Category Archives: Sexual orientation
Becoming Love Medicine
I stood there in the Norman Manley Airport of Kingston, Jamaica. My small 11-year-old palm connected to my lanky brown hand held tightly on to my mother’s full warm palm center. What do you do when your home and …
For Freedom’s Sake: Ending Child Sexual Abuse in Black Churches
I am a freedom fighter, writer, minister, scholar, and survivor of child sexual abuse. I am also the founder of Children of Combahee, a newfound project through the Just Beginnings Collaborative that mobilizes against child sexual abuse in Black church …
“But Those Were Just Words”: Things We Should Stop Saying After This Election
By Jameelah Jones, M.A. This commentary originally appeared on Jameelah Jones’ Medium blog. I won’t type the presidential election results because you already know them. For 24 hours, I didn’t know what so say. For many of us who do …
Treading Water: The United Methodist Church’s Latest Plea
As I watched the business of the 2016 General Conference of the United Methodist Church, my mind flashed back to my childhood. I remembered being a lifeguard. I used to teach people how to tread water. This was …
Queer flesh and worship respectability
Following the memorial service for Daryl Coley, I stood in awe at the numerous social media posts, re-posts and comments — both of B. Slade’s virtuosic performance of Donald Lawrence’s “When Sunday Comes” and the video clips of …
The Black church: Bold and bad enough to accept and affirm
The Black Church has been a strong pillar of the community. I pray that it will have the courage not only to accept, but affirm its gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender children. The recent VH1 segment, Out in Hip Hop: …
Maybe Same Sex Marriage IS God’s Will
We are not the same America. We are not the same America that we were 20 or even 10 years ago. For decades, civil liberties framed the discourse about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) justice. Now marriage, a union …
A letter to the National Baptist Fellowship of Concerned Pastors
Greetings in the Name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Recently, I learned of your public protest against the leadership of Dr. Forrest Harris, President of American Baptist College of Nashville, and his decision to invite Bishop Yvette Flunder, …
Laying my burdens down: Embracing Black, Queer Christians in the church
In February, Black LGBT activists Wade Davis, Tiq Milan, and Darnell Moore hosted a #ThisIsLuv town hall forum in Washington, D.C. #ThisIsLuv brought the Black Queer community together and showcased the support and love that we receive from our friends …
When is “enough” enough?
Recently, some African American pastors who came to “heckle” me changed their minds and instead asked me what they could do to move the conversation about moral equality for LGBT people in the Black church forward. I appreciate their honesty …