Texas church defies government crackdown by blessing drag queens
Texas church defies government crackdown by blessing drag queens
While about three dozen protestors stood outside hurling slurs and threats, approximately 850 people attended the service...
The Cathedral of Hope — an LGBTQ+-affirming United Church of Christ in Dallas, Texas — has made a concerted effort to defend the queer community from “persecution,” as the state government targets drag queens and transgender people.
The church recently held a service where they blessed drag queens and pledged to “stand for justice, proclaim love, and protect the rights of all people.”
While about three dozen protestors stood outside of the church hurling slurs and threats, approximately 850 people attended the service.
“Anyone check the weather today?!” one protester screamed. “’Cause it might rain fire and brimstone on this church and burn every homo inside!”
But for the ugliness on display outside, the congregation filled the building with love and “radical inclusivity.”
“We recognize that all people are made in the loving image of God, no matter who they are, how they dress, express themselves, or who they love,” the pastor intoned during the service. “We celebrate this divine diversity and commit to lifting up the voices of the LGBTQ+ community and creating spaces where everyone can thrive.”
As one worship leader noted as the pastor gave communion, “Drag queens are often targets of hate and violence.” The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, in particular, were singled out for particular honor due to their lifesaving work during the AIDS epidemic.
“These Sisters were at the bedsides of men dying of AIDS,” Rev. Dr. Neil G. Thomas said. “They bring humor, they bring activism, they provide and bring a level of spirituality that many of us have had taken away from us. Despite the humor, they take their spiritual work very seriously.”
The service was a response to recently passed legislation meant to make a drag a crime. The law, passed by Republicans, has been challenged in court by civil rights groups and blocked repeatedly by federal courts.
The law punishes drag performers and venues with a $10,000 fine if they allow a minor to see a “sexually explicit” performance. Such a performance is defined as one in which “a male performer [is] exhibiting as a female, or a female performer exhibiting as a male, who uses clothing, makeup, or other similar physical markers and who sings, lip syncs, dances, or otherwise performs before an audience.”
Lawyers from the Texas Attorney General’s office argued that because the law didn’t specifically mention drag, it wasn’t discriminatory to drag performances. However, in June, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) shared a story about the law’s passage that contained the headline, “Texas Governor Signs Law Banning Drag Performances in Public,” and added the comment, “That’s right.” Many state politicians who supported the law also publicly stated that it was meant to target drag, specifically.
But would the law apply to churches? That’s unclear.
“My kid was here,” the lead pastor said. “I don’t have the right to choose to bring my kid to church when there are drag queens?”
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You have to be a real fucking idiot if you think the bible tells you to hate others. Jesus’s whole fucking message was love everyone no matter what. He literally walked with lepers and washed others feet. Fuck these people (the Texans they are defying)
Edit: clarification on who to fuck
The Bible contains quite a bit of hating others... God is a real piece of shit in the old testament. What did Job do to deserve what he got? Why did he tell Abraham to kill his own son for a goof? The book literally justifies slavery.
According to the book, Jesus is God, so..........
Yeah, but like fuck the Old Testament. That shit is just stories. The New Testament is where I feel the actual messages are. That’s just my belief others can feel differently I don’t care. However, I do care if you use your religion to expose hate and violence. Be better, love everyone regardless of what they are. You can not enjoy their company or not want to associate with them, but lift them up always. I don’t know if I worded that last bit properly 😅
Ok, just pointing out that your beliefs are not consistent with your holy book.
By what criteria are you able to justify ignoring parts of the book and not others? Is it not the inerrant word of God? Didn't Jesus say that he didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it? He made it very clear that you can't just throw away the OT.
You seem to have good values, just don't see the reason any kind of unscientific claims about the supernatural need to be a part of it. Just unnecessary baggage.
Jesus consistently preached basically in opposition to those obscure Old Testament hate filled passages. Look in the other comment chain for the Matthew verse. To expand on what I said, I don’t think all of the OT is garbage, but I do think most of it is up to personal interpretation to a point. If you get to a point your interpretations are hateful you’ve fucked up.
I don’t exactly think Jesus was supernatural, I believe he existed and that he was trying to teach the world a lesson that still holds true today. Whether he was a messiah or not is up to personal interpretation and I’m not gonna tell people they can’t believe that.
I think the New Testament is mostly garbage that is filled with stories/ideas that are very much up to personal Interpretation, exactly how I view the other Abrahamic faiths. Each of the Gospels has their own interpretation of Jesus and their own agenda to push.
Jesus absolutely never ever refuted or went against the Torah in the Gospels. People accused him of it, but that's only their interpretation of the law that he broke, not his own. He just didn't want people to be burdened needlessly by the law, that's all. Jewish sects of the time were fighting over semantics and interpretation of the Torah.
They fought about things like, what constituted working on the Sabbath? Could you go into your farm and pick some fruit on the Sabbath, or would that be a form of work. Some Jews would say 'fuck yes that's work bitch'. Jesus thought that YHWY created the sabbath to help and benefit humankind, and that it was silly to look at such small details while bigger details, like human suffering, went ignored.
Same as Christian sects do today, over the same kind of bullshit too.
I don't believe in anything supernatural at all. I think Jesus of nazareth was a nutter who thought his God was going to swoop in and make him king and get rid of the Roman's oppressing his homeland and people, but got executed as an enemy of the state. He also had some tasty views on rich people, so overall cool dude in my book. Fuck the Roman's.
Christianity started out as a Jewish sect by the way. Christianity became anti-jewish over time because they couldn't convince Jews that Jesus was the Messiah. Probably because the Jewish Messiah was supposed to be a grand warrior figure that was going to overthrow the Roman's and Jesus was executed by the Roman's in one of the most dehumanizing and humiliating ways they had. Its why gentiles were easier to convert than Jews, they didn't have explain that away.
You should read up on the historical Jesus, Bart Ehrman is my absolute favorite author on the New Testament and the Historical Jesus. Israel Finklestein has a delightful book on the historical side of the Hebrew Bible, I think the Great Courses Plus has a lecture series on that as well.
Here's a YouTube Playlist from Bart Ehrmans lecture series on the historical Jesus, it is missing the best episodes sadly, but still great. People can get the full thing on audible, it's so worth it.
Edit: I miss r/askbiblescholars so bad 😫 I miss you RIF
That was a delightfully insightful comment, thanks a lot 🤩
If you don't believe that Jesus died and rose again for your sins, then you're not a Christian by definition.
Also, those are not "obscure" stories. They're the basis of all Abrahamic religions, including Christianity. In fact, the only reason there even is a NT is because they wanted to write about the "prophecies" from the OT "coming true." You can't have one without the other.
And, once again, Jesus is God. God did really fucked up things in the old testament, that means Jesus did really fucked up things. In the NT he supported those fucked up things that he did, and his existence itself is allegedly a fulfillment of OT prophecy. That's why they killed him! Assuming he ever existed in the first place.
Not trying to be a dick, but as someone who was raised in an evangelical church, I know the Bible inside and out. People who pick and choose, or pretend they can be Christian and still think being gay is ok, piss me off because it's a direct contradiction of what you claim to believe.
People like you legitimize a barbaric religion that is (once again) destroying the fabric of our society. Be honest with yourself and come to terms with the fact that your religion condones slavery, and killing people for being homosexual.
Not every Christian group places too much importance on the Bible. I was raised catholic and we were actively discouraged from reading it, lol. That’s not better, but it is insulation against the laws for how to treat your slaves
Never claimed to be a Christian. I don’t legitimize these barbaric idiots, I believe they’re wrong, that’s my interpretation of the OT. I know I’m not wrong because it’s religion not science, you can believe whatever you want.
You can believe the sky is pink and grass is orange, doesn't make you right.
So you think something philosophical in nature has a black and white right or wrong about what to believe in? Like I said it’s not science it’s religion/philosophy
There is a huge gulf of difference between someones religion and someone's scripture. Christian abolitionists were a powerful force to end slavery in the USA.
I think Jesus's whole thing was "hate the haters." He had great disdain for the religious authorities that were institutionalizing hate.
Did he? He flipped over some money lenders tables and he debated the religious leaders of the day. He may have disagreed with them but I challenge you (and I'm an atheist, I have no real horse in the race about supposedly divine beings) to find a place in the bible where jesus was described as hating anyone.
"13 But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves....
23 Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
25 Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean....
33 You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?"
Matthew 23:13, 15, 23-26, 33
The entire chapter is a rant against them but I just picked out some of the more damning language against them.
You got any more of this? I know more than the lay person about the Bible but less than the ones who’ve read it most of their lives (or studied it). I love these verses!
Jesus issues some scathing condemnation against the Pharisees in that entire section of the book of Matthew. His messaging is pretty consistent all throughout the New Testament. It all boils down to loving others as you would love yourself, stop being greedy, and don't be a hypocrite. When Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment in the law he replied simply:
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment'. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
So all these bible thumpers and evangelicals who constantly rant about hatred and condemnation have missed to first and second most important messages that Jesus shared.
This one isn't Jesus but John the Baptist but has a similar vibe:
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 10 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Matthew 3:7-10
John 7:25-54 has a kind of funny interaction between Jesus and the Pharisees. Basically Jesus is preaching and saying he is the Messiah. Some of the Pharisees flip out about this and send the temple guards to arrest him. The guards hear Jesus speaking and then come back without arresting him. Then the following conversation happens:
45 Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?”
46 “No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards replied.
47 “You mean he has deceived you also?” the Pharisees retorted. 48 “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? 49 No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.”
50 Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, 51 “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?”
52 They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”
Another interaction between them:
9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Matthew 9:9-13
Another one:
10 And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: 11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” 12 Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” 13 He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. 14 Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”
Matthew 15:11-14 (rest of the chapter is pretty good too).
This is somewhat irrelevant, but I’m most struck with the “mint, dill and cumin”. Herbs sure are amazing. The history of cuisine is pretty interesting too.
That doesn't mean he hated them. He condemned their behavior and their hypocrisy. He called them out. That is not the same as hate.
Yeah, I knew someone would say this. He's calling a group of people that are trying to kill him a brood of vipers and damning them to hell. That reads to me as hate. If anyone other than Jesus was making those statements it would be interpreted by most people as hate.
Yes, under Christian theology Jesus doesn't hate people because that is the backbone of the entire belief system. But without that presupposition, Jesus's statements to the Pharisees sound a lot like hate.
Edit: But tbf, his hatred is probably directed towards the entire institution rather than the individual members. Like how people hate the police but may not necessarily hate every single police officer.
Thank you for citing the passages, but I similarly to the other commenter disagree that he is saying he hates them rather than their actions.
The word hate isn't in there. I might call a gang a "brood of vipers" but that wouldn't mean I necessarily hated them.
Lastly, and for what it's worth, I'm not clear if the "Seven Woes on the Teachers of the Law and the Pharisees" are meant to be quotes of Jesus or if they are Matthew.
Still, thank you for sharing something specific and not just hand waving.
He hated the shit out of that one fig tree that didn't give him a snack immediately. Cursed it.
I don't know. He didn't just "flip tables". In John 2:15, he "braided a whip out of cords" to drive them from the temple. However, in the original Greek, the word used for whip was "phragellion", which isn't an ordinary whip. This was the type of whip used in Gladiatorial combat by Romans, and was typically fashioned with weights or barbs at the ends of the falls. This was a whip designed explicitly to do harm, and no other whip in the Bible is described as a phragellion. Making such a whip is a deliberate, premeditated and time-consuming process. I would argue that this specific detail suggests that, while His actions are not directed by hatred, He still clearly intended to hurt the people defiling the temple and abusing their authority.
And these are the only people Jesus ever deliberately harms. Which is very telling.
You seem very confident in a lot of what is written in a very old translation of a hodpdge of work.
You are drawing a conclusion I do not from the same text.
It seems odd to me that a divinely inspired work could be so confusing or open to interpretation.
And given so very many passages where Jesus calls for love, why do you spend so much time justifying your interpretation that says Jesus hated a particular group?
There may be food for thought here for both of us.
I didn't say He hated anyone. In fact, I explicitly said His actions were not motivated by hatred. Jesus speaks of Justice on numerous occasions. His actions in the Temple were not hateful or vengeful, they were enacting justice upon those who abused their power, and specifically power they claimed to derive from God.
Jesus as described in the New Testament was quite a badass. He fearlessly stood up to power, and fought against greed and hypocrisy. If more Christians followed his example that would be great.
Paul would disagree.
Paul can get fucked
Tell that to Christians. They venerate him and all of his bigotry.
Not all of us. I consider him a great candidate for Antichrist.
Which sect cause some would also say fuck paul.
Which ones reject the books of the Bible written by Paul?
The Bible explicitly says in black and white that God hates gender-nonconforming people. Ditto that Christians need to shun gay men.
Cool that this church chooses to disregard their own religion to be inclusive, but I'm too old to do that kind of mental gymnastics any more.
I understand this is sarcasm but you should add a /s just in case lmao
It's not sarcasm. The bible says (not just the old testament, but the New testament as well) that homosexuals won't enter the kingdom of God, etc. Throw out the entire religion.
Pretty sure it never explicitly states this in either testaments. This link is my interpretation of those very vague passages people use to say this
https://www.hrc.org/resources/what-does-the-bible-say-about-homosexuality
Sorry I can’t remember how to embed the link.
Citation needed.
I mean it's all make believe anyway but I don't recall the Bible actually condemning homosexuality. It condemns perversion, as in molestation or sexual assault, but doesn't say anything about homosexuality to my knowledge.
"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."
1 Corinthians 6:9-10
So according to the bible , homosexuals and effeminate people cannot enter heaven, that sounds like condemning to me...
You need to look again, because it absolutely does. Or do you think, "if a man lies with another man," was just talking about best buds sleeping in the same bed.
edit: I guess people are too lazy to look themselves for something that's already common knowledge..
But it's Leviticus 20:13.
And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
Cite the whole passages, friend. If you're going to argue your point, bring the receipts and let people discuss. You're making the claims...
In case you didn't see the other replies, Leviticus 20:13:
And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
Seems pretty black and white to me.
I'd be interested if you could share the original text, what you've shared is a translation. I don't read Sanskrit or Aramaic so I am not sure I'd be super useful, but I imagine other people might be able to help.
LEVITICUS 20:13, fwiw.
It's pretty close to the beginning, which is kind of telling... maybe try actually reading your holy book. You may be surprised what you find.
It isn't my holy book. I read enough as a child to figure out it wasn't a divinely inspired work.
I'm not going to engage too heavily in an online religious discussion, but as with most things it really is more complicated than that. Many, many Christians acknowledge these parts of the Bible while still being LGBTQ affirming. In brief terms there's a very good case these passages largely are speaking of some kind of sexual abuse, or the use of sexual activity as an act of worship.
If you can filter your mind of centuries of homophobic biblical rhetoric and biased translations, it's surprising how little there is to read on the subject.
Yes and they are hypocrites.
It's amazing the mental gymnastics Christians will do to justify their hateful beliefs.
I feel like you're contradicting yourself there, you're saying the affirming Christians are hypocrites and hateful?
How is that contradictory? I didn't say all Christians are hypocrites, just the ones that pick and choose what verses are convenient for them. Westboro Baptist seems to adhere pretty closely.
Christianity itself is a hateful ideology. Many people pick some of those hateful things when they walk past on the buffett line. Those people are both hateful and hypocritical.
I'm saying to either do it the way it says you have to do it, or stop wasting your time.
After all, God did say not to be lukewarm Christians, and if you are, he will "spew you from his mouth"
I mostly agree, with the exception of thinking that Christianity is hateful (though some of course try their best to show otherwise), but if you're saying it's hypocritical to interpret the bible as not being against homosexuality I think you're drastically oversimplifying. That part was the only thing I was looking to discuss.
Well super easy to verify. Can you cite the verse where it says this?
Someone else pointed out it's Leviticus 20:13. Fair! It should be noted though that passage was to Moses about Jewish law as it goes on to talk about not eating unclean animals, etc... which is generally ignored by Christians but your point stands
The bible also makes clear that judging others is a ticket to hell, as only yhwh is to have that power.
If you try to live by copying the morality of a book on fairytales, you'll have a bad time.
Jesus said that, and Jesus (the white one anyway) is just a mascot.
Paul is who matters, and he judged the living shit out of everybody within correspondence range.
The Bible explicitly says in black and white that God hates gender-nonconforming people.
True. Edit: I like to clarify that I define this strictly to God hating people having sex with another of the same biological sex.
Ditto that Christians need to shun gay men.
Logically speaking, it doesn't follow. It's equally valid to hold the opinion that "while God hates gender-nonconforming people, I am not supposed to punish them for it." In fact a famous example to that effect is John 7:53–8:11: "let him who is without sin, cast the first stone". Practically-speaking, that line of thinking (that Christians need to shun gay men and similar ideas, that is) had dire consequences in the form of witch trials. There, they used the Christian prohibition on witchcraft to purge societies of social outcasts and undesirables who are most probably not witches.
Sharing an article that argues against Christians shunning gays: https://theconversation.com/using-the-bible-against-lgbtq-people-is-an-abuse-of-scripture-110128