{"id":14894,"date":"2014-11-12T18:43:32","date_gmt":"2014-11-12T23:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/?p=14894"},"modified":"2014-11-12T18:43:32","modified_gmt":"2014-11-12T23:43:32","slug":"queer-santas-holy-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/2014\/11\/queer-santas-holy-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"Queer Santas: Holy Violence"},"content":{"rendered":"

I can almost always rely on maximum spin and distortion for a story from the Religion News Service<\/em>. This article by Kimberly Winston delivered via RNS and Crux<\/a> is very laughable in a sad way.<\/p>\n

Were some Catholic saints transgender? Berkeley show raises eyebrows<\/a><\/p>\n

BERKELEY, Calif. \u2014 Step into the one-room art gallery inside the Pacific School of Religion<\/a> and look closely at the saints in the paintings: Some have beards; some have buzz cuts; some have their breasts obscured; some appear in unisex clothes like tanks tops and jeans.<\/p>\n

Are they women or men?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the point of artist Alma Lopez\u2019s new show, \u201cQueer Santas: Holy Violence<\/a>,\u201d on display at this theological school known for its embrace of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons. In playing with the gender characteristics of religious icons usually depicted as feminine, Lopez asks us to reconsider our ideas of religion, beauty, and gender.<\/p>\n

Justin Tanis, who teaches at the school, said it\u2019s as if these saints, with their direct eye contact and open arms, are saying, \u201c\u2018I am natural, I am one of God\u2019s people.\u2019 And yet this is an image that many people would consider heretical because gender play is involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gender play is at work in each of the icons in the show \u2014 St. Lucia, St. Wilgefortis, and St. Liberata.<\/p>\n

Lopez, a visiting artist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said she was attracted to these saints because their stories have a common theme \u2014 each one tried to step out of the expected role for a woman of her time and, as a result, was the victim of terrible violence.<\/p>\n

Take St. Wilgefortis\u2019 story. A 14th-century noblewoman promised in marriage without her consent, she prayed to God to be made ugly so she could keep a vow of chastity she made to Jesus. God granted her a man\u2019s beard. The marriage was off, but Wilgefortis \u2014 whose name means \u201cstrong face\u201d \u2014 was crucified by her father.<\/p>\n

The stories of St. Liberata and St. Lucia are similar: Liberata sprouted a beard, and Lucia had her eyes torn out when she disappointed her family.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of these saints are women who took their own agency and stepped outside gender norms,\u201d Tanis said as he stood before Lopez\u2019s rendition of St. Liberata, arms splayed in a way that suggests both crucifixion and winged flight. \u201cIn that sense, they were queer and violence was done to them for it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As they say \u201cRead the whole thing\u201d if you want to get hit repeatedly with the stupid hammer<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far it\u2019s been quiet,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we are prepared to offer hospitality to any protesters.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words \u201cWhere are the protesters? We did something shocking to draw the loving media gaze and nobody is giving us free publicity by protesting us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I can almost always rely on maximum spin and distortion for a story from the Religion News Service. This article by Kimberly Winston delivered via RNS and Crux is very…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-punditry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14895,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14894\/revisions\/14895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}