Aug 15-31 Archives

Augustine of Hippo: Saint who rejected his bisexual past, defended intersex people

by Kittredge Cherry | | Aug 15-31, Saints

After a sexually active and probably bisexual youth, Augustine of Hippo became an influential early Christian theologian who was sex-negative but argued that God created intersex people. This contradictory queer saint’s feast day is Aug. 28 in western Christianity....

Ethiopian eunuch and Philip: Early church welcomed queers in Bible story

by Kittredge Cherry | | April 16-30, Aug 15-31, Oct 1-15, Saints

A queer black man was welcomed as an early Christian convert in Biblical times, according to progressive Bible scholars. He was a triple outsider — a gender-variant foreigner from a racial minority — and his story shows that the early Christians welcomed...

Black Madonna of Czestochowa becomes lesbian defender Erzuli Dantor

by Kittredge Cherry | | Aug 15-31, Saints

The Black Madonna of Czestochowa, one of the most famous Catholic icons, is the model for a Haitian Vodou goddess who protects lesbians. Traditional images of Erzulie Dantor, the Vodou defender of lesbians, are based on the Black Madonna of Czestochowa, whose feast...

Bayard Rustin: Gay saint of racial justice and non-violence

by Kittredge Cherry | | Aug 15-31, Jan 1-15, March 16-31, Saints

Bayard Rustin was a black gay activist and the genius behind the civil rights movement. He became the chief organizer of the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington where where Martin Luther King gave his historic “I Have a Dream Speech.” A follower of the Quaker faith...

Bernard of Clairvaux and Malachy: Abbot and the archbishop he loved

by Kittredge Cherry | | Aug 15-31, Saints

Bernard of Clairvaux was a medieval French abbot who wrote homoerotic poetry about Jesus and had a passionate same-sex friendship with Irish archbishop Malachy of Armagh. Bernard is best known for founding 70 monasteries around Europe and for his mystical writings....

Robert Wood: First clergy to picket for LGBTQ rights, author of first book on Christianity and homosexuality

by Kittredge Cherry | | Aug 15-31, Saints

Robert Watson Wood was an ordained Congregational minister who started advocating for LGBTQ rights in the early 1960s. He died Aug. 19, 2018, at age 95. In 1960 Wood urged churches to welcome lesbian and gay people in America’s first book on homosexuality and...

Shulamite in Song of Songs: Gay, lesbian or queer Biblical love poem?

by Kittredge Cherry | | Aug 15-31, Saints

One of the greatest love poems of all time, the Bible Song of Songs, may have been written as same-sex love poetry. Paul R. Johnson translated it as “a gay love poem” and Angela Yarber sees it as erotic poetry between a woman and her female lover. Others are...

Marsha P. Johnson: African American transgender woman at Stonewall Uprising

by Kittredge Cherry | | Aug 15-31, July 1-15, June 1-15, Saints

Marsha P. Johnson was an African American transgender woman activist and one of those credited with starting the Stonewall Rebellion that launched the modern LGBTQ liberation movement. A lifelong Christian, she was nicknamed “the Saint of Christopher Street” during...