Thursday, December 31, 2009

Happy New Year! and Goodbye to All That!

I've been reading lots of 2009 retrospectives today.

On Monday, when I get back to work, I'll plan to post a decade overview.

But for my stalwart readers, I thought I'd quickly recap 2009.

It wasn't a great year for sexual justice. The good news is that our network of religious leaders committed to sexual justice grew past 5000, and the Religious Institute continued to grow in revenues, despite the economic turn down.

But, as I think back over the year, some things stand out:

Men Behaving Badly: Oh, Tiger, Charlie Sheen, Chris Brown, Mark Sanford, John Ensign. Nuff said. Can we get through 2010 without a front page sex scandal?

More Men Behaving Badly: Shame on the House and the Senate for caving to the Catholic Bishops and throwing women under the bus on health care reform. Let's send Bart Stupak back to obscurity in 2010.

Men Behaving Timidly: New York and New Jersey, really. Marriage equality is long over due.

Voters Turning Back the Clock: Maine voters, what were you thinking?

Barack Obama: Yes, for ending abstinence only until marriage education programs. Yes, for ending gag rule. But, really, NOTHING on LGBT rights? You PROMISED. We're going to hold you to it in 2010. (But thank you for inviting me to the Christmas party at the White House -- a definite highlight for 2010.)

A year of personal work highlights for me: speaking and/or leading worship in 15 states; serving on the Ministerial Fellowship Committee of the UUA; creating the Congo Sabbath Initiative for V-Day; meetings at the White House and the United Nations; the UUA becoming the first denomination to pass a sexual health competency for candidates for ministry; a beautiful new web site; entering the world of twitter (follow me @revdebra) and Facebook; and wonderful pastoral moments, including presiding over my first LEGAL same sex marriage ceremony.

Thank you to my loyal readers; I am blessed by my ministry and your support.

Blessings to you for the new year.


2 comments:

Robin Edgar said...

While I have no objections whatsoever to you blogging about "men behaving badly" I find that there is a lack of editorial balance in your year end assessment in that there is not the slightest mention of any women behaving badly. Could you do us all a favor and provide a list of at least half a dozen women who behaved badly in the area of sexual ethics in 2009?

And who is to say that a good number of women in New York, New Jersey and Maine did not vote against marriage equality Rev. Haffner?

Do you *really* think women are blameless when it comes to questionable sexual ethics?

Desmond Ravenstone said...

And we are blessed to have you as a leader and teacher.