Mesopotamian and Canaanite cultures also had a priesthood function for people like me, for the girlymen who served the gods and goddesses dressed as women, called kulu'u in Babylonian and k'deshim in Hebrew, which again means "holy ones," but which was translated into the Latin Vulgate by St. Jerome in the 4th Century as effeminati (a term which I must immediately begin using to describe my own tribe).
Read moreTedX Talk
Love, law, limits and botched sign language. This is the story of my "San Francisco wedding" – and the particular moment in time it inhabited.
Read moreGifts of the Queers (II)
We queers have so much to say about love. We know what it is like to risk everything for it. We know what it is like to negotiate love without the crutch of gender roles to fall back on. We know what it was like, for many years, to love without benefit of marriage or any other kind of legal or social recognition. To love despite disapproval. We know what it is like to love lavishly, fiercely, sequentially or simultaneously, without the benefits or constraints of convention.
Read moreKedoshim Question: Aural Argument
For this week's Torah portion, Kedoshim, Kol Aleph – the Jewish Renewal Blog – reprinted a piece I wrote in 2013, immediately on the heels of the Supreme Court arguments in the Windsor and Obergefell, the same-sex marriage cases. In it I imagine oral argument before the heavenly court to revoke the biblical prohibition on homosexuality, with no less than the famed Rabbi Hillel as the attorney for the petitioners. I was honored that this piece was selected for inclusion in this year's array of Torah commentary from Renewal rabbis and students.
Read moreGifts of the Queers
Many of us left families of origin to form families of friends. Many of us brought children into the world in complicated and creative family arrangements – with multiple adults, exes, friends, all playing a role in raising children who will never have cause to doubt just how wanted they were. Yes, those of us in queer families know the difference between kinship and biology, and that is something we can teach the Jewish world.
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