LGBT Equality
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Daily Archives: October 15, 2014
Alone in the Synagogue
Alone in the Synagogue
This time of year is bustling for observant Jews. The High Holy Days, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, solemn days in September or early October, are followed with the happy harvest holiday, Sukkot, which lasts a week and concludes with Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, the ending and beginning anew of reading the Torah. Religious Jews make treads on the sidewalk to the synagogue.
A high school student whom I tutor comes from an Orthodox family, and if any of those holidays falls on a day we meet, he will be absent from me and school. Doing no work on the Sabbath is the rule for him as well. I of course respect his family’s values, though I sympathize with him being required to make up work he misses when he stays out but school is in session. I like him for soldiering through those times.
I’m far less observant than he or his family, since I fulfilled the expectations of Bar Mitzvah and Hebrew study as a kid and then withdrew as time went by. Today I fall into the unesteemed category of two- or three- or four- or five-service-attendances-a-year Jew who shows up for occasional Friday-night and High Holy Day services. Up on the bimah, the rabbi and the cantor throw me rather distantly friendly looks, the maximum I deserve.
This year Yom Kippur, a day of fast, fell on the Sabbath, Friday night and Saturday, making it even more holy than otherwise. I went Friday at sunset to the opening service, which begins with the chanting of Kol Nidrei, a prayer that beseeches the Lord to excuse one from vows made but not kept during the past year. It’s sung to a haunting melody that stays in one’s mind and heart no matter how many years have passed since first hearing it. It’s beautiful.
Membership in the Manhattan synagogue I attend is made up mostly of families, parents and kids, and everyone shows up for Kol Nidrei. While many no doubt come for sincere prayer, I suspect that a good number like me show up hoping the Lord will look kindly on their selective attendance. The holiday draws so many that the rabbi and crew conduct two identical services, one early, one late. My sympathy goes out to them, since each evening service lasts two hours.
I wish the synagogue elders didn’t use the large crowd for fundraising, but they do out of necessity. The synagogue runs some fine community programs aside from keeping up a building and staff, so this synagogue (like others) finds the High Holy Days ripe for asking congregants to dig into their wallets. This, I’m obligated to say, is in addition to requiring a yearly membership to gain tickets for the High Holy Day services. It’s today’s world.
Looking around the sanctuary, I seem to be the only single male present. There may be a few more, but they’re not obvious. If I’m likely the sole bachelor around, I’m almost certainly the only gay man there. Should I not like that, I have the option of attending a flourishing gay synagogue downtown. I went there once for Yom Kippur, and the service felt practically endless. It seemed as if the rabbi (a lady) was out to show that if you want a serious religious service, a gay/lesbian group will give it in spades.
Though I nod to two or three people I recognize, for me being at High Holy Day services means usually being alone. This relieves me of needing to hug Mrs. Schwartz and ask about her children and allows me to focus on prayer. It’s a time when I do so, eased on as familiar melodies pour forth from an exceptionally fine cantor and choir.
Invariably thoughts of people gone from the world fill my head — my parents and brother and sister and a number of other relatives and close friends no longer here. Somehow the weeds that have grown around them seem to shrink a little, and the essence of who they were emerges more easily than at other times — those people whom I valued too little and some I valued too much.
Though I might not subscribe to every prayer in the Siddur, I always use the synagogue time for my own prayer of thanks for being alive and the multitudes of blessings I enjoy. I want to let the Lord know I haven’t forgotten them. Then, leaving the hall, the yarmulke still in place on my head, I head home feeling a little purer, grateful for the night and the long struggle of the Jews, even if I thought the outfit on the lady in front of me was all wrong.
Stanley Ely includes religion in his new book, Life Up Close, in paperback and ebook.
Out actor Ezra Miller cast as The Flash in movies for Warner Brothers and DC Comics
Out actor Ezra Miller cast as The Flash in movies for Warner Brothers and DC Comics
Miler publicly proclaimed himself as ‘queer’ in 2012 and is first LGBTI star to play major superhero
gregh
Miss LGBT Philippines-USA Chelle Lhuillier
Miss LGBT Philippines-USA Chelle Lhuillier
Miss LGBT Philippines-USA Chelle Lhuillier on the importance of highlighting trans issues as human rights issues.
ITs ABOUT THAT TIME YALL!!!! THIS WEEKEND… WE ARE SHUTTING THE CITY DOWN!!!! SATURDAY AT TATTOOBAR *HOSTED BY… THIS FLY…SEXY…DOPE… PREVIOUSLY SEEN ON *BADgirlsCLUB SEASON12 ☆BLU☆ {@BLU1X}!!! THE HOTTEST #LGBT EVENT DURING HOMECOMING WEEKEND —
U.S. Marine Charged with Murder of Trans Filipina Woman
U.S. Marine Charged with Murder of Trans Filipina Woman
Despite protests from Philippine LGBT rights groups, the American Marine suspected of killing Jennifer Laude Sueselbeck has remained in U.S. custody and now officially faces murder changes.
Mitch Kellaway
www.advocate.com/world/2014/10/15/us-marine-charged-murder-trans-filipina-woman
What Will The Synod Really Mean For LGBT People In The Catholic Church? "All Together' Podcast
What Will The Synod Really Mean For LGBT People In The Catholic Church? "All Together' Podcast
Welcome to this week’s ALL TOGETHER, the podcast dedicated to exploring how religious ideas and spiritual practice inform and shape our personal lives, our communities and our world. The show is hosted by Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, the Executive Editor of HuffPost Religion.
Bishops from around the world gathered at the Vatican this last week to participate in the two week long Synod on the Family. A working document reflecting the discussions at the midway point was quickly described as revolutionary, and ‘an earthquake’ for it’s new pastoral language towards gay people and couples who live together before marriage. While not a change in doctrine, the document included such surprising phrases as:
“Homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer the Christian community: are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing to them a further space in our communities?”
And in reference to same-sex couples the document said:
“It has to be noted that there are cases in which mutual aid to the point of sacrifice constitutes a precious support in the life of the partners”
And for straight couples who are living together before marriage the document said there are:
“positive aspects” of such unions, especially if the couple saw them as a prelude to marriage in the Church.”
While applauded by many, the new pastoral tone was not universally embraced; with some bloggers describing the new approach represented in the document as ‘perverted’ and others saying it was “irredeemable.”
This week the Bishops are back at work considering the document and revising it, in the meantime I spoke three Catholics — Father Jim Martin, Jesuit Priest and author of Jesus a Pilgrimage, David Gibson, Reporter for Religion News Service, and Sister Monica, who is a nun whose ministry is with the trans community — to get their reactions on the potential new moment in the Catholic Church. As Pope Francis said in his homily before the document was released: ‘God is always new.. he always surprises us’
As always, All Together ends with Raushenbush’s picks for this weeks Saints and Sinners.
LISTEN TO EARLIER ALL TOGETHER SEGMENTS BELOW
‘WHAT’S THE REAL REASON TO DO YOGA’ HERE:
WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT MEDITATION?
RAPTURE RHAPSODY: IS LEFT BEHIND REALLY A CHRISTIAN MOVIE?
GREEN SPIRIT vs CLIMATE CHANGE
CONFRONTING FUNDAMENTALISM
South Carolina sued by LGBTI groups who say state obligated to let same-sex couples marry
South Carolina sued by LGBTI groups who say state obligated to let same-sex couples marry
State’s governor and attorney general accused of ‘playing politics with our families’
gregh
Anti-Transgender Hate Crimes Spur Call for Action
Anti-Transgender Hate Crimes Spur Call for Action
In response to the brutal attack of Jennifer Laude, a Filipina transgender woman, the Human Rights Campaign is calling for the U.S. Department of Defense and the Philippine government to fully and swiftly investigate her murder.
HRC.org
Betty Who Throws Shade Like A Seasoned Pro As We Quiz Her On Gay Culture
Betty Who Throws Shade Like A Seasoned Pro As We Quiz Her On Gay Culture
Someone laminate Betty Who’s gay card, because she earned impressively high marks when she sat down for our very first Queerty Query interview.
Werq, throwing shade, and Wentworth Miller were just some of the subjects she aced. We’ll forgive her for not knowing what Scruff is.
Betty recently hosted the GayCities Stoli Guy Finale in New York, and before the big show we got a chance to sit down with the budding pop star to see just how well she understands the lives of her gay fans.
Take a look:
Dan Tracer