LISA SALAZAR — BLOG

Hundreds gathered at the Peace Arch Border Crossing Sunday afternoon, February 12, 2017, to express concern and opposition to recent American immigration policies and attitudes impacting immigrants and refugees. This peaceful demonstration was originally planned for February 5th but had to be postponed due to poor weather conditions. I was invited to say a few words; this was my text: I am an immigrant, first to the United States and later to Canada. I am Hispanic, I am Latina… I am white-skinned. I am a citizen of Colombia by birth—and a citizen of Canada by choice. I am a trans woman. I am a lesbian Like everyone who has ever lived, I had no choice in which country I'd be born in; Nor into which religious tradition. I did not get to choose my parents; I had no choice over my mother tongue. I had no choice when it came to the color of my skin. I did not choose my sexual orientation, and I did not choose to be transgender. Of all these things I have listed, only one I choose ...

Which Gospel do you profess? As Stephen, the author of the blog "Sacred Tension // A Story of Dissonance" powerfully expressed in his post today ( "The Cost of Words" ), "Most Christians believe they speak eloquently and wisely on this topic (homosexuality) , but as long as they fail to realize the cost of their words, they will be babbling uselessly to those who are practically dying to hear the gospel of love." As a transexual Christian woman, I can say that when it comes to reconciling our faith to our sexuality, all of us who are LGBTQI have experienced an internalized struggle and fierce debate that would make your dogma run for the hills.  Growing up in a time when the word “transgender” did not exist meant that I did not even have the ability to understand why I felt the way I did. As the fundamentalist Christian I grew up to be, there was only one explanation, I had a perverse bent that needed high spiritual maintenance. This w...

Thanks to Cindy Hadden for priming the pump on this.  facebook.com/artistcindy From the beginning — gays have been pushed to the outside of the gates in every culture (with the exception of a few). They WERE very well KNOWN in Jesus's day. In fact, it may be entirely possible that the Centurion who came to Jesus, asking him to "heal" his "servant" at "home" may have been the soldier's "partner." Homosexuality was widespread in the Roman army; in fact, soldiers away from wives and homes for long periods of time used their servants to relieve themselves sexually. And yet — Jesus treated them equally, and DID NOT single them out as an example of sin, nor did he do that to prostitutes and women of ill repute. There is also speculation that the convert Paul (who is credited with writing three of the six clobber verses in the Bible that are used to justify anti-gay theology) was very "in tune" with gay culture of his time, maybe h...