In the Shadow of the Evening Trees
An LGBTQIA+ friendly podcast
Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, happy holidays, and a very happy New Year to all. Hopefully you were able to celebrate safely with supportive friends and family.
We recorded this video greeting last night — apologies for the sloppy guitar playing, but we had to give a nod to the late, great John Prine, and to Darlene Love.
We’ll be back after the New Year with new shows!
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So, we have not posted a new episode of the podcast since late November, but we will be back! We decided to take a break during the holidays, due in large part to hectic work schedules, holiday shopping, and the uncertainty created by the latest COVID variant. No worries; we’re all happy and healthy … just stretched a little thin.
In the meantime, we are still working on getting the podcast on all the major platforms so that when we come back from this brief hiatus, it will be more widely available and accessible.
Look for new episodes after the first of the year!
Have a safe and happy holiday season.
In this episode, we recap our Thanksgiving holiday and look forward to the rest of the holiday season … not without some trepidation. As we discussed in our last episode, this time of year can be difficult for LGBTQ+ folks, including those of us in mixed-orientation relationships.
Thinking of how to deal with the holidays to come, in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space we often talk about the need to get uncomfortable and have hard conversations about things like privilege and implicit bias. But we seem to be unwilling to have hard conversations about one of the biggest sources of friction between straight, cis-gender people and the LGBTQ+ community: Religion. Or, more specifically, the way so many people use religion as a justification to discriminate against the queer community and deny us our basic humanity.
Well, now more than ever, the time has come to have that conversation, because just about everywhere you look these days there’s somebody saying that anything that they dislike, anything that inconveniences them, and anything that makes them uncomfortable is against their religion. Whether it’s claiming that their religious beliefs exempt them from having to get vaccinated or wear face coverings, or that those beliefs give them license to discriminate against others on the basis of sexual orientation or identity, “religion” is the ever-expanding excuse to get out of the basic responsibilities of living in a modern, pluralistic society.
But these so-called religious beliefs often don’t withstand scrutiny. Instead, “religion” is often an after-the-fact justification people use to excuse biases and prejudices they already have. Scouring religious texts and lifting obscure passages out of their context to confirm your preexisting biases does not transform those biases into sincerely held religious beliefs. It’s matter of convenience, not faith. And, frankly, it cheapens religion.
So please listen to this week’s episode and, as always, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
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On this special holiday edition of our podcast, we talk about how we met in a bar in Forest Park, Illinois, 28 years ago on the night before Thanksgiving, and began this crazy journey. On a more serious note, we also talk about the challenges people face during the holiday season, and especially the challenges LGBTQ+ people often face. Whether it’s family members who espouse harmful prejudices and toxic politics, who disapprove of you for who you are, or who simply do not understand your relationship, the holidays can be exceptionally stressful for the mixed-orientation community. Add to that the divisive times we live in where many people in the LGBTQ+ community, and especially our trans and nonbinary community members, face hatred, animosity, and even violence, and navigating this time of year can be too much.
While we don’t have the expertise to give mental health advice, we strongly urge everyone to take care of their mental wellbeing and do what’s best for themselves. Maybe that means avoiding stressful situations. Maybe that means confronting toxic friends and family members. Or maybe that means gritting your teeth and bearing it to avoid conflicts. The important thing is to do what works best for you — and to realize that you don’t have to resolve these problems right now. Time is on your side. Sometimes that’s the most important thing: to recognize that tomorrow is another day.
Take care of yourselves this holiday season. If you think you need help, get help. And if it feels overwhelming and you don’t know where to turn, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention has resources that can help you get through this. Please reach out. There is always tomorrow.
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