A House of Prayer for All People: Contesting Citizenship in a Queer Church

294 Pages·2017·3.756 MB·English

by  David K. Seitz

A House of Prayer for All People
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A House of Prayer for All People
Contesting Citizenship in a Queer Church
David K. Seitz
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis • London
Portions of the Introduction and chapter 1 were published as “Why Do You Go There?
Struggle, Faith, and Love at the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto,” in Any Other
Way: How Toronto Got Queer, edited by John Lorinc, Jane Farrow, Stephanie Chambers,
Maureen FitzGerald, Tim McCaskell, Rebecka Sheffield, Tatum Taylor, Rahim Thawer, and
Ed Jackson (Toronto: Coach House Books), 305– 7; reprinted with permission. Portions of
chapter 4 were published as “ ‘Is This Enough Proof?’ Queer ‘Limbo Life’ in Canada’s Waiting
Room,” Mask Magazine, The Multiple Words Issue, no. 11 (December 2014), and as “Limbo
Life in Canada’s Waiting Room: Asylum-S eeker as Queer Subject,” Environment and Plan-
ning D: Society and Space, first published August 31, 2016, doi:10.1177/0263775816667074.
Copyright 2017 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2 520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
ISBN 978-1-5179-0213-1 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-5179-0214-8 (pb)
A Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
The University of Minnesota is an equal- opportunity educator and employer.
For Elfrieda, who always could listen
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. . . these I will bring to my holy mountain,
and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
for all peoples.
Thus says the Lord God,
who gathers the outcasts of Israel,
I will gather others to them
besides those already gathered.
ISAIAH 56:7– 8 (NEW REVISED STANDARD VERSION)
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Contents
Introduction. Repairing Bad Objects: Improper Citizenship
in Queer Church 1
1. Too Diverse? Race, Gender, and Affect in Church 41
2. Pastor– Diva– Citizen: The Reverend Dr. Brent Hawkes,
Homonormative Melancholia, and the Limits of Celebrity 83
3. “Why Are You Doing This?”: Desiring Queer Global
Citizenship 131
4. From Identity to Precarity: Asylum, State Violence,
and Alternative Horizons for Improper Citizenship 181
Conclusion: Loving an Unfinished World 225
Acknowledgments 231
Notes 237
Bibliography 241
Index 263