Blogs
Everyday Blessings
Greater NW Pride: Idaho vs. Transgender Rights
3/11/2020
Idaho vs. Transgender Rights One of the ways those of us who are LGBTQI+ try to understand what is going on in our lives, especially those of us who lived or are living in closets, is by watching, listening, sensing, feeling the life of those who are portraying LGBTQI+ people in the arts: film, movies, music events, plays, dance, musicals, and visual arts, to name a few, popular mediums. Among these artistic expressions, film has always been, for me, a social gauge as to where we are as...
Greater NW Pride: Gathering
3/5/2020
Gathering Last week, in Nashville, Tennessee, there was a national gathering of the Reconciling Ministry Network (RMN), “Connection 2020,” a gathering of United Methodist Church (UMC) LGBTQ+ people and non-LGBTQ+ allies. Over 200 people gathered at Belmont UMC Church from Feb. 27-29, 2020, with a thirst and hunger to hear and receive good news as the UMC goes forward into the General Conference of May 2020. Each day included sessions for delegates of the General Conference to meet and ...
Greater NW Pride: Showing Up
2/25/2020
Showing Up There is an adage in the world that I keep coming back to: “90% of life is showing up. Sometimes it is easier to hide home in bed. I’ve done both.” I thought of this quote as I read about Zachary Ro, a 9-year-old boy, who asked Democratic Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg, aka, Mayor Pete, to help him tell the world he’s gay, too: “I want to be brave like you.” Zachary was attending a rally for Mayor Pete in Denver, Colorado on Saturday night. Mayor Pete responded, “’I ...
Great NW Pride: Vashon Island, LGBTQ+ People, and the Church
2/18/2020
Vashon Island, LGBTQ+ People, and the Church Last Saturday, my partner Christian Halstead and I had a chance to visit the Vashon Island Heritage Museum on Vashon Island. The Museum was housed in a former Lutheran church, one of the oldest church buildings on Vashon. The front half of the Museum was dedicated to the native people who lived on the Island before white settlers—farmers, actually—came and moved onto the Island. Today, it is a lovely Island with wineries, a cute downtown with ...
Greater NW Pride: Confession and Forgiveness
2/13/2020
Confession and Forgiveness In the past month, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California made history in posthumously pardoning black, gay, civil rights pioneer Bayard Rustin—the right-hand man and aid to Martin Luther King, Jr.—for past criminal offense of being jailed for “lewd behavior,” and arrested for “having consensual sex with men” in 1953 in Pasadena, CA. Gov. Newsom then offered others pardons if they were arrested for consensual sex as LGBTQ+ individuals up to and throughout the 1950s and ...
Dear Evan Hansen and the Church
2/5/2020
Dear Evan Hansen and the Church Last night, I attended a performance of Dear Evan Hansen, performed by the national touring company of the Broadway show at Portland’s Keller Auditorium. Dear Evan Hansen has won many awards, including the Tonys and a Grammy. The musical focuses on the teenage years in modern America, with loneliness, mental illness, drug use, suicide, and family dysfunction dancing all around the stage and through all the songs. AH, the high school years at Beaverton High!...
Greater NW Pride: The Pink Triangle
1/28/2020
The Pink Triangle Now and then, when working with a group on LGBTQ+ issues and the United Methodist Church, often one of the questions that emerges is, “Where did the pink triangle come from to represent the LGBTQ+ community?” Today, the pink triangle is a sign of LGBTQ+ identity, power, and pride. It was a symbol that was adopted in 1970 as a way of identifying our liberation and freedom to be the people God created us to be, without apology. I have plenty of pins, t-shirts, pamphlets, and...
Greater NW Pride: Seeking Sanctuary
1/23/2020
Seeking Sanctuary As a man of Christian faith who is an ordained pastor, parent, grandparent, partnered and gay, the last few week's news has been an emotional roller-coaster, as are most days of the week, weeks, months, years when it comes to LGBTQ+ folks around the world. By “emotional roller-coaster,” I mean there are some stories in the media that celebrate progress being made by those of us who are LGBTQ+ and our non-LGBTQ+ allies, as well as those stories that feel like “two steps ...
Greater NW Pride: A Busy Year Ahead!
1/16/2020
A Busy Year Ahead As many of us do at the end of the year, we post all the accomplishments of the past year. This being “2020,” what some people decided that it was the end of not only one year but one decade, and the beginning of a new decade, so they posted on Facebook and Instagram photos of all that they did in ten years time. It is always powerful to "look back" and see where we've been. And now it is time to look at the days and weeks and months and year before us! This began for ...
Greater NW Pride: The Next Day
1/10/2020
For most of this week, I, along with every other United Methodist in the world, have been reading and listening to the comments being made about one of the latest plans presented for the upcoming General Conference in 2020. The Protocol for Reconciliation and Grace Through Separation that was revealed last week has received a lot of news of late. It has had fairly favorable reviews from many people in the United Methodist Church on my Facebook page and other social network websites I read ...