Text of a Speech Given by Rev Pressley Sutherland at the Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Gay Hate Crimes Awareness Demonstration and Commemorative Gathering Held On the Eve of the South African General Election, 21 April 2009, Green Market Square Methodist Church, Cape Town.

Today’s event is both political and sacred. In today’s politics, the human rights of women, lgbtqi people,and victims of hate crimes are too often portrayed as antithetical to our sacred traditions. This is a dangerous and false premise. All life is sacred, all people deserve just treatment. Today, I will be using inclusive images and pronouns for God, Creator, Mother Earth, Spirit, because that is the tradition in my faith community. I will also be using the collective pronouns, “We” and “us” and using a collective sense of the pronouns “I” and “me,” not to appropriate or erase the individuality of our experiences nor to imply that anyone of us listening needs to take anything onboard that does not resonate with our truth, rather I speak collectively in a sense of solidarity with each of you as a child of humanity, a queer, and one on the Way of Christ, but still learning.

Call me by my true names.

Call me resistant and persistent.

The Parable of the Persistent Widow

¹Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. ²He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about anyone. ³And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against the one who has harmed me.'

 ⁴"For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about anyone, ⁵yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!' "

 ⁶And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. ⁷And will not God bring about justice for God’s children, who cry out day and night? Will God keep putting them off? 8I tell you, God will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Child of Humanity comes, will this One find faith on the earth?"

In this story, the widow is trying to find justice within a corrupt system. In those days judges travelled around and set up tents. They set their own agendas, and about the only way to have your court case heard was to bribe one of the attendants to bring your case to the attention of the judge. As a widow, she had no social standing and no means to bribe this man. But she had her name — call her resistant and persistent. Like a mighty ocean, she returned again and again to break upon the shores of injustice until what was wronged was righted, what was broken was acknowledged, and what survived within her was strengthened through her own voice and advocacy.

We do not know what was done to this widow, but we do know that she understood that she was worthy of justice. The laws existed to protect her, but the question in her times and in ours is this: does the will exist in those we entrust to govern and adjudicate to rise above self-interest and political anxiety, to genuinely stand for the best principles of a just society?

When our bodies are broken and forgotten, the dream of a new South Africa is broken and forgotten. When lesbians are raped and murdered in their own neighbourhoods, the hope of a new South Africa is raped and murdered. When the prosecution of justice can be delayed 25 times, the promise of a new South Africa remains delayed and unfulfilled 25 times.

But call us by our true names. Call us resistant and persistent. Like an ocean, in wave after wave, we will continue to break upon the shore of injustice, until what has been wronged is righted, what is precious is finally protected, and what is broken is actively healed.

Call me by my true names- call me queer, lesbian, dyke, gay, transgender, intersex, bisexual, an MSM, a WSW—call me black, a person of colour, white, African, non-African, immigrant, refugee. Call me a person with intersectional identities-but first call me a daughter, a son, a child of humanity.

Vietnamese Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hahn, wrote the poem, “Please call me by my true names,” a poem informed by his experiences in a war-torn country and his journey as a refugee. In a portion of the poem, he reminds us that we are both the recipients of violence and the perpetrators of violence. He asks us to call him by his true names, not only those that empower him, but also those that call him to justice and compassion. He ends his poem with these four lines:

Please call me by my true names
So that I can wake up
And the door of my heart can be left open
The door of compassion

If we seek justice against others, it is important to understand that it is a profound act of redemption. When we perpetrate violence, our very humanity depends on being called to justice so that we can wake up to the suffering we are creating for others. As controversial as it may seem, to prosecute one another for hate crimes is ultimately a compassionate act. How else will those of us on the streets, and in our communities, even know that such crimes are fuelled by malignant hates within us if our government and courts of justice will not pass and enforce legislation which holds up a mirror to our crimes of hate? Rape, brutality and murder are never crimes of passion, they are always crimes of hate and disgust.

Call me by my true names-call me a daughter, a son, a child of humanity- capable of violence, capable of redemption.

Call me by my true names. Call me remembered and beloved.

As we gather today to do actions of healing and justice, we do so in the spirit of persistent love and care.

In Jewish scripture, there is a story of two women, Ruth and Naomi. In this sacred story, there are no celestial beings that intervene or any miraculous occurrences to redeem them, they redeem (they restore the worth of) one another through their tenacious love for each other. When Naomi has lost her first family to famine and disease, she renames herself Mariah—which means bitter. But Ruth cleaves to her and will not let her disappear into the desert to grieve herself to death. The verb ‘to cleave’ is the same language used in Genesis to denote the union of a husband and wife.

Ruth cleaves to, holds Naomi fiercely, and will not let her go! She vows to Naomi in the words that are read often at heterosexual weddings today:

Do not press me to leave you or turn back from you. For wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people     shall be my people, and your God shall be my God. Where you die, there also will I be buried, and may God do thus and so to me if even death parts me from you.

On the eve of an election when we scan the horizon anxiously to see if there are clouds gathering over our hard-won freedoms and protections, we must stand together with tenacious love for one another. We must remember one another beyond our personal circumstances, and cleave to one another with an unbreakable tenacity—actively resisting anything that would harm us, actively persisting with the works of greater human awareness and compassion.

Name me remembered and beloved today.

By actively standing up and giving voice to the victims of hate crimes, by openly naming our beloved sisters, transgender siblings and brothers lost to violence and the bitterness of injustice, we hold to them as Ruth held Naomi vowing that even death will not part us from them. The redemption of their lives in this world will continue to be our work of love and care.

Solizwa Nkonyana, death will not part us from you. You are remembered in this place, and we bless the Mother of the Universe in your name.

Sizakele Sigasa, death will not part us from you. You are remembered in this place, and we bless the Father of the Universe in your name.

 Salome Mosooa. death will not part us from you. You are remembered in this place, and we bless the Creator of the Universe in your name.

To the great cloud of witnesses seen and unseen, death will not part us from you. You are remembered in this place, and we bless the Spirit of the Universe in your name.

Call us by our true names today and never forget our names again. Call us Resistant and Persistent. Children of Humanity.  Remembered and Beloved.

May we be blessed with Your names for us once again, Our Creator. Amen.