides in God, and God in him,” he wrote, paraphrasing 1 John 4:16.

Aelred’s own deep friendships with men are described in “Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality” by Yale history professor John Boswell. “There can be little question that Aelred was gay and that his erotic attraction to men was a dominant force in his life,” Boswell wrote.

Boswell’s account inspired the members of the LGBT Episcopal group Integrity to name Aelred as their patron saint. Click here for the full story on how they won recognition for their gay saint.

Aelred certainly advocated chastity, but his passions are clear in his writing. He describes friendship with eloquence in this often-quoted passage:

“It is no small consolation in this life to have someone who can unite with you in an intimate affection and the embrace of a holy love, someone in whom your spirit can rest, to whom you can pour out your soul, to whose pleasant exchanges, as to soothing songs, you can fly in sorrow... with whose spiritual kisses, as with remedial salves, you may draw out all the weariness of your restless anxieties. A man who can shed tears with you in your worries, be happy with you when things go well, search out with you the answers to your problems, whom with the ties of charity you can lead into the depths of your heart; . . . where the sweetness of the Spirit flows between you, where you so join yourself and cleave to him that soul mingles with soul and two become one.”

The icon of Saint Aelred was painted by Robert Lentz, a Franciscan friar and world-class iconographer known for his innovative icons. It includes a banner with Aelred’s words, “Friend cleaving to friend in the spirit of Christ.”
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This post is part of the GLBT Saints series at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints and holy people of special interest to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

Icons of St. Aelred and many others are available on cards, plaques, T-shirts, mugs, candles, mugs, and more at Trinity Stores

Nursing Madonna honors body, spirit and women

Nursing Madonna: Our Lady of Travels to Life with Reality

Photo by Trudie Barreras

An unusual nursing Madonna statue emphasizes the body-to-body connection between Mary and the baby Jesus.

The nursing Madonna figurine illustrates the flight into Egypt that is remembered this time of year. According to the gospel of Matthew, the Holy Family traveled from Bethlehem to Egypt after an angel warned them that King Herod would try to kill the infant Jesus.

It’s important to honor the breastfeeding Madonna because Christianity has often denied women’s experiences and the human body itself. We return to wholeness and balance by valuing the natural act of nursing as holy and good.

Some people were shocked by the bare breasts of the Madonna when Atlanta writer Trudie Barreras put the statue in a meditation chapel at her church. The pastor regretfully asked her to take it home. For the full story about the statue, see our previous post “Nursing Madonna shocks and inspires.”

In her monologue “Miriam’s Journey,” Barreras does a wonderful job of describing the physical sensations and spiritual musings of Mary as she nursed on donkey back. Here is an excerpt:

We soon became aware
Our little Yeshua needed safety greater than was offered
By our small-town obscurity.

So my brave Joseph took us forth on a retracing of the journey
Followed by our ancestor Joseph as he was led in slavery to Egypt.

That was when reality came crashing in!
I’d thought the way was hard
When first we went to Bethlehem!
Yet now I held the babe within my arms
For every dusty, weary, jolting league.
Mile after mile, day after day,
Nothing to be seen but rocks and thorn-trees
And endless burning desert sands.
The patient donkey plodded on
While Joseph walked the path ahead,
Probing crevices for serpents, scanning horizons for raiders.

I was afraid, yet somehow I saw with doubled vision
As I gazed into that infant face,
For God was here, and we had Abba’s promise
That if we did our part, and followed faithfully,
And did not turn aside from this hard path,
The angels would be there to guide us.
And oh, the blessing of those warm lips upon my breast,
Drawing nourishment and love from my deepest being!
I knew then what I have clung to ever since –
Somehow that vast Omniscient Spirit of the Cosmos,
All Powerful, Eternal, All Supreme,
Has chosen us, weak mortals that we are
To bear Love’s fragile gifts to one another!
We matter! What a miracle, we matter!
What an awesome challenge,
Knowing that if we don’t bear our burdens in obedience
Incredible blessings for humanity are lost.
It was these thoughts that kept me going
Long after weary arms would have let go!

At last that first hard journey ended, but of course
Really our pilgrimage had just begun.

For another excerpt from “Miriam’s Journey,” see our previous post “Eros & Christ: Mary’s Ecstasy in Drama.”

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Related link:
Our Lady of Milk: 20 Images of Mother Mary Nursing (St. Peter’s List)