A personal blog by a graying (mostly Anglo with light African-American roots) gay left leaning liberal progressive married college-educated Buddhist Baha'i BBC/NPR-listening Professor Emeritus now following the Dharma in Minas Gerais, Brasil.
Zen
plays the role of janitor in my religious life, and if my understanding
of Zen (pardon the expression) is right, that is a compliment. The Zen I
know pulls the rug out from anything I land on as the truth and
blissfully blows away dangerous moments of intelligence and
understanding.
I have noticed that people are dealing too much with the negative, with what is wrong. They do not touch enough on what is not
wrong. . . . Why not try the other way, to look into the patient and to
see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?
It
does not matter whether you are a man or woman, young or old, a monk or
a layperson. The treasury of the true dharma eye and subtle mind of
nirvana is anybody, everybody!
After hours of bible study, and in a cultural climate where there is a
lot of discussion surrounding who should be welcome or not, who is
morally qualified or not, who should be elected (or not), appointed (or
not), hired (or not), or embraced (or not), I’ve curated a comprehensive
list of all the people Jesus has said it was okay for us not to love, serve, forgive, and show mercy toward. In other words, you have Scriptural permission to hate, cast out,
demonize, distance yourself from, and hold grudges against all of the
following fifty groups or individuals. You don’t have to be kind to
them, serve them, or even associate with them. You have Biblical mandate
to talk badly about them, condemn them, and wish failure upon them.
Hyperventilate online about them. Scoff. Scorn. Scold. They’re all fair
game–the whole list–according to the Lord.
Without further ado, here’s a comprehensive list of 50 Groups/Individuals Jesus Says You Can Hate: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray
for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in
heaven.” Jesus, Matthew 5:43-45, emphasis mine, but I think Jesus would
be okay with it.
A new United Nations (UN) report has called for laws
criminalising consensual same-sex sexual activity to be repealed around
the world.
In the new report,
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad al-Hussein has said
that LGBT people are victims of “pervasive violent abuse, harassment and
discrimination” in all regions of the world, citing hundreds of
hate-related killings, the Guardian reports. Mr al-Hussein added that, while progress has been made since
the UN’s historic first report into the rights LGBT people globally in
2011, the gains had been overshadowed by continued state-sponsored
persecution and attacks made against them.
It states that in 2012 alone, 310 documented murders occured
in Brazil “in which homophobia or transphobia was a motive”, while the
trans murder monitoring project listed 1,612 murders in 62 countries
between 2008 and 2014.
According to the report, at least 76 countries retain
anti-gay laws used to criminalise and persecute people on the basis of
their sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.
The report made 24 recommendations, calling for all state
worldwide to decriminalise consenting same-sex activity between adults,
ban ‘gay cure’ therapy and the forced sterilization of trans people, and
to enact legisaltion to protect LGBT people from hate speech and
discrimination.
It also called on states to give legal recognition to
same-sex couples and their children -implying, but not stating, equal
marriage – as well as providing age-appropriate sex education to all,
guaranteeing asylum for any LGBTI people whose lives may be in danger
due to their sexuality, and eding forced enital and anal examinations
to ‘prove’ whether someone is LGBT. Read the original and more here
Anam
Thubten grew up writing poems in his native Tibetan language, following
in the tradition in Tibetan Buddhism of Doha or Songs of Realization
that express nonconceptual themes like the great emptiness, the
unconditioned, boundless love, ecstatic devotion. Since coming to the
west, his poems have taken on a new flavor, while still exploring the
bitter as well as the sweet flavor of the ordinary and extraordinary truth of human life. In the mid 1990's Anam Thubten shared a stage with Allen Ginsberg in
San Francisco as seen in this photograph from Marc Olmstead.
Two people standing outside embracing and smiling widely at the camera. Source: Cardone Reproductive MedicineUsed to describe something that’s been around much longer than the
word itself, the phenomenon of homonormativity is considered by many to
be destructive to the queer rights movement and to the larger queer
community.
Homonormativity is a word that addresses the problems of privilege we see in the queer community today as they intersect with White privilege, capitalism, sexism, transmisogyny, and cissexism, all of which end up leaving many people out of the movement toward greater sexual freedom and equality. So what does it mean, and more importantly, how does it manifest in our everyday lives? First, let’s examine it’s counterpart, heteronormativity.
This is a word that similarly describes the evaluation of “normal”
sexuality that we see in our culture, from the policy and institutional
level down to the interpersonal.
Muchisbeingwritten about heteronormativity,
which describes the assumption and promotion that heterosexuality is
the only “normal” and “natural” orientation out there, privileging those
who fit the norm and positing anyone outside of this as abnormal and
wrong.
Our culture is deeply heteronormative, but as queer experiences
and rights become more accepted, a policing of sexual and gender
expressions within LGBQ spaces is also growing. This is homonormativity.
Homonormativity explains how certain aspects of the queer community
can perpetuate assumptions, values, and behaviors that hurt and
marginalize many folks within this community, as well as those with whom
the community should be working in solidarity.
It addresses assimilation, as well as intersection of corporate interests and consumerism within LGBQ spaces.
It also describes the assumption that queer people want to be a
part of the dominant, mainstream, heterosexual culture, and the way in
which our society rewards those who do so, identifying them as most
worthy and deserving of visibility and rights.
We see homonormativity every day, but it can be so entrenched in queer culture that we don’t really recognize it as problematic.
So how does homonormativity manifest structurally in our culture today?
Who Is Visible?
As social attitudes change around queer relationships, we’re seeing
more representations of queer people in the media, though this
representation is incredibly limited.
Turn on the TV or flip through a magazine – for each of the few times that you’ll see a queer person, they’ll more than likely be a cisgender, gender-normative, White, middle class, gay-identifying person.
From the television shows Modern Family and The New Normal
to TV personalities Anderson Cooper and Neil Patrick Harris, the voices
that are given space and visibility tend to be those of a particular class, of a particular gender expression, and of a particular race.
This is not to say that things aren’t changing – we’re gradually
seeing more transgender people and people of Color being represented,
but even then, their representation is limited, and often based on stereotypes.
The stereotypes and tropes of LGBQ people in media do more than
simplify and minimize the complex realities of queer people; they
participate in setting up a standard of a normative way to “be” LGBQ.
This standard privileges certain experiences — those of White, middle-class, gay, cisgender and gender normative identities — as being representative of all queer experiences.
This “whitewashing” goes beyond just what we see in the media around queer lives. It’s also seen in the representation of the queer rights movement, historically and today, as being largely driven by White, masculine, cisgender men.
This erasure of transgender people, cisgender women, and people of Color is not only historically inaccurate, it positions White men as the main historical and current agents of change.
Marriage Equality as the Major Goal of the Gay Rights Movement™
As we’ve seen the issue of marriage equality gain success, swooping
the nation in election after election, we have to question its position
as The Gay Rights Issue™.
Fighting for sexual liberation and equality is, of course, so much
more than fighting for the right to marry, but how is the positioning of
marriage equality as the major issue also promoting homonormativity?
Marriage as an issue sets up the requirement that all
relationships should mimic this heteronormative standard of sexuality
and family structure. It promotes the idea that all people want to emulate straight monogamous couples.
When we focus only on this issue, we exclude polyamorous and other
non-normative relationship structures as acceptable, as well as, of
course, those who don’t want to get married.
The focus on marriage challenges very little, prioritizing the legal
sanctioning of one’s relationships over real relational and societal
transformation.
By showing that people outside of the heterosexual norm want the same things that “traditional, straight America” wants, themarriage
equality movement fights to gain access to this social institution by
reproducing, rather than challenging, heterosexual dominance and
normativity andusing this as a basis for who deserves rights.
The Human Rights Campaign (And Other Major Non-Profits)
As one of the largest and most influential LGBT organizations in the
country, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is a major symbol of
homonormativity, and many activists have and continue to challenge its role in the movement.
Here are just a handful of examples why the HRC is not representative of, nor is it an answer to, the queer rights movement:
The HRC continues to exclude and further marginalize the lives of trans and gender non-confirming people.
Most notably, in 2007, the HRC chose to support a non-inclusive version
of the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, that excluded
protections based on gender identity, while most other LGBTQIA+ lobbying
groups chose to support the inclusive version.
The HRC supports corporations and banks that are harmful to queer
communities, most notably its decision to honor Goldman Sachs with its
Workplace Equality Innovation Award in 2011, an organization that
symbolizes corporate greed and perpetuates economic inequality.
What does it say when a “queer rights” organization honors a corrupt
and destructive company like Goldman Sachs while ignoring issues caused
by economic inequality, such as queer youth homelessness?
The HRC has and continues to ignore racism as an issue that intersects with queer rights, not even listing race as a “topic” on their website.
They have also been silent about issues relating to the prison system
and police violence (which should matter to them because queer people
are disproportionately criminalized and incarcerated).
This shows a lack of intersectional understanding in the
organization, that the organization is led by and privileges White
middle-class experiences, and that it does not actually intend to challenge systemic, structural oppression.
These problems are not limited to the HRC, but are reflective of the larger non-profit industrial complex
that tends to require that more energy go into funding, building
relationships with those in power, and working from a top-down approach,
than it does building an actual movement for change.
We see this value-system reproduced in many other activist organizations. Organizations such as the HRC — which prioritize money, power, and reforms benefitting those who are already privileged within the movement — must be challenged.
They should not be speaking for or profiting from our movement, and
they will not lead us to real and inclusive liberation and equality.
Regardless of what one thinks about Chelsea Manning’s decision to expose this information, it is important to address the significance of Chelsea Manning’s treatment by the media and as a transgender woman in prison.
The media’s reaction to Chelsea’s transition announcement last year,
for example, became an opportunity to discuss the media’s constant
misgendering of transgender people.
Chelsea Manning’s story and decisions have led to important societal
conversations and shifts around name changes and gender pronouns, access
to hormone therapy, and the treatment of transgender people in the
military and in prison.
And yet, the mainstream queer rights movement has generally been silent — and at times dismissive — about supporting her.
Homonationalism in Israel
The term homonationalism
takes the concept of homonormativity one step further to refer to the
way in which queer people — largely White, Western gay men — have
aligned with nationalist ideologies of their countries.
While homonormativity describes the alignment of queer people, spaces, and struggles with heterosexual cultural norms,
homonationalism describes this alignment within the nation-state,
through patriotism, nationalism, and support for a nation’s military and
other forms of state violence.
Right now, queer progress is being used as a symbol of certain
countries’ goodness and modernity as moral justification for wars,
colonization, and occupation.
We have seen the case for women’s rights used in a similar way by Western countries.
With increasing queer acceptance, we are beginning to see this
progress used to promote particular countries’ right to use violence on
another, often through the intentional perpetuation of Islamophobic and
anti-immigrant attitudes.
For example, homonationalism is increasingly apparent and consciously performed in Israel.
Also referred to as “pinkwashing,”
we see homonationalism in the way that Israel consistently promotes the
illusion that it is a “gay utopia” as a way to deflect attention away
from its human rights violations against Palestinians.
Here, Queer rights are being co-opted and used by the Israeli government as an
international public relations tool to normalize and support Israel’s
settlement expansions, walls, and extrajudicial killings — its occupation of Palestine.
One particularly striking example is “Brand Israel” campaign’s attempt to draw gay tourism to the country.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, $88 million was spent
on international marketing to brand Tel Aviv as an international gay
vacation destination, mostly through social media.
Millions more have been spent in an attempt to appeal to
international liberal and youth support, portraying Israel as a
queer-friendly culture as proof of its commitment to human rights.
Queers Against Israeli Apartheid
has called out the hypocrisy of calling Israel a “gay utopia” while the
violence of its occupation makes lives far worse for Arab queers.
They’ve noted that “homophobia exists in Israel, Palestine, and
across all borders. But queer Palestinians face the additional challenge
of living under occupation, subject to Israeli state violence and
control. Israel’s apartheid system extends gay rights only to some,
based on race.”
In an attempt to squash the conversation of Israeli accountability within the international queer community, there is not only a silencing of the issue of Israeli occupation, but also of Arab and Muslim queer voices.
Because the US politically and financially supports Israel — providing the country with $3 billion in foreign military aid each year — we hear very little about this issue in our own queer spaces or in mainstream media.
The above are only a handful of examples of homonormativity, and there are countless more. Some examples include the mainstream queer rights movement’s prioritization of the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
in the US military, the exclusion and devaluing of transgender people
and those outside of the gender binary within queer spaces, its silence around the case of Black trans woman CeCe McDonald,
the heightened marketing of consumer products toward queer communities,
the increasing corporate-sponsorship of Pride parades, and the
infuriating participation of White queer people in the denial of their
position of privilege and complicity in the current discourse around
police violence against Black communities.
Each one of these deserves an entire blog post of their own, and may, as lived experiences, seem separate from one another.
Butit is under this useful concept of
homonormativity that we can examine how each issue is tied to the next
so that we can begin the work of challenging them from this larger
connected framework of understanding.
In order to challenge the homonormative structures stacked against
us, we must work from a place that supports inclusivity, grassroots
organizing, coalition building, a global queer solidarity, and a
consistent intersectional analysis.
And it’s important for us to remember our history: The queer right’s movement’s beginnings
were based in a radical politics that consistently challenged corporate
capitalism, the military, and the heteronormative structure of
marriage.
It is by honoring this legacy of radical politics and prioritizing
the needs and voices of those most marginalized that we can truly work
toward greater sexual and gender liberation and equality.
Resources
Learn more about Chelsea Manning and find out how to support her with the Chelsea Manning Support Network.
For more on homonationalism and queer rights in Palestine/Israel, check out the following:
Laura Kacere is a Contributing Writer for Everyday Feminism and
is a feminist activist and organizer, clinic escort, grad school
student, and yoga teacher living and going to school in Chicago. When
she isn’t studying or on her mat, she’s usually thinking about zombies,
playing music, eating Lebanese food, and wishing she was surrounded by
trees. Follow her on Twitter @Feminist_Oryx. Click here to read the original and more here
It's a little more like the image of a caterpillar - enclosing itself in
a cocoon in order to go through the metamorphosis to emerge as a
butterfly. The caterpillar doesn't say: "Well now. I'm going to climb
into this cocoon and come out a butterfly." It's just an inevitable
process. It's inevitable. It's just happening. It's GOT to happen that
way.
We're talking abut a metamorphosis, we're talking about going from a
caterpillar to butterfly. We're talking about how to become a butterfly.
I mean, the caterpillar isn't walking around saying, "Man I'll soon be a
butterfly, because as long as he's busy being a caterpillar he can't be
a butterfly. It's only when caterpillarness is done that one starts to
be a butterfly and that again is part of this paradox - you cannot rip
away caterpillarness.
