You think the USA had problems woth its census regarding ethnicity? PlanetOut (2/27) reports India had problems with its male/female boxes. About a half million hijiras, Indian eunuchs, have been joined by intact natural transsexuals, transvestites, intersexed individuals, and effeminate gay men to claim that only two choices in sexual identity is not enough. Other Indians annoyed about the census are sex workers who have been classed as beggars, though they claim they are hard workers whose economic activity the government chooses not to recognize.
The Chicago Tribune (3/16) comments on the state of gay affairs in the Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Methodist Churches. The three relatively closely related mainline denominations all handle gay clergy and same-sex unions differently: The Episcopalians uphold Christianity’s traditional teaching against same-sex unions but allows diocese to do what they wish. In a secret meeting near Henderson NC the church decided to remove all obstacles against openly gay clergy. Presbyterians have a 1997 ban on actively gay clergy, but that ban is due to be voted on this June, according to another Chicago Tribune article (3/15). The Presbyterians have given clergy the right to bless same-sex couples. The Methodists ban both rituals and clergy, but dissenters are continuing to challenge the same-sex union issue (a major dissension is going on here in Chicago).
The New York Times (3/14) and its Book Review section (3/4) review both a book on, and the collected poems of James Merrill. Merrill, the eminent American poet, died in 1995. He won virtually every literary prize possible before he succumbed to AIDS. In his memoir A Different Person, which spoke, among many other things about his sexual attitudes, he regarded himself not as a gay poet but as a poet who was gay. A quote: “My good fortune was to stay in one place while the closet simply disintegrated.” Of course the biography, Familiar Spirits, by Allison Lurie points out that closets weren’t especially important to Merrill because of his wealth (his father was a founder of Merrill Lynch). While Merrill, according to all accounts, was an excellent poet, many have commented on the excessive silliness of his supernatural epic, The Changing Light at Sandover, written with his lover, David Jackson (an unsuccessful novelist) using 20 years of Ouija board transcriptions.
Jim’s e-mail address: daunsenbere@prodigy.net