#LGBT Christianity

[thecrowscandle]

"The only clear line I draw these days is this: when my religion tries to come between me and my neighbor, I will choose my neighbor...Jesus never commanded me to love my religion."

—Barbara Brown Taylor

[justinsentertainmentcorner]

Edith Olmstead at The New Republic:

Fans of 11-time Grammy Award–winning singer Dolly Parton came to her aid this week, in response to a tacky, homophobic hit piece published by a right-wing magazine.

The Federalist is a conservative outlet that has previously taken aim at Taylor Swift, accusing her of indoctrinating her listeners into man-hating feminism, a thinly veiled grievance about their inability to control the thoughts of young women. Now it’s taken aim at the Queen of Country herself, likely for much the same reason. The newest article took issue with Parton using her Christian faith as a rationale for her acceptance of all people, including those who identify as LGBTQ+. “Parton’s version of love, which includes condoning immoral sexual behavior, (be who you are she said), is unaligned with God’s vision for humanity,” the author wrote, going on to compare Parton to a secular leader spreading “false gospel.” Trying to cut down such a beloved figure and awarded philanthropist is pretty ridiculous, and especially ironic for a publication that previously published an article pushing for her to be the next president of the United States.

The Federalist’s Ericka Andersen went after Dolly Parton in her column, and she got rightly dinged for blaspheming the good name of Dolly Parton.

[daisy-mooon]

Being a gay Christian is so powerful. I can use rainbows for whatever I want and no one can stop me.

[cassanovela]

If you’re depressed God loves you

If you’re anxious God loves you

If you’re any race God loves you

If you’re disabled mentally God loves you

If you’re disabled physically God loves you

If you’re gay God loves you

If you’re straight God loves you

If you’re trans God loves you

It doesn’t matter who you are, what type of Christian denomination you belong to, or where you came from. All that matters is where your heart is.

Deuteronomy 7:9 - Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.

Remember that God loves you no matter what. stay blessed and have a good night! 🤍✝️

[justinspoliticalcorner]

John Pavlovitz at The Beautiful Mess:

It's the very kind of galling hypocrisy that is rendering organized Christianity fully irrelevant to more and more of a watching world who can see it from a mile away. I see it too—and it's a flat-out, deliberate sin they need to repent of. Every single day, queer people in America are subjected to relentless vile, profane, abusive attacks from Christians.

Continual, horrible bullying—from Christians. Not Atheists. Not immigrants or refugees or terrorists or Democrats. Not from any of the go-to boogeymen religious folks like to throw out there as the ever-present danger to us all. Christians. Self-identified Jesus followers. Professed disciples of the benevolent, compassionate "Love your neighbor as yourself", "Blessed are the peacemakers", "Judge not lest you be judged," rabbi, who touched lepers, fed multitudes, healed the sick, turned his cheek, and forgave his executioners. (Yeah, that Jesus.) The cognitive dissonance on display is astounding; that these people can manage to believe they're actually doing the will of God or sharing the Gospel, while berating and bullying and beating the hell out of strangers simply because of how they identify or who they love.

[...] In fact, the spectacular irony on display, is that while Jesus never mentions any restrictions on who can follow him based on gender identity or sexual orientation, he speaks explicitly and often about those who profess faith, while living with contempt for others; those who do damage and leverage power to inflict wounds, those who neglect and ignore and prey upon the marginalized, those who wield religion like a weapon. If there's anything the road to Hell is paved with, it's bigotry and violence done in the name of Jesus. The truth, is that an LGBTQ Christian isn't an oxymoron, but a hateful one most certainly is. The choice to be horrible and to use religion as the reason, is a disconnect of the greatest order. The Gospel testifies to this over and over again, and we who come in love, loudly amen this—and we're not having this nonsense anymore on behalf of our faith tradition.

To the millions of people around the world who identify as LGBTQ, both those who claim faith and those who do not—I'm sorry for those trying to retrofit Jesus to their hateful hearts; for the way they twist the Bible and distort the voice of God that you hear in your head, and for the daily, living Hell you go through at their hands and words. They don't speak for anyone but themselves—not for me, not for millions of Christians, and certainly not for God. And to the religious who believe they can oppress and harass and insult people until they are driven to isolation or tears or self-harm or suicide, all in the name of Jesus—I'd take a good, long look in the mirror, I'd let your knees hit the earth, and I'd do some serious soul-searching.

@John Pavlovitz nails it here: “The truth, is that an LGBTQ+ Christian isn't an oxymoron, but a hateful one most certainly is.”

[daisymooonart]

Aro ace, aromantic and asexual Christian flags for those who want them <3

[cookinguptales]

So I’ve been enjoying the Disney vs. DeSantis memes as much as anyone, but like. I do feel like a lot of people who had normal childhoods are missing some context to all this.

I was raised in the Bible Belt in a fairly fundie environment. My parents were reasonably cool about some things, compared to the rest of my family, but they certainly had their issues. But they did let me watch Disney movies, which turned out to be a point of major contention between them and my other relatives.

See, I think some people think this weird fight between Disney and fundies is new. It is very not new. I know that Disney’s attempts at inclusion in their media have been the source of a lot of mockery, but what a lot of people don’t understand is that as far as actual company policy goes, Disney has actually been an industry leader for queer rights. They’ve had policies assuring equal healthcare and partner benefits for queer employees since the early 90s.

I’m not sure how many people reading this right now remember the early 90s, but that was very much not industry standard. It was a big deal when Disney announced that non-married queer partners would be getting the same benefits as the married heterosexual ones.

Like — it went further than just saying that any unmarried partners would be eligible for spousal benefits. It straight-up said that non-same-sex partners would still need to be married to receive spousal benefits, but because same-sex partners couldn’t do that, proof that they lived together as an established couple would be enough.

In other words, it put long-term same-sex partners on a higher level than opposite-sex partners who just weren’t married yet. It put them on the exact same level as heterosexual married partners.

They weren’t the first company ever to do this, but they were super early. And they were certainly the first mainstream “family-friendly” company to do it.

Conservatives lost their damn minds.

Protests, boycotts, sermons, the whole nine yards. I can’t tell you how many books about the evils of Disney my grandmother tried to get my parents to read when I was a kid.

When we later moved to Florida, I realized just how many queer people work at Disney — because historically speaking, it’s been a company that has guaranteed them safety, non-discrimination, and equal rights. That’s when I became aware of their unofficial “Gay Days” and how Christians would show up from all over the country to protest them every year. Apparently my grandmother had been upset about these days for years, but my parents had just kind of ignored her.

Out of curiosity, I ended up reading one of the books my grandmother kept leaving at our house. And friends — it’s amazing how similar that (terrible, poorly written) rhetoric was to what people are saying these days. Disney hires gay pedophiles who want to abuse your children. Disney is trying to normalize Satanism in our beautiful, Christian America. 

Just tons of conspiracy theories in there that ranged from “a few bad things happened that weren’t actually Disney’s fault, but they did happen” to “Pocahontas is an evil movie, not because it distorts history and misrepresents indigenous life, but because it might teach children respect for nature. Which, as we all know, would cause them all to become Wiccans who believe in climate change.”

Like — please, take it from someone who knows. This weird fight between fundies and Disney is not new. This is not Disney’s first (gay) rodeo. These people have always believed that Disney is full of evil gays who are trying to groom and sexually abuse children.

The main difference now is that these beliefs are becoming mainstream. It’s not just conservative pastors who are talking about this. It’s not just church groups showing up to boycott Gay Day. Disney is starting to (reluctantly) say the quiet part out loud, and so are the Republicans. Disney is publicly supporting queer rights and announcing company-supported queer events and the Republican Party is publicly calling them pedophiles and enacting politically driven revenge.

This is important, because while this fight has always been important in the history of queer rights, it is now being magnified. The precedent that a fight like this could set is staggering. For better or for worse, we live in a corporation-driven country. I don’t like it any more than you do, and I’m not about to defend most of Disney’s business practices. But we do live in a nation where rights are largely tied to corporate approval, and the fact that we might be entering an age where even the most powerful corporations in the country are being banned from speaking out in favor of rights for marginalized people… that’s genuinely scary.

Like… I’ll just ask you this. Where do you think we’d be now, in 2023, if Disney had been prevented from promising its employees equal benefits in 1994? That was almost thirty years ago, and look how far things have come. When I looked up news articles for this post from that era, even then journalists, activists, and fundie church leaders were all talking about how a company of Disney’s prominence throwing their weight behind this movement could lead to the normalization of equal protections in this country.

The idea of it scared and thrilled people in equal parts even then. It still scares and thrills them now.

I keep seeing people say “I need them both to lose!” and I get it, I do. Disney has for sure done a lot of shit over the years. But I am begging you as a queer exvangelical to understand that no. You need Disney to win. You need Disney to wipe the fucking floor with these people.

Right now, this isn’t just a fight between a giant corporation and Ron DeSantis. This is a fight about the right of corporations to support marginalized groups. It’s a fight that ensures that companies like Disney still can offer benefits that a discriminatory government does not provide. It ensures that businesses much smaller than Disney can support activism.

Hell, it ensures that you can support activism.

The fight between weird Christian conspiracy theorists and Disney is not new, because the fight to prevent any tiny victory for marginalized groups is not new. The fight against the normalization of othered groups is not new.

That’s what they’re most afraid of. That each incremental victory will start to make marginalized groups feel safer, that each incremental victory will start to turn the tide of public opinion, that each incremental victory will eventually lead to sweeping law reform.

They’re afraid that they won’t be able to legally discriminate against us anymore.

So guys! Please. This fight, while hilarious, is also so fucking important. I am begging you to understand how old this fight is. These people always play the long game. They did it with Roe and they’re doing it with Disney.

We have! To keep! Pushing back!

[queerism1969]

[oleandro-drag]

saint sebastian tended by saint irene but they're both drag artists

felt like this might be something this site would enjoy

on stage: oleandro & delfi oraakel, photographer: peroksiid (on ig as oleandro_drag, delfi_oraakel and peroksiid)

[thecrowscandle]

I feel like when a lot of people talk about “worldly things” or being “in the world, not of the world” misunderstand what “the world” is. The world isn’t all the horrible people who don’t live the way church members do or “attacking the family”, which is usually a sugarcoated way of bashing on people who are different. The world is the influence of darkness, hate, pride, envy, selfishness, greed, etc., the things that are antithetical to who God is and who we are to become. All people are prone to be susceptible to those impulses, but we can change and improve because we are of divine substance. The people aren’t the problem with the world, it’s what the world does to people. And I think that a lot of rhetoric in the church is directed at people or groups when in reality it’s what people are subject to that needs attention

[daisy-mooon]

shoutout to the gay christians. you're doing amazing sweetie <3

[cassanovela]

Tips for Christians getting baptized for the first time!!

Firstly, its important that you know that by baptizing yourself, you are giving your soul to The Lord, and are being given a new life walking with The Lord in a sense.

Now, with that being said, here are some tips!! :))

- Don’t wear anything super tight if you get to choose what you wear!!

Whenever you get dunked into the water, if you’re wearing something tight, people might see A LOT of what you’d rather not show. Try wearing something a bit oversized!

- Pray before you get baptized

You could pray for a smooth baptism, pray for forgiveness, pray for yourself or your friends and family, or just simply thank God for the chance at a new life with him!

- Remember to pack a backup outfit

This way, whenever you’re finished, you can change into dry clothes that don’t bother you.

- Make a list of things you want to change in your life for after you get baptized

This includes cussing less, fasting more, praying more, studying the bible, it could be anything!

- Study, really study, on what baptism is and the story behind it the night before you get baptized.

This way, you’ll have a deeper and clearer understanding on what you are doing, and what it exactly means.

Thats all for now!! Have an amazing Sunday everyone, and if anyone has any concerns or questions my dms are always open! ^^

[the-rad1o-demon]

So far, chances of KOSA being enacted is 31% according to the site linked below.

Let's get that fucker down to zero, guys!!

Stuff to help us do that is linked here!

The call scripts linked below were originally for Congressional representatives, but now that the bill is in committee consideration by Senate Commerce, you should call your Senators instead and you can use the scripts for them. Also, when calling your Democrat senators, make sure to add that Senator Blackburn explicitly stated in interview that it would be used to "protect children from the transgender." I think it's pretty clear that this is not meant to protect children. It's just going to harm children further, especially trans children.

(Article below with a video of the interview embedded.)

Please help stop this bill in its tracks. Reblog, donate, call your senators, and keep an eye on the bill's chances of being passed. We can't stop now. 31% is still kind of a big number. We need to shrink those chances by a lot more.

[mygaythoughtsblog]

André Azevedo (@iam_andreazevedo)

[anthonysperkins]

Christian Slater, Patrick Labyorteaux, Lance Fenton Heathers (1989) dir. Michael Lehmann