This past month an All-American defensive lineman named by the Associated Press as the South East Athletic Conference’s Defensive Player of the Year told an interviewer from ESPN that he’s gay. Michael Sam from the University of Missouri announced to the world what teammates and
It might be stated that the often erroneous dichotomizing of sexual and gender categories, once experienced as not really being part of one’s self, frequently results in the need, the intense desire, to persecute that now recognized part of one’s self that often becomes projected
There are thousands of same-gender-loving people within the congregations of black churches. Because I have ministered from their pulpits for more than 40 years, I am very aware of how these churches’ refusal to address issues such as HIV/AIDS has gravely crippled us. But there
You have heard that it was said to the ancient ones, ‘You shall not murder’ and ‘Whoever shall murder shall be in danger of the judgment.’ But I tell you, that everyone who is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger
Some are calling right-wing Ohio Republican John Boehner “The Weeper of the House,” as he strengthens his control over the US House of Representative’s agenda. New Speaker Boehner openly tears-up when he talks of his own working class background and his personal success in achieving
You know how the prayer starts, especially if you’ve spent any amount of time in a more liturgically inclined congregation. It is the prayer that’s often introduced with words such as, “And now, as our Savior taught us to pray, we are bold to say…,”
Gay or European? People used to ask that about a man who didn’t fit the American image of manhood: “Is he gay, or is he European?” In an episode of Seinfeld, Jerry acquired a small bag to carry around everything that stuffed his pockets. When
When children return to school, most will be safer there than at home. In spite of all the nostalgic attempts to keep us believing “the American family” is an idyllic refuge, statistics say that home is the most dangerous place for children. It’s hard to
The boundary between physical and nonphysical is very imprecise for us. — Donna J. Haraway, “A Manifesto for Cyborgs, Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s,” in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature A friend tells me psychics can provide direction, so
The student in my office was really convinced that as a male he was going to get a raw deal all around. He’d been accused by a female student in my largest class of stealing her I-Pod, and she had reported it to the police.