Category Archives: LGBTQ & Gender

Black & White & Other Colors, Current Affairs, Election 2018, Fire This Time, LGBTQ & Gender, Resistance, Signs of the Times, Social Justice, Torture & Human Rights, War & Peace

Post-Confirmation: Our World Won’t End Right Now. (But you can see the clouds gathering.)

October 6, 2018 Chuck Fager 8 Comments

The confirmation vote is is done.

I won’t hold it against anyone who feels stunned and numbed by the travesty in the Senate, and needs to take some time to scream, cry & regroup. (Just don’t forget the midterms!)

Yet soon enough, those on the progressive side will need to look beyond the next election to the long work of coping with other aspects of what Kavanaugh’s arrival on the court portends.

And yes, the outlook is mostly bad; terrible, in fact. And it was a terrible prospect even before any of us knew who Christine Blasey Ford or Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick were.

The upside down flag signals an emergency. I rest my case.

Further, it’s about what we knew, or could have known, before the explosion, that I want to deal with here. Continue reading Post-Confirmation: Our World Won’t End Right Now. (But you can see the clouds gathering.) →

Cross-Generational Conversation: YAFS & OFFs, Ecumenical & Interfaith, LGBTQ & Gender, Resistance, Signs of the Times, War & Peace

David McReynolds: Peace Movement Titan Is Gone

August 17, 2018 Chuck Fager 3 Comments

Another Eminent Pacifist leader Is Gone: David McReynolds

I only sort of knew David McReynolds, but he hovered significantly in the background of peace work during my apprenticeship in the Vietnam years.

David McReynolds, pacifist organizer stalwart, October 25, 1929- August 17, 2018.

My most vivid memory of David was not a personal encounter, but in the pages of WIN Magazine, a “radical pacifist” journal published by the War Resisters League. In 1969 he joined several other elder eminences in coming out there. These were the first confrontations I had had with homosexuals as sympathetic figures and colleagues.

His article was more personal than political, often embarrassed about how much his struggles in and out of the closet had cut into his driving impulse to organize nonviolent action against war and imperialism. Its candor and humility cut right through my unthinking, reflexive homophobia, pointing a way forward from it which I have worked ever since to follow.

Continue reading David McReynolds: Peace Movement Titan Is Gone →

Current Affairs, Hard-Core Quaker, LGBTQ & Gender, Signs of the Times

New Split, Old Issue: Same Sex Marriage Rends Wilmington YM

August 3, 2018 Chuck Fager 11 Comments

An Interview with Stephen Angell. Leatherock Professor of Quaker Studies at Earlham School of Religion.

NOTE: Wilmington Yearly Meeting comprises three Quarterly Meetings, two in southwest Ohio, and a third in eastern Tennessee, three hundred miles south. The group is mostly pastoral and programmed, and has been affiliated with Friends United Meeting.

A Friendly Letter (AFL): Steve Angell (SA), thanks for doing this. So give us the scoop: has there been yet another yearly meeting split? Which one, when, and about what?

SA: The topic today is Wilmington Yearly Meeting, one of the smallest North American yearly meetings in Friends United Meeting. Its congregations are located in southwestern Ohio and Tennessee. ( A history of WYM to 1940 is online here.) The controversy is longstanding, and the background to the current difficulties is covered in Quaker Theology #30-31.

But the current intense phase arose in September 2016, when Cincinnati Friends Meeting, a semi-programmed meeting, held a wedding under its care for two women.

This event stirred up controversy over a set of issues that we’ve seen before, including Biblical interpretation, the authority of the yearly meeting, and the autonomy of monthly meetings.

Continue reading New Split, Old Issue: Same Sex Marriage Rends Wilmington YM →

Black & White & Other Colors, Hard-Core Quaker, LGBTQ & Gender, Quaker Theology, Signs of the Times, Weird & Peculiar

Dandruff on the Boss’s shoulder: Friends Central School Strikes Back

July 6, 2018 Chuck Fager 6 Comments

The boss has landed the key appointment with the Big Man. He’s almost ready, wearing his special suit.

Just before the Big Man’s secretary opens the office door, the Boss’s assistant notices a tiny white speck on the Boss’s shoulder. The assistant moves fast, raising a hand, ready to brush–

But the Boss is already walking through the door. The assistant sees him reach out to shake the hand of the Big Man–

Dominance behavior: flicking dandruff of an inferior’s clothing.

And then–OMG!–the Big Man is raising his hand, and flicking the speck of dandruff off the Boss’s suit himself.

Oh, the shame. the humiliation. The assistant stands frozen. Of course the instant has been recorded by cameras that will flash it all over the world in minutes. The assistant imagines his career crumbing right before his eyes.

Yeah, this is a clumsy parable of the next round in the Friends Central School (FCS) discrimination lawsuit. Continue reading Dandruff on the Boss’s shoulder: Friends Central School Strikes Back →

Black & White & Other Colors, Current Affairs, Hard-Core Quaker, LGBTQ & Gender, Remarkable Friends, Resistance, Signs of the Times, Social Justice, Torture & Human Rights, War & Peace

The Talk They Did NOT Hear at Friends Central School . . .

May 29, 2018 Chuck Fager 1 Comment

On May 25, Sa’ed Atshan was chosen by the Swarthmore College Class of 2018 to speak at their “Last Collection,” an opening ceremony of their Commencement exercises.

Here are some excerpts from his talk. (A full length audio version, 26 minutes, is here. A transcript of the talk is here. ) I’m posting them as a sample of Atshan as a speaker, and as a man sharing his identity and evolution with younger peers. I believe much of this would have been in the talk he was planning for Friends Central last year.

But this was an experience denied to the students at Friends Central School. To prevent him from speaking there, two teachers at Friends Central were fired, and a high administrative official left. This shameful incident is now the subject of a federal lawsuit. (More on that lawsuit and its background here.)

Atshan’s Swarthmore talk was intriguing to me for several reasons, but one was a question I’m still seeking the answer to:

What is it about this talk, and about this person, that was worth destroying the jobs of three loyal faculty at Friends Central School to stop him from giving it on their campus?

Many readers will know that the Friends Central administration has refused comment on this matter. So we’re on our own to sort it out. This talk is not a final answer; but is worth reading and pondering as the seeking continues.

Sa’ed Atshan, Swarthmore College Peace & Conflict Studies Assistant Professor.

Continue reading The Talk They Did NOT Hear at Friends Central School . . . →

Current Affairs, Ecumenical & Interfaith, Hard-Core Quaker, LGBTQ & Gender, Resistance, Signs of the Times

“Quaker Education”: A Rare Peek Behind the Curtain

May 25, 2018 Chuck Fager 15 Comments

A Long Read for a Holiday Weekend

Those who are still curious about the notorious (in many Quaker circles) case of two teachers at the Friends Central School in Philadelphia (described in earlier posts here, here, here & here), who were fired after inviting a Palestinian scholar to speak there, now have a chance to lift the curtain (at least somewhat) on it.

Although the teachers, Ariel Eure and Layla Helwa, were fired a year ago, the case popped up again in local media earlier this month after the two filed a federal lawsuit on May 7. They charged the school’s head and other authorities with six counts of discrimination, retaliation and defamation, and demanded hefty damages.

Continue reading “Quaker Education”: A Rare Peek Behind the Curtain →

Current Affairs, LGBTQ & Gender, Signs of the Times

Remembrance of Sex Scandals Past — Gerry Studds

November 21, 2017 Chuck Fager 3 Comments

All yesterday I had half-recollections in my head, kind of like an ear-worm but not music, instead a name: Gerry Studds. I kept wondering: why hasn’t his name come up recently, in all the furor about public figures and sex scandals. Was I remembering right — what did happen to him?

I did remember who he was: a Democratic Congressman from Massachusetts; his district covered much of Cape Cod. And he got in sex trouble — but from there it was kind of hazy.

So I looked him up. Turns out he was gay (I remembered that), and — well, some basics first:

He was elected to Congress in 1972. His district is known to outsiders as a place where many well-heeled folks hang out in the summer. But the locals are heavily involved in fishing. And so Studds became an expert on fishing and maritime issues. He also helped preserve many stretches of their beaches. Continue reading Remembrance of Sex Scandals Past — Gerry Studds →

Current Affairs, Ecumenical & Interfaith, LGBTQ & Gender, Signs of the Times, Uncategorized

The Nashville Declaration Is a Hoot

October 9, 2017 Chuck Fager 9 Comments

Many friends of mine are upset about a recent anti-LGBT screed called the Nashville Declaration. I don’t begrudge their anger; yet I wish they would take a break from the issuance of indignant counter-screeds to ponder some of the upside resources offered by this piece.

I urge this because the “Declaration,” and its sponsor, the “Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood” (the Bibs, for short), look way overdue for a new approach: lampooning.

I mean, at the least, the Bibs deserve a Career Achievement Award from LGBT groups.

Continue reading The Nashville Declaration Is a Hoot →