Ecology, queers, and God: what do they have to do with each other? Well, maybe a lot.
On April 14, leading thinkers will come together to ponder just this combination at an event called, "Rainbow Ecology: Greening LGBT Communities of Faith" at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. The featured speakers are pioneering feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether, leading Stanford biologist Joan Roughgarden, and Daniel Spencer, professor of environmental studies at University of Montana. The event is free and open to the public.
Ruether is the author of the feminist classic, Sexism and God-Talk, a work that deals with the problem of dualism. Dualism is the tendency to categorize things as either/or: either male or female, either Christian or pagan, either economically viable or environmentally sustainable. The problem with this thinking is that in looking at issues in terms of opposing sides, usually one side wins out over the other. As LGBT people we are used to oppression under dualism, as we find ourselves on the losing side of combinations like: heterosexual or immoral, pro-gay marriage or pro-family, LGBT equality or political viability. Ruether tries to break down these dualities in the place that for many people is the matter of ultimate concern: God. She has proposed thinking of God as "God/ess" – bringing God's male and female characteristics together in a being that is both gendered and beyond gender. Her feminist theology extends naturally to issues of ecology, questioning the destructive dualism that sees the fate of humanity as separate from the fate of the natural world.
If Ruether takes on God, Roughgarden dares to take on a scientific deity: Charles Darwin. Roughgarden, a transgender woman, wrote Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People , and was featured in a New York Times profile last year. She suggests that Darwin's sexual selection theory is not sufficient to explain the wide diversity of sexual and gender expressions found in nature. She proposes a broader theory of social selection – where the entirety of an organism's sexual and gender characteristics contribute to the survival of a species, rather than the more simplistic equation of what qualities make an individual attractive to the opposite sex. Roughgarden's work is a fascinating combination of ecology and philosophy, as she suggests the survival of the human species rests partially in its ability to honor and respect the variety of sexual and gender expressions evident in humankind.
The seminar will also include a third speaker, Spencer, and a screening of an award-winning film on Native American environmental activists, Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action . Spencer is an assistant professor of environmental studies at the University of Montana. In his book, Gay and Gaia: Ethics, Ecology, and the Erotic, he places sexual ethics in conversation with ecology, encouraging an embodied approach to both. Homeland will be followed by a panel conversation including representatives from the two-spirit community, and further conversation and responses by the three distinguished scholars.
What does any of this have to do with LGBT issues? You'll have to attend the seminar to find out. But if I had to take a guess, it would be that the environment, LGBT equality, and issues of ultimate concern like spirituality and religion exist as part of a complex web of related issues. Sometimes in the fight for LGBT equality, we need to simplify, to focus our attention on specific problems like marriage and family legislation, religious inclusion, or the needs of LGBT youth. But there are other times when we need to step back and see the connections between issues, build coalitions, and recognize the interrelatedness of the causes of justice. As LGBT people, we have had to challenge structures in culture that lead to destructive separation between body and mind, and sexuality and spirit. What this conference hopes to remind us is that to achieve true liberation, we must also liberate our planet from the destructive separation between humankind and our natural environment.
Rainbow Ecology: Greening LGBT Communities of Faith, will take place Saturday, April 14, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Bade Museum on the campus of Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Avenue, Berkeley. Keynote speaker Rosemary Radford Ruether will present at the beginning of the event, followed by responses from Joan Roughgarden and Daniel Spencer. The afternoon session will include the screening of Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action and panelist discussion, followed by a reception. For more information, call the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at (510) 849-8206. Richard Lindsay is a Ph.D. student at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.