As Pride Month unfolds, the Southern Baptist Convention has once again made headlines by reaffirming its opposition to women serving as pastors. At nearly the same moment, recent Department of Defense actions affecting the recognition of several religious traditions raised…
Some Republican governors are rebranding June with conservative alternatives to Pride
June is widely recognized as Pride Month, but a handful of Republican governors have bestowed alternative titles that both supporters and opponents view as counterprogramming.
What the church got wrong about queer people
The ACLU is tracking 530 anti-LGBTQ bills in state legislatures this year. Five hundred and thirty. In Kansas, a new law immediately invalidated the driver’s licenses of transgender people and authorized anyone, anyone, to sue someone they suspect of being transgender for using the…
Partisan gap widens on support for same-sex marriage
As LGBTQ Americans and their allies begin Pride month celebrations, there’s further evidence of a disconnect with conservative voters, no doubt driven by the evangelical base of the Republican Party. While overall support for same-sex marriage remains steady, support is…
Let’s make Pride about ‘us’ more than ‘me’
Those who know me well know I loathe most contemporary Christian music. It’s often inward focused and driven by first-person language. It’s commonly all about one’s personal relationship with God or what God has done for individuals, ignoring the Bible’s…
Love led me out of the closet
There are thousands of young LGBTQ Christians across the country sitting in church pews, overwhelmed by anxiety and shame. Each week, they hear sermons suggesting their identity —something they did not choose and cannot change — is a barrier to…
Belmont says no to Promise Keepers after warning of ‘mutilated bodies’ in anti-trans post
Spreading “biblical” hate speech about transgender people apparently got Promise Keepers booted from using a venue at Belmont University for a fall event. Although details are sketchy and contested, the bottom line appears to be that the evangelical men’s organization…
I’m relearning how to take Pride
I grew up in a small town of about 25,000 people. Our high school mascot was a lion, so it was natural for us to speak in terms of having “pride.” The big block letters in the band hall read…
The right’s zero-tolerance policy on Pride
In case you have any remaining doubt that the Religious Right wants to obliterate all appearance of LGBTQ people — to make them invisible once again — consider the dustup over a single photograph showing a small Pride flag atop…
Faced with damning sexual abuse investigation, some in SBC seek to discredit the investigators
One week before Southern Baptists gather to respond to a damning independent investigation of sexual abuse problems, the lead story on the denomination’s news site is about “controversy” created by Guidepost Solutions tweeting support for Pride month. Guidepost is the…
Pride month and the unhindered gospel
One of the key words of Acts is “unhindered.” The last word of the book is in the adjective form, saying that Paul near the end of his life preached the gospel of the kingdom “unhinderedly.” The whole book is…
Pride month: suggestions for straight allies in queer spaces
Given the harsh judgment, discrimination and hateful rhetoric LGBTQ people face from many Christian people, seeing churches who love, affirm and support LGBTQ people is essential. Still, when straight people enter queer spaces, even as allies, their heterosexual privilege can be problematic.