Category Archives: Trans

For Quakers, Friends & Others – A Welcome & Colorful Break From The Weekend Madness

Amid the upheavals, wars & rumors of war of the first weekend in October, 2023, there was a burst of light and fun and even joy, in one seemingly unlikely place — Alamance County, North Carolina. Let’s go visit it:

The occasion was as unlikely as the locale, by the historic railroad station  in the city  of Burlington, which was the scene of the ninth annual Alamance Pride Festival. It had the whole nine yards: tons of rainbow flags, stunning drag queens, and —yes, they went there— Drag Queen  Story Hour— in fact more than one. (But, in truth, they didn’t really last an hour; too many other things to do — “Psst, hey: the Quakers have candy!”)
Continue reading For Quakers, Friends & Others – A Welcome & Colorful Break From The Weekend Madness

FUM, John Muhanji, Uganda & “KILL The GAYS Laws: A Few Questions

October is Visitation &  Board meeting month for Friends  United Meeting (FUM). Besides board members from  FUM’s shrinking but scattered territories, notable Friends will be gathering in and around its home turf of Richmond Indiana.

Among the most notable of these visitors is Kenyan Friend  John Muhanji, who heads FUM’s African ministries. Besides official sessions, he’ll be visiting several Friends meetings & churches in the Midwest during the next few weeks.

No doubt the official agendas in these sessions will be full, and discussions lively. But if FUM’s record is any guide, some issues may have a hard time getting heard.

One in particular (unless I miss my guess), despite the fact it’s been in the news, on my mind, and even the pope has talked about it. But neither the pope nor I will be in Indiana this month.

So maybe some reader will pass along the following questions, not only in Indiana but to any other FUM-connected meeting or concerned Quakers:

 

Also . . .

Also, about the gospel being preached . . .

One for all those with financial responsibilities:

Others are asking too:

In Closing: For John Muhanji & FUM:

A Response to a Comment: Who Is this Quaker named “Wlliam Leddra”?

In a  June blog post here about virulent persecution of LGBTQ folk in Uganda based on a draconian new “kill the gays” law, a correspondent known to us as “William Leddra” issued a call to Quakers, who have two yearly meetings in Uganda, and affiliations with Friends United Meeting [aka FUM] based in Richmond, Indiana, to take up the work of speaking out and defending LGBTQ persons in Uganda (and other Africa countries where they are also persecuted). The call to Friends and others is also to exert pressure toward the repeal of this dreadful repressive legislation.

Reader David Howard Albert, in a comment posted earlier, said,

“I have no idea who this ‘William Leddra ‘ is or purports to be – I have never heard of him, he has never contacted us, and he seems ignorant of the efforts of more than 40 Quaker Meetings and Churches.”

Indeed, “Leddra” would be ignorant of the current plight of the persecuted in Uganda. That’s because the historical William Leddra was a Quaker, who was hanged on Boston Common in 1661, one of four known to history as “The Boston Martyrs”.  (Yes, being  Quaker in Boston then was in fact a hanging offense. ) The best-known of this group is Mary Dyer, of whom more is here.

Leddra, banished and then hanged for the same offense as Dyer, is less known; but he ended up just as dead, only for the offense of being true to his convictions. (“Our” correspondent “Leddra” feels pseudonymity is a prudent security precaution today, as “promoting” LGBTQ  life in Uganda is now punishable by a 20-year prison sentence.)

Fortunately, what happened in the wake of the Boston Quaker Martyrs’ sacrifice was turned into memorable verse by the famed Quaker poet Whittier, a later native of Massachusetts, in his poem, The King’s Missive.

We take this opportunity to reprint the poem below, as it seems to us that there are strong contemporary echoes and resonance in it. Last month, FUM held an international conference in Kenya, which included Ugandan Friends. All participants were under strict instructions not to speak about the new law; or if they were LGBTQ, not to be visible or vocal about that reality. (Those keep silence instructions are reprinted in the postscript to “Leddra’s” column.)

Negative international reactions to Uganda’s “kill the gays” law continue to accumulate.

Here’s Whittier’s comment, from 1881:

The King’s Missive

John Greeleaf Whittier
UNDER the great hill sloping bare
To cove and meadow and Common lot,
In his council chamber and oaken chair,
Sat the worshipful Governor Endicott.
John Endicott

A grave, strong man, who knew no peer
In the pilgrim land, where he ruled in fear
Of God, not man, and for good or ill
Held his trust with an iron will.He had shorn with his sword the cross from out
The flag, and cloven the May-pole down,
Harried the heathen round about,

And whipped the Quakers from town to town.
Earnest and honest, a man at need
To burn like a torch for his own harsh creed,
He kept with the flaming brand of his zeal
The gate of the holy common weal.

His brow was clouded, his eye was stern,
With a look of mingled sorrow and wrath;
“Woe’s me!” he murmured: “at every turn
The pestilent Quakers are in my path!

Some we have scourged, and banished some,
Some hanged, more doomed, and still they come . . .

William Leddra, a Quaker banished on pain of death from Boston for “heresy.” He returned to the city and was hanged on Boston Common in May of 1661.

Fast as the tide of yon bay sets in,
Sowing their heresy’s seed of sin.

“Did we count on this? Did we leave behind
The graves of our kin, the comfort and ease
Of our English hearths and homes, to find
Troublers of Israel such as these?

Shall I spare? Shall I pity them? God forbid!
I will do as the prophet to Agag did
They come to poison the wells of the Word,
I will hew them in pieces before the Lord!”

The door swung open, and Rawson the clerk
Entered, and whispered under breath,
“There waits below for the hangman’s work
A fellow banished on pain of death–
Shattuck, of Salem, unhealed of the whip,
Brought over in Master Goldsmith’s ship
At anchor here in a Christian port,
With freight of the devil and all his sort!”

Twice and thrice on the chamber floor
Striding fiercely from wall to wall,
“The Lord do so to me and more,”
The Governor cried, “if I hang not all!
Bring hither the Quaker.” Calm, sedate,
With the look of a man at ease with fate,
Into that presence grim and dread
Came Samuel Shattuck, with hat on head.

“Off with the knave’s hat!” An angry hand
Smote down the offence; but the wearer said,
With a quiet smile, “By the king’s command
I bear his message and stand in his stead.”
In the Governor’s hand a missive he laid
With the royal arms on its seal displayed,
And the proud man spake as he gazed thereat,
Uncovering, “Give Mr. Shattuck his hat.”

He turned to the Quaker, bowing low,–
“The king commandeth your friends’ release;
Doubt not he shall be obeyed, although
To his subjects’ sorrow and sin’s increase.
What he here enjoineth, John Endicott,
His loyal servant, questioneth not.
You are free! God grant the spirit you own
May take you from us to parts unknown.”

So the door of the jail was open cast,
And, like Daniel, out of the lion’s den
Tender youth and girlhood passed,
With age-bowed women and gray-locked men.
And the voice of one appointed to die
Was lifted in praise and thanks on high,
And the little maid from New Netherlands
Kissed, in her joy, the doomed man’s hands.

And one, whose call was to minister
To the souls in prison, beside him went,
An ancient woman, bearing with her
The linen shroud for his burial meant.
For she, not counting her own life dear,
In the strength of a love that cast out fear,
Had watched and served where her brethren died,
Like those who waited the cross beside.

One moment they paused on their way to look
On the martyr graves by the Common side,
And much scourged Wharton of Salem took
His burden of prophecy up and cried
“Rest, souls of the valiant! Not in vain
Have ye borne the Master’s cross of pain;
Ye have fought the fight, ye are victors crowned,
With a fourfold chain ye have Satan bound!”

The autumn haze lay soft and still
On wood and meadow and upland farms;
On the brow of Snow Hill the great windmill
Slowly and lazily swung its arms;

Windmills on Old Boston Harbor

Broad in the sunshine stretched away,
With its capes and islands, the turquoise bay;
And over water and dusk of pines
Blue hills lifted their faint outlines. . . .

But as they who see not, the Quakers saw
The world about them; they only thought
With deep thanksgiving and pious awe
On the great deliverance God had wrought.
Through lane and alley the gazing town
Noisily followed them up and down;
Some with scoffing and brutal jeer,
Some with pity and words of cheer.

One brave voice rose above the din.
Upsall, gray with his length of days,
Cried from the door of his Red Lion Inn
“Men of Boston, give God the praise
No more shall innocent blood call down


The bolts of wrath on your guilty town.
The freedom of worship, dear to you,
Is dear to all, and to all is due.

“I see the vision of days to come,
When your beautiful City of the Bay
Shall be Christian liberty’s chosen home,
And none shall his neighbor’s rights gainsay.
The varying notes of worship shall blend
And as one great prayer to God ascend,
And hands of mutual charity raise
Walls of salvation and gates of praise.”

So passed the Quakers through Boston town,
Whose painful ministers sighed to see
The walls of their sheep-fold falling down,
And wolves of heresy prowling free.
But the years went on, and brought no wrong;
With milder counsels the State grew strong,
As outward Letter and inward Light
Kept the balance of truth aright.

The Puritan spirit perishing not,
To Concord’s yeomen the signal sent,
And spake in the voice of the cannon-shot
That severed the chains of a continent.
With its gentler mission of peace and good-will
The thought of the Quaker is living still,
And the freedom of soul he prophesied
Is gospel and law where the martyrs died.

Uganda, tragic home of many martyrs of today . . . Will Friends now raise their voice to help to drive this plague away?

Quakers & Ugandan Catholics Called to Take Up Concern for LGBTQ Justice & Safety In Uganda–Plus a Postscript on Visitation

 

Version #1 – The Original,
from the National Catholic Reporter

The world is watching in disbelief as Uganda, a country known for its vibrant diversity and rich culture, continues to regress on human rights issues, particularly concerning the LGBTQ+ community. The country on May 29 enacted a law, colloquially known as the “Kill the Gays” bill, that imposes severe and harsh penalties for homosexuality, including the death penalty or life imprisonment in some cases.

While the international outcry grows louder, the silence from a significant portion of Uganda’s moral and spiritual guardians — the Catholic bishops — is deafening.
Continue reading Quakers & Ugandan Catholics Called to Take Up Concern for LGBTQ Justice & Safety In Uganda–Plus a Postscript on Visitation

Foul Ball — Dodgers drop, then Re-Invite Drag “nuns” to their Pride Night: Two Views

 

Stepping Up to The Plate: the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence will be in the lineup for the Dodgers’ annual “Pride Night”.

Baseball team apologizes to Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence after removing group from event amid conservative opposition

The Guardian staff and agencies — 23 May 2023

The Los Angeles Dodgers announced that the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a well-known San Francisco order of queer and trans “nuns” that has existed since the 1970s, are once again welcome at the team’s annual Pride Night.

Continue reading Foul Ball — Dodgers drop, then Re-Invite Drag “nuns” to their Pride Night: Two Views