Last week, a group describing themselves as former gays, lesbians, and transgenders marched on Washington.

That always sounds so aggressively militant, doesn’t it? March on Washington? When you can all fit on a single short bus, however, it’s somewhat less so. Anyway, this group of fifteen people, members of the Changed movement, wanted everyone to ( Read more... )

Halloween is coming. One of the changes since I was a boy is that people now decorate for Halloween, even more elaborately than they decorate for Christmas. My neighborhood is full of inflatable animatronic ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggity beasties and things that go bump in the night.

We didn't have that back when I was a boy. Back then, if ( Read more... )

Many years ago, I participated in a three-day Cursillo retreat. Cursillo is a cult-like movement that began Spain’s Roman Catholic church in the 1940s, but has spread to other mainline denominations. The word means “Short Course” - it’s intended to be an intensive refresher in Christianity. One feature was gifts called palanca, given by previous ( Read more... )

Childhood is tough for everybody, but for LGBTQ kids, it can be especially difficult. This month is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among kids aged 10-19 in the United States. According to the Trevor Project, LGB kids are three times more likely to seriously contemplate suicide than ( Read more... )

September 23rd is the twentieth Annual Celebrate Bisexuality Day, also known as Bi Visibility Day. (waving) Can you see me now?

The best definition of bisexuality comes from Boston activist Robyn Ochs. “I call myself bisexual,” Ochs said, “because I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted-romantically and/or sexually-to ( Read more... )

Marriage is the legal union of two people into a single social and legal entity.  Beyond that, the definitions vary with culture and the people involved.

For most people in the United States, religion is involved, even if one or both of the couple are irreligious. It is the only major religious ritual most people actively perform.   We’re carried ( Read more... )

One of the biggest problems with any religion is that the subject matter is ultimately incomprehensible.

When a Catholic priest says “The Lord be with you,” the congregation replies as one, “And with your spirit.”  Do any of us know what we’re talking about?

Catholics have the Baltimore Catechism to define such terms as God. Question 163: What is ( Read more... )

Last Thursday, my phone lit up with breaking news from various sources, all reporting on the same story. Had Donald Trump been struck down in an apoplectic fit?

Sadly, no. Here was the headline from USA Today: “New genetic links to same-sex sexuality found in huge study”

The story was that a massive study of the DNA of hundreds of thousands of ( Read more... )

Most of us marry using a form of the words from the English Book of Common Prayer. We swear “to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.” Some write their own vows, but they’re much the same, a solemn promise to love and care for ( Read more... )

Nobody believes in God for only one reason, no matter what they may say. In faith as in physics, you need at least three points in order to have a stable platform. Think of faith as a three-legged stool.

The first leg was learned at our mother’s knee. Most people are brought up to believe and practice the tenets of a particular religion, and seldom ( Read more... )