Friday, October 21 / 12-1:30pm in Building 4-231
Join us for great conversation with 4 diverse LGBTQ religious leaders about their experiences of living "out" in the world and within their faith communities. A kosher vegetarian lunch will be provided.
Panelists:
The Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge is an Episcopal priest, a spouse and dad, an openly transgender man, and a scholar who works at the intersection of religious, theological and trans studies. For the last five years he has served as the Episcopal Campus Minster at Boston University and for the last six years as the Counselor for the Episcopal / Anglican community at Harvard Divinity School. During this time he has also taught courses at HDS, for the Committee on Women, Gender and Sexuality at Harvard, and at Episcopal Divinity School. With Jacob Lau he has just co-edited Out of the Ordinary: a Life of Gender and Spiritual Transitions, the memoir of Michael Dillon / Lobbing Jivaka who transitioned from female to male during World War II, was a physician with the British Merchant Navy, and was a Buddhist monastic novice when he died in 1962. Next month, Cameron and his family are moving to California where he will be the rector of Saint Aidan's Episcopal Church in San Francisco.
Rabbi Steven Greenberg is the co-Director of Eshel, a support, education and advocacy organization for LGBT Orthodox Jews and their families. As well, he is on the faculty of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America and a Senior Teaching Fellow at the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. In 2001 he appeared in Trembling Before G-d, a documentary about gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews, and joined the film maker, Sandi DuBowski, carrying the film across the globe as a tool for dialogue. He is the author of the award winning book, Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition, (University of Wisconsin Press) and currently lives with his partner Steven Goldstein and daughter Amalia in Boston.
The Rev. Ángel David Marrero-Ayala (Padre Ángel) was born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico in 1988. He grew up in the town of Toa Baja, a couple miles from the capital city of San Juan and is the first fruit of the marriage between David Marrero, a construction worker, and Evelyn Ayala, a mother and a cook. The second fruit of that union is Ashley, who is engaged in studies at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR). On August, 2013, he married the love his life, Zachary Scott Roe, an interfaith leader and recent graduate from Andover Newton Theological School. They both live in Norwood, MA. Padre Ángel has a bachelor of arts in Secondary Education with a concentration in Spanish from the UPR is an ordained priest in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He is a member of Proclaim, a community of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, a non-profit organization that advocates for full inclusion of LGBTQ in the life of the Church. Currently, Padre Ángel serves as the developing priest of Santuario Luterano en Waltham, a new Lutheran community rooted in traditional latino spirituality. He enjoys spending his free time with close friends and family. Lately cooking Puerto Rican traditional food has become part of his most enjoyable activities, an interest that Zach is always eager for him to explore.
The Reverend Dorothella Littlepage is the Director of Roxbury-Dorchester Power in Community, a collective founded by three Episcopal Parishes and the Diocese of Massachusetts that seeks to celebrate, connect, leverage, and enhance the gifts of the neighborhoods along the Dudley Corridor. Prior to this role, she served for four years in Urban Episcopal Congregations in the Boston Area. When asked to give a four word summary of what God is calling her to do she said, “magnify holiness on margins.” Her journey to this ministry has been formed by, among other communities, Virginia Theological Seminary where she earned an M.Div and Spelman College where she earned a B.A. and B.S. She is blessed to journey through life with her partner Kristen and their dog Caleb.
