Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

Sunday Morning Music Vid: I've Got You

First time I saw this short film in an audience I was caught up in the emotion of the experience, and clearly the whole audience felt the same way cause when it was over the applause was wild and long. It's the message we all wanted to hear from our parents, and it's the message we want to give all our children, biological or otherwise. Rafi — this is for you:

Sunday Morning Cartoon & Music Vid: Boy Meets Boy

This little gem from Korea in two parts features a little mystery of the relationship presented in part one that is resolved in part two. But I'll bet you've never seen a film with a singing fairy (live action) in a cartoon sequence gives street cruising advise to teen aged boys. Between this and Antique Bakery, I'd have to say South Korea is starting to give Taiwan a run for its money on good gay film!

Ang Lee and Taking Woodstock, Elliot Tiber and Queering Woodstock

Ang Lee’s film of Elliot Tiber’s book, Taking Woodstock, is set to open next weekend. This will be the third Ang Lee film with a gay man as the gay character. Elliot Tiber was a semi-closeted designer living in NYC during the week and running his parent’s failing motel upstate on the weekends. And his memoir of how he used his position as head of the chamber of commerce in White Lake to bring the Woodstock festival from Bethel to his benighted community is a wild ride through the summer of 1969, starting with the Stonewall uprising.

Yes, as Tiber tells the story, he was at the Stonewall that fateful night in June. So we get another eyewitness story. But what makes Tiber’s story compelling reading is his own self-examination and his willingness to explore the relationship between internalized homophobia, sex addiction and sado-masochism. It’s explosive reading, and don’t expect to see this in Ang Lee’s film. After all, Woodstock is the ultimate feel good story, and in Tiber’s memoir, the combination of Stonewall and Woodstock are what began his liberation from internalized homophobia and a life of sex without love — but along the way, it’s not very pretty. Tiber doesn’t shy away from telling about his experience with sex at the trucks, in 42^nd street theaters and in back room bars.

Rather we can expect Liev Schrieber in his role as Vilma, the ex-marine dominatrix drag queen, perhaps the most memorable character in the memoir, apart from Tiber’s quite seriously disturbed mother, for shock value. Schrieber may do much for the cause gender transgression and the wisdom of boundary crossing, since this character is a true wizard, magically running off bigots and opening minds. And Tiber’s experience was clearly amazing.

My experience of Woodstock was somewhat less liberated. While there were banners for the nascent Gay Liberation Front in the campsite where I was staying, most of the young men there were very touchy about what there affectional orientation might be (and thus not so willing to be touched). Some guys beat up one guy I know because he was verbally open about expressing his attraction to men. No, Woodstock was not Paradise for everyone. But that’s not why I am writing about the book.

I think Tiber’s memoir is extremely important, and shouldn’t be forgotten in the rush to see the movie. Every gay man (and lesbian and transperson) should read this thoughtful exploration of how our expression of love can be stunted and twisted by the self-hate we take in with the mother’s milk of our culture, so much so we can be completely unaware we are victims of it.  

Tiber went on to become a novelist, a teacher, and most importantly for many in our generation, a happy gay man who found love. More than Ang Lee, I’d love to hear an interview with Tiber following the movie about what was included and what wasn’t.

That said, I’m really looking forward to the movie. But if you’re reading this, definitely go read the book. And let me know what you think of each.

Meanwhile, I just want to say that Ang Lee has made more interesting movies with good gay characters than Gus Van Sant. Interesting and good being the operative words.

Sunday Morning Music Video: Fagette

Saw this delightful pansexual romp as part of the short musical films at NewFest this last June. The singer has a boyish charm that reminds me of Ty Greenstein from Girlyman (my boygirl crush, go figure). Enjoy:

An ad that gives new meaning to the phrase "rock hard butt."

Today's entry for advertising that's queer in some way — in this case targeting the gay male community for travel and tourism in the United States — uses Mt. Rushmore in a way that even Alfred Hitchcock probably never imagined:

What would Shelley's Ozymandias have been like if his traveler had some upon this stone monument? Asses to asses, dust to dust...

The best of the festival: films from NewFest at BAM this month

Some of the finest films from the NewFest, New York's lgbt film festival, will get a second showing the last weekend of August at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's BAMCinématek.

First and foremost is Rivers Wash Over Me, from director John Young (and co-written by Young and Darien Sills-Evans, who plays the sheriff in the movie). This tense drama about a gay high school student from NYC who is orphaned and must live with his relatives in a small town in rural Alabama. It's a film that explores the tensions of race, class, sexuality, gender and power. Sounds heavy huh? Well, I am not going to pretend that this is a light film. But what I can say is that like The Hurt Locker, it is non stop entertaining tension that grips your guts from the inside and then makes you think. Here's the trailer — more on the other films to come.

Fundamentalists see violence as acceptable: Pinchas is the template for Haredi response

Voz Is Neias, the website of the Orthodox Jewish Community, reports today that youngsters putting up posters in Jerusalem to condemn the deadly shooting spree in a Tel Aviv gay youth center last week were attacked by haredim in Mea She'arim.

The comments in response to the report range from thoughtful to hateful with everything in between, as responses to hot button issues on a blog usually are. But make for interesting reading into the minds of a community (if a rather skewed view that can't be called representative.)

On the DL: The Dalai Lama and the Tibetan response to homosexual love.

How many queer folk who follow the Tibetan Buddhist way would still be on that path if they knew that the Dalai Lama said in an interview that he “rejects” the idea of homosexual love and that gay or lesbian sex is sexual misconduct.  Further, in a recent response to questions about this, a representative of the DL essentially compared the acceptance of homosexuals to the toleration of thieves.

Of course, his position from a human rights point of view is that queer folk should not be discriminated against in civil law. But along with masturbation or sex at night for anyone, gay sex is sexual misconduct from the Tibetan Buddhist POV. How does the celibate DL (doesn’t stand for Down Low) come to this understanding? By consulting a Tibetan treatise by another celibate monk from the 15th Century. A monk who also said that it is okay to pay for a prostitute yourself, but not to have sex with a prostitute that someone else has paid for.

Is your head spinning yet? In a recent issue of Buddhadharma, José Cabézon wrote about Western Buddhists (read Tibetan Buddhists in this specific case but it is generally true for all sects) have a simplistic understanding of a tradition they have signed on to, specifically around the issue of sexual expression.

One of the many reasons I walked away from Judaism when I was 13 (the day after the Bar Mitzvah) was that I knew I was gay, and I didn’t care for a religion that called my expression of love an abomination. And like many Jews, I eventually found myself in the Buddhist world.
I didn’t go for Zen practice, since I was living in Japan and the S&M inherent in the way the sensei would strike practitioners with a rod just didn’t sit well with me. And I didn’t go with the Tibetans, because the whole thing just looked to me like a medieval theocratic state without a country. And if I wanted that, I could have become an Orthodox Jew.

Of course, many queer people turn to Buddhism because there is the perception in the West that it’s a religion where anything goes sexually. Or at least where much is tolerated. Nothing could be further from the truth. But then, the word Buddhism is like the word Christianity — it covers a lot of territory, since there are so many sects in Japan alone that it can be dizzying to try and figure out what the reality it. Though certainly, what most varieties of Buddhists can agree on are the four truths taught by the Buddha:

1.    Life means suffering
2.    Attachment is the origin of suffering
3.    The end of suffering is attainable
4.    There is a path to the end of suffering

I ended up in the world of Theravada Buddhism, considered by scholars to be the closest to what the Buddha taught, though of course, like Christianity, over the centuries, and across cultures, lots of stuff happens to the original message. What is certain is that there were very clear injunctions about sex between monks from the very start.

After that, well, depends what tradition you’re talking about. In Japan, the custom was for older monks to have sex with younger acolytes. At least until Admiral Perry showed up. Of course, in Japan, monasteries also had standing armies and often went to war with each other. Not very Buddhist on either account I would say.

But lets stay with the Tibetans. Perhaps people believe the DL is cool with gay sex because Trungpa Rinpoche’s Shambhala organization has pretty much always been okay with it. Of course, the Shambhala organization also has had a history of extraordinary loose sexual boundaries that raise questions of ethics no matter what religion or path you follow (well, unless you’re a follower of Aleister Crowley).

Like the Jews, the Tibetans have a long scholastic tradition of commentaries that they refer to for guidance. Yes, the Tibetans are Talmudic. And one of the scholars whose authority the DL accepts on the subject of sexual misconduct is that of a 15th Century monk named Tsongkhapa. And according to this dead brown man, among the ways of determining sexual misconduct is the use of inappropriate body parts.

What body parts does he mean? What could possibly be inappropriate?

“The mouth, the anus, the calves or thighs pressed together, and the hand in motion,” according the Tsongkhapa’s book The Great Treatise on the Stages of The Path. So if you’re a follower of the Tibetan’s these are the rules you’ve signed on for.

And if you accept Tibetan Buddhism then you also believe that if you’re having this kind of sex you’re going to end up in a hell realm.

Paging Pope Benedict!

Of course, the vast majority of Western Buddhists don’t believe any of this. Like many mainstream Jews and Christians they take a pick and choose attitude to their spirituality. The problem is that many Western Buddhists are unaware of these beliefs on the part of their spiritual teachers.

But unlike the priests of the Catholic church who are (supposedly) divorced from any sexual expression (and reality), the Tibetans are not being repeatedly challenged by activists. Not that questions haven’t arisen. But from the response the DL gave in his recent Canadian interview, not much movement (or enlightenment) has occurred.

But gay activists aren’t protesting outside appearances by the DL, and some of the reason is that you don’t see Tibetan Buddhists lining up politically against gay marriage anywhere, unlike Catholics, Mormons and Haredi Jews. So they aren’t on the radar of political activists who are concerned only with civil rights.

But that doesn’t make the Tibetan position any less problematic. Because telling a gay man or lesbian they are going to hell because of the way they express their love is doing spiritual violence.

And what is interesting about Buddhism among other things, is that an action isn’t judged by the outcome or the form, but by the intentionality. Anyone experiencing lust of any kind is experiencing the suffering of attachment. Gay, straight, whatever.

Anyone having angry sex is both experiencing and creating suffering. For a Buddhist monk, any sex is attachment. For a lay person though, well, getting laid isn’t out of the question. It’s just a question of how sexual misconduct is defined by the tradition. And if the intention in expressing love physically is loving and open hearted, well, this then is the issue….

Like Judaism, the Tibetan tradition can evolve with scholars debating and discussing and coming to some decision. They just don’t. Today even Conservative Jews not only accept gay congregants, they even ordain gay and lesbian rabbis.

A few years ago, the Dalai Lama met with a number of rabbis from across the spectrum to ask the secret of Jewish survival for 2000 years after the loss of the national homeland. With the destruction of ancient Israel, the Temple cult (and animal sacrifice) ended. And Judaism had to change and evolve. It went from being a state religion in a theocracy to a more diffuse and democratic structure that continues to evolve across cultures and time while affirming its connection to tradition. Perhaps it’s time for the Tibetans to ask the Jews for help again. And perhaps the queer Western followers need to be a little more Western in their push to wake up the Vatican. Oh, sorry, I meant the Kuger Yigtsang.

How will Tibetan Buddhism rise to meet the challenge of having lost the Potala and Tibet? This question will be answered in many ways. But perhaps one test will be to see how it responds Western queer Buddhists in the ranks who are challenging a tradition that’s about as relevant as using the ashes of a red heifer for purification rituals.

Vigil for the Victims of the Attack on the GLBT Youth Center in Tel Aviv

This evening Congregation Beth Simchat Torah in NYC hosted a vigil for the victims of the attack last week in Tel Aviv. Co-sponsored by a list of groups that was so long you would think there would have been a vast crowd. Nope. Barely a third of the Westbeth yard was filled with people. It was heartening to see all the young people from the Center's youth program though — these kids live with the threat of violence on a daily basis in ways many of us older folk forget.

Speaking at the gathering were Rep. Jerry Nadler and Jay Michaelson of Nehirim among others. Christine Quinn spoke, though what she thought of the huge sign for Yetta Kurland in the window of her campaign HQ across the yard who knows.

Carl Siciliano of the Ali Forney Center spoke movingly of the plight of gay youth in this country. And David Saranga from the Israeli Consulate in NY spoke of Israel's commitment to full LGBT equality (though what that means in a country where only Orthodox rabbis can perform religious marriage ceremonies I don't know).

Here are the videos of Rep. Nadler and Jay Michaelson speaking: