Rev. Irene Monroe: Sometime in the late hours of Saturday night the call will come in. Philbert (not his real name) — like many of his Christian LGBTQ buddies — waits anxiously for the call to tell him the time and place of the van pickup, and where it’ll drop he and his friends off to a safe and secluded place for Sunday worship.

Rev. Irene Monroe: The historical legacy of the devaluation and demonization of black motherhood was both applauded and rewarded at this year’s Oscars. And the point was clearly illustrated with Mo’Nique, capturing the gold statue for best supporting actress in the movie “Precious,” based on the novel Push by Sapphire, as a ghetto welfare mom who demeans and demoralizes her child every chance she can.

Rev. Irene Monroe: While many black pro-lifers believe that the way to maintain the institution of the black family and to overcome white supremacy is by denying women their right to choose, these same anti-abortionists ironically are also anti-gay, anti-birth control, and anti-condoms, ignoring that homophobic vitriol, STDs and HIV/AIDS will kill the black family sooner than white supremacists anti-black conspiracy theories.

Rev. Irene Monroe: While in pre-Hitler Germany all-female orchestras were de rigeur in many avant-garde entertainment clubs, these homosocial all-women’s bands created tremendous outrage during Hitler’s regime. Snow was sent to a concentration camp not only because she was black and in the wrong place at the wrong time, but also because of her “friendships” with German women musicians, implying lesbianism.

Rev. Irene Monroe: A talented pianist and blues singer, and one of the most notorious and successful entertainers during the Harlem Renaissance, Bentley cultivated a large LGBTQ following up until the 1950s. As an African-American woman whose success derived from her raunchy and salacious lyrics to popular tunes, Bentley not only openly sang about sex, but she also openly lived and celebrated her sexual orientation as an out lesbian.

Rev. Irene Monroe: Within the African- American LGBTQ community, Black History Month has always come under criticism. And rightly so! The absence of LGBTQ people of African descent in the month-long celebration is evidence of how race, gender and sexual politics of the dominant culture are reinscribed in black culture as well.

Rev. Irene Monroe: It is my hope that the many conservative faith-based groups and organizations that are now part of Haiti’s earthquake relief effort will not discriminate against Haiti’s LGBTQ community as many of them did toward New Orleans’s queer communities during Katrina.

Irene Monroe: While scientists explain Haiti’s recent natural disaster as an earthquake due to a fault it sits on along the border between two large tectonic plates – the North American plate to the north, and the Caribbean plate to the south – that slowly slide horizontally past each other, Robinson explains the disaster as “Something [that] happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it.”

Rev. Irene Monroe: Sadly, Bayard Rustin, the gay man who was chief organizer and strategist for the 1963 March on Washington that further catapulted Martin Luther King onto the world stage, was not the beneficiary of King’s dream.

Rev. Irene Monroe: Just as my enslaved ancestors could have never imagined an African American family residing in the White House, nor could my African American LGBTQ brothers and sisters who fought in the Stonewall Riots of 1969 in New York’s Greenwich Village imagine that one day a special invitation from the White House would openly welcome us in.

What’s in a greeting?
With Ramadan, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice and Christmas all going on this time of year, one would think that an all-inclusive seasonal greeting emblematic of our nation’s religious diversity would be embraced …

With the Episcopal Church’s urban landscape changing, the denomination has opted to pour its support, money, and energy not into these historic black churches but instead into developing urban Latino churches.

For me, however, the joy in this moment in the history of the Episcopal Church is that the Church continues to crawls toward inclusiveness, albeit haltingly and in spite of opposition.

The Washington data is really a microcosm of what we already know: that AIDS in America today is a black disease,” said Phil Wilson, founder of the Black AIDS Institute, an HIV/AIDS think tank that focuses exclusively on AIDS among black Americans.

The Church of God in Christ (COGIC) is the largest African American church and largest Pentecostal church in the United States. And as the largest denominational black church in the country, it is also the loudest in rebuking homosexuality. But using many of the gospel music industry mega-stars from COGIC, the church’s charismatic worship style shouts to a black gay male queer gospel aesthetic every Sunday. The church is conflicted with itself.

While many in the LGBTQ community now gasp at the reality of Rev. Bernice King being at the helm of SCLC, I gasp at SCLC’s audacity to still call itself a civil rights organization.

Witch-hunts have always created moral panic, mass hysteria, and public lynching of society’s most vulnerable and marginalized.

If Morehouse is to continue to be the jewel of black academia, nurturing the talents and gifts of its exceptional black men, it must ask itself to what degree does its tradition hinder its goal.

But as one of the most vocal critics of the National Equality March that took place in Washington this weekend, Frank has many LGBTQ Americans nationwide wondering if he has become a bureaucratic gatekeeper.

I have faith – and I have faith in America. That is why I am marching to support President Obama in his goals of creating a more perfect union for all of America – and to support our legislators in passing legislation that will save all of our children from religion-based bigotry.

An idea that was once thought of as an anathema to black queer identity — marriage — in our LGBTQ communities, is being celebrated and on the rise. And many of us are now proudly walking down the aisle to tie the knot.

No matter what kind of shape-shifters or mask-wearers we are as African Americans leaders, even our post-racial leaders are finding out that the nagging issue of race is an unavoidable one.

These multiple family structures, which we have had to devise as models of resistance and liberation, have always shown the rest of society what really constitutes family.

None of us African-American residents of Cambridge are surprised or shocked by the humiliation and harassment Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 58, of Harvard University encountered at the hands of Cambridge police.

The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church voted overwhelmingly to overturn a three-year moratorium on the election of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queers to the episcopate.

We might ask whether Jackson’s queerness was more a function of society’s homophobia than it was his own.

The President has been an Obama-nation on LGBTQ issues since he’s taken office.
The political carrots Obama dangled before us as campaign promises are now looking like merely empty rhetoric that was used to court our …

June is Pride Month. And Black Pride contributes to the multicultural aspect of joy and celebration in the queer communities. Black Pride symbolizes not only black LGBTQ uniqueness as individuals and communities, but it also …

The California Supreme Court ruled again on same-sex marriage. This time it did to uphold Proposition 8, restricting marriage to one man and one woman. In a 6-to-1 decision, the justices decided that Proposition 8 …

There will be parades all across the country this Memorial Day commemorating our U.S. servicemembers who died while in the military. But not all of our servicemembers will be honored for their acts of bravery …

With Iowa being the fourth state to approve marriage equality, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer Americans’ optimism is high, believing many more states will follow suit.
“We’re hoping this momentum is contagious,” Daniel Richards of …

When Democratic U.S. Representative Barney Frank called Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia a “homophobe,” criticizing his likely support of the Defense of Marriage Act, his remarks were wrongly taken as only a personal attack on …

When preachers pontificate about the sins of homosexual sex, they need to be careful of what they say; their words invariably will be back to bite them, as we have seen with fallen evangelical star …

After a publicity junket promoting the HBO documentary The Trials of Ted Haggard, which landed him on Oprah and Larry King Live, fallen evangelical star Haggard has risen from public obscurity to tell us he’s …

As quietly as it would like to be kept by the Obama team and even by many in the LGBTQ community, Obama exploits the queer community for his political gains. And like pawns on his …

The last time a nation came to Washington and was mesmerized and stirred to action by the oratorical brilliance of an African American man was at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, when the …

If you are African American and gay, and fighting alongside your white LGBTQ brothers and sisters for queer civil rights, the notion that “gay is the new black” is not only absurdly arrogant, it is …

December 1 is World AIDS Day and Black women are dying of AIDS. Is anyone doing anything about it?
Right here in the nation’s capitol, the HIV/AIDS epidemic rivals that of many Third World countries. …

by Rev. Irene Monroe –
As I prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday, I am reminded of the autumnal harvest time’s spiritual significance. As a time of connectedness, I pause to acknowledge what I have to …

Rev. Irene Monroe –

Last week we saw democracy work with the election of Barack Obama as our country’s first African American president. My enslaved ancestors who built the White House could have never imagined that …

Depending on which media outlets you tune into for “fair and balanced” reporting on the election campaign’s presidential candidates, Senator Barack Obama can’t do any wrong and Senator John McCain can’t do any right. Or, …

In the face of a financial Armageddon, the economy has become the center of the campaign, where it should have been all along. But the moment all Americans have been waiting for – the latest …

Since McCain chose the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, as his vice-presidential pick, there has been bantering and bickering from the distaff side of our American electorate.
The catfight from female electorates of both political parties …

by Rev. Irene Monroe –
In the past, Oprah has had presidential hopefuls on her show, for example, Al Gore and George Bush during their 2000 bid. By having both candidates on her show, Oprah not …

Rev. Irene Monroe –
The media is abuzz with excitement about Republican Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska.
McCain’s V.P. pick has stirred up excitement, especially for women in the G.O.P. But his pick has also stirred up …

by Rev. Irene Monroe —
The second night of the Democratic National Convention (DNC), Obama’s toughest rival for the presidential nominee, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a knockout keynote address, bridging the chasm between her …

by Rev. Irene Monroe —
Michelle Obama won’t use the F-word. Alice Walker called it by another name. Her daughter, Rebecca Walker, an icon of the “Third Wave” of feminism, redefined the F-word and then …

Every 10 years the U.S. Census Bureau, now metaphorically, comes knocking on our doors. But when the census surveys arrive in 2010 in married households of same-sex couples in Massachusetts, we will be reclassified as …

The old adage “A picture is worth a thousand words” is not so evident on last week’s New Yorker cover and its satirical lampooning of presidential hopeful Barack Obama which it shows robed in Muslim …

The Senate’s most left leaning member, presidential hopeful Barack Obama, is now turning to the right.
And the turn, he’s finding out, is not as easy as calculated.

In a 5-4 ruling the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to own a gun for personal use. While the debate will continue to go on about whether the Second …

In contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend …

By now many in the LGBTQ community have heard of the news about the cop beat down of Duanna Johnson in a Memphis jailhouse that was captured on a surveillance video. Those of us especially …