“I do, I do, I do believe in gay marriage” by Marie Cartier

I do believe in gay marriage. I mean fairies, I mean gay marriage. I’m a lesbian. I’m approaching my legal fourth year anniversary on October 29, 2012 with my wife. I’m voting for Obama for many reasons, and one of the strongest for me is that he is the only president who has “come out” in support of gay marriage.

An acquaintance recently said to me, “I don’t believe in gay marriage.” There is not a counter narrative to this in my vocabulary. I cannot say “I don’t believe in heterosexual marriage.” I can say I don’t support it—but even that is not true because my taxes do support a system which privileges partnering legally over not partnering. The metanarrative of religious discourse privileges belief statements. So when someone says “I don’t believe in gay marriage”—they are encasing my life in the world of theology where we cast our lot with belief or non-belief.  I’m Catholic—I believe in the Virgin Mary. I believe in the canon of saints. I don’t believe in Hell, however, or Purgatory. I’m not sure of my belief system regarding Heaven. As a New Age practitioner– among these practices are Wicca, yoga, martial arts, Western inspired meditation practice, psychic readings, etcetera– I feel empowered to question the belief systems of the Church, and even more so as a feminist. Continue reading ““I do, I do, I do believe in gay marriage” by Marie Cartier”

Why are We Drawn to the Black Madonna? by Judith Shaw

judith Shaw photoOnce the opportunity came my way to spend two weeks with my sister in Paris, I knew I had to visit the Black Madonnas at Chartres.  I had been to Chartres many years ago,  before I knew about the Black Madonnas scattered throughout Europe.  I felt the power of the site at that time, but had little understanding of where that power came from.

History of the Black Madonna 

Isis

The indigenous goddess worship of Europe, was influenced by Phoenician traders who introduced statues of dark skinned African and Middle Eastern goddesses such as Isis, Inanna, and others to the European continent from 1550BC to about 300BCE.  The worship of these goddesses continued  with The Roman invasion of Gaul (France) and other parts of Europe.

Once Christianity took hold in Europe, churches were built on top of sacred pagan sites. But old ways die hard; many of these dark skinned goddesses were incorporated into the newly built Christian churches.  Today there are more than 500 known Black Madonna statues and paintings throughout the world, the majority in France. Continue reading “Why are We Drawn to the Black Madonna? by Judith Shaw”

IN THE NEWS: A Feminism Survey in the U.K.

Over the course of a 24 hour period, a popular parenting website in the U.K., Netmums, recently conducted a survey with 1300 of their users to “find out what feminism means to both girls and women living in the UK in 2012.” The report of their findings has inspired another wave of  “feminism is dead” declarations. Nothing new there of course, it resonates with the same old hackneyed  stereotypes of what it means to be a feminist. Nonetheless, it reminds us of the continually needed conversation about how to make feminist activism and goals accessible and communicable to more people lest Netmums founder Siobhan Freegard’s statement go uncontested: “The study starkly shows modern women feel traditional Feminism is no longer working for them, as it’s aggressive, divisive and doesn’t take into account their personal circumstances.” Continue reading “IN THE NEWS: A Feminism Survey in the U.K.”

Sexist Responses to Women Writing About Religion by Sarah Sentilles

IN RESPONSE TO my recent memoir, Breaking Up with God: A Love Story, several reviewers came close to calling me stupid. Many suggested I didn’t know what I was talking about. As the title of the book suggests, I used the analogy of a romantic relationship gone wrong to describe my faith and its dissolution. These reviewers seemed to believe I understood my metaphorical romantic relationship with God to be a literal one. They wrote about me as if I actually thought God was my real boyfriend, as if I sat around waiting for God to take me to the prom and just couldn’t understand why my date never showed up. Silly girl. Continue reading “Sexist Responses to Women Writing About Religion by Sarah Sentilles”

Reading Plato’s Allegory of the Cave as Matricide and Theacide by Carol P. Christ

When I read Plato’s allegory of the cave as an undergraduate, I was told it had something to do with the idea that the “form” of a table is more “real” than the table itself. I must confess that I had no idea what this could possibly mean.

As a graduate student, I struggled with philosophical and theological ideas rooted in Platonism.  Rosemary Radford Ruether named the flawed worldview created by a “classical dualism” that separates mind from body, spirit from the world, rationality from emotion, and male from female.  Her ground-breaking essay “Mother Earth and the Megamachine” clarified the difficulties I was having.

Western philosophy, described by Alfred North Whitehead as a series of footnotes to Plato, had gotten off on the wrong foot. At its very beginnings, western philosophy had attempted to sever mind from the body and nature, alleging that “man’s true home” was not life in the body on planet earth. Continue reading “Reading Plato’s Allegory of the Cave as Matricide and Theacide by Carol P. Christ”

Maeve (aka the Celtic Mary Magdalen) on Elections, transcribed by Elizabeth Cunningham

You are a poet and a seer. Say you are a V.I.P (very important poet; in the first century CE when I lived such a thing was possible). Because of your poetic prowess, your ability to go between the worlds and see into the heart of the matter, it has fallen upon you to seek a vision. Who will be the new leader of the tribe?  Here is no simple matter of primogeniture. Here no ballots to be counted or stolen. No one has had to endure televised political conventions or candidate debates. It goes hardest for the sacrificial bull, who has been slaughtered and must be consumed—by you, sometimes raw, sometimes cooked, depending on local tradition. In either case, you consume the flesh and blood of the sacred bull. Then you are wrapped in its still-bloody hide. You fall into a trance, you dream….

My name is Maeve (rhymes with brave). I came to be known as Mary Magdalen. (How that happened is a long and exciting story, but not the subject of today’s post.) I am taking Elizabeth’s place to make some commentary from my first century perspective as you twenty-first century Americans prepare to elect new leaders. (You hope you will be electing them. I’d trust poets in bloody bull hides over electronic voting machines any day.) The rite described above, called the tarbhfleis or bull-sleep, was used to select the kings of Tara. The Celts counted wealth in cattle, so the bull was revered. The Gallic god Esus (as the druids called Jesus) was associated with the sacrificial bull. The infamous Queen Maeve of Connacht (for whom I am named), that champion of women’s sovereignty, went to war over a bull that defected from her herds to her husband’s. People said that the bull did not want to be ruled by a woman. Those were fighting words for Queen Maeve.  Continue reading “Maeve (aka the Celtic Mary Magdalen) on Elections, transcribed by Elizabeth Cunningham”

Freedom from Unjust Privilege by Kelly Brown Douglas

Freedom is about the elimination of systems and structures that privilege some and penalize others. 

Not too long ago, my son asked me how people who knew what it felt like to be denied justice, could deny others justice.  It did not make sense, he said, for various minority groups  to be at odds and not support  one another in the struggle for equal treatment.   I agreed with him.   But I also knew that solidarity amongst oppressed people was easier said than done.

Growing up, I always made friends with the kids who were teased, bullied and just did not seem to fit in because of who they were, or because of who they were not. I hung out with the kids who were bused into my middle-class black elementary school to achieve class diversity. I made friends with the boys who were called “sissies” because they did not like to play sports, and were not as “rough” as the other boys. I ate lunch with the girls who were teased because their hair was too short and their skin was too dark.  It seemed so easy then. But, really it wasn’t. I still wanted to fit in. So, while I did not tell the jokes, do the teasing, or call the names, I did stand silent when the jokes were told, the teasing was done and the names were called.  I hung out with the kids who were ridiculed and rejected, but I did not always stand up for them, especially when they were not there.  I did not know then that in my silence, I was claiming my privilege to be a part of the in crowd. Continue reading “Freedom from Unjust Privilege by Kelly Brown Douglas”

The Changing Face of Christ in the Catholic Church by Janice Poss

Yesterday, as I have done for the last six years, I attended another ordination, an ordination that as the others has been two thousand years in the making.  It was historic, it was Catholic; it was the new face of in persona Christi, the true ideal of Imago Dei.  It was also a retrieval of our roots, of the other side of God.  These ordinations make and bring God and Christ into integrated authentic wholeness and, therefore true holiness.

Yes, it was the ordination of two more women to the Catholic priesthood.  This movement is real and has been going on now since 2003. The changing face of God and Christ is in women, their determination in their discernment as a ‘priestly’ people in living out the Gospel messages with which we are all too familiar and need to be ‘lived’ to make them real and felt in our Church. Continue reading “The Changing Face of Christ in the Catholic Church by Janice Poss”

Hitting the Trifecta in Women’s Issues by Michele Stopera Freyhauf

One did not have to watch the debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney this past Tuesday to know that Romney hit the trifecta in the area of women’s issues.  It was all over social media within minutes of statements being made that marginalized or treated women as “less than.”

The issue of contraception and rape is still a topic of debate.  Church’s post signs to “Vote for Religious Freedom” and hand out voting guides that help you gauge the moral candidate.  Bulletin boards stating that “Obama believes in abortion and gay marriage – do you? vote Republican” appear by the highway.  This issue will not be settled during the election.

If people in power set an example of bullying and/or oppressive behavior, this behavior becomes acceptable.  If women are treated “less than,” then their dignity as well as their humanity is compromised.

An extreme example of this de-humanizing treatment of women in American society appeared October 13th in Cincinnati.com.  A story was published about a flyer found in the men’s restroom of a co-ed freshmen dorm at Miami University.  The title of this flyer – “Top Ten Ways to Get Away With Rape:” Continue reading “Hitting the Trifecta in Women’s Issues by Michele Stopera Freyhauf”

IN THE NEWS: Women’s Ordination in the Catholic Church

On October 6th, the first Catholic women’s ordination in Los Angeles was performed when two women were welcomed as priests into Roman Catholic Women Priests.  There are now 143 women ordained worldwide in a movement that has refused to wait for the Vatican to acknowledge women as leaders in the Church.

There has been a great deal of dialogue around the issue of women’s ordination in the Catholic Church.  Organizations like Women’s Ordination Conference are focused on the mission of ordaining women in the Catholic Church and argue that women in leadership roles will lead to change in policies that are oppressive to women.   However, other movements argue that ordaining women simply continues the hierarchical culture of the Church.   Continue reading “IN THE NEWS: Women’s Ordination in the Catholic Church”