1 In this book, I use the terms “Black” and “African American” interchangeably.

      2 Irene Monroe, “Lifting Our Voices,” in Spirited: Affirming the Soul and Black Gay/Lesbian Identity, ed. G. Winston James and Lisa C. Moore (Washington, DC: RedBone Press, 2006), xii.

      3 Kelly Brown Douglas, Sexuality and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999).

      4 See, e.g., Robert Aldrich, ed., Gay Life and Culture: A World History (New York: Universe Publishing, 2006); Michael Bronski, A Queer History of the United States (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2011); Neil Miller, Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present, rev. and updated ed. (New York: Alyson Books, 2006).

      5 Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America, rev. ed. (New York: Back Bay Books, 2008), 51.

      6 Roger Daniels, Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper Perennial, 2002), 61.

      7 Takaki, A Different Mirror, 54.

      8 elias farajajé-jones, “Holy Fuck,” in Male Lust: Pleasure, Power, and Transformation, ed. Kerwin Kay, Jill Nagle, and Baruch Gould (Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press, 2000), 327.

      9 Brett Genny Beemyn, “The Americas: From Colonial Times to the 20th Century,” in Aldrich, Gay Life and Culture, 153.

      10 Miller, Out of the Past, 135.

      11 See generally Devon W. Carbado, Dwight A. McBride, and Donald Weise, eds., Black Like Us: A Century of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual African American Fiction (Berkeley, CA: Cleis Press, 2002).

      12 For a discussion of the relationship between Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King, Jr., see Michael G. Long, Martin Luther King Jr., Homosexuality, and the Early Gay Rights Movement: Keeping the Dream Straight? (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

      13 See Bronski, Queer History, 203.

      14 Martin Duberman, Stonewall (New York: Plume, 1993), 67, 204.

      15 Hames-García, “Queer Theory Revisited,” 26.

      16 Keith Boykin, One More River to Cross: Black and Gay in America (New York: Anchor Books, 1996). See also Keith Boykin, ed., For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Still Not Enough: Coming of Age, Coming Out, and Coming Home (New York: Magnus Books, 2012), 153–81 (“Faith Under Fire”).

      17 Constantine-Simms, The Greatest Taboo, 76–121 (“Sexuality and the Black Church”).

      18 Monroe, “Lifting Our Voices,” xi.

      19 Cone and Wilmore, Black Theology II.

      20 Farajaje-Jones, “Breaking Silence,” 139. As of January 2013, Farajajé is Provost and Professor of Cultural Studies and Islamic Studies at the Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, California.

      21 Ibid., 141.

      22 Ibid., 146.

      23 Ibid., 158. Subsequent writings from Farajajé include farajajé-jones, “Holy Fuck”; and Farajaje-Jones, “Loving ‘Queer.’”

      24 Douglas, Sexuality and the Black Church, 126. As of January 2013, Douglas is the Elizabeth Conolly Todd Distinguished Professor of Religion at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland.

      25 Gary David Comstock, A Whosoever Church: Welcoming Lesbians and Gay Men into African American Congregations (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001).

      26 Griffin, Their Own Receive Them Not. As of January 2013, Griffin is the Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California.

      27 Ibid., 219.

      28 Ibid., 220, 223.

      29 M. Shawn Copeland, Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race, and Being (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010), 83. Bryan N. Massingale, an African American Roman Catholic priest and professor at Marquette University, is also interested in the intersections between race and sexuality in Roman Catholicism. Massingale has contributed an essay to the forthcoming More Than a Monologue anthology on LGBTIQ issues and the Roman Catholic Church. See Christine Firer Hinze, J. Patrick Hornbeck, and Michael A. Norko, More Than a Monologue: Sexual Diversity in the Catholic Church (Bronx, NY: Fordham University Press, forthcoming).

      30 See “African American Roundtable,” The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry, accessed January 3, 2013, http://bit.ly/Qze7FR. Roland Stringfellow is on the staff of the AART, and he has also written about the need to challenge the queerphobia in the Black church. See Stringfellow, “Soul Work.”

      31 Hill, “Who Are We for Each Other?,” 345. Following her graduation from Union Theological Seminary, Hill served as an assistant professor at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is now an Episcopal priest who lives in New York City.

      32 Ibid., 346.

      33 “Roundtable Discussion: Must I Be Womanist?”, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 22, no. 1 (Spring 2006).

      34 As of January 2013, Coleman is the Associate Professor of Constructive Theology and African American Religions at the Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California.

      35 Monica A. Coleman, “Roundtable Discussion: Must I Be Womanist?”, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 22, no. 1 (Spring 2006): 86.

      36 See Irene Monroe, “Roundtable Discussion: Must I Be Womanist?”, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 22, no. 1 (Spring 2006): 107–13; Traci C. West, “Roundtable Discussion: Must I Be Womanist?,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 22, no. 1 (Spring 2006): 128–34.

      37 See Traci C. West, Disruptive Christian Ethics: When Racism and Women’s Lives Matter (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 141–79 (“Leadership: Dissenting Leaders and Heterosexism”). West has also co-authored a resource guide for congregations on talking about homosexuality, see Karen P. Oliveto, Kelly D. Turney, and Traci C. West, Talking About Homosexuality: A Congregational Resource (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2005), and edited an anthology on defending same-sex marriage, see Traci C. West, Defending Same-Sex Marriage, vol. 2 of Our Family Values: Same-Sex Marriage and Religion (Westport, CT: Greenwood-Praeger, 2006).

      38 See also Monica A. Coleman, Making a Way Out of No Way: A Womanist Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008), 147–67.

      39 AAR 2009 Annual Meeting Online Program Book, Session A9-120, accessed January 3, 2013, http://bit.ly/LfiP8r. Prior to this panel, there was a 2008 AAR panel on “Gendered Conversations Between Black Females and Males” that was sponsored by the Men’s Studies in Religion Group, the Black Theology Group, and the Womanist Approaches to Religion and Society Group.

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