"when the book's wrong..."

thanks to Shirley for highlighting this post over at Paul Cornell's blog on being out of the closet as a liberal British Christian against homophobia and one who feels his voice is lost amid the clamour in the media over the equality bill vote in the House of Lords. impassioned stuff this. he's started a twitter hashtag - #godlyforequality
it's currently spreading the tweet:

I'm a religious person, and I'm *for* LGBT rights. RT if you are too. Many of us. No voice.

if that's you, and you're the twittering type, you might wanna join in.


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on not entirely unrelated matters, there's a superb piece critiquing the "definitional argument" against marriage equality at the Independent Gay Forum. (hat tip to The Dish.)
i'm meeting with my lecturers today to discuss the papers i'm going to write this semester. in one i'm probably going to explore what is termed the  "intersection" between masculinities* and homosexuality, particularly in popular culture and media in the past year in the US. this piece has gone straight directly into my research file.

*(i'm doing Women's Studies and i took an elective last semester on the Equality programme on Masculinities, which, i confess, before i went back to school i didn't even know was a subject. but it is. and a fascinating and provocative one. and one heavily influenced by feminist theory. and was an opportunity to be in a classroom with men in it. i'm sure i lose some feminist stripes for saying that. RIP Mary Daly.)

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while i'm here, i'll also flag Channel 4's new series, The Bible: A History. (this follows their series, Christianity: A History. <-- that's still available in its entirety to viewers in Britian and Ireland.)
i really enjoyed Howard Jacobson's first episode exploration of Creation in Genesis as he looks for a path between creation literalism and new atheism. you'll find it at the link above.

this series, like the previous one, is looking like it'll have the ability to fascinate and frustrate in equal measure and in moments leave one feeling a bit like Paul Cornell if one holds to a non-literal form of religious belief. but this episode on Creation was one of my favourites so far. possibly because it's less uncomfortable than others, (including Jacobson's episode in Christianity: A History series about Jesus the Jew, which explores the history of Christianity and anti-semitism, and which left me feeling more than a little troubled on a number of fronts). or, i have to admit, maybe because as an author Jacobson reads the Bible as literature and myth this just confirms my own beliefs or readings. we're always looking for someone to confirm our own bias. he's looking for a way to release the poetry of the creation story from absolutes of belief and doubt. ("The creation myth and science are on entirely different errands.")
and i guess i am just glad that there's increasingly more of this stuff out there exploring a third path between theism and atheism in the public square. well worth your time if you're on this side of the pond and into that kind of thing.

right, must get in gear,

LB