- cross-posted to:
- upliftingnews@lemmit.online
- cross-posted to:
- upliftingnews@lemmit.online
The Cathedral of Hope — an LGBTQ±affirming United Church of Christ in Dallas, Texas — has made a concerted effort to defend the queer community from “persecution,” as the state government targets drag queens and transgender people.
The church recently held a service where they blessed drag queens and pledged to “stand for justice, proclaim love, and protect the rights of all people.”
While about three dozen protestors stood outside of the church hurling slurs and threats, approximately 850 people attended the service.
“Anyone check the weather today?!” one protester screamed. “’Cause it might rain fire and brimstone on this church and burn every homo inside!”
But for the ugliness on display outside, the congregation filled the building with love and “radical inclusivity.”
“We recognize that all people are made in the loving image of God, no matter who they are, how they dress, express themselves, or who they love,” the pastor intoned during the service. “We celebrate this divine diversity and commit to lifting up the voices of the LGBTQ+ community and creating spaces where everyone can thrive.”
As one worship leader noted as the pastor gave communion, “Drag queens are often targets of hate and violence.” The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, in particular, were singled out for particular honor due to their lifesaving work during the AIDS epidemic.
“These Sisters were at the bedsides of men dying of AIDS,” Rev. Dr. Neil G. Thomas said. “They bring humor, they bring activism, they provide and bring a level of spirituality that many of us have had taken away from us. Despite the humor, they take their spiritual work very seriously.”
The service was a response to recently passed legislation meant to make a drag a crime. The law, passed by Republicans, has been challenged in court by civil rights groups and blocked repeatedly by federal courts.
The law punishes drag performers and venues with a $10,000 fine if they allow a minor to see a “sexually explicit” performance. Such a performance is defined as one in which “a male performer [is] exhibiting as a female, or a female performer exhibiting as a male, who uses clothing, makeup, or other similar physical markers and who sings, lip syncs, dances, or otherwise performs before an audience.”
Lawyers from the Texas Attorney General’s office argued that because the law didn’t specifically mention drag, it wasn’t discriminatory to drag performances. However, in June, Gov. Greg Abbott ® shared a story about the law’s passage that contained the headline, “Texas Governor Signs Law Banning Drag Performances in Public,” and added the comment, “That’s right.” Many state politicians who supported the law also publicly stated that it was meant to target drag, specifically.
But would the law apply to churches? That’s unclear.
“My kid was here,” the lead pastor said. “I don’t have the right to choose to bring my kid to church when there are drag queens?”
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Such a performance is defined as one in which “a male performer [is] exhibiting as a female, or a female performer exhibiting as a male, who uses clothing, makeup, or other similar physical markers and who sings, lip syncs, dances, or otherwise performs before an audience.”
So, basically theater?
Strange that sexually explicit does not seem to encompass sexual. I guess live sex shows are on?
I mean, look at Boebert, clearly the Republicans are a-okay with performing public sex shows for kids. Correct me if I’m wrong, but haven’t heard a single one condemn her behavior.
It’s one of those things they’re choosing to ignore since it’s impossible to defend. Better for them, in their minds, to just ignore it and discuss something else, like how when a major story breaks that’s bad for republicans, Fox will be discussing some irrelevant nonsense like Hunter Biden all night.
I checked and Mrs Doubtfire doesn’t have any dates in Texas on their calendar.
Jagged Little Pill will be in Dallas in January though. That show is…a bit, what they would call, “woke”. And there’s a character who was originally non-binary but now I think she was rewritten as lesbian.
Oh, wasn’t Roxie Hart played by a transgender black woman for a bit?
I never imagined that drag would become such a battleground. Of all the things. Conservatives really drive these culture war issues because they energize their reactionary base, and distract from core issues where they know their platform is against the public majority. If we’re talking about drag queens, we’re not talking about school debt forgiveness or climate change. It puts the left in a hard position because we don’t want to just let trans people be attacked, but the process does distract from more existential crises like climate change and wealth inequality. Both of which hurt the vulnerable most.
The “drag queens are pedophiles” and “trans people are groomers” is one of the most tucked up and evil things they’ve come up with, which is a high bar.
“Drag queens are pedophiles” is the wrong reading of drag queen story hour, but speaking as an LGBT male who has always enjoyed drag and drag shows, I really think that drag queen story hour at the library is something we could have gotten along without. The amount of shit it stirred up is not a good trade for the intrinsic value it has. And of course now we have well-meaning liberals scheduling more drag queen story hours than ever, just as a fuck-off to conservatives. It is so much sound and fury from both sides with an absolutely empty center.
basically theater
Which is super gay and therefore a sin. Now you got it!
I guess this means Trump can’t go stumping in Texas?
No more screenings of White Christmas or The Magic Flute or the great many other films with cross-dressing at movie theaters either.
As long as you don’t run a production of Orlando, you’re fine.
You have to be a real fucking idiot if you think the bible tells you to hate others. Jesus’s whole fucking message was love everyone no matter what. He literally walked with lepers and washed others feet. Fuck these people (the Texans they are defying)
Edit: clarification on who to fuck
I think Jesus’s whole thing was “hate the haters.” He had great disdain for the religious authorities that were institutionalizing hate.
Did he? He flipped over some money lenders tables and he debated the religious leaders of the day. He may have disagreed with them but I challenge you (and I’m an atheist, I have no real horse in the race about supposedly divine beings) to find a place in the bible where jesus was described as hating anyone.
"13 But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves…
23 Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
25 Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean…
33 You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?"
Matthew 23:13, 15, 23-26, 33
The entire chapter is a rant against them but I just picked out some of the more damning language against them.
You got any more of this? I know more than the lay person about the Bible but less than the ones who’ve read it most of their lives (or studied it). I love these verses!
Jesus issues some scathing condemnation against the Pharisees in that entire section of the book of Matthew. His messaging is pretty consistent all throughout the New Testament. It all boils down to loving others as you would love yourself, stop being greedy, and don’t be a hypocrite. When Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment in the law he replied simply:
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment’. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
So all these bible thumpers and evangelicals who constantly rant about hatred and condemnation have missed to first and second most important messages that Jesus shared.
This one isn’t Jesus but John the Baptist but has a similar vibe:
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 10 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Matthew 3:7-10
John 7:25-54 has a kind of funny interaction between Jesus and the Pharisees. Basically Jesus is preaching and saying he is the Messiah. Some of the Pharisees flip out about this and send the temple guards to arrest him. The guards hear Jesus speaking and then come back without arresting him. Then the following conversation happens:
45 Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?”
46 “No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards replied.
47 “You mean he has deceived you also?” the Pharisees retorted. 48 “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? 49 No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.”
50 Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, 51 “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?”
52 They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”
Another interaction between them:
9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Matthew 9:9-13
Another one:
10 And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: 11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” 12 Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” 13 He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. 14 Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”
Matthew 15:11-14 (rest of the chapter is pretty good too).
This is somewhat irrelevant, but I’m most struck with the “mint, dill and cumin”. Herbs sure are amazing. The history of cuisine is pretty interesting too.
That doesn’t mean he hated them. He condemned their behavior and their hypocrisy. He called them out. That is not the same as hate.
Yeah, I knew someone would say this. He’s calling a group of people that are trying to kill him a brood of vipers and damning them to hell. That reads to me as hate. If anyone other than Jesus was making those statements it would be interpreted by most people as hate.
Yes, under Christian theology Jesus doesn’t hate people because that is the backbone of the entire belief system. But without that presupposition, Jesus’s statements to the Pharisees sound a lot like hate.
Edit: But tbf, his hatred is probably directed towards the entire institution rather than the individual members. Like how people hate the police but may not necessarily hate every single police officer.
Thank you for citing the passages, but I similarly to the other commenter disagree that he is saying he hates them rather than their actions.
The word hate isn’t in there. I might call a gang a “brood of vipers” but that wouldn’t mean I necessarily hated them.
Lastly, and for what it’s worth, I’m not clear if the “Seven Woes on the Teachers of the Law and the Pharisees” are meant to be quotes of Jesus or if they are Matthew.
Still, thank you for sharing something specific and not just hand waving.
He hated the shit out of that one fig tree that didn’t give him a snack immediately. Cursed it.
Jesus as described in the New Testament was quite a badass. He fearlessly stood up to power, and fought against greed and hypocrisy. If more Christians followed his example that would be great.
Paul would disagree.
this is how you level up from being a drag queen to a drag empress.
Royal coronations do generally involve clergy.
My sense of Texan pride is basically on life support, but shit like this is a ray of light in the dark, blighted void that is my hopescape.
Speaking as a California native and blatant leftie, I’m very proud of the Texas liberals I have met. They are actually better liberals than most people In CA, because they aren’t just inculcated into it, and they maintain their liberalism against adversity. Texas the state is fucked up, but I have a lot of respect for Texans. You just have a slightly larger asshole block than we do.
Yesterday, I saw an article about a church (shockingly in Fort Worth) that was raising money and giving grants for those needing to travel to different states for abortions.
Shit like that really yees my haw
What kind of religious sect is this
Not Sithrak, but it’s close.
I’d love it if Texas went after religious practice.
Religious Freedom go Burrr
One of the Sisters of Perpetual is my glasses guy and a great buddy. Also been to protests with them back during Occupy. Kindest toughest motherfuckers you’ll ever meet. Love them dearly!
