GIN
The Global Interfaith Network for People of All Sexes, Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression (GIN-SSOGIE) was initiated by sixty-eight people from thirty-five countries at the 2012 International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) Conference. It was further consolidated at a spiritual retreat in January 2014 and a subsequent ILGA conference in Mexico City the same year.
The non-profit network was registered in South Africa in 2015. The secretariat is based in Johannesburg, which offers easy access to the rest of Africa and the other continents. In its first year, GIN attracted more than 300 members, representing six continents and eight faith groups, the vast majority being from the global south.
For more information, please visit www.gin-ssogie.org or email info@gin-ssogie.org.
The Church Of Sweden
On 22 October 2009, the General Synod of the Church of Sweden voted 176 to 62 in favour of allowing its priests to wed same-sex couples in new gender-neutral church ceremonies, including the use of the term ‘marriage’. That same year Eva Brunne was elected and consecrated as the Church of Sweden Bishop of Stockholm. She was the first openly lesbian bishop in the world and the first bishop of the Lutheran denomination in Sweden to be in a registered same-sex partnership.
The Church does, however, permit priests to decline to marry couples of the same gender, as is the case for heterosexual couples. The only special proviso made for same-sex couples is that every parish has a responsibility to make it possible for them to marry in it, regardless of the opinion of the clergy concerned. It was the first major denomination and religion in Sweden to approve same-sex marriage.
The vote for same-sex marriages also set the Church of Sweden apart from others within the Lutheran World Federation. The issues of same-sex cohabitation and the place of LGBTI people in the Church have been discussed and investigated since 1972. Notably, the Church of Sweden had permitted the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of partnered gays and lesbians since 2006. Describing itself as a folk or people’s church, as opposed to a state church regulated by parliament, it embraces the whole country.
Thus, the focus is on ministering well beyond active church members and Sweden’s geographic boundaries.
The Reverend J.P. Mokgethi-Heath
An Anglican priest, he is Policy Advisor on HIV and Theology for the International Department of the Church of Sweden. Having served as a parish priest in the Diocese of Johannesburg from 1995, he co-founded the International Network of Religious Leaders Living with or Personally Affected by HIV and AIDS (INERELA+) in 2002 and served as Executive Director. By January 2013, when he took up his post in Sweden, the network had grown from an initial membership of eight to a global network with more than 10,000 members from all faiths.
Having tested HIV positive in 2000, when his immune system was already seriously compromised, he was blessed to be accepted for a medical trial that saved his life. In the following years he was burying people who had no access to treatment. Out of this emerged the internationally respected activist.
‘It is universally recognised that religious leaders have a unique authority that plays a central role in providing moral and ethical guidance within their communities,’ he says. ‘Indeed, their public opinions can influence entire nations.’
Devdutt Pattanaik
Devdutt, a practising Hindu, has authored the introductory essay in this book on faiths based on karma. A consultant to the entire project, he writes, illustrates and lectures on the relevance of mythology in modern times. He defines mythology as ‘subjective truth of a people expressed through stories, symbols and rituals’. He has written more than thirty books and 700 articles, including two based on queer themes: Shikhandi and Other Tales They Don’t Tell You (Zubaan) and The Pregnant King: A Novel (Penguin).
A public speaker, leadership coach and management theorist, he is also a culture consultant with TV shows on CNBC-TV18 and Epic Channel.
Jerry Johnson
Jerry Johnson earned a Bachelor’s degree in Communication from Roosevelt University in Chicago, with extensive academic work in Psychology and Philosophy. He also studied Political Economy in Latin America at the Universidad de Los Andes in Santiago, Chile, and completed the Philosophy of Political Economy (PPE) programme through George Mason University and the University of Hong Kong.
Raised in a south Indian Catholic family, Jerry lives as an openly gay man in India, championing human rights within a liberal framework, appearing on television news and various forums both in India and abroad. He is a TEDx speaker and curator and has published several opinion pieces in national weeklies and daily newspapers.
Jerry is the editor of this book and has written the chapters on Hinduism and Buddhism and edited the chapters on Jainism and Sikhism.
Sukhdeep Singh
He is the founding editor of Gaylaxy magazine, India’s leading English language LGBTIQ magazine. His writings have appeared on other online portals like Huffington Post India, Varta, Ebab.com, Trikone Magazine. Sukhdeep was born and raised in a Sikh family.
He has written the chapter on Sikhism in this book.
Sachin Jain
Sachin is the Hindi editor of Gaylaxy, founder of Gay Housing Assistance Resource (GHAR), a pan-Indian queer accommodation bulletin board, and core member of GayBombay, a gay support organisation. After working as a software engineer, he joined his family firm and obtained an MBA in international business. A Teach For India Fellow, Sachin has an MA in Philosophy, specialising in Jain Studies. He presently works as a Spanish teacher at an international school in Mumbai and is a practising Jain.
He contributed to the chapter on Jainism.
Vivek Tejuja
A literature graduate and a practising Buddhist, Vivek has worked with the content and merchandising of books as well as publishing for about four years. His own first book, So Now You Know, a sixteen-year-old’s coming-out story in contemporary Mumbai, was published in December 2016.
He contributed to the chapter on Buddhism in this book.
Dr Meera Baindur
A faculty member at the Manipal Centre for Philosophy and Humanities, Manipal University, Dr Meera currently is the coordinator of the Centre for Women’s Studies. She has a doctoral degree from the university in the interdisciplinary area of environmental philosophy which she completed through the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. Earlier, she stayed with village communities in the Himalayas for a few years, working directly on environment and sustainability issues. During this time she also pursued traditional studies in Indian philosophy and yoga.
Her research interests include environmental philosophy and environmental humanities, gender and women’s studies, and body studies. She has taught and lectured on traditional Indian philosophy, philosophy of religion, Hinduism, mythology and narratives, and her recent work centres on religions and ecological practice, women and sexuality in religious literature.
A practising Hindu, she contributed to the chapters on Hinduism and Buddhism in this book.