Author Archives
John Erickson is a Ph.D. Candidate in American Religious History and holds two MA’s from Claremont Graduate University. John serves as a commissioner on the California Commission on the Status of Women, having been appointed by Governor Jerry Brown in 2017. In addition to the Commission, John serves as the President of the Hollywood Chapter for the National Organization for Women, a Boardmember for the City of West Hollywood’s Lesbian and Gay Advisory Board, a Boardmember for the ACLU of Southern California, the Legislative Action Chair for Stonewall Democratic Club, and a Boardmember for the National Organization for Women (NOW). He co-founded the digital publication the Engaged Gaze and just launched the weekly podcast Pop! Culture Theologians. He contributes regularly to a number of online publications on the topics of LGBTQ history, feminism, masculinity studies, and American religious history.
John was one of the main organizers of the Women’s March Los Angeles on January 20, 2017, that brought together 750,000 people to Downtown Los Angeles as well as in 2018. He was also a coordinator for the #ResistMarch on June 11, 2017, that brought together 100,000 people to the City of West Hollywood.
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Christmastime for the Self by John Erickson
We’ve all been there.
Sitting around the tree watching the kids open presents. Attempting to enjoy a holiday meal with extended and immediate family that you may or may not have traveled thousands of miles to see. Trying with every fiber of your being to not talk about the elephant, or red hat, in the room.
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The Cost by John Erickson
Brett Kavanaugh is a piece of shit.
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Don’t Look Away by John Erickson
Why can’t social media be fun anymore? Why can’t we spread happy pictures of puppies, babies, and rainbows? While the answer may be simple to many of us, let me state it plainly to my relative: Because the world is on fire and we have a racist in the White House creating edicts that call for babies and children to be placed in ‘tender age’ facilities.
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Meet the Bible Bitches: Interview with Rev. Laura Barclay and Sara Hof
What do you get when you have two ladies, one a Baptist Minister living in KY and one an agnostic living in LA, making jokes and talking about the Bible? Don’t know? You get the new and exciting podcast Bible Bitches!
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Vagina Happy Fact by John Erickson
A month ago, the Hollywood Chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and the City of West Hollywood presented the Vagina Monologues. The event was a complete success and we raised over $5,000 for Planned Parenthood Los Angeles! While… Read More ›
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Difficult Dialogues by John Erickson
Let’s have a conversation about men and feminism and how we can continue to abolish the patriarchy together rather than writing mean, hurtful comments online.
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What I Believe (Post-2016) by John Erickson
Ever since the election of You-Know-Who, I have been doing a lot of creative writing.
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Pride by John Erickson
When we come together, we are the Divine. I didn’t think I could experience that twice in one year; clearly, I was wrong.
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Welcome to the Resistance by John Erickson
There comes a time in all of our lives when we have to make important decisions. What do I believe in? Who do I want to be? What and who will I stand up for? There has been a lot… Read More ›
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A Letter to Those I’ve Lost by John Erickson
Out of all of these things, the one thing that has kept coming to my mind is G-d. What is he (or she) thinking? I feel like I’m back in one of my Old Testament classes discussing the harsh and cruel G-d that thrust so many horrible things onto their believers. Maybe, the worst part about the election isn’t Donald Trump, but it is the realization that G-d may be dead after all.
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The End is Nigh by John Erickson
How will the world end? No, it isn’t Lucifer himself coming from hell to bring in the end times, it is someone far worse, and his name is Donald Trump.
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I’m Failing by John Erickson
“How is your dissertation going?”
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Remember by John Erickson
Remember the loss, because we’re going to need it for the tomorrows to come and for those that need our protection the most: the next generation. Remember, we are Orlando; now, tomorrow, and always.
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#HillYes by John Erickson
I’m going to do something I’d never thought I’d do: fill your newsfeed with yet another article pertaining to the 2016 United States Presidential election and yes, I’m going to talk about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (hint: I’m emphatically supporting her and I’m unapologetic about it.)
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Remembering to Be Thankful by John Erickson
Remembering to be thankful may just be a privileged illusion that individuals in positions of power get to write about in the December of each year to self-congratulate themselves about being actually able to be able to be thankful. It may just seem like people who write about being thankful are complaining or pontificating that being thankful is in itself a chore.
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#LoveWins by John Erickson
On Saturday, September 19, 2015 I married two of my best friends Andrea and Cindy in holy matrimony in Appleton, WI.
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Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right by John Erickson
Kim Davis does need a lot of things but saying of suggesting that she needs a haircut, a makeover, or even to lose weight, makes you and those that continue to repeat it no better than she is; to state such statements doesn’t purport the ideal that #LoveWins, which took over social media just mere months ago, but changes the whole narrative to symbolize that sexism and hate are more important than love and equality.
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Caitlyn Jenner is a Friend of Mine
To speak ones truth is oftentimes a difficult and nearly impossible act. However, to live one’s truth, on a day-to-day basis, is an aspect of life that has become so foreign to individuals who have become so comfortable in their own skin that I fear the activist and social justice roots that we all claim to hail from have fallen at the wayside and been replaced by complacency and reductionism.
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The Religiosity of Silence by John Erickson
In a repetitive culture of abuse and silence, is it really shocking to find out that an individual who preached such hate and discontent for others actually perpetuated other forms of heinous abuse against others?
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Genderqueering by John Erickson
We find our versions of home in these communities and it is within these spaces where our home not only begins to define who we are but we, as a reflection of that space, begin to outwardly redefine the spaces we exist in. If we slowly begin, through our experiences to shape our homes based on privilege and power without self-reflection and acknowledgment of others, then we are no better than those oppressive forces we say we’re against.
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Are You Ready for Some Football? by John Erickson
Although putting women in charge of drafting new policies that address the “woman problem” currently facing the NFL, it too reeks of the similar dismissive and patronizing actions women face when trying to obtain leadership roles in their religious traditions. Supercilious progress for the sake of progress isn’t progress and progress under the guise of silence is still misogyny. We need women in positions of leadership in both the NFL as well as in religious traditions. The culture of violence and silence will only continue, albeit with a Band-Aid firmly in place, holding the painful experiences and histories of women, long forgotten and often overlooked, until society values their rights just as much as the men leading the prayers and those that are being prayed for on Sundays across America.
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#YesAllWomen, the Darwin Debate, and the God Complex by John Erickson
#YesAllWomen proved that although not all men commit horrible crimes against women, the men that often get the headlines and create the most controversy are the ones that need to be watched out for.
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In Memoriam – God Hates Fags
Phelps didn’t just live a life filled with hate but he also embodied the very reasoning why so many communities cannot cross that proverbial bridge to work together to see past their differences and maybe never will. In the case of Phelps, sticks and stones may break our bones, but words really do hurt.
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Yes, You’re a Homophobe by John Erickson
Jesus loved sinners and Jesus would rather be dancing with me in West Hollywood on a Friday night than lugging through a swamp luring ducks into a trap with a duck caller made by a clan who think that my sexual actions are similar to that of an individual having sex with an animal.
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Truths My Mother Taught Me by John Erickson
I never gave much credence to religion but through my mother, I met G-d, and through her I understood that I’m not a feminist because of the books I’ve read but rather because of the woman I call mom.
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The Hot Seat by John Erickson
Being a man in feminism isn’t easy and that’s how it is supposed to be.
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To Have and to Hold: Gay Marriage and the Religion Question
If a conservative religious traditions can’t give their mothers or sisters full equality, how can we expect them to give a GLBT individual the time of day?
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God Doesn’t Live Here Anymore: Gay Bars and the Growing Divide Between Sexuality and Spirituality by John Erickson
oes God exist within the LGBTQ community anymore or has the community itself abandoned God for all-night raves, dance clubs, alcohol, and hypersexualized and over commoditized fetishized forms of femininity and masculinity? Oftentimes, I find myself answering yes to the above questions. After surviving hate crime after hate crime and endless batches of newly elected conservative politicians hell bent on ignoring medical and social epidemic plaguing the very country they were elected to serve and protect, why would a community, oftentimes linked to sin itself, believe in a holy entity?
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Thanks for Coming (Out): Sexuality, Sports, and Spirituality by John Erickson
I have to be honest, Jason Collins’ admission that he was a homosexual, albeit brave, upset me. While coming out is an completely unique experience to every individual that does it, Jason Collins’ story was just another example of the rampant sexist and heteropatriarachal world that privileges male bodies and sexualities over women’s similar experiences. While I applaud Jason’s story and it’s timing, the first thing I asked to my colleagues was: Where was the hubbub over Sheryl Swoopes or Martina Navratilova?
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Second Class Rape Victims: Rape Hierarchy and Gender Conflict
Deconstructing masculinity isn’t the key to solving social, sexual, and domestic violence across the world but it is a step worth taking when attempting to engage men in affecting change to stop these violent actions since men, statistically are the perpetrators of such crimes that both cause such outcry as well as perpetual silence.
