Our Families, Our Values: Snapshots of Queer Kinship
Our Families, Our Values challenges both the gay community and American society to examine carefully the meaning of family values and the nature of social institutions such as marriage and the family. It asks you provoking, even disturbing, questions such as: “Is it prudent for members of the Lavender community to mimic heterosexual marriage or define personal relations networks as families, when these institutions are rapidly collapsing?” “Are we attempting to mainstream American society...
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Our Families, Our Values challenges both the gay community and American society to examine carefully the meaning of family values and the nature of social institutions such as marriage and the family. It asks you provoking, even disturbing, questions such as: “Is it prudent for members of the Lavender community to mimic heterosexual marriage or define personal relations networks as families, when these institutions are rapidly collapsing?” “Are we attempting to mainstream American society into accepting different views of marriage and families?” “Are we subscribing to notions of sexual property that are inherent to the marriage ceremony and the institution of marriage, when we choose to be married?” Despite the complexities of this issue, marriage constitutes a privileged position in western society, and, as this book shows you, without the legal recognition of same-sex marriages, there are many fundamental rights, as well as privileges, denied to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons.As Our Families, Our Values turns upside-down the widely accepted notion that only heterosexual people are entitled to get married, have sex, and rear children, you gain insight into personal struggles and affirmations that testify to the spirituality, procreativity, and wholesomeness of the diverse relationships of the Lavender community. You will also learn about various ongoing efforts to give religious pride to the various configurations of gay relationships, families, and values and the disruption of popular interpretations of the Scriptures that have been used to justify the oppression of sexual minorities. This book will intrigue you over and over again, as you read about:value systemstransphobiaequal marriage rightsBuddhism’s rejection of “traditional family values”Brazil’s sex-positive culturedifferences between gay male social formations and familieschoosing a language and terms that empower sexual minorities and the essence of the liberation movementsex as communionrelationships based on nurture, not transactionDesigned for academics and students of religion, pastors, priests, rabbis, and lay readers alike, Our Families, Our Values is a multifaceted view of the gay community’s response to the public controversy over gay marriage, adoption, and foster care rights. Ideal as a textbook for courses in sexuality, theology, sociology, women’s studies, and gay and lesbian studies, this book will both inform you and delight you as it reminds you that same-sex unions bring much cause for celebration and that religion and homosexuality are not mutually exclusive. Richard Rive Challenges the myth that Lavender people—bisexual, transgendered, lesbian and gay people—lack family values.
About the EditorsContributorsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsCh. 1Queering Procreative Privilege: Coming Out as Families3Ch. 2Queer Culture and Sexuality as a Virtue of Hospitality21Ch. 3The Concubine and the Eunuch: Queering Up the Breeder's Bible35Ch. 4The Book of Ruth: An Example of Procreative Strategies for Queers51Ch. 5Christmas, Sex, Longing, and God: Toward a Spirituality of Desire61Ch. 6The Power to Choose: We're Here, We're Queer, and We Want to Get Hitched79Ch. 7Variety Is the Spice of Life: Doing It Our Ways97Ch. 8The Transforming Power of Queer Love107Ch. 9Together on the Path: Gay Relationships in a Buddhist Context115Ch. 10"With This Ring You Are Made Holy unto Me According to the Laws of Moses": Celebrating and Sanctifying Lesbian and Gay Relationships and Families129Ch. 11A Family Friend: Paul's Letter to the Romans as a Source of Affirmation for Queers and Their Families137Ch. 12Dancing Bears, Performing Husbands, and the Tyranny of the Family151Ch. 13Just a Perfect Blendship: Friendship and Sexuality163Ch. 14Making Love for the Whole World to Feel: Four Erotic Rituals for Gay Men181Ch. 15"Where Two or More Are Gathered": Using Gay Communities as a Model for Christian Sexual Ethics197Ch. 16What Will We Teach the Children?217Ch. 17Webs of Betrayal, Webs of Blessings227Ch. 18We Are Not Your Hope for the Future: Being an Interracial Lesbian Family Living in the Present243Ch. 19Spirituality and Gay Male Couples: Living in the Context of HIV/AIDS253Ch. 20Letting Go: A View of Grief in Process (Finding My Way Back to Me)269Index287
\ Richard RiveChallenges the myth that Lavender people—bisexual, transgendered, lesbian and gay people—lack family values.\ \
