Posts Tagged ‘lgbt’

Pride In Your Eyes – Hong Kong

The song was written for the first ever pride parade in Hong Kong, Dec 2008.
The lyrics are in English, mostly Cantonese, little Mandarin. Translation below by T:

Pride in your eyes, stepping big steps with me to the street.
 
Getting wet with rain or hot with sunshine,
Still make sure we’ll meet on the street.
 
Onlookers giving us strange looks,
I don’t need to guess why.
 
If they don’t get used to seeing LGBT,  we won’t mind,
One day they will say hi.
 
See me fly, I’m proud to fly up high
Whenever seeing rainbow in front,
   I will feel your love.
   Believe me I can fly,
   I am singing in the sky.
   singing can be heard all street,
   ’cause love can make one laughing and shouting loud.
 
Pride in your eyes, still accompanying me is you.
 
Rain or shine, still follow me
Go past more and more.
 
When facing obstacles along the road,
Confidence can make one end up prouder.
 
If the whole world unaccept me,
I rely on you to sing for me.
 
See me fly, I’m proud to fly up high.
 
seeing you today accompany me
along the road,  don’t care the distance is far or close,
use love for your voice.
 
Let me fly, I’m proud to fly up high
Over the rainbow, there’s my life, my pride …

What God Has Joined: Hope for All Families

Click here to watch part 2

“What God Has Joined Together: Hope for All Families”

Join San Francisco + Oakland + Bay Area Faith Leaders for an evening of Healing, Affirmation & Hope for LGBT Families & Friends in the aftermath of the passage of Proposition 8

Come Join in an ecumenical celebration of LGBT families

Learn about resources and organizations supporting and advocating for LGBT family needs

Sunday, December 14, 4pm-7pm
Historic Sweets Ballroom
1933 Broadway, Oakland

On Prop 8 Vote

I bless my anger. It tells me I am alive.
I bless my sadness. It reminds me I am real.
I bless my confusion. Out of it comes clarity.
I bless my tears. They heal me.

–Perry Tilleraas, 1988

No matter how they voted yesterday,
First thing in the morning, I will cast a vote for myself.

 Even if I decided against myself as child,
And thought I could never be happy,

I will begin reversing the old judgments
I harbor against myself,

I claim the power to judge for myself,
in every area of my own life.

No constitutional amendment will keep me
From meaningful, satisfying relationships.

I reach out and my needs are met.
In meditation and prayer, I find serenity.

I am more than a person being discriminated against.
I survive and persevere.

I am a being of light and love.
I am a soul – yearning, expansive, timeless.

I am free.  Amen.

 –Michael Leslie, Nov. 5, 2008

Pan-Asian Blessing and Celebration of API LGBT Families

Clergy

Clergy Blessing of API LGBT Families

October 11, 2008 at 3:00am to 6:00am
An Interfaith Event on National Coming Out Day
hosted by the Network on Religion and Justice for API LGBTs.

In Asian & Pacific Islander cultures, family is important. And to us, family means extended family. Family is inclusive. At the Network on Religion and Justice for API LGBTs, we understand an API LGBT family to include any family in which a member is Asian or Pacific Islander and a member is lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.

If you are an API LGBT couple, or any individual or family group that identifies as all or part of an API LGBT family – if you are a straight parent of a API LGBT child, if you are a daughter, son, sister, brother, auntie, uncle, cousin, grandparent, church-family member, longtime co-worker, or neighbor – and you love and support your LGBT family member(s), we invite you & your family to join us for a blessing and celebration of your family.

Our celebratory interfaith blessing will take place at the multidenominational chapel at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, and will be conducted by an alliance of API religious leaders of various faiths.

Come join us to bless and celebrate API LGBT families!
For more information, see www.netrj.org.

Interfaith Blessing & Celebration of LGBT Families (pdf)

Asian Faith Leaders Support LGBTs

PRESS CONFERENCE:
ASIAN FAITH LEADERS
Announcement of Support is a Historic First

SAN FRANCISCO, THURSDAY, MAY 31, 2007 – Several prominent Asian American faith leaders in the Bay Area announce their public support of lesbian and gay families and equality at a press conference in San Francisco Chinatown on Thursday, May 31, 2007, from 10:30-11:30 am, at Chinese for Affirmative Action (17 Walter Lum Place, nearby Portsmouth Square), to coincide with end of API Heritage Month and the start of LGBT Pride Month. Confirmed speakers for the event include: Rev. Calvin Chinn, Rev. Jeffrey Kuan, Rev. John Oda, Rev. Deborah Lee, Rev. Michael Yoshii, Rev Elizabeth Leung. The event will mark the first time a coalition of Asian American faith leaders speaks out in support of lesbian and gay families and equality.

In God’s House

In God’s House: Asian American
  Lesbian & Gay Families in the Church

Asian American lesbians and gays and their parents and allies have been largely invisible and silent in Christian churches. Some Asian American churches avoid the issue for fear of division and conflict. Other Asian American church leaders have condemned homosexuality and publicly protested against same-sex marriage.

Yet there are many gay and lesbian Asian American Christians and their families, quiet and invisible, in churches across the country. Where are their stories? What are their experiences? This honest and thought-provoking film invites you to hear personal stories which have long been unheard.  It tells a story that those in the church need to hear: that of Asian American Christian lesbian and gay people and their parents.

Oneida Chi, a devout young adult Chinese American in an evangelical Christian church, speaks of her struggle with the discovery of her own sexual orientation and her search for self-acceptance and religious community. Husband and wife Harold and Ellen Kameya, active leaders in their Japanese American church, tell the story of their shock and confusion when their beloved daughter first came out, of the isolation and alienation they felt in their church, and of the importance of a church community in their Christian journey to grow in understanding, courage and love for their daughter.  The Rev. Nobuaki Hanaoka, an immigrant Asian pastor, seeks to fulfill Jesus’ message of justice and love for all people as he speaks out and supports the full acceptance and affirmation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender  people in the church.

All four are church-loving and God-loving Christians. And yet they struggle to find kindred spirits and their recognized place in God’s house.

This film invites you to listen to their stories of courage, inspiration, and renewed faith, and to hear the importance of supporting LGBT people as important members of our Asian American families and churches.

Filmmaker Lina Hoshino and the PANA Institute’s project on Civil Liberties and Faith present In God’s House: Asian American Lesbian & Gay Families in the Church. This short film highlights the spiritual journeys of four Asian American Christians who discover that lesbians and gays are not just “others,” but loved ones in their own families.

For more information, please see: http://www.ingodshouse.

See also:

Interview with Rev. Jeffrey Kuan

Jeffrey Kuan

Rev. Jeffrey Kuan

Rev. Dr. Kah-Jin Jeffrey Kuan was interviewed on the program Mosaic by Ron Swisher regarding the ordination of gays and lesbians. Rev. Kuan is Associate Professor of Old Testament at the Pacific School of Religion. Dr. Hugh Burroughs is the Executive Producer of the Mosaic program.

Rev. Dr. Kah-Jin Jeffrey Kuan
Associate Professor of Old Testament
Pacific School of Religion

Interview on Mosaic
Hosted by Ron Swisher
Dr. Hugh Burroughs, Executive Producer