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Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, (January 28, 1932 - September 25, 2020) [1] was an American feminist writer. She is known for her "God of the Breasts" interpretation of El Shaddai. She spent her 44-year professional career teaching college level English literature and language, but developed specializations in feminist theology and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender theology during the second half of that career. [2]
Virginia May Ramey (birth name) was born in Philadelphia's Temple University Hospital on January 28, 1932 to Frank and May (Lotz) Ramey. [1]
She earned her B.A. from fundamentalist Bob Jones University in 1953, her M.A. at Temple University in 1955, and her Ph.D. at New York University in 1964. She received an honorary Doctorate in Ministries from Samaritan College in 1989. [2] [3] [4]
She chaired the English Department at Shelton College, Ringwood, New Jersey from 1955 to 1963 and at Nyack College from 1963 to 1967. She then taught at William Paterson University from 1967 to 1997, chairing the English Department from 1972 to 1976. Since 1997 she has held the position of Professor of English Emeritus. [2] [3] [4]
Mollenkott served as an assistant editor of Seventeenth Century News from 1965 to 1975, and as a stylistic consultant for the New International Version of the Bible for the American Bible Society from 1970 to 1978. When her sexual views were known she was immediately asked to resign. [5]
She became an associate of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP) in 1977. [6] WIFP is an American nonprofit publishing organization which works to increase communication between women and connect the public with forms of women-based media. She also was a member of the translation committee for An Inclusive Language Lectionary for the National Council of Churches from 1980 to 1988.
From 1980 to 1990, she was on the Board of Pacem in Terris, Warwick, New York. From 1989 through 1994, Mollenkott served on the Board of the Upper Room AIDS Ministry, Harlem, New York. For over a decade she was on the Board of Kirkridge Retreat and Conference Center, Bangor, Pennsylvania, starting in 1980.
She held a seat on the Advisory Board of the Program on Gender and Society at the Rochester (New York) Divinity School from 1993 to 1996. She has been a manuscript evaluator for the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion since 1994. She worked as a contributing editor to The Witness from 1994 to 2000. Since 1997 she has served on the editorial board of Studies in Theology and Sexuality, based in the United Kingdom. She was a contributing editor to The Other Side from 2003 to 2007.
She has delivered hundreds of guest lectures on feminist and LGBT theologies at churches, conferences, universities and seminaries throughout the United States. [7]
In 1992 Mollenkott received the New Jersey Lesbian and Gay Achievement Award, and in 1999 received a Lifetime Achievement Award from SAGE (Senior Action in a Gay Environment). [3]
She has also won awards for her writing. Is the Homosexual My Neighbor: A Positive Christian Response won the Integrity Award in 1979. In 2002, her book Omnigender: A Trans-Religious Approach won the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual/Transgender Literature [8] and the Ben Franklin Award.
Mollenkott married Frederick H. Mollenkott on June 17, 1954, with whom she had a son, Paul F. Mollenkott, on July 3, 1958. The Mollenkotts divorced in July 1973. [2]
A Democrat and trans-religious scholar, Mollenkott lived with her domestic partner Judith Suzannah Tilton at Cedar Crest Retirement Village until Judith's death in February 2018; together they co-grandmothered Mollenkott's three granddaughters. [3] [4]
Ramey and Tilton got married in 2013 following the United States Supreme Court decision in United States v. Windsor , which overturned a law that denied federal benefits to same-sex couples. Ms. Tilton died in 2018. [1]
Mollenkott's books are listed below. [2] [4]
She was a lifetime member of the Modern Language Association, where she served on the Executive Committee of Religion and Literature from 1976 to 1980. She was also a lifetime member of the Milton Society of America, serving on the executive committee from 1974 to 1976. She has published dozens of articles in scholarly and literary journals as well as church-related publications, and was an active founding member of the Evangelical and Ecumenical Women's Caucus, better known as Christian Feminism Today.
Mollenkott's archives are available at The Center for Gay and Lesbian Studies at the Pacific School of Religion. [4] [9]
Mollenkott edited a book of spiritual poems, Adam Among the Television Trees (1971) and a volume of inter-religious essays by Jewish, Christian, and Muslim women, Women of Faith in Dialogue (1987). [2] [4]
The views of the various different religions and religious believers regarding human sexuality range widely among and within them, from giving sex and sexuality a rather negative connotation to believing that sex is the highest expression of the divine. Some religions distinguish between human sexual activities that are practised for biological reproduction and those practised only for sexual pleasure in evaluating relative morality.
Homoeroticism is sexual attraction between members of the same sex, including both male–male and female–female attraction. The concept differs from the concept of homosexuality: it refers specifically to the desire itself, which can be temporary, whereas "homosexuality" implies a more permanent state of identity or sexual orientation. It has been depicted or manifested throughout the history of the visual arts and literature and can also be found in performative forms; from theatre to the theatricality of uniformed movements. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is "pertaining to or characterized by a tendency for erotic emotions to be centered on a person of the same sex; or pertaining to a homo-erotic person."
Homosexuality in Haitian Vodou is religiously acceptable and homosexuals are allowed to participate in all religious activities. However, in West African countries with major conservative Christian and Islamic views on LGBTQ people, the attitudes towards them may be less tolerant if not openly hostile and these influences are reflected in African diaspora religions following Atlantic slave trade which includes Haitian Vodou.
The Metropolitan Community Church of New York (MCCNY) is an LGBTQ Christian church in New York City, located at 446 36th Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenue in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan.
Queer theology is a theological method that has developed out of the philosophical approach of queer theory, built upon scholars such as Marcella Althaus-Reid, Michel Foucault, Gayle Rubin, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Judith Butler. Queer theology begins with the assumption that gender variance and queer desire have always been present in human history, including faith traditions and their sacred texts such as the Jewish Scriptures and the Bible. It was at one time separated into two separate theologies: gay theology and lesbian theology. Later, the two theologies would merge and expand to become the more general method of queer theology.
Betty Berzon was an American author and psychotherapist known for her work with the gay and lesbian communities.
Judith Plaskow is an American theologian, author, and activist known for being the first Jewish feminist theologian. After earning her doctorate at Yale University, she taught at Manhattan College for thirty-two years before becoming a professor emerita. She was one of the creators of the Journal for Feminist Studies in Religion and was its editor for the first ten years. She also helped to create B'not Esh, a Jewish feminist group that heavily inspired her writing, and a feminist section of the American Academy of Religion, an organization of which she was president in 1998.
Letha Dawson Scanzoni, was an American independent scholar, writer, and freelance editor. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she authored or coauthored nine books, the most well-known of which are All We're Meant to Be and Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? Scanzoni specialized in the intersection between religion and social issues.
Bisexual erasure, also called bisexual invisibility, is the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or re-explain evidence of bisexuality in history, academia, the news media, and other primary sources.
Ralph Blair is an American psychotherapist and founder of The Homosexual Community Counseling Center in New York City. In 1975, he founded Evangelicals Concerned, Inc., a U.S.-wide network of gay and lesbian evangelical Christians and friends.
Joan Nestle is a Lambda Award winning writer and editor and a founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, which holds, among other things, everything she has ever written. She is openly lesbian and sees her work of archiving history as critical to her identity as "a woman, as a lesbian, and as a Jew."
Theodore Wesley Jennings Jr., also known as Ted Jennings, was an American theologian and Methodist minister. He was Professor of Biblical and Constructive Theology at the United Church of Christ's Chicago Theological Seminary, where he had previously served as Acting Academic Dean. Jennings gained a notoriety for his work on ritual studies, the Messianic politics of Pauline discourse, and theological engagement with the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Jacques Derrida.
The relationship between religion and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people can vary greatly across time and place, within and between different religions and sects, and regarding different forms of homosexuality, bisexuality, non-binary, and transgender identities. More generally, the relationship between religion and sexuality ranges widely among and within them, from giving sex and sexuality a rather negative connotation to believing that sex is the highest expression of the divine.
Kittredge Cherry is an American author and a priest of Metropolitan Community Church.
Jeanne Córdova was an American writer and supporter of the lesbian and gay rights movement, founder of The Lesbian Tide, and a founder of the West Coast LGBT movement. A former Catholic nun, Córdova was a second-wave feminist lesbian activist and self-described butch.
Rosaria Champagne Butterfield is an American writer, speaker, homemaker, and former tenured professor of English at Syracuse University.
Within Christianity, there are a variety of views on the issues of gender identity and transgender people. Christian denominations vary in their official position: some explicitly support gender transition, some oppose it, and others are divided or have not taken an official stance. Within any given denomination, individual members may or may not endorse the official views of their church on the topic.
The African-American LGBT community, otherwise referred to as the Black American LGBT community, is part of the overall LGBTQ culture and overall African-American culture. The initialism LGBT stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.
Nancy D. Polikoff is an American law professor, LGBT rights activist, and author. She is a professor emerita at Washington College of Law. Polikoff's work focuses on LGBT rights, family law, and gender identity issues. She authored Beyond Marriage: Valuing All Families under the Law (2008).
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