LINKS AND LAMENESS: Lameness first: I’m really, really tired, so I won’t be posting mail from you all until tomorrow. Sorry….

Now, links:

Camassia says stuff about minority status and group standards. I find myself oddly defensive about this post; I’m not sure if I’m overreading or what. I feel like I’m being implicitly criticized (in the section on original sin) for being self-indulgent, which I think is inaccurate in this particular instance. She also combines different kinds of difference in ways that, at least from my perspective, obscure a lot more than they illuminate. But like I said, possibly this is my misreading (or a result of our wanting to discuss different things, and my getting irked because she doesn’t want to discuss my things!–I suspect that’s what’s going on with the “different kinds of difference” stuff, especially), and I’ve always found Camassia to be a thoughtful writer, so please do check out her post.

Ex-Gay Watch: Dave Rattigan on rhetoric vs. reality in the ex-gay movement.

Noli Irritare Leones makes a lot of fun points; here is a sampler:

…What I mean is, sometimes people who are in the struggling-with-same-sex-attraction camp seem to wind up shutting out friendships with their own sex, lest they get too attached, and I can’t think how it’s possible to sanely live that way. …

Finding the prayer practices that work for you personally really does make a big difference here. I’ve found that some things just don’t work for me–elaborate imagery (simple images are OK), half hour long periods of uninterrupted meditation (I keep hearing of people who can do this, but I can’t keep it up unless I’m in a Quaker meeting, and even then my mind wanders a lot), etc., and some work better–singing, walking meditation, short repetitive phrases, starting the day with a short psalm. …

I have to admit, one of the things I like to do with the saints is argue with them. [Eve adds: Yes! Absolutely.] …

I think that’s right [re: my comment about the problems with wanting to be fixed], and not just about the ex-gay movement, but about a certain style of Christian dealing with family issues in general. And it gets just as alienating when, say, you and your husband are struggling as best you can to deal with his bipolar disorder as it does when it comes to figuring out how to live as a Christian who’s attracted to your own sex. Not, of course, that I want to place bipolar disorder and homosexuality in the same category–except in one particular respect–namely, that, for better or worse, they’re both ways of finding that your life doesn’t fit that neat pattern that people might expect to see you in when you’ve gotten fixed.

read the whole thing!

And finally, on an unrelated topic, a neat post at GetReligion about godparents.