June 2005 Archives

I was riding the bus past a nearby Lutheran church the other day, and noticed the sign out front that read: "A HATE FREE ZONE". It struck me at that moment that for this sign to be necessary in the first place, there has to be so much wrong with what passes as 'Christian' faith for so many people these days.

God does not hate. Cannot hate. It's not that God loves, or is full of love, or is the source of all love. By definition and acccording to the New Testament, God IS love.

GOD = LOVE

Today's word for the day from ANGeL was appropriate to this Pride season:

“At first dreams seem impossible, then improbable, then inevitable.”

Christopher Reeve

I took a couple of photos of the group and the float with my cell phone, just before the parade started this morning. I wish I had taken more, but I didn't really think these would turn out as well as they did.

This blurry one was taken at the Spirit! praise team performance in the park yesterday afternoon:

Postscript: The following photo of Aaron and me was taken by one of our friends. It's my favorite!

It's Pride weekend at last! Or what we gay Christians sometimes refer to as Pridetide.

The theme for All God's Children MCC this Pride is 'Marry Me. Equal Love. Equal Rights.' We have a 'Chapel of Love' set up as part of the Pride Festival. Church members are collecting thousands of signatures for a petition to Governor Pawlenty opposing Minnesota's proposed anti-marriage, anti-gay state constitutional amendment. And tomorrow morning is the official Pride Worship service, where Rev. Paul Eknes-Tucker will be preaching on the topic of marriage.

Equal marriage rights are important for me an my partner, Aaron. There are something like 1,200 rights and benefits provided to married couples in this state and federally, but none of them are available to committed gay couples like ourselves. This struggle is not about special rights for gays and lesbians, it's about our human and democratic rights to access to the same legal protections in marriage that our married straight friends take for granted every day.

Aaron and I plan to marry in October. For us, right now, it's a personal and spiritual commitment to one another and to the community before God, our friends and family. Which is what marriage ought to be. But without civil marriage to back up that commitment, we'll remain on less solid ground ground when it comes to protecting our relationship and everything we create in our lives together.

Defend marriage: Equal marriage rights for all!

It's been six weeks sinced my last entry. Whatever it was that propelled me to start this blog was overtaken in a flash by more pressing demands: Vacation in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend (which was fun), but immediately before and ever since afterward I've been driven relentlessly by the demands of a project at work that loomed so large and frightful I thought it would never end soon enough. Up nights until 2, 3, 4 am, working weekends, unable to sleep when I did get to bed, waking up dead tired. For weeks now. Tense moments at work and at home. Terrible, and exhausting.

I turned the main part of the project in today. What a relief. There were some small advantages of course. Being pushed so hard like this for long periods can lead to a breakthrough of sorts, the initial resistance giving way (not quite effortlessly though) to a clarity of focus. Almost like, "If I can just get through this, what doesn't kill me will make me stronger." Anyway, I got though it.