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Sexuality/Gender

AIDS Anniversary: Thirty is the New Eternity

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The 30th wedding anniversary calls for pearls, various websites say. And yet, we have no weddings really, from the federal point of view. So what does the 30th mean? Is it the beginning of the end? The end of the beginning? The eschaton? For some, AIDS/HIV is one of the mythic horsemen of the apocalypse. The Salvation Army writes of the “three horsemen of the Russian Apocalypse—AIDS” Others write of the “hybrid horseman of the apocalypse: the global AIDS pandemic.” We debate whether an HIV-positive diagnosis—or even an AIDS diagnosis—is the end of the world. And we write of “the virus at the end of the world.” The victories seem somehow pyrrhic.

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Sexuality/Gender

Pricking the Conscience of Churches: From AIDS Activism to Ending World Hunger

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“Neither hunger nor HIV can be curbed or ended by the church, but neither can these goals be accomplished without the help of the church and other faith communities. Governments alone have the resources to deal with the tremendous needs of feeding the hungry and caring for the sick. However, the church can help serve as the conscience of a country—prompting policies that are more compassionate and generous to the poor. Faith communities need to model what it means to be non-stigmatizing and what it means to share from its resources. Christians that do not reach out to the poor, the hungry, and the sick jeopardize their own souls.”

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Books, Sexuality/Gender

Gay Chutzpah: An LGBT Synagogue Thrives

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In 1973, a group of Jewish gay people—mostly men—gathered in New York City and created what eventually became Congregation Beit Simchat Torah. In the decades since then, the organization has burgeoned. The congregation is also known to some—perhaps many—because of an ethnography undertaken by an Israeli anthropologist who specialized in migration, but became intrigued with the congregation when in New York. Moshe Shokeid, a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University, wrote A Gay Synagogue in New York, a study based on participant observation and interviews with congregants in 1989.

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(A)theologies, Books

Of Sports and Social Justice: An Interview with Rebecca Alpert

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Among the first generation of women rabbis and among the first generation of lesbian rabbis is Rebecca Alpert. Shaped by her own teachers, including Mordecai Kaplan, who founded Reconstructionist Judaism, Alpert is currently a faculty member in religious studies at Temple University. She is also the author of books on Reconstructionist and progressive Judaism, on the place of lesbians within Judaism, and, most recently, on Jews in black baseball. 

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Politics/Law

What To Do When Fred Phelps Arrives in Your Neighborhood

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While I support free speech, the lunatic fringe of Fred Phelps and all too many mainstream believers whose idea of the Bible is limited to particular portions of Leviticus speak all too often. What should we do on this particular Saturday and in the future when Fred Phelps announces he will picket in our neighborhoods? Should we throw glitter on Fred Phelps? Should we stay home? Should we even write articles or comment on the six o’clock news? 

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