Religion Dispatches
…something different now—not just my own blood, but a larger communion of the self in the world. I write every morning in my kitchen, stirring my coffee with one of Grammy’s spoons. I’ll never use it in a grand candlelit dinner with my children and their children. It’s for everyday use. I am the end of my line. But also, the beginning of another kind….
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…binary. Nearly every medical form I’ve ever completed requires me to pick between some form of binary gender—i.e., “Are you a man or a woman?” On the rare occasion when a third box is offered, staff still misgender me, and use my legal name instead of the one I write over it. This even happens when I politely add “Preferred Name” to the form or scrawl “PLEASE CALL ME COOPER” above and around the space for the name. The bracelet they put on my wri…
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…still higher pyramids of profit, I realize that never again can the Seder freeze. Now, again, we need a new Freedom Seder. “In every generation …” Indeed. What makes time and life into a spiral, instead of a straight line or an endless circle, is setting aside time for reflection, rest, renewal. That renewal-time—Shabbat, the Sabbath; each pause to bless Creation and say I-Thou before we make use of it; the Great Shabbat when, we are taught, we m…
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…nalogous logic to the various facets of her public personae, including her use of occult symbols. Notwithstanding the worries of the conspiracy theorists, Lady Gaga’s symbols do not hide some deeper truth. They are part of the total simulation called “Lady Gaga.” In fact, the occluded eyes, sinister postures and such are no longer symbols at all. They are elements of surface style. The secret that these “symbols” conceal is that there is no truth…
Read More…come.) Sacred borderlands The truly unprecedented thing was, for lack of a better term, the creation of coalition on the axes of race and sexuality. It didn’t hurt that of the fourteen students who were selected to be in the program, eight were people of color. Not surprisingly only four of the eighteen teacher/mentors were, and this generational shift bodes well for the future of Queer/LGBT religious movements. And it also didn’t hurt that the wh…
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…n order to affect the election. On the state level, too, religion is being used to promote discrimination: Proposition 8 in California seeks to annihilate gay marriage rights, though they have been confirmed by the California Supreme Court, by amending the California Constitution. The Prop. 8 campaign has effectively played on fear and the ingrained religious notions of marriage that most people retain, no matter what religion—or even lack of reli…
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…children to “thrive,” it’s imperative that they grow up in a (religious) household of their parents, a man and a woman, joined together in marriage, because “if no one’s having babies, what does this say about the state of our nation?” It seemed incomprehensible to all panelists that some women might not actually want to have 2.1 children—or any children at all. Waters points out that while national conservatives should be indeed happy that pro-na…
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…tends to be more ethnographic and qualitative. It’s a vicious circle, because women are socialized to ask certain kinds of questions, to be better listeners, and to be not as assertive or not as aggressive, so that also influences people’s choice of what to study and how to study it. Graduate school can also suck the genuine curiosity out of you—and this happens for men and women, though we respond to it differently. You are taught that you can’t…
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…octrine may likely reconsider those beliefs as technology advances and its use becomes accepted in everyday life, Campbell said. Even if official church policies don’t change, churchgoers often do. The Catholic Church’s opposition to contraception hasn’t changed, but Catholics in the United States use birth control and have abortions at about the same rate as non-religious people, Campbell said. And he explained that in the dozen years physician-a…
Read More…presented in its internal practices and foreign policies the commitment to freedom that fuels its rhetoric. And, while we’re at it, we might throw into the mix some attention to our materialism and its awkward and distorting presentation. There is something useful in examining the policies and practices of our nation and demanding that we live the best of our ideals. And, if My Name Is Earl sparks that type of exchange, I won’t complain. My name i…
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