My response to the Chicago Dyke March's Ugly Anti-Semitism

I am a gay man and a Christian clergyperson in a fully lgbt-accepting church. My church often has a table at Pride festivals. I wear a clerical collar to these events -- and a rainbow lei over it to make certain people know I am there in support and not in condemnation. We give out rosaries (with crosses on the end) and gospels of John. I can assure you that many lgbt people raised in antigay Christian homes find clerical collars, rosaries, and scriptures triggering. Yet I've never been asked to leave. I've been welcomed -- even by people who come by to say that have left the church and are never coming back, but are grateful there are those of us willing to work for change. If my clerical collar, rosaries, and scriptures can be welcome in this space, there is NO LEGITIMATE REASON OF ANY KIND for the Star of David to be rejected. The Central Conference of American Rabbis is the largest rabbinical organization in the world -- a couple of years back, they elected a lesbian rabbi as their president. That's sort of analagous to the Roman Catholic Church electing a lesbian pope. Even the Unitarian Universalists just elected their first female president this week, and have yet to elect an lgbt president. For the Dyke March to aggressively attack a religion that has done so much for the lgbt community is beyond repulsive. I hope the mainstream lgbt community will do our best to embrace the values of inclusion and diversity that the organizers of the Dyke March hold in contempt.