Gay Religion

by Scott Thumma (Editor), Edward R. Gray (Editor)

Overview

Conflicts over homosexuality and gay rights threaten to break apart denominations, if not North American society. These heated theological and political debates have, as well, obscured the fact that many gays and lesbians are religiously active individuals. Gay Religion is the first book to give a straightforward presentation of the spiritual lives, practices and expressions of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender. Drawing from a wide range of religious traditions, new and established scholars explore the range of gay religious expression in denominations, sects, and even outside recognized religious institutions. The essays ask what these religious innovations mean to the continually evolving religious environment of North America. With its helpful section introductions and an appendix providing profiles of organizations involved, Gay Religion is a unique and compelling resource for anyone interested in homosexuality and American religion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780759115064
Publisher:	AltaMira Press
Publication date:	12/10/2004
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Scott Thumma is professor of sociology of religion and web and distance education at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, Hartford Seminary. Edward R. Gray is visiting assistant professor of religion at Emory University and the executive director of YouthPride, a community based youth service and advocacy organization in Atlanta.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Foreword
Chapter 2 Introduction
Chapter 3
Chapter I: Denominational Heritage Expressions
Chapter 4
Chapter I Introduction
Chapter 5 Gay Gods of the City: The Emergence of the Gay and Lesbian Ethnic Parish
Chapter 6 Reconciling Congregations Bridging Gay and Straight Communities
Chapter 7 No Longer an Oxymoron: Integrating Gay and Lesbian Seventh-day Adventist Identities
Chapter 8 Negotiating a Religious Identity: The Case of the Gay Evangelical
Chapter 9 Why Join A Gay Synagogue?
Chapter 10 Latter-Day Saint Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Spirituality
Chapter 11 Sexuality and Gender in Santería: LGBT Identities at the Crossroads of Santería Religious Practices and Beliefs
Chapter 12 Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Buddhist Practitioners
Chapter 13 Shades of Grey or Back to Nature? The Enduring Qualities of Ex-Gay Ministries
Chapter 14
Chapter II: Subaltern / Sectarian Expressions
Chapter 17
Chapter Introduction
Chapter 17 Pluralism and Diversity: Music as Discourse and Information in a Gay and Lesbian Congregation
Chapter 18 St Gerard Teaches Him That Love Cancels That Out: Devotion to St. Gerard Maiella Among Italian American Catholic Gay Men in Newark, New Jersey
Chapter 19 A Religion of One's Own: Gender and LGBT Religiosities
Chapter 20 Liberation in Truth: African American Lesbians Reflect on Religion, Spirituality, and Their Church
Chapter 21 Utopian Imaginaries and Faerie Practice:Mapping Routes of Relational Agency
Chapter 22 Queering the Dragonfest: Changing Sexualities in a Post- Patriarchal Religion
Chapter 23
Chapter III: Popular Expressions
Chapter 24
Chapter III Introduction
Chapter 25 The Gospel Hour: Liminality, Identity, & Religion in a Gay Bar
Chapter 26 Intermediaries: Spirit and Transcendence in a Sample of Third Gendered North Americans
Chapter 27 Rite to Party: Circuit Parties and Religious Experience
Chapter 30 The Harvey Milk Show: Violence, Desire, and Gay Popular Culture
Chapter 30 Gay Men's Spiritual Experience in the Leather Community
Chapter 31 The Spirit Within: Gay Male Culture as a Spiritual Venue
Chapter 31 Conclusion: Gay Religion as a Cultural Production
Chapter 32 Appendix: LGBT Religious Support and Advocacy Group Information
Chapter 33 Index

Editorial Reviews

In their introduction, Gray and Thumma express a desire to steer away from "highlighting debates over the place of gay and lesbian believers in American religious life," preferring to examine "new and inventive forms of religious expression created in support of the diverse gay spiritual life in America." The mostly ethnographic research reported by this volume's contributors sometimes succeeds in this mission. Ren Drumm's fascinating piece about gay Seventh-Day Adventists chronicles the success of a national support group and the surprisingly accepting response many of them have gotten from the SDA community. And Jay Hasbrouk's essay about Radical Faeries explicates the little-known and even less understood communities of gay men who practice a mix of pagan and animistic rituals. Thumma and Gray separate the book's 21 essays into three categories, "Denominational Heritage Expressions," "Subaltern/Sectarian Expressions" and "Popular Expressions," and include an essay by Marie Griffith that challenges this taxonomy. While the sectioning of the book will probably work for most readers, the use of disappointingly dated research may not. In the first section, for example, Thumma's essay about gay evangelicals and Moshe Shokeid's essay about a gay synagogue both feature field work done between 15 and 25 years ago. In an anthology that does not purport to be a history, the absence of more recent investigations is frustrating. (Feb.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Putting a human face on what is too often contested as an abstract concept, Thumma and Gray and their contributors do not so much debate the possibility of gay religion as portray its reality. In vivid accounts of Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist, Santeria, neo-Pagan and other LGBT communities, readers will encounter much that is comfortingly familiar alongside that which is new and startling. The collection and the realities it depicts testify to the inexhaustible adaptability and diversity of American religion. This is an important and timely book.

R Stephen Warner

Gay Religion, with its valuable and insightful array of articles, maps an uncharted terrain of translesbigay spirituality in contemporary American religious culture. The authors provide insight into the diverse strategies that translesbigays use to negotiate between institutional religion and their sexual orientation identities. It also highlights creative, innovative forms of rainbow spirituality, from queer appropriation of Catholic saints, to reconciling congregations to the spiritual experiences of leather spirituality, evangelical gospel drag, and circuit parties. The volume testifies to the vibrant spirituality of a community, often oppressed by religion.

Robert Goss

This collection of essays can inform an issue that has too much divided religious folk in recent decades. Perhaps if we knew more about the subject we seem determined to debate so fiercely we might make some progress toward actually hearing one another. Thumma and Gray have given us a source of information which has heretofore been entirely missing. Now, if we will use it the church might return to its more ancient work.

Rev. Michael S. Piazza Rev. Michael S. Piazza

Gay Religion provides a valuable resource, both as a text and a typology, to continue studying and documenting the relationship between homosexuality and religion in the United States in the twenty-first century. It will be a valuable resource in the classroom to enable students to see the complexity of the LGBT lifestyle both in American religion and society. Furthermore, Gay Religion will spur current students to become scholars of the emerging field of gay religion.

Journal Of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality - Craig This

This collection of essays can inform an issue that has too much divided religious folk in recent decades. Perhaps if we knew more about the subject we seem determined to debate so fiercely we might make some progress toward actually hearing one another. Thumma and Gray have given us a source of information which has heretofore been entirely missing. Now, if we will use it the church might return to its more ancient work.

Rev. Michael S. Piazza

Gay Religion provides a valuable resource, both as a text and a typology, to continue studying and documenting the relationship between homosexuality and religion in the United States in the twenty-first century. It will be a valuable resource in the classroom to enable students to see the complexity of the LGBT lifestyle both in American religion and society. Furthermore, Gay Religion will spur current students to become scholars of the emerging field of gay religion.--Craig This "Journal Of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality "

This collection of essays can inform an issue that has too much divided religious folk in recent decades. Perhaps if we knew more about the subject we seem determined to debate so fiercely we might make some progress toward actually hearing one another. Thumma and Gray have given us a source of information which has heretofore been entirely missing. Now, if we will use it the church might return to its more ancient work.--Rev. Michael S. Piazza, Dean of the Cathedral of Hope, Dallas

Gay Religion, with its valuable and insightful array of articles, maps an uncharted terrain of translesbigay spirituality in contemporary American religious culture. The authors provide insight into the diverse strategies that translesbigays use to negotiate between institutional religion and their sexual orientation identities. It also highlights creative, innovative forms of rainbow spirituality, from queer appropriation of Catholic saints, to reconciling congregations to the spiritual experiences of leather spirituality, evangelical gospel drag, and circuit parties. The volume testifies to the vibrant spirituality of a community, often oppressed by religion.--Robert Goss, MCC Pastor/Theologian and author of Jesus ACTED UP and Queering Christ.

From the Publisher