of the book, let us now turn to Part I of the book, which focuses on queer of color theologies.
Study Questions
1. Have you ever experienced “never quite getting to Oz”? That is, have you been in situations in which you have not felt completely welcomed because of your race, sexuality, and/or spirituality?
2. How do you describe your own social location with respect to race, sexuality, and spirituality? How fluid have these identities been throughout your life?
3. When did the first works of queer of color theology appear? How have such works been treated within mainstream queer theology?
4. What are the three “rainbow” themes covered by this book? How do they compare and contrast with the three “monochromatic” themes?
5. How might Part I of this book be useful in your own theological work and reflections? Part II?
For Further Study
Definitions
• Cheng, From Sin to Amazing Grace, xvi–xviii
• Cheng, Radical Love, 2–8
• Palmer and Haffner, A Time to Seek, 7–11
Queer of Color Theologies
• Cheng, From Sin to Amazing Grace, 133–45
• Cheng, Radical Love, 74–77
• Cornwall, Controversies in Queer Theology, 72–113
• Goss, Queering Christ, 253
• Schippert, “Implications of Queer Theory for the Study of Religion and Gender,” 74–77
1 The Wizard of Oz, directed by Victor Fleming (1939).
2 For more information about definitions relating to the LGBTIQ community, see chapter 1 below. See also Timothy Palmer and Debra W. Haffner, A Time to Seek: Study Guide on Sexual and Gender Diversity (Westport, CT: Religious Institute, 2006), 7–11; Patrick S. Cheng, From Sin to Amazing Grace: Discovering the Queer Christ (New York: Seabury Books, 2012), xvi–xviii; Patrick S. Cheng, Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology (New York: Seabury Books, 2011), 2–8.
3 See Patrick S. Cheng, “A Unicorn at the White House,” Huffington Post (July 30, 2012), accessed January 3, 2013, http://huff.to/Phq3d2.
4 The gay historian Allan Bérubé has written about the practice of “triple-carding” by gay bars to dissuade people of color from entering. This was done because a bar could lose its popularity if it was perceived to have been “taken over” by gay men of color. Allan Bérubé, My Desire for History: Essays in Gay, Community, and Labor History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 206.
5 “Fifth Annual Power 50,” Out.com, accessed January 3, 2013, http://bit.ly/yyesrL.
6 “Queerphobia” is an umbrella term that refers collectively to the fears that certain straight and/or non-transgender people have of lesbians and gay men (“homophobia”), bisexuals (“biphobia”), and transgender people (“transphobia”).
7 “Cisgender” refers to people who do not identify as transgender.
8 John Becker, “Secret NOM Documents Reveal Race-Baiting Strategy,” Huffington Post (March 27, 2012), accessed January 3, 2013, http://huff.to/HbkIUL.
9 “Harry Jackson, Maryland Bishop, Claims Gays Are ‘Trying to Recruit’ Children, Wants to ‘Steal Back’ Rainbow,” Huffington Post (August 3, 2012), accessed January 3, 2013, http://huff.to/QMrx3q. On November 6, 2012, Maryland voters approved same-sex marriage by popular vote, and the first same-sex marriages occurred in that state on January 1, 2013.
10 Assuming that there are some 8.7 million LGBTIQ people in the United States, and approximately 37 percent of the population consists of racial and ethnic minorities, then there are some 3.2 million queers of color in the United States. See “How Many LGBT’s Live in America?,” Advocate (April 6, 2011), accessed January 3, 2013, http://bit.ly/JRLwKZ; Doris Nhan, “Census: Minorities Constitute 37 Percent of U.S. Population,” National Journal (May 17, 2012), accessed January 3, 2013, http://bit.ly/QvPLLG.
11 See Gerard Loughlin, ed., Queer Theology: Rethinking the Western Body (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), vii–viii.
12 See Kathy Rudy, “Subjectivity and Belief,” in Loughlin, Queer Theology, 46–48.
13 See Elias Farajaje-Jones, “Breaking Silence: Toward an In-the-Life Theology,” in Black Theology: A Documentary History, Volume II, 1980–1992, ed. James H. Cone and Gayraud S. Wilmore (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993), 139–59.
14 See Renee L. Hill, “Who Are We for Each Other?: Sexism, Sexuality and Womanist Theology,” in Cone and Wilmore, Black Theology II, 345–51.
15 See Leng Leroy Lim, “The Gay Erotics of My Stuttering Mother Tongue,” Amerasia Journal 22, no. 1 (1996): 172–77.
16 See Margarita Suárez, “Reflections on Being Latina and Lesbian,” in Que(e)rying Religion: A Critical Anthology, ed. Gary David Comstock and Susan E. Henking (New York: Continuum, 1997), 347–50.
17 See Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology: Theological Perversions in Sex, Gender and Politics (London: Routledge, 2000).
18 See Horace L. Griffin, Their Own Receive Them Not: African American Lesbians and Gays in Black Churches (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2006).
19 See Roger A. Sneed, Representations of Homosexuality: Black Liberation Theology and Cultural Criticism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
20 See Cheng, From Sin to Amazing Grace.
21 Susannah Cornwall, Controversies in Queer Theology (London: SCM Press, 2011), 73.
22 See, e.g., Michael Sepidoza Campos, “The Baklâ: Gendered Religious Performance in Filipino Cultural Spaces,” in Queer Religion: Volume II, LGBT Movements and Queering Religion, ed. Donald L. Boisvert and Jay Emerson Johnson (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2012), 167–91; Jojo (Kenneth Hamilton), “Searching for Gender-Variant East African Spiritual Leaders, From Missionary Discourse to Middle Course,” in Queer Religion: Volume I, Homosexuality in Modern Religious History, ed. Donald L. Boisvert and Jay Emerson Johnson (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2012), 127–45; Juan A. Herrero-Brasas, “Whitman’s Church of Comradeship: Same-Sex Love, Religion, and the Marginality of Friendship,” in Boisvert and Johnson, Queer Religion I, 169–89; Roland Stringfellow, “Soul Work: Developing a Black LGBT Liberation Theology,” in Boisvert and Johnson, Queer Religion I, 113–25;