A reader spotted this petition on a bulletin board at Yale Divinity School, home of the Democratic Party at catechesis:

Which words do you not see in this petition?

God.

Jesus.

Typical.

Moving alone, an Episcopalian reader flags this touching meditation from lesbian psychotherapist and artist Laurie Gudim, in her weekly column published at Episcopal Cafe. She’s talking about the story in Acts 8 when Philip baptizes the Ethiopian eunuch. Excerpt:

I imagine the Ethiopian eunuch as a delightfully androgynous soul – dark of skin, flamboyant, dressed in bright silks, bejeweled, his lips colored and his eyes lined with kohl.  He is sitting under a parasol in a large chariot, and around him are mounted soldiers and attendants. A wagon carries tents and food so that he can camp in luxury on the journey home.

Does Philip, devout Jew that he is, hesitate to climb up into the strange, little. traveling world of this foreign pilgrim and accept his hospitality?  If he does, we don’t hear about it. Instead we hear how he opens scripture to his host. Then, successful in sharing the Good News, he baptizes this precious soul, welcoming him into the family of Christ.

This story soothes my heart in these deeply troubling times.  From the very earliest days of the church comes a gesture of profound acceptance and heart-felt welcome to a gender-fluid person.  One of our very first deacons is seized by the Holy Spirit and driven to the loving acceptance of this queer man, this eunuch, embracing him not as someone who must change, but just as he is.

:::facepalm:::

A “gender-fluid person,” the eunuch? Why is he “queer”? “Not as someone who must change” — as if his baptism would cause him to grow a new set of balls! There is no reason to assume that eunuchs in New Testament times were gay. Eunuchs were males who were castrated to perform specific social functions.  Gudim thinks Jerusalem in the early years of the Christian era was the Folsom Street Fair.

Don’t none of y’all tell her about the “street called Straight” (Acts 9:11)!