Play Exploring Transsexuality and Faith Protested by Christians over Transsexual Jesus

11/04/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
What would Jesus do if he was a transwoman? That is, in some ways, what Jesus Christ: Queen of Heaven is asking. The play explores the journey of faith that one transwoman, the playwright Jo Clifford, undertook. Transgender deities are not uncommon in ancient times, of course, with there being masculine and feminine forms of deities. The Goddess Aphrodite has been said to have had a masculine form and that she would go between them. In fact, one Catholic saint is said to have taken on the visage of Christ, even growing a beard.

Jesus Christ: Queen of Heaven is part of the Glasgay!, a celebration of Scotland’s LGBT culture. Organizers of the festival have stated that they did not intend for this to be offensive or to cause controversy. Unfortunately, the play drew three hundred protesters who decried the play waving placards and singing hymns. Some of the placards could have been called incitement to homophobia and transphobia as well as being just plain provocative.

“”You can’t blaspheme God and use freedom of speech as an excuse for that. True biblical Christianity is becoming marginalised through political correctness,” said Pastor Jack Bell of Zion Baptist in Glasgow.

Of course, their decrying of freedom of speech should also be noted in that it is what allows them to both protest and use placards which equate transsexuality with perversion, and that being among the mildest of the signs, apparently. As the saying goes, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. As to Pastor Bell’s feelings about how, if this was about the Prophet Mohammed, it should be noted that Salman Rushdie was given a death sentence for blasphemy against Islam. Of course, if he and his church were to advocate that level of repression towards freedom of speech, then he would be rather rapidly rounded up as a terrorist.

In 1999, a gay bar was bombed in Soho, London, and it was deemed a terrorist act.

BBC News