From drag queens to No Kings
Photograph by Saad Ahmad via Unsplash
Rev. Virginia Lohmann Bauman
I stared into my closet, diligently searching for something sparkly to fit the celebratory occasion. I had been invited to the 20th anniversary celebration of Equality Ohio, where I had served on the board for six years. The invitation said to sparkle and glam it up for the special evening.
During my tenure on the board, I joined other faith leaders in testifying at the Ohio Statehouse in favor of The Ohio Fairness Act, to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation in housing, employment, and other public accommodations. It was a hard sell in a red state, so Equality Ohio moved forward with launching legal clinics to aid the LGBTQIA+ community.
We also testified against the Pastor’s Protection Act, which was anything but “protective.” Pastors were already protected via the First Amendment from performing marriage ceremonies for people whose beliefs didn’t accord with a particular institution. Instead the PPA was just another way to stoke fear and hatred against the LGBTQIA+ community after gay marriage was legalized nationwide in 2015.
Ten years later, right-wing religious rhetoric against gay and trans people is on the rise again – especially against our beloved drag queens.
I met my first drag queen in college in a course on Human Sexuality. My gay (and straight) friends approved of the class, and we agreed that we would be forever grateful to our brave professor, a tall woman who wore IUDs as earrings.
Later, when I entered ordained ministry, my support for drag queens continued – whether they were members of my church, reading books in local libraries to groups of families, performing in the local Pride parade, or just simply being themselves.
When asked by fellow clergy once too often about my support for drag queens, I retorted:
“If you aren’t friends with a drag queen in your ministry, you probably aren’t doing it right.”
I still stand by that statement today, even if it ruffles a few ministerial feathers.
More recently, when our local church Christmas concert included songs performed by a drag queen, the ultra-rightwing Proud Boys protested our church with guns meant for war. We involved law enforcement to keep the peace. Through it all, our “church ladies” didn’t flinch – escorting concert guests from the concrete parking garage into the church sanctuary with sweet confidence and steely determination that “the show must go on.” And that it did.
The time is ripe, past ripe really, for clergy and people of faith to take a stand, to speak out, and to make the time to advocate for those who cannot protest safely right now. There is too much at stake, for all of us.
Fast forward to this fall, when I found a sparkly jacket and headed to the Equality Ohio 20th Anniversary Celebration at the old First Baptist Church (Columbus) that was now a bar and event venue. There I was joined by church members as we celebrated a local psychiatrist whose cutting-edge behavioral health and gender affirming care services for trans youth had to be discontinued under the current administration. I ran into Jim Obergefell again, whose landmark quest for gay marriage made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. So many friendships had been forged in the fight for justice for the LGBTQIA+ community. Joy was the evening’s theme in a society fraught with fear and uncertainty.
The evening wasn’t complete until I could congratulate our new Miss Gay Ohio, drag queen Anisa Love. We both sparkled in the picture, unlikely friends in an often harsh world.
Anisa will be performing at our church Christmas concert again this year. Our church ladies will probably offer the long-gun-carrying Proud Boy protestors homemade hot chocolate and Christmas cookies, despite the nasty taunts about our local performer.
Too often our local churches hide within buildings they can’t afford, avoiding hard conversations that might upset someone. There is no way to keep everyone “happy” when an individual’s very right to exist is at risk. The time is ripe, past ripe really, for clergy and people of faith to take a stand, to speak out, and to make the time to advocate for those who cannot protest safely right now. There is too much at stake, for all of us.
The day after the sparkly celebration in the old church turned disco with my favorite drag queen, I put on my clergy collar, purple church T-shirt, and my multicolored PRIDE stole to participate in what became the largest mass protest in our nation’s history, the No Kings Protest on October 18. Total participation is now clocking in at over 5–6.5 million participants in over 4,000 local protests.
Our local church members spread across Central Ohio that day, protesting in local towns and municipalities and then joining the Ohio Statehouse protest late in the day. They celebrated our collective diversity, religious freedom, freedom of speech, democracy itself. They joyfully resisted on No Kings Day, serving as the faithful prophetic advocates they had been trained to be. They carried provocative signs and chanted in support of our gay and trans peoples, among others, as we seek justice for all in our increasingly authoritarian political system.
The historians, social scientists, psychologists, philosophers, theologians, and others are already analyzing in real time what is happening in our society. In the meantime, at my church we are busy planning our next protests, along with another Christmas concert filled with sparkle, joy, and a local drag queen who was just named Miss Gay Ohio. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
Rev. Virginia (Gini) Lohmann Bauman (J.D., M.Div.) is the senior pastor, St. John’s United Church of Christ in Columbus, Ohio. She is ordained in both the ABC/USA and in the UCC.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
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