Gay Passion of Christ controversy examined in new articles at Huff Post and Believe Out Loud

Two major new articles take an in-depth look at the controversy over repeated rejections of Facebook ads for the gay Passion of Christ book.

Believe Out Loud, a group promoting LGBTQ equality in the church, explored how the Passion ads raise larger issues of religious freedom on March 23 in:

“Gay Christian Facebook Ads Rejected and Resurrected”


Huffington Post focused on more secular issues of LGBTQ rights, censorship and press freedom on March 25 in:

“LGBT Christian Ads Shows Limits of Social Media”

Both articles are by Kittredge Cherry, author of “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision” and founder of the Jesus in Love Blog.

A news report also appeared in the Christian Times on March 28 titled, “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision' ads rejected by Facebook, art book offends depicting Jesus as a homosexual.”

Blasphemy or fresh perspectives? What others say

Charges of blasphemy are being hurled again against my queer Christian writing. This time the target is my new Rainbow Christ Prayer.

Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, a conservative Christian hate group devoted to “exposing and countering the homosexual activist agenda,” recently posted an attack titled Blasphemy 101: ‘Lesbian Christian’ Kittredge Cherry Offers ‘Rainbow Christ Prayer.’

The fun part is how they reprint the whole prayer, with the blasphemous parts conveniently highlighted in bold. It’s kind of like a red-letter Bible where the words of Jesus are printed in red ink. To Americans for Truth, the whole sexuality section of the Rainbow Christ Prayer is unmitigated blasphemy, while everything we wrote about love is OK. (They neglected to mention the name of my co-blasphemer, Patrick Cheng, who wrote the prayer with me.)

Meanwhile, my Jesus in Love blog was honored as a “meaty blog” with “fresh perspectives” on a new list of "12 Queer Blogs to Watch" at Where the Girls Go.

I’m not sure which is the greater compliment: To be praised by the young queers or condemned by the right wing conservatives!

Americans for Truth about Homosexuality was a 501(c)3 United States tax-exempt organization until that status was revoked in 2010 after years of failure to file appropriate paperwork. Headed by Peter LaBarbera, it is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The Rainbow Christ Prayer was published recently by Huffington Post in an article titled Rainbow Christ Prayer honors LGBT spirituality.

Conservatives attack Kitt’s queer Christ article

“The Crucifixion of the Christ”
by Becki Jayne Harrelson
appeared on the HuffPo article

Newsbusters.org, a major conservative watchdog group, posted an attack today on my recent Huff Post article on the queer Christ.

They called my ideas about the queer Christ “laughable” and “riddled with distortions, half-truths, fantasies, and baseless speculations” in an article titled “Huffington Post Promotes ‘Queer Christ.’” With a goal of “exposing and combating liberal media bias,” Newsbusters is a project of the Media Research Center, which has an annual budget of more than $10 million.

But even these wealthy conservatives cannot deny that Jesus may have been queer! They just believe that if he was homosexual, he was celibate. (I never said he wasn’t.)

As Newsbusters put it:

Cherry began her last paragraph with this ridiculous quote: “Being human, Jesus must have had sexual feelings. Being divine, Christ lives in every individual of every different shade of sexual orientation and gender identity.”

But being the perfect human, Christ was able to direct and control His impulses. Homosexuals are indeed welcomed by Christians – and can and do live happy and fulfilled lives – while still holding to Christian teachings on homosexuality.

At least they sent a lot more readers to my original article at Huff Post, Queer Christ Arises to Liberate and Heal.

Conservatives have called me names before and even gave me the “Dumb Dora Award for Blasphemous Burlesque.” But this is the first time that I’ve seen a detailed right-wing rebuttal the concept of a queer Christ. The fact that Newsbusters went to the trouble of denouncing the queer Christ actually proves the point I made at the beginning of my HuffPo piece: “Visions of a queer Christ are on the rise as Easter approaches this year.”

Kitt at HuffPost: Queer Christ Arises to Liberate and Heal

“The Crucifixion of the Christ” by Becki Jayne Harrelson

Today Huffington Post published my new article “Queer Christ Arises to Liberate and Heal.” It begins:

Visions of a queer Christ are on the rise as Easter approaches this year -- because the conventional Jesus is no longer enough. Christ's story is for everyone, but LGBT people get excluded when conservatives use Christian rhetoric to justify hate and discrimination….

Click this link to read and comment on the whole article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kittredge-cherry/queer-christ-arises-to-li_b_1374286.html

In the article I reflect on the growing number of queer Christ projects, including a new book, a new film and Becki Jayne Harrelson’s painting “The Crucifixion of the Christ” (pictured above).

Update: Newsbusters.org, a major conservative watchdog group, posted an attack on my recent Huff Post article on the queer Christ. Click here for more info

I was surprised when Huff Post chose a different (generic) crucifixion photo to promote my article on their Gay Voices page instead of one of the queer Christian images from my post. I assume that the word “faggot” in Becki Jayne's painting was too inflammatory, even though the context is speaking out against hate speech. Doug Blanchard’s painting of Jesus being tormented by the soldiers also appears in my post, but it shows anti-gay violence with nudity and the finger, so that too is a kind of obscenity. But why is the “normal” crucifixion picture OK? It’s just as violent and obscene, but people have grown numb to its meaning.

My “micro bio” at HuffPost says, “Kittredge Cherry: Lesbian Christian author and art historian; founder, JesusInLove.org.”

Huffington Post features Kittredge Cherry on LGBT Christian art

My writing is featured at Huffington Post starting today with my first piece, “Attack on LGBT Christian Art: An Ugly Trend Continues.”

See it now at the following link. Please leave a comment and share the link with friends:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kittredge-cherry/lgbt-christian-art_b_1229585.html

I’m thrilled and honored by my new role as an official blogger in the Gay Voices section of Huffington Post, an Internet newspaper that gets more than 35 million visitors per month. I will continue blogging regularly here at Jesus in Love too.

My first piece at HuffPost examines the recent attack on a gay and lesbian Nativity scene at a Claremont church, putting it into the larger context of an ugly trend targeting LGBT Christian art. I look forward to reading your comments at Huffington Post.