civil rights

An Open Letter to the HRC →

July 13, 2013
February 16, 2014
December 5, 2014

Dear Human Rights Campaign,

Where is the outrage?

Do something. At the very least, say something. I started to send this letter after Zimmerman was acquitted after killing unarmed Trayvon; I started again to send this letter after a grand jury declared a mistrial in Michael Dunn’s killing of unarmed Jordan Davis; and now, the non indictment after Darren Wilson’s killing of unarmed Michael Brown. This whole exercise has become a sickening exposition of this country’s ongoing and escalating brazen racial terrorism — a perverse, unending mad-lib of innocent Black murders met with White impunity:

”__________________ (unarmed black man’s name) was shot and killed by ________________________ (white police officer’s/ or white private citizen’s name) and was ____________________ (not charged, not indicted, acquitted [circle one]) and walks free. “

And that’s not even mentioning Akai Gurley who was killed “accidentally” by an officer in a Brooklyn stairwell; and that’s not even mentioning the killing of Tamir Rice in Cleveland with his toy gun. And that’s not even mentioning Eric Garner who was choked to death in Staten Island over loose cigarettes. And that’s not even mentioning all the names of the Black and Brown innocents whom we don’t know. Because presumably, for every name that is publicized, there are many more names of innocents that aren’t and never will be. It seems callous and blind to celebrate gains in marriage equality on one hand while in the very same moment, the civil rights of a major section of the LGBTQ community are being grossly violated. The Human Rights Campaign’s visible, vocal support would be momentous in bolstering the sustained national critique and reinforcing the “in the streets” protests that are happening all around the nation. Our civil rights are under attack.

Especially given the 2012 Gallup’s recent finding that non-whites are disproportionally more likely to identify as LGBTQ, I’d expect that our leading “equality” organizations would take an aggressive stance and wield the voice of its expansive membership; and lend its expansive legal networks, political cache, and financial resources to the struggle to change the “Stand Your Ground” law and other flawed legislation like it.

The HRC should be just as vocal in its dissent about racial injustice as it is in celebrating the coming out of celebrities. If we are ever going to overcome the artificial divide between the African-American community and the LGBTQ community (which have been overlapping communities with common goals and the shared dream of equal citizenship in this country from Bayard Rustin onward) now is the time to fortify and publicly announce that solidarity. Imagine the power in knowing that a hate crime committed against a Black person would necessarily incur the scrutiny and political response of the entire LGBTQ community, and conversely that a crime committed against a LGBTQ person would necessarily incur the scrutiny and political response of the entire Black community.

What does it matter if we can marry or be openly ourselves if the children raised from our unions cannot be protected? The repeated judicial and legislative failure to hold individuals and institutions accountable for the value of Black lives represents not just an attack on Black and Brown people, but is an attack on LGBTQ people. HRC should take immediate action to defend and affirm the members of its community. If it really is one struggle — one civil rights movement — then let it truly be ONE movement. Let’s stand together on all fronts. We must speak up for each other. I’m urging HRC to please…. do something.

It is not enough to ACT UP, but we must ACT UP all the time.

Respectfully,
Dee Rees

You wants to Protest?!?!

Post by Christian l'Aviance.

When Same-Sex Marriage Was a Christian Rite →

Contrary to myth, Christianity’s concept of marriage has not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has constantly evolved as a concept and ritual. Prof. John Boswell, the late Chairman of Yale University’s history department, discovered that in addition to heterosexual marriage ceremonies in ancient Christian church liturgical documents, there were also ceremonies called the “Office of Same-Sex Union” (10th and 11th century), and the “Order for Uniting Two Men” (11th and 12th century).

These church rites had all the symbols of a heterosexual marriage: the whole community gathered in a church, a blessing of the couple before the altar was conducted with their right hands joined, holy vows were exchanged, a priest officiatied in the taking of the Eucharist and a wedding feast for the guests was celebrated afterwards. These elements all appear in contemporary illustrations of the holy union of the Byzantine Warrior-Emperor, Basil the First (867-886 CE) and his companion John.

Original Article or

A Kiev art museum contains a curious icon from St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mt. Sinai in Israel. It shows two robed Christian saints. Between them is a traditional Roman ‘pronubus’ (a best man), overseeing a wedding. The pronubus is Christ. The married couple are both men.

Is the icon suggesting that a gay “wedding” is being sanctified by Christ himself? The idea seems shocking. But the full answer comes from other early Christian sources about the two men featured in the icon, St. Sergius and St. Bacchus, two Roman soldiers who were Christian martyrs. These two officers in the Roman army incurred the anger of Emperor Maximian when they were exposed as ‘secret Christians’ by refusing to enter a pagan temple. Both were sent to Syria circa 303 CE where Bacchus is thought to have died while being flogged. Sergius survived torture but was later beheaded. Legend says that Bacchus appeared to the dying Sergius as an angel, telling him to be brave because they would soon be reunited in heaven.

While the pairing of saints, particularly in the early Christian church, was not unusual, the association of these two men was regarded as particularly intimate. Severus, the Patriarch of Antioch (AD 512 - 518) explained that, “we should not separate in speech they [Sergius and Bacchus] who were joined in life”. This is not a case of simple “adelphopoiia.” In the definitive 10th century account of their lives, St. Sergius is openly celebrated as the “sweet companion and lover” of St. Bacchus. Sergius and Bacchus’s close relationship has led many modern scholars to believe they were lovers. But the most compelling evidence for this view is that the oldest text of their martyrology, written in New Testament Greek describes them as “erastai,” or "lovers”. In other words, they were a male homosexual couple. Their orientation and relationship was not only acknowledged, but it was fully accepted and celebrated by the early Christian church, which was far more tolerant than it is today.

Contrary to myth, Christianity’s concept of marriage has not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has constantly evolved as a concept and ritual.

Prof. John Boswell, the late Chairman of Yale University’s history department, discovered that in addition to heterosexual marriage ceremonies in ancient Christian church liturgical documents, there were also ceremonies called the “Office of Same-Sex Union” (10th and 11th century), and the “Order for Uniting Two Men” (11th and 12th century).

These church rites had all the symbols of a heterosexual marriage: the whole community gathered in a church, a blessing of the couple before the altar was conducted with their right hands joined, holy vows were exchanged, a priest officiatied in the taking of the Eucharist and a wedding feast for the guests was celebrated afterwards. These elements all appear in contemporary illustrations of the holy union of the Byzantine Warrior-Emperor, Basil the First (867-886 CE) and his companion John.

Such same gender Christian sanctified unions also took place in Ireland in the late 12thand/ early 13th century, as the chronicler Gerald of Wales (‘Geraldus Cambrensis’) recorded.

Same-sex unions in pre-modern Europe list in great detail some same gender ceremonies found in ancient church liturgical documents. One Greek 13th century rite, “Order for Solemn Same-Sex Union”, invoked St. Serge and St. Bacchus, and called on God to “vouchsafe unto these, Thy servants [N and N], the grace to love one another and to abide without hate and not be the cause of scandal all the days of their lives, with the help of the Holy Mother of God, and all Thy saints”. The ceremony concludes: “And they shall kiss the Holy Gospel and each other, and it shall be concluded”.

Another 14th century Serbian Slavonic “Office of the Same Sex Union”, uniting two men or two women, had the couple lay their right hands on the Gospel while having a crucifix placed in their left hands. After kissing the Gospel, the couple were then required to kiss each other, after which the priest, having raised up the Eucharist, would give them both communion.

Records of Christian same sex unions have been discovered in such diverse archives as those in the Vatican, in St. Petersburg, in Paris, in Istanbul and in the Sinai, covering a thousand-years from the 8th to the 18th century.

The Dominican missionary and Prior, Jacques Goar (1601-1653), includes such ceremonies in a printed collection of Greek Orthodox prayer books, “Euchologion Sive Rituale Graecorum Complectens Ritus Et Ordines Divinae Liturgiae” (Paris, 1667).

While homosexuality was technically illegal from late Roman times, homophobic writings didn’t appear in Western Europe until the late 14th century. Even then, church-consecrated same sex unions continued to take place.

At St. John Lateran in Rome (traditionally the Pope’s parish church) in 1578, as many as thirteen same-gender couples were joined during a high Mass and with the cooperation of the Vatican clergy, “taking communion together, using the same nuptial Scripture, after which they slept and ate together” according to a contemporary report. Another woman to woman union is recorded in Dalmatia in the 18th century.

Prof. Boswell’s academic study is so well researched and documented that it poses fundamental questions for both modern church leaders and heterosexual Christians about their own modern attitudes towards homosexuality.

For the Church to ignore the evidence in its own archives would be cowardly and deceptive. The evidence convincingly shows that what the modern church claims has always been its unchanging attitude towards homosexuality is, in fact, nothing of the sort.

It proves that for the last two millennia, in parish churches and cathedrals throughout Christendom, from Ireland to Istanbul and even in the heart of Rome itself, homosexual relationships were accepted as valid expressions of a God-given love and committment to another person, a love that could be celebrated, honored and blessed, through the Eucharist in the name of, and in the presence of, Jesus Christ.