Dear Brad: You're an Asshole. Love, Zack .

Due to advances in gay rights, D.C. fags can now afford to be as bigoted and idiotic as the rest of the world. Case in point: Last Thursday, I went to see the Gaylarious comedy showcase at Town. The headlining (and best) performer was Judy Gold (pictured), who derives much of her humor from being a Jewish lesbian. Early into her set, she asked if anyone present had kids and got heckled by one truly obnoxious audience member as a result. She quickly told him to shut the fuck up and continued her set.

Later, though, this same dickwad interrupted another joke to scream "Go make some biscuits, Jew." She immediately had him ejected, to great applause, and finished her routine with no further incident — though its worth noting that Mr. Interjection proudly raised his hand when Judy asked who had made the comment.

Since then I've been wondering who the hell is both dumb and ignorant ignorant enough to A) Think it was OK to use "Jew" as an epithet in public and B) Believe there is a historical Jew/Biscuit connection. Luckily, our old friend Craigslist has come through with an answer.

Frequent TNG commenter Parker tipped us off to this missed connection. Apparently, our anti-semitic friend is named "Brad T." and his equally charming buddies refused to pay his tab after he was kicked out. There's no possible way that Brad T. could try and justify this behavior, right?

Wrong. Brad T. actually posted a follow-up, where he blames his actions on having too much to drink and a misguided attempt to be funny. Michael Richards tried to be funny once too, Brad. It didn't work either. Brad also claims not to be anti-semitic.

I actually believe that last point, because a true anti-semite does their research. "Go make some money, Jew" would work. "Go get some rhinoplasty, Jew." That could also be accurate, as stereotypes go. But go make some biscuits? Have I missed something? Unless KFC is replacing Manishewitz as the world's foremost Passover supplier, it appears Brad can't even get his misconceptions right.

I was also told after the show that Brad is well-known for getting kicked out of all sorts of D.C. gay bars, so if anyone else has a Brad T. story they should feel free to post it here. And let this be a lesson, homos. Just because you've gone your whole life being mocked as an outsider doesn't give you the right to turn around and do it to someone else. Also, be careful who you heckle.

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Your Monday Upper: Christianity is a Lifestyle Choice

Gays strike back! This little video proves how easily most homophobic rhetoric falls apart when its logic is turned toward other subjects. That, and it made me giggle a lot. Gay scientists unlocking the gene that makes people Christian: how could this not brighten your Monday?

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Reconsider Religion?

"I say that religion isn't about believing things. It's ethical alchemy. It's about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness."--Karen Armstrong

Our community often seems at war with religion. Some of us make peace with it and maintain a personal faith,but most of us reject it. I'm in the latter category.

Karen Armstrong is a former nun and scholar who gave up religion only to reconnect with it as she learned more about the core teachings of all major religions. I've included her TED award winning acceptance speech where she discusses the roots of religion, which she says have been grotesquely hijacked by human ego. She also requests help in forwarding a "Charter of Compassion," which requests leaders from across various faiths to reinstate the golden rule as the central tenet of religion. It's an enlightening video for anyone open to reconsidering their thoughts on the role, impact, and purpose of religion.

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On Bringing Home Your Man

I brought my boyfriend home for Easter this year. This was actually the first time I'd ever brought a boyfriend home. (Well, you already know how I feel about my parents' house, but I'll use the term "home" for convenience.) I'm just now recovering from the experience, and time has finally provided enough emotional distance that I can write about it.

Easter, the holiest of Catholic holidays, was celebrated at my parents' house this year by my middle brother and his new wife, an uncle and aunt, my parents, myself, and my filthy sodomite heathen butt-buddy.

It seemed a bit odd that my Roman Catholic mother was so insistent that I bring my Jewish boyfriend home for such a holy holiday. One that holds absolutely no significance to me anymore. (And the only significance it ever held was the day we got all the candy without having to dress up and go out and ask for it.) My mother has quoted the pope to me before, something about loving the sinner but hating the sin, but I still wonder whether her big heart and her rational brain have fully adopted the "hating" part of policy. Who knows, really, how torn up she is about having a gay son. The one thing I do know is that I have the unconditional love of my parents, and for that I am unspeakably blessed.

One of the highlights of the weekend visit included perhaps the most dry and forced dinner conversation I've ever experienced. The conversation was a slow staccato, like the sound of an ancient tortoise lumbering across a massive drum head: sentences were offered up into the silence, and perhaps a minute later someone would come up with some kind of semi-appropriate reply. The bulk of it centered around home repair tips, including the multiple uses of Bond-o and how one might prevent a brightly tinted paint from bleeding through subsequent layers of white. Honestly, I would have rather watched paint peel than listen to a conversation about how to reapply it. Some excitement came about, however, when my aunt giddily instructed her husband to relate a story about a string of workplace illnesses, including a colleague's diabetic coma and my uncle's near carbon monoxide poisoning.

Perhaps the most dramatic part of the weekend was the figuring out of the sleeping arrangements. My mother has a policy that her sons can sleep with their significant others in the same bed under her roof only once they have been joined in holy matrimony. As such, my mother offered me a queen sized bed and suggested that the boyfriend could either sleep on a couch in the living room, or we could blow up an Aerobed in the room where I'd be sleeping. Considering the fact that people were going to church at 7:15 the next morning, we decided upon him sleeping in the bedroom with me. My mother looked hesitant and dubious, and watched over us as we inflated the mattress. I told her we could take care of it, and sent her off to bed. We looked at each other, signaling with our eyes to one another that we knew we were in the process of concocting a big rouse. Once the teeth were brushed and faces washed, we returned to the bedroom and locked the door. I instructed the boyfriend to get in the Aerobed, roll around in the covers a bit, and then join me in the real bed. As he was climbing out of the believably slept-in-looking sheets he asked, "Did you remember to bring the lube?" I shot him a "whachu talkin bout, Willis?" look, which he took as a satisfactory reply to his joke. I was willing to break the bed-sharing rule, but I had no interest in staining her sheets.

I'm sure there is a whole spectrum of parental reactions to gay kids and their partners. What's been your experience? Do your parents even know that your "good friend" who spends holiday weekends with them is really your lover? Or do they put you in the same bed together with a handful of condoms and some of your dad's Viagra?

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Chinese Food on Christmas

My dad sent me this YouTube clip. All of you out there with a takeout menu and the movie listings will find it familiar. And for everyone else: Happy holidays, whatever they might be.

And remember, if you can hold out till January 2nd all this celebratory nonsense will be over.

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8 Days of Queer Judaism, Day 8: A Parakeet Named Dreidel

(This is the last of eight Chanukah posts. I hope you all enjoyed them, or at least one or two of you enjoyed them.)

There's nothing queer about this one, but every year at Chanukah my mom reads us this Isaac Bashevis Singer story and every year it makes my dad cry. Check it out if you have a soft spot for fate, parakeets, latkes or true love.

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8 Days of Queer Judaism, Day 6: Gay Yarmulkes

(This is the 6th of 8 gay Jewish posts I'm putting up for Chanukah. Reader submissions on the queer Jewish experience are welcome. Yada yada. You all get the idea by now.)

A quick google search for "Gay Chanukah" yielded up a very disturbing Gay.com article on gaying up your yarmulkes, the skull caps that Jewish men wear to cover their heads in temple. I think that wearing any of these yarmulke suggestions to an actual religious ceremony would result in the wearer becoming the laughingstock of the entire congregation and perhaps felling several of his elderly relatives through embolisms of embarrassment.

The leather model above is called the shaigitz, which is Yiddish for "Wild Jewish Boy." Its a also made out of Naugahyde and would probably stick to bare skin. Bald men, beware.

3 other such abominations can be found beneath the fold.

Gay.com calls this model the "JewBu," which stands for "Jewish Buddhist." A gay Jewish Buddhist could revel in the rich history of the cultures to which they belong, or they could stick this modified Chinese slipper on their head and make a mockery of them. Their choice.


This model is called "The Liberace," but it looks so much like a rice krispie treat with sprinkles that I want to eat it.


This one's called "Ziggy Stardust." I actually think its pretty awesome. Bonus points for someone with enough balls to actually wear this to temple, and infinite bonus points if you rock Ziggy Stardust make up while you do it.

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8 Days of Queer Judaism, Day 5: Let's Take a Look at Leopold and Loeb.

(This is the 5th of 8 posts celebrating Chanukah from the queer perspective. I’ve gotten some other voices in, but there’s three more days of Chanukah and I would still love to hear from a lesbian or transgendered Jew on their personal experience. Heck, even if you don’t get it to me till after the holiday I’d be pretty excited. You can send submissions to Zack@thenewgay.net.)

I was going to do a post here on some famous gay Jews, but I feel like blog posts on famous Jews are dime-a-dozen. Even narrowed down to the queer ones, you probably wouldn’t be too interested in reading anything more about the cultural contributions of, for example, comedian Sandra Bernhard, X-Men director Bryan Singer or rockers Peaches and Lou Reed.

So instead (and because I’m getting sick of holiday cheer) I thought I’d treat everyone out there in TNG-ville to a nice primer on Leopold and Loeb.

Arguably the most well-known queer Jews in American history, if not necessarily for the right reasons, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb made national headlines in 1924 for murdering a 14 year-old boy named Bobby Franks. The two most notable facts of the case were that the two young men were lovers and that their motives for the murder were to prove themselves as Nietzschean supermen of superior intellect who were capable of committing the perfect crime.

The crime was obviously far from perfect, as the two were quickly apprehended and placed under a trial that was one of our countries first to be dubbed “Trial of the Century.” Most of this had to do with the sensationalism inherent in the story of gay Jewish child-killers. Scopes Trial veteran Clarence Darrow successfully defended the pair against capital punishment and instead won them life sentences in jail.

I have always nursed an odd fascination with this case. I’m a young gay Jew from Chicago. In fact, Leopold and Loeb were members of my synagogue. If I was alive, we might have even been friends. I can’t even imagine what kind of power dynamic would have to be at play in my relationship that I plotted murders in my free time- its enough of a struggle for my boyfriend and I to agree on a place to eat dinner- but what would it be like spending time with a person who could?

There is something so unromantic in their romance that I can’t help but be fascinated by it. I know I’m not the only one. Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Rope was based on the crime, as was the 2002 Sandra Bullock movie “Murder by Numbers.” Last year, D.C.’s Source Theater housed a production of “Never the Sinner,” an actual Leopold and Loeb musical.

If enough time has passed to make a musical about the boys, has enough time passed for me to take a weird sort of pride in them? When going through the key figures in a minority’s history, its easy to vaunt the heroes while pushing villains under the rug. If I’m going to take credit for Allan Bloom or Tony Kushner, I have to admit an attachment to Leopold and Loeb too. They might have cast an extremely negative shadow, and committed a heinous crime, but they’re just as central figures in gay Jewish history as any politician or painter. You have to accept a canon, no matter what its makeup.

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8 Days of Queer Judaism, Day 4: Are You a Bagel Chaser?

(This is the fourth in my ongoing series of Chanukah posts on the gay Jewish experience. I would really, really love to get a women's or transgendered voice in these, so if you are either and have something you want to share on the queer Jewish experience, please contact me at Zack@thenewgay.net)

In yesterday's Chanukah post I alluded to bagel chasers, men who actually go out of their way to hit on, pick up or sleep with Jewish guys. As a Jewish guy, I find this to be utterly baffling. To answer the question of "why me?" I turned to longtime TNG commentor Parker. Here's what he had to say:

Am I a bagel chaser? Alas, I am. It's a problem, but it doesn't present itself through long night staking out synagogues or anything. It just happens.

Here's the deal. There have been a handful of guys over the years that have gotten me into trouble. And by trouble I mean making out or aggressively flirting with them when the bf isn't looking. In one instance, I kinda accidentally had sex with one of these gentlemen when I kinda maybe wasn't allowed to. Anyway, there was something about these guys that made them physically irresistible. I found out later that they were all Jewish and that I definitely had a "type."

What does this mean? Nothing, really. My boyfriend of nearly seven years is a half Thai, half Tennessee Nazarene Buddhist. Nothing Jewish about him at all. But I do still find myself hopelessly drawn to guys who wind up being Jewish. I have two theories as to why:

1) I am totally hot for that guy Dave Lieberman from Food TV and am looking for anyone who looks even the slightest bit like him. (Or that knows him. Jews all know each other, right?) [Ed. Note: We do. Its called "Jewish Geography."]

2) I am seeking out people who look like they're from the part of the world I'm from (lots of Italians and Jews in the Philadelphia area) so that there's some chance that I could talk to them about the Philadelphia Eagles . . . while making out with them.

Whatever it is, it's gotten to the point where the Jews are now coming after me. Just recently, a hot Israeli guy told me he wanted to do all kinds of naughty things to me. I think he changed his mind when he found out I wasn't Jewish myself but, before he found out that my mother's Italian heritage was the reason for my dark curly hair, he was totally giving me the sex eye. So maybe I'm into the Jews because the Jews are into me because they think I'm a Jew?

How Meta! Personally, I'm just excited to find out that, against all odds, this nose and hair could actually make me exotic.

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8 Days of Queer Judaism, Day 3: A Gentile Speaks.

(This is the third in my series of semi-gay Chanukah posts. Anyone out there with an opinion on queer Jewish culture, or even a queer opinion of Jewish culture, should definitely submit it to me because I would love to post it. And again, let the record show that this was posted before midnight.)

I have a post coming next week about bagel chasers, goyish men who go out of their way to pursue the sons of Abraham, but today I wanted to take a more general track. The temporal proximity of Christmas and Chanukah always leaves me comparing the two holidays, and the cultures behind them, at this time of year. So I asked my gentile (but circumcised) boyfriend to give me his impressions on dating a Jew.

Here's what he had to say:

While never considering myself a bagel chaser by any stretch of the term, I've dated a few Jewish guys. And I'm dating one now. The guys I've gotten to know tend to fall on the more secular side of Judaism, so I haven't been exposed to a lot of the rites and services and what not. I was raised Catholic, and I think there's a connection that can be made between Jews and Catholics, despite the obvious differences. (That whole Christ thing.) Growing up, my boyfriend and I both had limitations and restrictions put on our weekends due to the faiths we were raised under. There were certain foods to be eaten or avoided at certain times of the year. We were exposed to ancient stories of long dead people at very young ages. And we both got laden with guilt, lots of guilt, and were then left to try to sort through it during the coming-of-age and coming-out processes. Heck, we even share a testament. But despite the connection, there's definitely a huge difference between our religious cultures, and its one that I'm kinda jealous of.

I think the easiest way to explain my main thought here is to correct my last statement. There's a huge difference between the Jewish culture and the Catholic non-culture. There is little about my upbringing that I hold dear to me. I don't feel nostalgic when I smell frankincense. I don't crave cheap, watered-down red wine served out of a communal chalice. And I don't miss going to bed early every Saturday night so that I can wake up well rested and ready for mass on Sundays. And when I think back on whatever culture there might have been associated with my Catholic upbringing, I can't think of anything else. The rest of my "culture" seems to be the same as that which nearly every other middle class white kid grew up with, and it's not very exciting either. If world cultures were breads, American middle-class white culture would definitely be Wonder Bread: fragile, flavorless and cheap.

My boyfriend's Jewish culture is so rich. So many traditions passed down through the generations, too many for me to keep track of. He travels home to the Midwest for family celebrations more often than I visit with my family who live only two hours away. I can't begin to describe all of the aspects of his culture that I appreciate so much, mostly because I don't have enough context to understand them all and therefore remember them. And any attempt at description would sound trite. But I know it's substantial, it's rich, it's hearty, something you can sink your teeth into. It's like a good loaf of whole grain rye.

It's really funny to hear this, because when I was growing up my sisters and I always used the term "Christian" as a shorthand for the kind of waspy, Martha Stewart aspects of family life we thought was precluded by the stereotypical messy, neurotic, high involvement Jewish culture.

Thus, when my mom sent us to school with hard-boiled eggs in a wrinkled paper bag, we dreamed of the "Christian" lunch of a ham and cheese sandwich in a tin lunch box. When our sick old mutt began disregarding all rules against indoor bathroom usage, we would talk about the possiblity of someday owning a normal, "Christian" dog, like a border collie, that would fetch our slippers and do tricks instead of trying to impress us with the frequency and fetidity of its bowel movements. We said "Jewish garbage" to refer to the wet piles of plastic bags while laughing about family friends, the Chesterfields, that simply jettisoned one paper grocery bag of detritus at the same time every Sunday. I could go on.

So it surprised me to hear that this "grass-is-always-greener" attitude could go both ways. It probably shouldn't have.

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8 Days of Queer Judaism, Day 2: Palatable Christmas Songs

This is part 2 of an 8 day series on Chanukah from the gay Jewish perspective. I really can't do this all by myself and would love submissions from the TNG readership on the gay, bi, lesbian and transgender Jewish experience. You may email them to me at Zack@thenewgay.net)

This might seem like an odd Chanukah post but this time of year, and its terrible preponderance of schmaltzy Christmas music, has a way of making a guy acutely aware that he cares not a lick about about the reason for the season. I love the weather and the festivity, but if I hear one more sleigh bell coming from a mall speaker I'm going to lay down on Rudolph's runway and let myself be trampled.

A couple days ago, Rachel Beckman wrote an awesome article on feeling torn between a Jewish identity and the undeniable joy that comes from "All I Want for Christmas is You." Shitty Christmas songs are here to stay and I am not going to insult our readership by suggesting that Adam Sandler's "Chanukah Song" is a suitable alternative. Rather, I wanted to present some secular Christmas songs that don't suck. Its not a Kol Nidre dance remix but it might make you feel less left out to find some seasonal music you can actually enjoy.

Top five beneath the fold:



1. Wham, "Last Christmas:" Ben's right, George Michael gets too much shit. This song would rock if it was about Arbor Day. I dare you to only listen once.



2. The Kinks, "Father Christmas:" Who here doesn't want to mug Santa? This song acknowledges that you can ask for whatever you want, but we're all really looking for cash.



3. The Pogues (with Kirsty MacColl): "Fairy Tale of New York:" This only sounds traditional and is surely the only Christmas song in history to feature the phrases "You're an old slut on junk" and "You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot." If only more would follow its lead. (And bonus points if you can name which equally depressing movie plays "Fairy Tale" over its opening credits.)



4. The Waitresses, "Christmas Wrapping:" Though Blondie's Rapture should make you rightfully leery of 80's white girl's rapping, this songs is pretty awesome. It fulfills everyone's (somewhat secret) desire to spend Christmas by themselves and maybe meet someone cute in the supermarket checkout aisle. (And sorry about the homemade video- there was no official clip on YouTube.)



5. The Raveonettes, "The Christmas Song:" Michael would probably kill me if I included "Do They Know Its Christmas" instead this. Leave it to the Swedes Danes to sound detached while singing about St. Nick. (and again, sorry about the weird video.)

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Aimee Mann's 2nd Annual Christmas Show

Indie fave Aimee Mann is coming to the Birchmere this month for her 2nd Annual Christmas Show. Her website says that the show is a "homage to the holiday variety shows of yore, featuring a mixture of holiday hits as well as Aimee's non-holiday hits." She is appearing with "very special guests Paul F. Tompkins, Nellie McKay, Morgan Murphy & more!"

I know its probably mostly christmas songs, but it's still worth it to hear her amazing voice.

Date: Tuesday, December 17th and 18th
Place: The Birchmere (NOT metro accessible)
Time: 7:30 PM
Cost: $45.50

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8 Days of Queer Judaism, Day 1: Bisexuality and Jew

In celebration of Chanukah, I am going to post something each day for the next eight days about the queer Jewish experience. I have some things that I want to share, but I would also really love to get contributions from all you out there in TNG-ville, whether that be essays, rants or even general musings on gay Jewish life, be that holiday-related or not. I am especially interested in submissions that deal with the bi, lesbian or transsexual Jewish experience. I highly suggest you folks send me stuff (Zack@thenewgay.net) or else you might be in for seven days of circumcision jokes- and no one wants that.

(Also, let the record show that this was posted before midnight, and thus counts for the first day of Chanukah. It was a really long day at work.)

I was going to let my first Chanukah post be a little more glib, but given some of the contradictory opinions to Ben's post on bisexuality I thought I would give you all the opinion of Jeff, a D.C. queer who seems to disagrees with Ben on the legitimacy of male bisexuality. It's also a good reminder that Christianity is not the only religion capable of homophobia:

"When I was growing up, my family was a member of Beth El, a Conservative temple in Bethesda. (Conservative temples are middle-of-the-road in the strictness with which they follow Jewish law.) Although my family was not very observant, Beth El was very close to our house, which was a big convenience when I was going to Hebrew school.

On one Shabbat when I was about 12 or 13, Rabbi Maltzman explained what he thought Judaism's view was on homosexuality. I hadn't really thought much about the topic, as I did not see myself as gay at the time, but what he said was striking to me nevertheless. Homosexuals, he said, couldn't help themselves, so they shouldn't be blamed for engaging in same-sex activities. Bisexuals, however, could choose the sex of their partner and it was therefore a sin for them to choose someone of the same sex.

In retrospect, what Rabbi Maltzman said was messed up in so many ways. It created the impress to me that gays were sick, pathetic, and abnormal; that God views you differently depending on whether you are "really" gay or straight; and that bisexuality isn't an authentic identity-- it's simply the ability to choose your orientation.

Speaking of sins... Rabbi Maltzman left Beth El in 2001 amidst a criminal investigation into his mismanagement of temple funds."

Contributor Bio: Jeffrey Light, 28, is a progressive lawyer living in D.C. He is an advocate on issues ranging from transgender rights to affordable prescription drugs. Mr. Light is the founder and Executive Director of consumer rights group Patients not Patents. He holds a BS and MS in Biochemistry from Brandeis University and a JD from Georgetown University Law Center. Jeff is also a godless, sXe (straight edge) genderqueer fag who can usually be found at Sticky Fingers bakery or at a local punk or hardcore show.

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12/9: Gay Jews Unite!

A person can do gay anything these days. You want a gay gym? You go to Results. Looking for a lesbian coffee shop? A short trip into Takoma Park will meet your needs. Male on male blowjob? Union Station toilets! So why should this specialization stop with your religious practices?

On Sunday, December 9th , Bet Mishpacha, DC's GLBT Synagogue, is throwing a Hanukkah celebration in conjunction with fagelah social groups Nice Jewish Boys, Nice Jewish Girls and Nice Jewish Men. (Links to all three organizations may be found at the home page for the DC JCC's Gay and Lesbian Outreach Program, which is an excellent resource for queer Jewish events in DC.)

The night is a combination party/potluck, so in addition to the singing and dredel playing there will a enough latkes available to create a potato-based doctor you can take home to your parents. The location is a private apartment and interested individuals may email bmal2@betmish.org for details. I hope to see you there.

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Taking Marriage Private

In the latest dispatch from the front lines in the war on civil liberties, here is a recent opinion piece from the New York Times that makes an argument for removing government from the business of marriage.

The author effectively argues that marriage was once a private contract and should be once more, pointing out that common-law relationships and "illicit" relationships not ordained by the church were still considered legal marriages by the government in the 20th century, until government decided to increase it's role in our lives and thereby decrease our freedom.

I'm particularly intrigued by the rationale for the government's increased role in marriage. The author comments on how the initial push came from parents who were attempting to keep their underage children from marrying, and I remember reading elsewhere that involving the church was necessary in order to keep records because so many men were secretly marrying multiple women (we do a little better with record keeping now, we don't need the church anymore for this), but to understand how we went from there to where we are now--a government that looks to the church to decide who can marry instead of yielding to the will of a free citizenry, is less clear to me. While unfortunately I don't know the history of this incrememental progresssion nor do I know where to find it, my gut tells me such a narrative would leave little doubt that "separation of church and state" should be treated as more than just a suggestion.

I'm still unsure how I feel about the idea of gay marriage, particularly when I look at the lives of the married straight people I know, but I'm even more unsettled by the church dictating public policy on behalf of the state. When considering the venom and outright cultural warfare of the religious right and the hate that their influence inspires, the bold way in which the current "christian president" has undermined civil liberties, and the history of civilizations, we have every reason to believe that the current state of affairs may be the latest stop on the slippery slope to theocracy.

In writing this, I recall something I've read about the decline of civilizations and how the cocktail of decreasing literacy rates (more stupid people), economic insecurity (less jobs, and the ones you have are crap), and opportunistic demagogues (The USA could export these assholes we have so many of them) tend to universally lead to higher rates of religiosity and and a decline in democracy and civil rights. Well folks, you don't need nostradamus to predict that the good old USA is looking down the barrel of that gun, and Jesus has his hand on the trigger.

Regardless of how we feel about gay marriage, making it a personal decision is an important issue for all of us, and we should fight for every inch of ground when it comes to individual freedoms and speak out and support the right of citizens to make their own decisions about who they can marry and what form those marriage should take. To do anything less is to passively enable religious authoritarians and evangelical jihadists to continue to limit our freedoms and enhance their own power.

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Religion Update

For me, holidays mean spending time with family. And spending a weekend with family always brings up the question of whether I'll be attending church with my parents. My parents are Catholic. The "Big RC." I was raised Catholic, and consider myself recovering from all that brainwashing and guilt. Inevitably, when I start thinking about religion, I ask myself the following question, which I often pose to friends:

If you added up all the good things that have come out of religion (education, art, cathedrals, charity works, monks storing books during the dark ages, etc.) and you put them on one side of a scale, and then you took all the bad things (holy wars, the inquisition, terrorism, abusive marriages, oppression of gays, etc.), which side of the scale would outweigh the other? Really, think about it.

And it looks like I'm not the only one to ponder this question... What do you think?

A few articles crossed my inbox lately that explored the intersection of religion and gay issues. I've linked to them below the fold.

• Anti-gay church plans to hold services at the Uptown Theater in Cleveland Park (Washington Balde)
• Archbishop Desmond Tutu stands up for gays and criticizes the Anglican church for its anti-gay stance (BBC News)
• Why all the gay hate? More questions than Answers (American Chronicle)
• Philly Mayor and Seventh Day Adventist Officiates Gay Wedding (Philadelphia Inquirer)

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Home For The (High) Holidays

I'm home in Chicago for Yom Kippur. And I'm already hungry.

Since last night at sundown, when I last consumed food, I have heard one friend of my parents tell my how big I've gotten, two sermons extolling the virtues of giving money to my synagogue and three uses of the word "fermished" by my mother. And a partridge in a pear tree? No, because I would eat it.

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Shana Tova!

To those who know what I'm talking about: happy new year! I hope your rabbi blew the shofar without any trouble, that the Alenu was sang in familiar melody and your apples and honey tasted just as good as last year.

Here's to a fun ten days of introspection and atonement!

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