Category Archives: Religion

Mar 10 10 comments
Anti-LGBT, Religion

Anti-gay Christian activist breaks the Eighth Commandment

“Neither shalt thou steal.”

Obviously, the good pastor heading up Raleigh’s Christian Action League forgot that morsel of divine revelation when he disregarded my publisher’s copyright notice on the bottom of our website and in the pub box of our print edition and copied and pasted my Feb. 20 Editor’s Note from QNotes into his March 9 “Urgent Action Alert.”

For the record, QNotes‘ website states: “Copyright 1986-2010 Pride Publishing & Typesetting, Inc., Charlotte, N.C.”

Our print edition states: “Material in QNotes is copyrighted by Pride Publishing & Typesetting © 2010 and may not be reproduced in any manner without written consent of the editor.”

Poor Creech. His organization is going so broke so quickly he’s resorting to even more picking and choosing from the Bible. It’s a shame really. I never pictured teetotaler Creech as the “Cafeteria Christian” type on matters so simple as theft. Usually, anti-gay fundamentalists reserve their picky eating habits for their gay hating tastes.

Read what Creech has to say below the fold… Get the whole story »

Mar 04 4 comments
Anti-LGBT, LGBT, Religion

Are you living up to Christ’s two great commandments?

crisisbookOn Feb. 25, I was honored to participate in a forum with North Carolina businessman and Faith in America founder Mitchell Gold and Faith in America executive director Brent Childers at a small gay bar/lounge here in Charlotte. Usually, politics and religion don’t go well with bars, but it was a great and attentive crowd — we couldn’t have asked for better. We were able discuss issues addressed in Gold’s book, “CRISIS: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social, and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing Up Gay In America,” to which both Brent and I also contributed.

Before that later evening event, Mitchell Gold was a special guest of Campus Pride and local LGBT youth support group Time Out Youth at Myers Park Baptist Church. There, a little more than 100 folks turned out to hear Gold speak about his book, his experience growing up as a gay youth and issues of anti-LGBT, religion-based bigotry and prejudice.

A day before the event, I spoke to Campus Pride executive director Shane Windmeyer and asked if it would be appropriate to invite to the Myers Park lecture the editor of Voice of Revolution, a Charlotte-area online magazine run by anti-LGBT theologian and activist Dr. Michael Brown. (You can read my previous, in-depth Special Report on Brown here.)

Get the whole story »

Feb 23 0 comments
LGBT, Religion

Thursday: Mitchell Gold on ‘Crisis’ with Matt Comer and Rev. Reggie Longcrier

crisisbookFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Contact:
Campus Pride, 704-277-6710
Time Out Youth, 704-344-8335

This Thursday Feb 25 Nationally Acclaimed Author Mitchell Gold speaks about his book CRISIS at LGBT Youth Fundraiser in Charlotte
Accompanying Gold are two of his CRISIS contributors Rev. Reggie Longcrier of Hickory, NC and Matt Comer of Charlotte, NC

Charlotte, NC, Feb 23, 2010 — The national, Charlotte-based Campus Pride (www.campuspride.org) and local Time Out Youth (www.timeoutyouth.org) have partnered for a joint fundraising event on Thursday, Feb 25 to bring attention to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and ally youth in the Charlotte area. The fundraiser will take place at 6 p.m. at Myers Park Baptist Church (1900 Queens Road) and then continue at 8 p.m. at Petra’s Piano Bar (1919 Commonwealth Avenue). No tickets are necessary; however, donations are encouraged. Everyone is welcome.

Titled “Believe In Youth,” the event will feature civil rights leader and author Mitchell Gold and his book “CRISIS: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing Up Gay In America.” A resident of Hickory, NC, Gold is a nationally recognized leader in the furniture industry as well as the founder of Faith In America, a national nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness of the harm caused to LGBT Americans by religion-based bigotry and prejudice.

In addition to Gold speaking at Myers Park Baptist Church at 6 p.m., the event continues at Petras Piano Bar at 8 p.m. featuring Gold and two contributors to his book Rev. Reggie Longcrier of Hickory, N.C. and Matt Comer of Charlotte, NC. Get the whole story »

Jan 31 0 comments
LGBT, Religion

Mitchell Gold in Hickory

Last Thursday I had the chance to travel up to Hickory, N.C., for Mitchell Gold’s appearance at Lenior-Rhyne University’s Visiting Writers Series. Gold, editor of “CRISIS: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing up Gay in America,” to which I contributed a chapter, was interviewed on stage by CNN journalist Soledad O’Brien. I’ve got more reflections on the event coming out in my Editor’s Note column with QNotes‘ Feb. 6 print edition.

Until then… here are a few photos from the event, after the jump…

Get the whole story »

Jan 09 3 comments
Anti-LGBT, LGBT, Politics, Religion, United States

‘Defender of true marriage’

If the LGBT community ever hopes to win equality on issues such as marriage, we will have to start facing the issue of religion and using to our advantage.

That’s the gist of what I wrote back in November on Bilerico.com, in a post entitled, “For marriage victories, we must face and use religion.”

For a lot of LGBT folks, religion is sticky issue. We’ve spent years of our own lives reconciling ourselves with the faith of our childhoods. Many of our churches, synogogues, and other spaces of worship have rejected us and hurt us deeply. Our relationships with the divine have been repeatedly torn to shreds, and we have been the ones left to patch the quilt back up.

As a movement, we’ve spent years insisting on a separation of church and state. We’ve repeated time-and-time again that personal religious views should not be used to keep us from equality.

We’ve lost 31 times in a row. Get the whole story »

Jan 01 0 comments
LGBT, Politics, Religion

2009: The year that was (or wasn’t)

Another year has come and gone. Since I began blogging, first on Blogger, then my own hosted blog and then here at InterstateQ.com, I’ve always done a year-end recap of my biggest stories of the year.

This year’s rewind is kind of sad, to be honest with you. As the economy continued to falter and challenges mounted up for print media across the nation, we felt our own sting at my day job. My friends and fellow staff at QNotes managed to hold our own, but responsibilities there led to a decline in my frequency of writing here.

Regardless, I managed to pull off some good stories here although many weren’t the “breaking news” I used to publish before I made the leap from blogger to “traditional media” gig.

So, in a way it was the “year that wasn’t” here at InterstateQ.com. Regardless, catch my Best of 2009 after the jump…

(P.S. — Be sure to check out my “The defining decade of my youth” at Bilerico Project.)

Get the whole story »

Dec 10 1 comments
Politics, Religion

Public prayer losing ground in North Carolina?

buncombecountysealCounty commissioners in the sleepy, liberal town of Asheville, N.C., have made a “consensus” decision to end public prayer at their meetings.

The Buncombe County Board of Commissioners are set to bring the topic up for official discussion on Jan. 5. They’ll likely vote to stop opening board meetings with prayer. The move comes after a federal magistrate recommended a similar public prayer policy in Winston-Salem, N.C., violated the the First Amendment.

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Nov 30 2 comments
Anti-LGBT, Global, LGBT, Religion

‘Their blood shall be upon them’

There’s a lot of talk here recently over a proposed anti-gay death penalty law in Uganda. Activists and news organizations have linked the legislation’s Ugandan proponents to several high-profile American religious leaders and politicians.

The law, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009, would make gay sex a crime punishable by death. The legislation has been endorsed by Ugandan pastor Martin Ssempa, a man invited to speak at Pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church and “embraced warmly” by Warren and his wife.

Jeff Sharlet, author of an exposé on the secretive American group, “The Family,” has linked the Ugandan legislation’s mastermind, David Bahati, back to the ultra-conservative group.

Get the whole story »

Nov 13 1 comments
Anti-LGBT, LGBT, Politics, Religion

Do what love requires

In a post at Bilerico.com, I write a bit on the current controversy bubbling out of the impending marriage equality vote by the Washington, D.C. City Council. The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., is threatening to pull its social services if the bill passes.

They say their religious freedoms and the freedoms of individuals and small businesses will be threatened by marriage equality.

It is clear we have to face religious issues and use them to our advantage in our next steps toward marriage equality.

Get the whole story »

Nov 09 4 comments
Anti-LGBT, Religion

The anti-gay plan to undo hate crimes law

Both Queerty and Bilerico have commented on a WND story about a challenge next week to the new hate crimes legislation signed by Obama on Oct. 27. They say anti-gay activists are attempting to call for violence against LGBT people. I think the plan is much simpler and less sinister, but all the more susceptible to media spin.

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