Today, I am exploring the following question set: What is the shifting conception of religious liberty as religious groups carve out exemptions in complying with laws on LGBTQI rights, particularly as they relate to marriage? As gay marriage becomes “normative”… Read More ›
“I stood in the authenticity of my being: Black, preacher, Baptist, woman. For the same God who made me a preacher made me a woman, and I am convinced that God was not confused on either account.” – Reverend Dr…. Read More ›
I have been struck in this new year by the reactions to the recently released movie Selma. There has been a palpable recognition by those of who have seen it, that “the more things change, the more they stay the… Read More ›
Social justice. Progressive politics. Improper media depictions. What exactly is the F-word (feminism) about? I have always understood feminism as a project that casts a very wide net, the goals and values of which can keep quite a few people… Read More ›
I was born the year the Supreme Court of the United States of America began to hear Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka; a case that ought to be known to all as a matter of US history. Here… Read More ›
Can we think of the voting place as an altar where we hole-punch a prayer to the honored dead? This past Sunday, Barbara Adinger wrote a beautiful blog entitled “November, a Silent Month?” While welcoming the November darkness and a… Read More ›
A few weeks ago, I came across a postcard that I was given at a conference last year. I got the postcard (advertisement?) because it has a picture of Fannie Lou Hamer on it, and in my home and office,… Read More ›
I am currently in Cape Town South Africa at a Queer Muslim International Retreat. Next month I will go to Jakarta Indonesia for a workshop focused on the same agenda: reform in Muslim communities towards the lives of dignity for… Read More ›
Notwithstanding the widespread belief that contraception is not consistent with the principles of Christianity, there is no basis for it. On the contrary, contraception was closely associated with early Christianity. Matthew 19:12 is the only passage quoting Christ that is… Read More ›
A few days ago I had the pleasure of giving a talk at the Secular Student Alliance Conference on how non-believing persons can work with Churches. Amidst the chaos of conferences–managing your time, deciding which talks to attend, and making… Read More ›
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.
As I think about the incarceration of young black men for relatively minor drug crimes, and the murders of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, I cannot help but compare the astonishing progress that Americans have made in overcoming prejudice against… Read More ›
One of my academic joys is interviewing people I find particularly interesting (see most of my posts here). This time I am honored to present a recent interview I did with Judith Butler. Many wonder how gender performance relates to… Read More ›
Following up on an older (and my most popular) post, 5 Interesting Facts about Women and Religion, I am going to draw your attention to 5 other telling facts. 1: Women clergy are blowing up in the Anglican Church! In U.K. Church… Read More ›
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.
Is care the beginning of ethics? Has traditional western ethical thinking been wrong to insist that in order to reason ethically, we must divorce reason from emotion, passion, and feeling? In Ecofeminist Philosophy, Karen Warren criticizes traditional ethical thinking–advocating a… Read More ›
Matthew Shepard died October 12, 1998 – fifteen years ago. This month I have already attended three events memorializing his death. The first was a screening of the Emmy-award winning teleplay The Matthew Shepard Story (starring the amazing Stockard Channing as… Read More ›
Most people really love this time of year and I share much of that. Living in South Central Texas we actually only have two seasons, with a perhaps two to three weeks in between what we laughingly call spring and… Read More ›
In this post I interview Lyz Liddell, Director of Campus Organizing at the Secular Student Alliance. I first got in contact with Lyz about the idea of building a Humanist Center at my school, Claremont Lincoln University. She was very… Read More ›
As some of you may know, I run a project called “Interview an Atheist at Church Day.” This project aims at bettering understanding and furthering dialogue between atheists and Church-going religious persons. So far we have had over a dozen… Read More ›
Part of my research is focused on how the social sciences relate to “religion” and religious studies. More specifically, I spend time examining the sociology of religion. I look at stats, demographics, and polls. I look at rates of attendance,… Read More ›
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?
So far, as a regular contributor to Feminism and Religion, I have interviewed a “pro-science” woman and one who started an online community for grieving unbelievers. In this post, I will interview Amanda Brown, an atheist activist who co-founded a… Read More ›
I recently went to see Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel. I saw it two times actually. Readers familiar with my posts about cosplay and video gaming will not be surprised to learn that I am also a fan of comic… Read More ›
This post includes information about a conference scheduled for next spring at Boston University: A Revolutionary Moment: Women’s Liberation in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Call for Papers is due July 1st – just two days away! I remember how Mary Daly… Read More ›
With Angelina Jolie’s decision to have a double mastectomy due to a genetic test that revealed she carried the BRCa gene, the issue of genetic testing is in the forefront once again. This is the second part of a three-part… Read More ›
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?
[This post is written in response to the chilling effect taking place in the U.K. since the Woolwich Attack. It is also in response to the uses of the Public Order Act of 1986.] In any “liberal democracy” that has… Read More ›
What are the dreams that we dare to dream today? I was sitting with a young queer student from my Gender Women’s Studies class at the gay coffee shop in Long Beach, California. I offer this option to my students—meet… Read More ›
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?
