CLGS National Advisory Board members

Steven C Baines

José Ignacio Cabezón is the XIVth Dalai Lama Professor of Tibetan Buddhism and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A former Buddhist monk, and translator for the Dalai Lama, Cabezón is interested principally in the textual/philosophical tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, but also in the way that this tradition is lived with/through/against in real Buddhist communities. Among his books are A Dose of Emptiness, Buddhism and Language, and Buddhism, Sexuality and Gender. His current research focuses on Buddhism and sexual ethics.

Mandy Carter

The Reverend Gregory Dell is pastor of the Broadway United Methodist Church, Chicago, Illinois. In March of 1999 Greg was subjected to a nationally publicized church trial resulting from charges filed against him by his denomination for conducting a Service of Holy Union for two gay men from the congregation he served. The result of that trial was a year-long suspension from pastoral duties. Returning to Broadway after that year Greg has continued his activity as an ally in the struggles for racial, gender, and sexual orientation justice. He is the recipient of a number of awards including the Human Relations award from the city of Chicago in 2000 and an honorary doctorate from Illinois Wesleyan University in 2000. He and his wife Jade have been married for 39 years. They have one married son and two granddaughters.

Rev. Wanda Floyd serves as founding pastor of Imani Metropolitan Community Church in Durham, NC. MCC is a Christian denomination with a deliberate outreach to the LGBT community. She has served on several community boards such as Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), Lesbian and Gay Health Project (LGHP), Resource Center for Women in Ministry in the South (RCWMS) and currently co-chair the North Carolina Religious Coalition for Marriage Equality and a member of the African American Religious Roundtable which began at the center. Rev. Floyd is also a fellow within the NC Wildacres Leadership Initiative.

William Glenn a former Jesuit and long time high school dean, William D. Glenn is a licensed psychotherapist, spiritual director, and group leader. He has counseled scores of gay men and lesbians, has performed rites of marriage for a host of same sex couples, and has accompanied many men to their untimely deaths from AIDS. A long time leader in the LGBT community, Glenn has served on many community boards, is past president of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and was executive director of Continuum, an agency serving triply-diagnosed individuals with HIV disease in San Francisco's beleaguered Tenderloin neighborhood. Glenn received a Masters in Divinity from the Pacific School of Religion, which awarded him its Paul Wesley Yinger Award for distinguished preaching. He is a founding board member of CLGS. A noted speaker and writer, Glenn explores the conjunction of gay persons and religion, the psychological and spiritual issues attendant on gay persons working to maintain a faith perspective, and how churches might address the particular needs of LGBT persons and their families. He has extensive experience with substance abuse issues, teaches workshops on the Enneagram, and leads a group for lifers at San Quentin State Penitentiary in California.

Robert Goss, Th.D. is Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Webster University. Goss received his doctorate from Harvard University in Theology and Comparative Religions with a specialization in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and Christianity. He is the author of Jesus ACTED UP: A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto (1993), coeditor of A Rainbow of Religious Diversity (1996), Our Families, Our Values: Snapshots of Queer Kinship (1997); Take Back the Word: A Queer Reading of the Bible (2000); and the forthcoming Queering Christ: Beyond Jesus ACTED UP (2002). For five years, Goss has served as co-chair of the Gay Men's Issues in Religion Group of the American Academy of Religion. Goss has been involved in a number of peace and justice movements, and is a member of the Interfaith Commission of the National Council of Churches.

Edward R. Gray is the Executive Director of YouthPride, a safe space and advocacy program for queer youth in Atlanta. He is the co-editor of Gay Religion, (2004, AltaMira Press) and has published articles on gay religious life in the South and on catastrophe as a transcendent event. He serves on the National Advisory Board of the Faith and Religion Project of the Human Rights Campaign and on the board of directors of Georgia Shares, a workplace giving federation.

Rev. Cedric A. Harmon acts as the liaison between Americans United for Separation of Church and State and various religious communities, religious leaders, clergy and congregations nationwide. He encourages active and vocal involvement in matters of religion in public life. He is committed to basic human rights, dignity and equality for each person. Cedric is a licensed and ordained minister affiliated with both the Progressive National Baptist Convention and the National Missionary Baptist Convention of America. Cedric is a native of the St. Louis metropolitan area and currently resides in the District of Columbia.

Mitzi G. Henderson has been a PFLAG (Parents Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) activist since 1984, and served as its National President from 1992-96. She is committed to empowering families as agents of social change. She is a Presbyterian elder, and former co-moderator of More Light Presbyterians, which works for full inclusion of gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons in the church. Mitzi says, "The church is caught between pastoral realities and doctrinal tradition, and needs all the help CLGS can bring."

Mary E. Hunt, Ph.D. is a feminist theologian who is co-founder and co-director of the Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER) in Silver Spring, Maryland, USA. A Roman Catholic active in the women-church movement, she lectures and writes on theology and ethics with particular attention to liberation issues. Dr. Hunt received the Ph.D. from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, the Masters in Divinity degree from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, and the Masters in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. She completed Clinical Pastoral Education and is fluent in Spanish. After graduation, she spent several years teaching and working on women's issues and human rights in Argentina as a participant in the Frontier Internship in Mission Program. She continues that work through WATER's project, "Women Crossing Worlds," an on-going exchange with Latin American women. For the 2000-2001 academic year she was at Harvard Divinity School as a Research Fellow at the Center for the Study of Values in Public Life.

Mark D. Jordan is a Griggs Candler Professor of Religion at Emory University. His teaching and research range from the rhetorical critique of Christian theocracy to innovations in the performance of LGBT religious identities. His books include The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology (1997), winner of the 1999 John Boswell Prize for lesbian and gay history, The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism (2000), a Lambda Literary Award finalist; Telling Truths in Church: Scandal, Flesh, and Christian Speech (2003), and Blessing Same-Sex Unions: The Perils of Queer Romance and the Confusions of Christian Marriage (2005).

Rev. Phil Lawson a United Methodist clergyman, will retire in June 2003 after serving as Senior Pastor of Easter Hill United Methodist Church in Richmond, California, the past 11 years. Rev. Lawson has a long history of civil rights activism, speaks nationally and participates in civil disobedience actions across denominational lines.

Rev. Jim Mitulski has served as the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Outreach Coordinator of the James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Public Library, and previous to that was the Senior Pastor of Metropolitan Church of San Francisco.

Rev. Jeanne Audrey Powers a United Methodist clergywoman, is retired from her position as Associate General Secretary of the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns in the United Methodist Church. She is the recipient of the MFSA (Methodist Federation for Social Action) Ball Award for her life-long involvement in effective social action.

Sylvia Rhue

Father Jim Schexnayder, a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Oakland for 39 years, is Resource Director of the National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries. He received his Master of Divinity degree from St. Patrick's Seminary, Menlo Park, California. He has been a pastor, campus minister, educator, director of HIV/AIDS services, and minister to LGBT communities and their families. Jim has spoken nationally and internationally on LGBT ministries. He taught in the 2003 PSR January session on the pastoral care of LGBT persons and their families.

Rev. Dr. Justin Tanis is Director of Leadership Development for the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches. He is the author of Trans-Gendered: Theology, Ministry, and Communities of Faith, the first book published in the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry book series with Pilgrim Press.

Rev. Mona West earned a Ph.D. in Old Testament in 1987 and continues to work in the field of biblical studies, writing and speaking on queer biblical hermeneutics. She co-edited Take Back The Word: A Queer Reading of the Bible, published by Pilgrim Press in 2000. As an ordained clergy in Metropolitan Community Church, she is currently serving as Minister of Spiritual Formation at a Disciples of Christ congregation in Dallas.

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