How the Bishops Are Insulting (Opposite - Sex) Married Couples

 Isn't it quite insulting to heterosexual married couples to reduce their affirming commitment through marriage of their relationship to a simple biological act? If marriage is merely for reproductive purposes, why do they insist on trying to defend it as sacred? Is reproduction more sacred than love? Not in the New Testament it's not! Now I look at it like that, aren't they a load of silly billies?

-Jennifer Hynes, QTC comment thread.

One of the more offensive aspects of the Vatican teaching on homoerotic relationships is the way in which everything is reduced to "genital acts" (which are dismissed as mere gratuitous self-gratification). As anyone who has lived in a committed, long-term relationship can testify, it's about far more than mere sex. It's also about mutual caring and support, for each other and for family members, aging parents and growing children (even for animals).

It's shared pleasures, at the movies, in music or art, or dining with friends. It's about shared domestic duties, and joint participation in neighbourhood, community (and parish) concerns. Sex itself is far more than  mere genital acts: it's also about caresses, hugs, and kisses. Especially as we age, "genital acts" are of diminishing interest.

It hadn't occurred to me, but Jennifer is right. By focussing their opposition to marriage equality so obsessively on the capacity to create (not nurture) children, some Catholic bishops and organisations are similarly reducing heterosexual marriage to a series of mere genital acts. This is not only insulting to the LGBT community, it is also insulting to all loving couples.

Related articles

• Catholic Bishops Divided on Civil Unions (queeringthechurch.com)
• Catholic Bishops, Gay Marriage: "the Outer Fringes of Crazy Town" (queeringthechurch.com)
• Italian Bishop Advocates Civil Unions (commonwealmagazine.org)
• The "Gay Civil Unions" Approach of Some Within the Catholic Hierarchy: Too Little, Too Late (thewildreed.blogspot.com)

Gay Pride, Drag Contests in the Amazon: Brazil and Peru

In a post about Pride Parades a few days ago, I noted that these are no longer found only in big cities in Europe and North America. In a neat illustration of this, I have come across this report, which demonstrates that on the same day late last year, competing events  were held in two nearby Amazon towns. In Brazil, the town of Benjamin Constant (pop 30 000) had its first gay pride celebration, with a parade following a full day's programme. Just across the border, in Peru, the  town of Cavallo Cocha held its annual Country Drag Queen Contest:

 

Gay Pride in the Amazon

Just days before the release last month of the United Nations’ first official report on gay rights the small Amazon town of Benjamin Constant also marked an important milestone—its first gay pride celebration. The Brazilian town, with over 30,000 people from multiple ethnic backgrounds, sits at the triple border with Colombia and Peru, overlooking the junction of the Amazon and Javari rivers. It is a quintessential Amazon town—a colorful market with abundant local fruits and fish, a deprived economy, high migration, and a rather religious community.

Benjamin Constant, like many other Amazon towns, also boasts a thriving gay community. It is a reminder that gay rights are spreading to the furthest corners of the world, and that the Amazon may be more modern than often assumed.

After a full-day LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) forum to discuss education, security, health, and work at the Universidade Federal do Amazonas, over 60 participants then paraded a large rainbow flag through town. Transvestites dancing to the gay anthem “I Will Survive” in sexy glittering outfits opened the march alongside anthropology students, followed by a diverse and lively crowd chanting slogans against homophobia and honking motorbikes. The march brought together soccer players and Indigenous lesbians, math teachers and sex workers, and grandmothers and little children.

Benjamin Constant’s first gay pride celebration generated some confused looks and awkward smiles, but no violence. Instead, the contagious enthusiasm enticed bystanders to join in as the lively group of perhaps a hundred people made their way to the port. Transportation difficulties prevented others from participating, notably a Tikuna Indigenous group from Feijoal, which got stuck on the way upriver. The crowd would have been larger if the event had not conflicted with the annual Country Drag Queen Contest in the old rubber town of Cavallo Cocha, Peru. (Jackie, the town’s recurrent Carnival Queen, had won last year’s contest and expectations were high for a repeat.)

via Americas Quarterly .

Related articles

• In Celebration of Pride Celebrations
• A Dissenting Queer View: Cardinal George, Gay Pride

Kieron Richardson – Actor, Hollyoaks

born 12 January 1986

English actor best known for playing the role of Ste Hay in Hollyoaks.

He was listed at number 37 on the DS list of "50 Most Influential Gays", 2011:

It was pretty obvious to most of us that behind young Kieron’s toothy grin and chiseled cheekbones was a man who liked the company of other men. When he came out on This Morning in September 2010, he admitted he’d been inspired to by X Factor’s Joe McElderry and by the next day; he’d received 17,000 emails of support. “I’d never seen anyone my age say it before and then when Joe McElderry (number 41 on our list) came out and said it I thought, ‘Maybe I can be young and come out and say I’m gay and it’s not going to affect my career,’” he recalls. “I’d say he helped me in the fact that he was a similar age to me. Seeing him do it really inspired me.” Kieron’s Hollyoaks character Ste has also since come out and a confident, shirtless Kieron recently graced the cover of Gay Times.

Flores “Flo” McGarrell

b. August 31, 1974
d. January 12, 2010

American artist, filmmaker, writer and arts administrator, who described himself as "a total gender mash up (beard, miniskirt, etc.)" and "as a non-passing transperson." Born biologically female, McGarrell identified strongly with androgyny since childhood, and the transgender and queer (or radical queer) community as an adult. He began formally identifying as a male in 2003-04. This gender reassessment was brought about through a limited amount of hormone therapy—not elective surgery however—and was part of an intellectual journey into radical politics which was, in turn, related to the artist's philosophy and output.

McGarrell was born Flora McGarrell to expatriate artist parents in Rome, where his father James McGarrell was the recipient of a Fulbright grant, as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation at Bellagio in Italy. His mother, Ann, is a writer, poet and translator. They moved back to America when Flo was 8 years old and now live in Newbury, Vermont. Flo McGarrell received a B.F.A. in Fibers and an M.A. in Digital Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art, 1992–1998. In 1997 he co-founded Little Big Bang, a non-profit arts organization which performed/exhibited for four years in such diverse venues as the Baltimore Museum of Art, the American Visionary Art Museum, as well as local galleries, festivals, and the streets.

After earning his first master's degree he taught video and electronic arts at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and at the Baltimore School for the Arts. In 2004 he received an M.F.A. in Art and Technology Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where his hybrid skills in sculpture and digital craft were utilized to create inflatable spaces, with light, sound, and video projection. In 2007 he was part of the Roswell Artist in Residence Program where he experimented in sustainable living as sculpture.

Since his youth McGarrell was fascinated with Haiti and Haitian culture and in 2008 he took of the position of director of the art center FOSAJ in Jacmel, a city famed for its art located on the southern coast of Haiti. FOSAJ was founded in 2003 by a wealthy local family and its mission is to revive the international market for locally made art, which collapsed due to decades of political instability. McGarrell served as director of the center until his death and during his tenure he develop a relationship with local artists and the community. Fosaj board member Regine Boucard said of McGarrell that, "Everybody loved him — the artists, the students, the community. And he sort of understood the Haitians." 

An early interest in metalsmithing over time, developed into a commitment to installation art with a focus on political concerns and ecology. Most of McGarrell's mature work utilized strongly color-coordinated plastics to create interior/exterior spaces, and living plants to create functioning vegetable gardens, also situated indoors and out. McGarrell's installations were created, as much as feasible, from discarded, recycled materials. His gardens functioned from recycled grey water and included hands-on, instructive material on creating compost at home and the artist's own recipes for meals designed from both a nutritional standpoint and their palatability. This teaching material, as well as most of McGarrell's other writing, was distributed freely, in accordance with the artist's dedication to free copyright, or Creative Commons approach to intellectual property.

McGarrell was the art director of the film, Maggots and Men, an experimental retelling of the story of the 1921 uprising of the Kronstadt sailors in post-revolutionary Russia.

On Tuesday, January 12, 2010, a devastating magnitude 7.0 M earthquake centered approximately 25 kilometres (16 mi) west of Port-au-Prince, leveled buildings throughout Haiti, including the "Peace of Mind" Hotel in Jacmel. McGarrell had just dropped off his godfather in Port-au-Prince and had stopped off at the hotel on his way to the FOSAJ center, where he both lived and worked. He was sitting with a visiting friend and fellow artist, Sue Frame, when the earthquake hit and was killed as the building collapsed on top of him. He was apparently killed instantly. Frame ran out at the first tremor; McGarrell hesitated briefly, perhaps concerned for his laptop computer.

Elections official resigns over gay marriage ban

The elections director in socially conservative Harnett County has resigned, saying she could not in good conscience preside over the upcoming vote on a proposed amendment to the state constitution banning same-sex marriage.

Sherre Toler says her romantic relationship with a man of a different race cemented her belief that the civil rights of couples in love should not be put to a popular vote.

Elections workers are discouraged from expressing personal opinions about issues on the ballot so that they don't feed a perception that those counting the votes are biased. The 51-year-old registered Democrat had the job 11 years.

Toler told The Associated Press her Jan. 3 resignation will enable her to speak out about an issue she is passionate about and work with groups seeking to defeat the May referendum.

-Sacramento News

Gay marriage within reach in Wash. Legislature: AP:

Washington's Legislature is on the verge of having enough support to approve gay marriage, with votes continuing to realign in the state Senate.

In contacts with all 49 senators over the past week, The Associated Press found that more lawmakers are now firmly supporting gay marriage than opposing it. That margin currently stands at 22-18, and the measure needs 25 votes to pass the Senate.

Four other Democrats say they are considering whether to support it, including one who is leaning in favor. A pair of Republicans are among those supporting the proposal, and two first-term members of the GOP say they are still discussing the issue with constituents.

The state House is widely expected to have enough support to pass gay marriage, and Gov. Chris Gregoire publicly endorsed gay marriage for the first time last week"

-AP

In Celebration of Pride Celebrations

[In his introductory post last week, "A Dissenting Queer View: Cardinal George, Gay Pride ",  Advocatus Diaboli expressed essentially two distinct concerns. One was about the overreaction by some gay activists/ gay Catholics to the Cardinal's words, and one was about the nature of gay pride itself.  The piece he wrote was not originally intended for publication, but was for my personal consideration. As it was at my request that he posted it for public scrutiny, I promised to provide a full response, here. It was my intention to do this in two posts, for the two different concerns, but Cardinal George's apology last week has largely removed the point of that one. Here is my response to AD, on the issue of gay pride specifically].

AD's concern over Pride Parade appears to spring from the feelings of self-disgust that he experienced on seeing the displays of scantily - clad men, and his fear that he might be secretly “one of them”. Oddly enough, this is precisely the reason why Pride is important. Let's take a closer look at his words:

......every time I saw depictions of scantily clad men parading down the street in some obnoxious display I was filled with self-disgust that I was secretly 'one of them'. I thought that if I accepted who I was that I would immediately become a sex obsessed 'queen' who dressed like a prostitute-fairy. I was not able to accept myself as gay until after I found out that there were 'normal' gay people.

“Every time I saw “depictions” of.... I wonder: is this a response to real gay pride parades, or to the presentation of them in the media?

Yes, of course there are some unusual sights to be seen, expanses of naked or near - naked man-flesh, flamboyant drag queens, and perhaps leather men and their slaves/ boys – but these get into the papers precisely because they are exceptional. In my experience of London Pride, the “freaks” (as some may think of them), are vastly outnumbered by the others: those who are what AD describes as "normal gay people”.

When I think of the mental images that I take away from the London Pride parades I have participated in, I see a few of the extremes that upset AD and others, but I also see far, far more.