Uganda Martyrs raise questions on homosexuality, religion and LGBT rights

Uganda Martyrs (with Saint Charles Lwanga in the center) by Albert Wider (Wikimedia Commons)

Tough questions about homosexuality, religion and LGBT rights are raised by the Uganda Martyrs whose feast day is June 3.

Forty-five Ugandan male pages refused to have sex with their king after they converted to Christianity -- so he executed them. Many were burned to death on June 3, 1886. These boys and young men were canonized by the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, leaving some truths hidden by their halos.

For a new version of this article, click this link to Qspirit.net:
Uganda Martyrs raise questions on religion and LGBTQ rights


Does the experience of the Ugandan martyrs illustrate a gay king being oppressed and demonized by conservative Christians? Or does it exemplify Christians heroically trying to rescue boys from sexual abuse by a pedophile king? Did Christians teach young African men shame about their own same-gender-loving desires? Or did Christians give the pages a way to refuse rape by a ruler with absolute authority? Maybe the truth lies somewhere in between? How can the story be interpreted so that LGBT Ugandans have equal access to justice... and to God?

The Uganda Martyrs are little known in the West, but they are famous in much of Africa. Martyrs Day on June 3 is a national holiday in Uganda. The story is called “African Christianity’s most celebrated martyr-passion narrative” by religion scholar Kenneth Hamilton. They were canonized in 1964 by Pope Paul VI.

The 45 martyrs were executed in 1886, but they are still important now with Uganda at the center of worldwide debate on homosexuality and the recent release of the film “God Loves Uganda.” The award-winning documentary exposes the role of today’s American evangelical missionaries in persecuting LGBT Africans and promoting a harsher law against homosexuality.

Once again LGBT Christians are caught in the middle as conservative Christians and LGBT advocates offer dueling interpretations use the story of the Ugandan martyrs for their own purposes. Perhaps this uncomfortable position gives a perspective that can shed fresh light on the event. The history doesn’t fit neatly into the usual debates about the church versus homosexuality.

The Uganda Martyrs have been used to instill homophobia and, as Pope Pope John Paul II put it, “to draw Uganda and all of Africa to Christ.” The story weaves together homo-hatred, racism, and imperialism that are still affecting the world today. Conservatives play up the sexual angle in salacious detail to win converts, discredit the LGBT-rights movement and promote “chastity.” At the other extreme, LGBT-rights advocates use the story to prove that homosexuality was indigenous to Africa, not a “western import” as the anti-gay faction claims. They tend to ignore the difference between sex and rape, while both sides blur the line between homosexuality and pedophilia.

Ultimately the story leads back to the same questions that people of faith are grappling with all over the world now: How can the church condemn sexual abuse while still affirming the goodness of sexuality, including same-sex relationships? The search for a new LGBT-positive sexual ethics is expressed in books such as “Sex as God Intended” by gay priest and psychotherapist John McNeill and “Sexuality and the Sacred,” edited by James B. Nelson and Sandra P. Longfellow.

Today’s understanding of human psychology shows that rape is violence, not sex, and that pedophilia is not homosexuality, regardless of the gender of the child targeted. Christianity has been used to oppress queer people and colonize native peoples, but sometimes it has also provided an escape from abuse and an alternative to heterosexual marriage.

I watched “God Loves Uganda” for the first time in 2014 when it was broadcast on PBS (and released on DVD). Many others have praised the film, so I will focus here on questions that it raised in my mind.

I agree that American evangelicals are whipping up anti-LGBT sentiments in Uganda now to fuel their own power and egos. I also agree that American LGBT activists should be involved to some extent in Uganda to counteract the hate that is being imported. Thanks in part to the film, Uganda’s new Anti-Homosexuality Act law was eased so that homosexuality is punished by imprisonment, not the death penalty.

But what do Ugandans really want, apart from all this outside influence? Before Europeans brought Christianity and colonialism, what did the people of Uganda think about homosexuality?

It’s hard to say. I did a lot of research, but reliable answers are not easy to find. Sara Weschler offers the insights of a foreigner working in Uganda in her article, “How the West Was Wrong: Misunderstanding Uganda’s Gay Rights Crisis Makes It Worse” at Ttruthdig.com:

“One problem with Western LGBT activism vis-à-vis Uganda is that it is largely carried out by people who know little about the country beyond its stance on sexual orientation.... Gay rights will come to Uganda, but they will come slowly, and they will come only as part of a wider movement toward social justice in the country.”

Like many progressive reports on Uganda and homosexuality, the movie “God Loves Uganda” doesn’t even mention the Uganda Martyrs. It’s easier to omit the inconvenient truth of male-male sexual exploitation in the past. But no history of homosexuality in Uganda is complete without discussing the Ugandan martyrs killed in1886.

Here is a closer look at what happened. The Uganda Martyrs died at a time of tremendous change and culture clash in Uganda. The first Christian missionaries had arrived there only about a decade earlier in 1877. Arabs introduced Islam to Uganda at about the same time. It was still a few years before the British annexed the country in 1884.

King Mwanga II of Bugunda, now part of Uganda, was having sex on demand with the young men (and maybe boys) who served as his pages. He has been called “Africa’s most famous homosexual.” But maybe his sexuality was more complex. He had wives and children, so he might have been bisexual. He has been labeled a pedophile, but he was still a teenager himself. He began to reign at age 16 and was about 18 at the time of the executions. No matter how old the king’s sex partners were, requiring sexual service on pain of death is more like rape than gay sex between consenting adults. The youngest martyr, Saint Kizito, was about fourteen year old.

Saint Kizito, Uganda Martyr (Wikimedia Commons)

The crisis started when the king’s favorite pageboy, Mwafu, joined others in resisting his sexual demands. The royal pages were members of the elite, the noble sons of chiefs, but they ranked low in the king’s court. Some of them converted to Christianity and started denying King Mwanga the usual “pleasure,” so he rounded up the pages and ordered them to choose between him and Christianity. Only three chose the king. The rest of the pages got the death sentence. A large group ended up being marched eight miles and burned to death on Namugongo hill, where a shrine has been built. When all the killing was done, the victims were 23 Anglicans and 22 Catholics, including chief pages Joseph Mukasa (first black Catholic martyr on the African continent) and Charles Lwanga.

“St. Charles Lwanga” by Julile Lonneman (TrinityStores.com)

The earliest accounts report that the king had sex with his male pages, but over the years there has been increasing emphasis on the “sinful demands” and “perversion” of the “debauched” king. Toxic colonial hagiography mixed homophobia with racist fears about the “dark.” uncivilized, heathens of Africa. The dead were quickly nominated as saints, and were canonized as official martyrs in the Roman Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran churches.

A helpful queer analysis of the martyrdom is provided by Kenneth Lewis Hamilton, who wrote about the Uganda Martyrs in several scholarly articles and in his Ph.D. dissertation at Union Institute and University. Hamilton identifies himself as “an Afri-guided, postcolonial, queer, ordained, Catholic missioner.” He writes in an article titled “The Flames of Namugongo: Postcoloniality Meets Queer on African Soil?”:

And so, the establishment of Christianity—particularly Roman Catholic and Anglican Christianity—in Uganda directly coincides with a narrative about transgressive same sex desire. This makes for a provocative beginning for Christian discourse in Eastern Africa; and the subsequent canonization of the martyrs inscribes dark, dangerous desire into the very skin of Christian Uganda. The canonization, indeed, is a preached message; the narrative of the “martyrdom” now becomes part of a canon of new narratives: the ones about sodomy, race, desire and conquest.

The same article concludes:

I want to get more pictures of the martyrs into African chapels and online….I want more pictures of the martyr-boys on our black Catholic walls. These are the bodies and clans that now inhabit the heavens. But they do so like the slaves did: as a subversive presence, smiling in your face, but always ready to revolt and set each other free.

Inspired by these words by Hamilton, I searched the Internet for images of the Ugandan martyrs to accompany this reflection. First I found various icons.  Then I was stunned to discover an actual group photograph of the martyrs themselves, taken about a year before they were killed. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the photo for a long time. And their faces still haunt me.

Some of the future Uganda Martyrs were photographed in 1885, less than a year before they were killed, at Bukumbi Mission in Mwanza (northern Tanganyika). They went there to welcome the new Catholic bishop, Leon Livinhac.

I was doubly surprised that the queer analysis of the Ugandan martyrs in “The Flames of Namugongo” included a prayer from one of my own books, “Equal Rites.”

I wanted to end this reflection with a prayer too. First I looked at the official church prayers dedicated to the Uganda Martyrs, but they focused heavily on Christian faith and even “chastity, purity, and sexual morality.” They didn’t seem suitable for a reflection that seeks to develop a new ethics and spirituality that affirms loving same-sex relationships between consenting adults.

So I bring this to a close with the same prayer that Hamilton quoted from “Equal Rites.” These words were written by Elias (Ibrahim) Farajaje-Jones in his “Invocation of Remembrance, Healing, and Empowerment in a Time of AIDS”:

Yes, we honor you, our sisters and brothers.
Yes, we remember and recognize you have gone before us.
Without you, we would not exist here today.
Through us, you live on from generation to generation, from everlasting to everlasting.
And so we commit ourselves to a spirit of resistance and life.
We raise our light, our lives, our hope, our love, and we say boldly
and without fear, "Never again!" [Equal Rites, page 27]

I give the last word to one of the Uganda Martyrs. These lines are attributed to Bruno Serunkuma, spoken shortly before he was killed:

"A well that has many sources never runs dry. When we are gone, others will come after us."

___
To read this article in Spanish / en español, go to Santos Queer:
Mártires de Uganda plantean preguntas sobre la homosexualidad, la religión y los derechos LGBTI

To read this article in Italian, go to:
Cristianesimo e omosessualità in Africa: la vicenda dei martiri ugandesi (gionata.org)

___
Related links, queer interpretations and news:

Report: Anti-LGBT persecution increased under Uganda law (Washington Blade 2016)

“Colonial Legacies, Decolonized Spirits: Balboa, Ugandan Martyrs and AIDS Solidarity Today” by Kenneth Hamilton (Journal of Bisexuality)

“When Sodomy Leads to Martyrdom: Sex, Religion, and Politics in Historical and Contemporary Contexts in Uganda and East Africa” by John Blevins (Journal of Bisexuality)

Uganda Martyrs: Charles Lwanga and Companions (Queering the Church)

The Martyrs of Uganda witness against sexual violence (Daily Episcopalian)


Books:

"Christianity and Controversies over Homosexuality in Contemporary Africa" by Ezra Chitando and Adriaan van Klinken (Editors)

“Heterosexual Africa?: The History of an Idea from the Age of Exploration to the Age of AIDS” (book) by Marc Epprecht

“Freedom To Love For ALL: Homosexuality is not Un-African” (book) by Yemisi Ilesanmi

“American Culture Warriors in Africa: A Guide to the Exporters of Homophobia and Sexism” by Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma

“Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African Homosexualities” (book) by Will Roscoe


___
Related links, Catholic and standard Christian interpretations:

Uganda Martyrs’ Shrine (official website)

St. Charles Lwanga and Companions (Catholic.org)

The Story of the Ugandan Martyrs (America magazine)

The Uganda Martyrs: Their Countercultural Witness Still Speaks Today (The Word Among Us)

“African Holocaust: The Story of the Uganda Martyrs” (book) by John F. Faupel (Author)


___
Related links at Jesus in Love:

David Kato: Ugandan LGBT rights activist (1964-2011)

A saint for kidnapped girls of Nigeria: Josephine Bakhita

Icons of Charles Lwanga and many others are available on cards, plaques, T-shirts, mugs, candles, mugs, and more at TrinityStores.com



___
This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBTQ martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.

Uganda Martyrs raise questions on homosexuality, religion and LGBT rights

Uganda Martyrs (with Saint Charles Lwanga in the center) by Albert Wider (Wikimedia Commons)

Tough questions about homosexuality, religion and LGBT rights are raised by the Uganda Martyrs whose feast day is June 3.

Forty-five Ugandan male pages refused to have sex with their king after they converted to Christianity -- so he executed them. Many were burned to death on June 3, 1886. These boys and young men were canonized by the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, leaving some truths hidden by their halos.


For a new version of this article, click this link to Qspirit.net:
Uganda Martyrs raise questions on religion and LGBTQ rights

Does the experience of the Ugandan martyrs illustrate a gay king being oppressed and demonized by conservative Christians? Or does it exemplify Christians heroically trying to rescue boys from sexual abuse by a pedophile king? Did Christians teach young African men shame about their own same-gender-loving desires? Or did Christians give the pages a way to refuse rape by a ruler with absolute authority? Maybe the truth lies somewhere in between? How can the story be interpreted so that LGBT Ugandans have equal access to justice... and to God?

The Uganda Martyrs are little known in the West, but they are famous in much of Africa. Martyrs Day on June 3 is a national holiday in Uganda. The story is called “African Christianity’s most celebrated martyr-passion narrative” by religion scholar Kenneth Hamilton. They were canonized in 1964 by Pope Paul VI.

The 45 martyrs were executed in 1886, but they are still important now with Uganda at the center of worldwide debate on homosexuality and the recent release of the film “God Loves Uganda.” The award-winning documentary exposes the role of today’s American evangelical missionaries in persecuting LGBT Africans and promoting a harsher law against homosexuality.

Once again LGBT Christians are caught in the middle as conservative Christians and LGBT advocates offer dueling interpretations use the story of the Ugandan martyrs for their own purposes. Perhaps this uncomfortable position gives a perspective that can shed fresh light on the event. The history doesn’t fit neatly into the usual debates about the church versus homosexuality.

The Uganda Martyrs have been used to instill homophobia and, as Pope Pope John Paul II put it, “to draw Uganda and all of Africa to Christ.” The story weaves together homo-hatred, racism, and imperialism that are still affecting the world today. Conservatives play up the sexual angle in salacious detail to win converts, discredit the LGBT-rights movement and promote “chastity.” At the other extreme, LGBT-rights advocates use the story to prove that homosexuality was indigenous to Africa, not a “western import” as the anti-gay faction claims. They tend to ignore the difference between sex and rape, while both sides blur the line between homosexuality and pedophilia.

Ultimately the story leads back to the same questions that people of faith are grappling with all over the world now: How can the church condemn sexual abuse while still affirming the goodness of sexuality, including same-sex relationships? The search for a new LGBT-positive sexual ethics is expressed in books such as “Sex as God Intended” by gay priest and psychotherapist John McNeill and “Sexuality and the Sacred,” edited by James B. Nelson and Sandra P. Longfellow.

Today’s understanding of human psychology shows that rape is violence, not sex, and that pedophilia is not homosexuality, regardless of the gender of the child targeted. Christianity has been used to oppress queer people and colonize native peoples, but sometimes it has also provided an escape from abuse and an alternative to heterosexual marriage.

I watched “God Loves Uganda” for the first time in 2014 when it was broadcast on PBS (and released on DVD). Many others have praised the film, so I will focus here on questions that it raised in my mind.

I agree that American evangelicals are whipping up anti-LGBT sentiments in Uganda now to fuel their own power and egos. I also agree that American LGBT activists should be involved to some extent in Uganda to counteract the hate that is being imported. Thanks in part to the film, Uganda’s new Anti-Homosexuality Act law was eased so that homosexuality is punished by imprisonment, not the death penalty.

But what do Ugandans really want, apart from all this outside influence? Before Europeans brought Christianity and colonialism, what did the people of Uganda think about homosexuality?

It’s hard to say. I did a lot of research, but reliable answers are not easy to find. Sara Weschler offers the insights of a foreigner working in Uganda in her article, “How the West Was Wrong: Misunderstanding Uganda’s Gay Rights Crisis Makes It Worse” at Ttruthdig.com:

“One problem with Western LGBT activism vis-à-vis Uganda is that it is largely carried out by people who know little about the country beyond its stance on sexual orientation.... Gay rights will come to Uganda, but they will come slowly, and they will come only as part of a wider movement toward social justice in the country.”

Like many progressive reports on Uganda and homosexuality, the movie “God Loves Uganda” doesn’t even mention the Uganda Martyrs. It’s easier to omit the inconvenient truth of male-male sexual exploitation in the past. But no history of homosexuality in Uganda is complete without discussing the Ugandan martyrs killed in1886.

Here is a closer look at what happened. The Uganda Martyrs died at a time of tremendous change and culture clash in Uganda. The first Christian missionaries had arrived there only about a decade earlier in 1877. Arabs introduced Islam to Uganda at about the same time. It was still a few years before the British annexed the country in 1884.

King Mwanga II of Bugunda, now part of Uganda, was having sex on demand with the young men (and maybe boys) who served as his pages. He has been called “Africa’s most famous homosexual.” But maybe his sexuality was more complex. He had wives and children, so he might have been bisexual. He has been labeled a pedophile, but he was still a teenager himself. He began to reign at age 16 and was about 18 at the time of the executions. No matter how old the king’s sex partners were, requiring sexual service on pain of death is more like rape than gay sex between consenting adults. The youngest martyr, Saint Kizito, was about fourteen year old.

Saint Kizito, Uganda Martyr (Wikimedia Commons)

The crisis started when the king’s favorite pageboy, Mwafu, joined others in resisting his sexual demands. The royal pages were members of the elite, the noble sons of chiefs, but they ranked low in the king’s court. Some of them converted to Christianity and started denying King Mwanga the usual “pleasure,” so he rounded up the pages and ordered them to choose between him and Christianity. Only three chose the king. The rest of the pages got the death sentence. A large group ended up being marched eight miles and burned to death on Namugongo hill, where a shrine has been built. When all the killing was done, the victims were 23 Anglicans and 22 Catholics, including chief pages Joseph Mukasa (first black Catholic martyr on the African continent) and Charles Lwanga.

“St. Charles Lwanga” by Julile Lonneman (TrinityStores.com)

The earliest accounts report that the king had sex with his male pages, but over the years there has been increasing emphasis on the “sinful demands” and “perversion” of the “debauched” king. Toxic colonial hagiography mixed homophobia with racist fears about the “dark.” uncivilized, heathens of Africa. The dead were quickly nominated as saints, and were canonized as official martyrs in the Roman Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran churches.

A helpful queer analysis of the martyrdom is provided by Kenneth Lewis Hamilton, who wrote about the Uganda Martyrs in several scholarly articles and in his Ph.D. dissertation at Union Institute and University. Hamilton identifies himself as “an Afri-guided, postcolonial, queer, ordained, Catholic missioner.” He writes in an article titled “The Flames of Namugongo: Postcoloniality Meets Queer on African Soil?”:

And so, the establishment of Christianity—particularly Roman Catholic and Anglican Christianity—in Uganda directly coincides with a narrative about transgressive same sex desire. This makes for a provocative beginning for Christian discourse in Eastern Africa; and the subsequent canonization of the martyrs inscribes dark, dangerous desire into the very skin of Christian Uganda. The canonization, indeed, is a preached message; the narrative of the “martyrdom” now becomes part of a canon of new narratives: the ones about sodomy, race, desire and conquest.

The same article concludes:

I want to get more pictures of the martyrs into African chapels and online….I want more pictures of the martyr-boys on our black Catholic walls. These are the bodies and clans that now inhabit the heavens. But they do so like the slaves did: as a subversive presence, smiling in your face, but always ready to revolt and set each other free.

Inspired by these words by Hamilton, I searched the Internet for images of the Ugandan martyrs to accompany this reflection. First I found various icons.  Then I was stunned to discover an actual group photograph of the martyrs themselves, taken about a year before they were killed. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the photo for a long time. And their faces still haunt me.

Some of the future Uganda Martyrs were photographed in 1885, less than a year before they were killed, at Bukumbi Mission in Mwanza (northern Tanganyika). They went there to welcome the new Catholic bishop, Leon Livinhac.

I was doubly surprised that the queer analysis of the Ugandan martyrs in “The Flames of Namugongo” included a prayer from one of my own books, “Equal Rites.”

I wanted to end this reflection with a prayer too. First I looked at the official church prayers dedicated to the Uganda Martyrs, but they focused heavily on Christian faith and even “chastity, purity, and sexual morality.” They didn’t seem suitable for a reflection that seeks to develop a new ethics and spirituality that affirms loving same-sex relationships between consenting adults.

So I bring this to a close with the same prayer that Hamilton quoted from “Equal Rites.” These words were written by Elias (Ibrahim) Farajaje-Jones in his “Invocation of Remembrance, Healing, and Empowerment in a Time of AIDS”:

Yes, we honor you, our sisters and brothers.
Yes, we remember and recognize you have gone before us.
Without you, we would not exist here today.
Through us, you live on from generation to generation, from everlasting to everlasting.
And so we commit ourselves to a spirit of resistance and life.
We raise our light, our lives, our hope, our love, and we say boldly
and without fear, "Never again!" [Equal Rites, page 27]

I give the last word to one of the Uganda Martyrs. These lines are attributed to Bruno Serunkuma, spoken shortly before he was killed:

"A well that has many sources never runs dry. When we are gone, others will come after us."

___
To read this post in Spanish / en español, go to Santos Queer:
Mártires de Uganda plantean preguntas sobre la homosexualidad, la religión y los derechos LGBTI

___
Related links, queer interpretations and news:

Report: Anti-LGBT persecution increased under Uganda law (Washington Blade 2016)

“Colonial Legacies, Decolonized Spirits: Balboa, Ugandan Martyrs and AIDS Solidarity Today” by Kenneth Hamilton (Journal of Bisexuality)

“When Sodomy Leads to Martyrdom: Sex, Religion, and Politics in Historical and Contemporary Contexts in Uganda and East Africa” by John Blevins (Journal of Bisexuality)

Uganda Martyrs: Charles Lwanga and Companions (Queering the Church)

The Martyrs of Uganda witness against sexual violence (Daily Episcopalian)


Books:

"Christianity and Controversies over Homosexuality in Contemporary Africa" by Ezra Chitando and Adriaan van Klinken (Editors)

“Heterosexual Africa?: The History of an Idea from the Age of Exploration to the Age of AIDS” (book) by Marc Epprecht

“Freedom To Love For ALL: Homosexuality is not Un-African” (book) by Yemisi Ilesanmi

“American Culture Warriors in Africa: A Guide to the Exporters of Homophobia and Sexism” by Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma

“Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African Homosexualities” (book) by Will Roscoe


___
Related links, Catholic and standard Christian interpretations:

Uganda Martyrs’ Shrine (official website)

St. Charles Lwanga and Companions (Catholic.org)

The Story of the Ugandan Martyrs (America magazine)

The Uganda Martyrs: Their Countercultural Witness Still Speaks Today (The Word Among Us)

“African Holocaust: The Story of the Uganda Martyrs” (book) by John F. Faupel (Author)


___
Related links at Jesus in Love:

David Kato: Ugandan LGBT rights activist (1964-2011)

A saint for kidnapped girls of Nigeria: Josephine Bakhita

Icons of Charles Lwanga and many others are available on cards, plaques, T-shirts, mugs, candles, mugs, and more at TrinityStores.com



___
This post is part of the LGBT Saints series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints, martyrs, mystics, prophets, witnesses, heroes, holy people, humanitarians, deities and religious figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and queer people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Je suis Charlie: Solidarity with those killed for religious images at Paris newspaper

I post “Je suis Charlie” in solidarity with the journalists and artists killed in the attack on the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo Jan. 7.

It is French for “I am Charlie” – because I am a journalist and publisher of controversial religious art here at the Jesus in Love Blog. I honor the memory of all 12 who died in the Paris shooting and offer sympathy to their family and friends.

I am also a person of faith who opposes the use of religion as a justification for violence. The terrorists claimed that they were killing in God’s name.

Like the staff of Charlie Hebdo, I get hate mail from religious fundamentalists for what I publish -- although they usually threaten me with hellfire in the afterlife, not violence. Islamist radicals are not the only ones who feel threatened by “irreverent” images.

For example, Bill Donahue of the Catholic League responded to the Paris shootings by issuing a news release titled “Muslims are right to be angry.” (At least he begins by saying, “Killing in response to insult, no matter how gross, must be unequivocally condemned.”)

It’s easy for English-language readers to mistake the social media slogan “Je suis Charlie” for “Jesus is Charlie” – a revealing slip. It suggests that when they killed the Charlie Hebdo staff, Jesus was crucified again.

Jesus is Charlie?! I can imagine Jesus answering, “I am,” – the holy phrase God spoke to Moses from the burning bush and that Jesus used multiple times to declare himself in John’s gospel. Jesus himself was charged with blasphemy. It was one of the charges that led to his crucifixion.

The deaths at Charlie Hebdo echo the martyrdom story of the Passion. I wrote about the crucifixion (and resurrection) of Jesus in my new book “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision.” It features art that Doug Blanchard painted while grappling with his own faith struggles as a gay New Yorker who witnessed the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The purpose of reflecting on the Passion is not necessarily to worship Christ, but to remember the ongoing cycle of human violence, and to seek a way to move from suffering to freedom. The Passion story invites each viewer to stand at the cross as a compassionate witness—and to take up their own cross, whatever it may be.

On the Facebook page for “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Visison,” Doug spoke for both of us when he posted this message today:

“Of course we are Charlie! How could we be anything else? Our book takes on matters of religion, sexuality, and politics. Some people love us and some hate us.”

___
Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts
___
This post is part of the Artists series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series includes a section on censorship of religious art.

Mel White stands for LGBTQ religious justice then and now

LGBTQ religious activists (from right) Kittredge Cherry, Mel White, Rev. Tanis and Dexter Brecht made an impact at the National Council of Churches annual meeting in November 1994 in New Orleans.

Soulforce founder Mel White spoke for LGBTQ religious rights 20 years ago at a forum that I organized as part of the 1994 National Council of Churches annual meeting in New Orleans.

Mel is famous for confronting the religious right, but that day he challenged what he called the “unsure middle” that enables them to attack LGBTQ people. His message still rings true now.

“You are responsible for the deaths of my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters because they come to you and they get indecision,” Mel told NCC leaders at the event that I organized as national ecumenical officer for the LGBTQ-affirming Metropolitan Community Churches.

He began by detailing the threat posed by radical conservative Christians, but he reserved his anger for the “unsure middle” that enables them to attack LGBTQ people.

“If I had my say I’d never step into the halls of NCC for one more word of dialogue. NEVER! I’d go to the community. Every conversation with you is a conversation I lose with my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters who are dying,” Mel told the audience of more than 50 people, including NCC General Secretary Joan Campbell.

Back in 1983 the NCC voted to postpone indefinitely MCC’s application for membership, leading to a decade of “dialogue” on homosexuality and Christianity. Many of its member churches are liberal denominations that also used long years of dialogue to delay decisions on same-sex marriage, ordination of LGBT clergy, etc.

Today I can see progress on equality for sexual minorities in the church, thanks to Mel and many others like him.  The middle has moved, but Christian conservatives (and those whose silence supports them) still need to be challenged for spreading hate and discrimination.

I remembered Mel’s speech recently when I read a question posted now at Soulforce.org. Mel founded Soulforce to end religious and political oppression of LGBTQ people by using non-violent resistance in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Gandhi and Christ. Their website asks: “What is your favorite Soulforce memory or activist lesson learned over the years?”

My memory actually dates back to a few years before Mel founded Soulforce in 1998 with his partner Gary Nixon. But the seeds of Soulforce already seemed to be stirring in his soul.

Mel White was a high-ranking insider in the Evangelical Protestant movement in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. He ghostwrote autobiographies for such famous right-wing televangelists as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Billy Graham. Meanwhile he was spending decades trying to “cure” his homosexuality with “ex-gay” therapy, including prayer, fasting, exorcisms and even electroshock treatment.

Then he came out as gay in 1993, transferred his clergy credentials to MCC and became a national media sensation. He was interviewed on hundreds of radio and TV broadcasts, including a full segment on “60 Minutes.” His bestselling autobiography, “Stranger at the Gate: To be Gay and Christian in America,” was published in April 1994, just months before he spoke at the NCC forum.

Others in our Metropolitan Community Churches delegation at that meeting included Revs. Tanis of MCC San Francisco, Dexter Brecht of Vieux Carre MCC in New Orleans, and Carolyn Mobley of MCC of the Resurrection in Houston.

Mel and I shared a variety of experiences over the years. We have much in common as LGBT religious activists/authors who have also worked as ministers and professional writers. In addition to experiencing Mel’s tough talk against the religious right, I witnessed his weakness for chocolate-chip cookies on that same weekend in New Orleans. Another time he let me wear his jacket one chilly night when we walked on the beach together. We still keep in touch.

But the day Mel confronted the National Council of Churches stands out as a milestone memory. Today I have fresh appreciation for the activist lessons that Mel embodied when he joined me at the NCC meeting: Silence and indecision by the “unsure middle” can allow bigots to triumph. So speak up, speak out.
___
Related links:

Council of Churches Avoids Vote on Homosexual Group (New York Times, Nov. 10, 1983)

Church for Homosexuals Asks to Join Council (New York Times, July 26, 1981)

Gay Church Fails in Bid to Join National Council (Los Angeles Times, Nov. 14, 1992)


Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Uganda Martyrs raise questions on homosexuality, religion and LGBT rights

Uganda Martyrs (with Saint Charles Lwanga in the center) by Albert Wider (Wikimedia Commons)

Tough questions about homosexuality, religion and LGBT rights are raised by the Uganda Martyrs whose feast day is June 3.

Forty-five Ugandan male pages refused to have sex with their king after they converted to Christianity -- so he executed them. Many were burned to death on June 3, 1886. These boys and young men were canonized by the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, leaving some truths hidden by their halos.


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Uganda Martyrs raise questions on religion and LGBTQ rights

Does the experience of the Ugandan martyrs illustrate a gay king being oppressed and demonized by conservative Christians? Or does it exemplify Christians heroically trying to rescue boys from sexual abuse by a pedophile king? Did Christians teach young African men shame about their own same-gender-loving desires? Or did Christians give the pages a way to refuse rape by a ruler with absolute authority? Maybe the truth lies somewhere in between? How can the story be interpreted so that LGBT Ugandans have equal access to justice... and to God?

The Uganda Martyrs are little known in the West, but they are famous in much of Africa. Martyrs Day on June 3 is a national holiday in Uganda. The story is called “African Christianity’s most celebrated martyr-passion narrative” by religion scholar Kenneth Hamilton. They were canonized in 1964 by Pope Paul VI.

The 45 martyrs were executed in 1886, but they are still important now with Uganda at the center of worldwide debate on homosexuality and the recent release of the film “God Loves Uganda.” The award-winning documentary exposes the role of today’s American evangelical missionaries in persecuting LGBT Africans and promoting a harsher law against homosexuality.

Once again LGBT Christians are caught in the middle as conservative Christians and LGBT advocates offer dueling interpretations use the story of the Ugandan martyrs for their own purposes. Perhaps this uncomfortable position gives a perspective that can shed fresh light on the event. The history doesn’t fit neatly into the usual debates about the church versus homosexuality.

The Uganda Martyrs have been used to instill homophobia and, as Pope Pope John Paul II put it, “to draw Uganda and all of Africa to Christ.” The story weaves together homo-hatred, racism, and imperialism that are still affecting the world today. Conservatives play up the sexual angle in salacious detail to win converts, discredit the LGBT-rights movement and promote “chastity.” At the other extreme, LGBT-rights advocates use the story to prove that homosexuality was indigenous to Africa, not a “western import” as the anti-gay faction claims. They tend to ignore the difference between sex and rape, while both sides blur the line between homosexuality and pedophilia.

Ultimately the story leads back to the same questions that people of faith are grappling with all over the world now: How can the church condemn sexual abuse while still affirming the goodness of sexuality, including same-sex relationships? The search for a new LGBT-positive sexual ethics is expressed in books such as “Sex as God Intended” by gay priest and psychotherapist John McNeill and “Sexuality and the Sacred,” edited by James B. Nelson and Sandra P. Longfellow.

Today’s understanding of human psychology shows that rape is violence, not sex, and that pedophilia is not homosexuality, regardless of the gender of the child targeted. Christianity has been used to oppress queer people and colonize native peoples, but sometimes it has also provided an escape from abuse and an alternative to heterosexual marriage.

I watched “God Loves Uganda” for the first time in 2014 when it was broadcast on PBS (and released on DVD). Many others have praised the film, so I will focus here on questions that it raised in my mind.

I agree that American evangelicals are whipping up anti-LGBT sentiments in Uganda now to fuel their own power and egos. I also agree that American LGBT activists should be involved to some extent in Uganda to counteract the hate that is being imported. Thanks in part to the film, Uganda’s new Anti-Homosexuality Act law was eased so that homosexuality is punished by imprisonment, not the death penalty.

But what do Ugandans really want, apart from all this outside influence? Before Europeans brought Christianity and colonialism, what did the people of Uganda think about homosexuality?

It’s hard to say. I did a lot of research, but reliable answers are not easy to find. Sara Weschler offers the insights of a foreigner working in Uganda in her article, “How the West Was Wrong: Misunderstanding Uganda’s Gay Rights Crisis Makes It Worse” at Ttruthdig.com:

“One problem with Western LGBT activism vis-à-vis Uganda is that it is largely carried out by people who know little about the country beyond its stance on sexual orientation.... Gay rights will come to Uganda, but they will come slowly, and they will come only as part of a wider movement toward social justice in the country.”

Like many progressive reports on Uganda and homosexuality, the movie “God Loves Uganda” doesn’t even mention the Uganda Martyrs. It’s easier to omit the inconvenient truth of male-male sexual exploitation in the past. But no history of homosexuality in Uganda is complete without discussing the Ugandan martyrs killed in1886.

Here is a closer look at what happened. The Uganda Martyrs died at a time of tremendous change and culture clash in Uganda. The first Christian missionaries had arrived there only about a decade earlier in 1877. Arabs introduced Islam to Uganda at about the same time. It was still a few years before the British annexed the country in 1884.

King Mwanga II of Bugunda, now part of Uganda, was having sex on demand with the young men (and maybe boys) who served as his pages. He has been called “Africa’s most famous homosexual.” But maybe his sexuality was more complex. He had wives and children, so he might have been bisexual. He has been labeled a pedophile, but he was still a teenager himself. He began to reign at age 16 and was about 18 at the time of the executions. No matter how old the king’s sex partners were, requiring sexual service on pain of death is more like rape than gay sex between consenting adults. The youngest martyr, Saint Kizito, was about fourteen year old.

Saint Kizito, Uganda Martyr (Wikimedia Commons)

The crisis started when the king’s favorite pageboy, Mwafu, joined others in resisting his sexual demands. The royal pages were members of the elite, the noble sons of chiefs, but they ranked low in the king’s court. Some of them converted to Christianity and started denying King Mwanga the usual “pleasure,” so he rounded up the pages and ordered them to choose between him and Christianity. Only three chose the king. The rest of the pages got the death sentence. A large group ended up being marched eight miles and burned to death on Namugongo hill, where a shrine has been built. When all the killing was done, the victims were 23 Anglicans and 22 Catholics, including chief pages Joseph Mukasa (first black Catholic martyr on the African continent) and Charles Lwanga.

“St. Charles Lwanga” by Julile Lonneman (TrinityStores.com)

The earliest accounts report that the king had sex with his male pages, but over the years there has been increasing emphasis on the “sinful demands” and “perversion” of the “debauched” king. Toxic colonial hagiography mixed homophobia with racist fears about the “dark.” uncivilized, heathens of Africa. The dead were quickly nominated as saints, and were canonized as official martyrs in the Roman Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran churches.

A helpful queer analysis of the martyrdom is provided by Kenneth Lewis Hamilton, who wrote about the Uganda Martyrs in several scholarly articles and in his Ph.D. dissertation at Union Institute and University. Hamilton identifies himself as “an Afri-guided, postcolonial, queer, ordained, Catholic missioner.” He writes in an article titled “The Flames of Namugongo: Postcoloniality Meets Queer on African Soil?”:

And so, the establishment of Christianity—particularly Roman Catholic and Anglican Christianity—in Uganda directly coincides with a narrative about transgressive same sex desire. This makes for a provocative beginning for Christian discourse in Eastern Africa; and the subsequent canonization of the martyrs inscribes dark, dangerous desire into the very skin of Christian Uganda. The canonization, indeed, is a preached message; the narrative of the “martyrdom” now becomes part of a canon of new narratives: the ones about sodomy, race, desire and conquest.

The same article concludes:

I want to get more pictures of the martyrs into African chapels and online….I want more pictures of the martyr-boys on our black Catholic walls. These are the bodies and clans that now inhabit the heavens. But they do so like the slaves did: as a subversive presence, smiling in your face, but always ready to revolt and set each other free.

Inspired by these words by Hamilton, I searched the Internet for images of the Ugandan martyrs to accompany this reflection. First I found various icons.  Then I was stunned to discover an actual group photograph of the martyrs themselves, taken about a year before they were killed. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the photo for a long time. And their faces still haunt me.

Some of the future Uganda Martyrs were photographed in 1885, less than a year before they were killed, at Bukumbi Mission in Mwanza (northern Tanganyika). They went there to welcome the new Catholic bishop, Leon Livinhac.

I was doubly surprised that the queer analysis of the Ugandan martyrs in “The Flames of Namugongo” included a prayer from one of my own books, “Equal Rites.”

I wanted to end this reflection with a prayer too. First I looked at the official church prayers dedicated to the Uganda Martyrs, but they focused heavily on Christian faith and even “chastity, purity, and sexual morality.” They didn’t seem suitable for a reflection that seeks to develop a new ethics and spirituality that affirms loving same-sex relationships between consenting adults.

So I bring this to a close with the same prayer that Hamilton quoted from “Equal Rites.” These words were written by Elias (Ibrahim) Farajaje-Jones in his “Invocation of Remembrance, Healing, and Empowerment in a Time of AIDS”:

Yes, we honor you, our sisters and brothers.
Yes, we remember and recognize you have gone before us.
Without you, we would not exist here today.
Through us, you live on from generation to generation, from everlasting to everlasting.
And so we commit ourselves to a spirit of resistance and life.
We raise our light, our lives, our hope, our love, and we say boldly
and without fear, "Never again!" [Equal Rites, page 27]

I give the last word to one of the Uganda Martyrs. These lines are attributed to Bruno Serunkuma, spoken shortly before he was killed:

"A well that has many sources never runs dry. When we are gone, others will come after us."

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To read this post in Spanish / en español, go to Santos Queer:
Mártires de Uganda plantean preguntas sobre la homosexualidad, la religión y los derechos LGBTI

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Related links, queer interpretations and news:

Report: Anti-LGBT persecution increased under Uganda law (Washington Blade 2016)

“Colonial Legacies, Decolonized Spirits: Balboa, Ugandan Martyrs and AIDS Solidarity Today” by Kenneth Hamilton (Journal of Bisexuality)

“When Sodomy Leads to Martyrdom: Sex, Religion, and Politics in Historical and Contemporary Contexts in Uganda and East Africa” by John Blevins (Journal of Bisexuality)

Uganda Martyrs: Charles Lwanga and Companions (Queering the Church)

The Martyrs of Uganda witness against sexual violence (Daily Episcopalian)


Books:

"Christianity and Controversies over Homosexuality in Contemporary Africa" by Ezra Chitando and Adriaan van Klinken (Editors)

“Heterosexual Africa?: The History of an Idea from the Age of Exploration to the Age of AIDS” (book) by Marc Epprecht

“Freedom To Love For ALL: Homosexuality is not Un-African” (book) by Yemisi Ilesanmi

“American Culture Warriors in Africa: A Guide to the Exporters of Homophobia and Sexism” by Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma

“Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African Homosexualities” (book) by Will Roscoe


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Related links, Catholic and standard Christian interpretations:

Uganda Martyrs’ Shrine (official website)

St. Charles Lwanga and Companions (Catholic.org)

The Story of the Ugandan Martyrs (America magazine)

The Uganda Martyrs: Their Countercultural Witness Still Speaks Today (The Word Among Us)

“African Holocaust: The Story of the Uganda Martyrs” (book) by John F. Faupel (Author)


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Related links at Jesus in Love:

David Kato: Ugandan LGBT rights activist (1964-2011)

A saint for kidnapped girls of Nigeria: Josephine Bakhita

Icons of Charles Lwanga and many others are available on cards, plaques, T-shirts, mugs, candles, mugs, and more at TrinityStores.com



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This post is part of the LGBT Saints series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints, martyrs, mystics, prophets, witnesses, heroes, holy people, humanitarians, deities and religious figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and queer people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Proud Jesus blesses LGBT Pride parades

Proud Jesus blessed people at the Manchester Pride Parade.  Photo by Ruthie Sarah Johns (used with permission).

Jesus wore a rainbow sash to bless onlookers as he marched in the LGBT Pride Parade in Manchester, England recently.

The larger-than-life queer Christ puppet was created to express God's love for LGBT people  Proud Jesus also appeared this summer at Liverpool Pride, where he made a big impression on gay artist Tony O’Connell.

“I was delighted to see Jesus at Pride this year,” O’Connell said. “Every year a group of aggressive fundamentalists come to stand at the side, heavily guarded by police and raising the expensive policing bill. Usually the march slows down and a deep booing and jeering can be heard. This year the march slowed and we could see this Jesus stop, bless them and blow them kisses. It was the highlight of the day.”

The proud Jesus, measuring 12 feet tall, was created by Liberty Church, an inclusive church that celebrates the diversity of LGBT people in Blackpool, England. He won the award for "best community entry" in the parade.  A church news release explains more:

“Where would Jesus be if he was on Earth? Liberty Church in Blackpool believes he would be at Gay Pride dancing, waving and laughing his way through our cities as he embraces the gay community. So that’s exactly what they created with a 4 metre high Jesus this year.

He was inspired by a gay man that Nina Parker from Liberty Church met during Pride 2011. He questioned how it was possible to be gay and Christian when he had experienced such hurtful homophobia from Christians. Nina realised that if Jesus walked our streets today he would be found at Pride, that he was always with people on the edges of society, and usually at the party. So, Big Jesus was created as a symbol of God’s desire, to communicate with, and love the LGBT communities.”

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Related links:
Proud Jesus at Manchester Pride 2013 (MCC Manchester News)

'Jesus Christ' Challenges AIDS Walk Los Angeles Anti-Gay Protesters (Huffington Post)
“Jesus” showed up with red balloons to distract people from anti-gay protestors before joining AIDS Walk in Los Angeles Sunday.

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This post is part of the Queer Christ series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series gathers together visions of the queer Christ as presented by artists, writers, theologians and others. More queer Christ images are compiled in my book Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Lesbian Virgin Mary poster protested in Croatia

Poster for “Fine Dead Girls” from Gavella Theatre

A poster with a lesbian Virgin Mary was withdrawn in Croatia yesterday after religious and political pressure. It advertised the play “Fine Dead Girls” at the municipal Gavella Theatre in Zagreb.

According to Croatian news reports, the mayor of Zagreb ordered theater director Darko Stazic to remove the poster from all public areas after an unprecedented campaign against it by Catholic and other religious groups. They denounced the poster as blasphemy.

Now the theater director is being criticized for cowardice by some LGBT Croatians advocating freedom of expression.

The controversial poster shows a traditional statue of Mary being embraced from behind by another woman. “Fine Dead Girls” (Fine Mrtve Djevojke) by Dalibor Matanic is about a young lesbian couple who move into a seemingly quiet apartment building in Zagreb. Soon they face hostility from neighbors and family, including a religious fundamentalist father. The theatrical version is based on the award-winning 2002 film of the same title.

As a lesbian Christian, I am upset by the censorship of the lesbian Virgin Mary. The conservatives got rid of the lesbian Virgin Mary posters by demanding their religious rights, but what about my right to see images that affirm me as a lesbian Christian?! I welcome images that show lesbian love as sacred, but they are hard to find.

The Croatian controversy is the most recent of many conflicts over LGBT religious images as freedom of religion clashes with freedom of speech. It is important to support LGBT Christian images because conservatives use religious rhetoric to justify discrimination against queer people.

Similar controversies are covered in my book Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More. I report about the more recent controversies on this blog, including a gay Nativity in Columbia, a queer baby Jesus poster in New Zealand, a gay Jesus exhibit in Spain, “Our Lady” by Latina lesbian artist Alma Lopez, and a crucifix symbolizing the pain of gay men with AIDS by David Wojnarowicz at the Smithsonian.
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Related links:

Lesbian Virgin Mary posters withdrawn (Croatian Times)

Fine Dead Girls film (Amazon.com)

David Wojnarowicz : Smithsonian censors gay artist when conservatives attack (Jesus in Love)

Alma Lopez: Our Lady and Queer Saints art attacked as blasphemy (Jesus in Love)

Fernando Bayona Gonzalez: Protests end gay Jesus exhibit in Spain (Jesus in Love)

Conservatives attack our lesbian and gay Nativity scenes today! (Jesus in Love)

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Gay Nativity scene in Columbia sparks outrage

Gay Nativity scene in Columbia at the home of Andrés Vásquez Moreno and Felipe Cárdenas Gonzalez

A gay Nativity display in Columbia was condemned by the national Catholic Church as “sacrilege” while thousands of Columbians are criticizing the gay Nativity on social media websites.

A storm of controversy erupted when a gay couple in Columbia displayed a Nativity scene with two Josephs at their home in Cartegena this week.

Andrés Vásquez Moreno, a political analyst, and Felipe Cárdenas Gonzalez, an entrepreneur, set up the gay manger scene in hopes of helping their country move toward marriage equality. The couple was united in a civil union four years ago, and Columbia is considering laws to legalize same-sex marriage.

I have been in touch with them, and Moreno told me, “Thanks for your message and support, in Colombia has been very violent against us.” He gladly gave permission to share their photo of the gay Nativity scene here on the Jesus in Love Blog.

The attacks prove the ongoing need for religious images that affirm LGBT people. I believe that queer Nativity scenes are true to the spirit of the Christmas story in the Bible: God’s child conceived in an extraordinary way and born into disreputable circumstances. Love makes a family -- including the Holy Family. Everyone should be able to see themselves in the Christmas story.
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Special thanks to Colin for alerting me to this news story.

Related links:
Nativity Scene With Two Josephs Enrages Conservative Colombians (Advocate)

Outrage over gay couple’s homosexual Nativity scene with two Josephs and no Mary (Daily Mail)

Hate crime targets gay and lesbian Nativity scene at California church

Vandals knocked over the same-sex couples in a manger scene at a church in Claremont, California in 2011. Police investigated the attack as a hate crime.

Gay and lesbian nativity scenes show love makes a family
What if the child of God was born to a lesbian or gay couple? Because, after all, LOVE makes a family, including the Holy Family.

Conservatives attack my lesbian and gay Nativity scenes

Nasty accusations of blasphemy were hurled when conservative bloggers discovered my gay and lesbian Nativity scenes. “Love..is NOT the criteria for making a ‘Family,’,” said one of the critics.

Can you imagine? A gay Nativity scene

Video and commentary on Amsterdam’s gay Nativity scene with live actors

Queer Nativity project

Seven people from 3 countries sent images for the 2011 Queer Nativity project at the Jesus in Love Blog. They present Christ's birth in an amazing variety of liberating, loving new ways.




Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts