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by Dyana Bagby
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February 18, 2011 00:00 |
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Rev. Erin Swenson
In 1973, Rev. Eric Karl Swenson was ordained by the Presbytery of Atlanta. But some 20 years later, Eric Swenson knew he was continuing to live a lie that he struggled with since early childhood. And so he began his transition from male to female and in 1996, Rev. Erin Swenson, after a few years of hard work, was able to keep her ordination. She made national news as the first known mainstream Protestant minister to keep her job during a gender transition.
Today, Swenson continues her work in the Presbyterian Church as well as advocacy for transgender people throughout the country. While the Presbyterian Church is currently struggling with gay and lesbian clergy being able to openly serve, Swenson continues to also work for the day when openly transgender clergy can also become ordained ministers in the Presbyterian Church.
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by Dyana Bagby
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February 18, 2011 00:00 |
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Some claim to love the sinner but hate the sin, while others simply love to hate us. Some think we make God angry enough to cause hurricanes and earthquakes, while others pour millions of dollars that could help needy people into keeping us from marriage.
Their strategies may vary, but their goal is the same: imposing their interpretations of the Bible on our civil rights. Here are 10 of the most anti-gay religious people or groups we face.
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by Laura Douglas-Brown
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February 18, 2011 00:00 |
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From slogans to the so-called “clobber” passages, verses in the Bible commonly used to condemn homosexuality, we as LGBT people frequently encounter religious objections to everything from our full equality to our very existence.
Rev. Mel White, a former speechwriter for Jerry Falwell turned openly gay religious leader, attacks these arguments head on in “What the Bible Says (And Doesn’t Say) About Homosexuality,” a 24-page booklet available through Soulforce, the organization White founded to counter anti-LGBT religious bigotry with non-violence.
Here are excerpts to help you counter and understand the passages commonly used against us. You can download the entire PDF for free or order a print copy for $3 at www.soulforce.org.
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by Dyana Bagby
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February 18, 2011 00:00 |
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While Christianity is said to be the most popular religion worldwide, there are plenty of people — and plenty of LGBT people — who do not follow the teachings of Jesus. This can sometimes be tough, especially when living in the Bible belt, but many in Atlanta’s gay community prefer to believe in other entities — or not believe in any at all.
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by Dyana Bagby
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February 09, 2011 15:15 |
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Over the years, Duncan Teague has kept journals, notes, photographs, programs, poetry and other writings in boxes stored in his garage, snapshots of his life growing up as a black gay activist. "I was going to go back and read them," he said about keeping the boxes of papers. But he knew the documents, whether notes from a gay activist group he belonged to or a program from ADODI Muse: A Gay Negro Ensemble, a poetry collective he helped found, were important to recording the experiences of black gay people. He also kept the poetry, journals and other writings of noted black gay poet Tony Daniels, who died in 1998. "I knew they were important and as I traveled in gay activism and AIDS activism, I knew one thing was not happening, and that was the accounts of black gay life," he said.
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