Autorentext

Marie Cartier is a scholar, writer and artist whose work explores the intersections of religion, gender, and queer culture and history. She lectures in Gender and Women's Studies and also Queer Studies at California State University, Northridge. She is the co-producer of a documentary (forthcoming) Baby, You Are My Religion and of the podcast #DykeDive.

Klappentext

Baby, You Are My Religion: The Lesbian Bar as Sacred Space is a foundational work of lived lesbian and queer theology, which offers an exploration of how lesbian bars served as spiritual havens for queer women.

Drawing on more than 100 oral histories, Marie Cartier reveals how lesbian bars from the 1940s to the 1980s functioned as sacred spaces-churches in exile-for women cast out of traditional religion. Through these testimonies, Cartier situates the lesbian bar as a site of ritual, community, and spiritual resistance, where queer women fought to form community, forge family, and survive against the odds. This second edition expands on the original research with a new foreword and afterword addressing the disappearance of lesbian bars and the continuing need for sacred queer space post-millennium. Blending cultural history, feminist spirituality, and theology, the book introduces theelogy-a theology grounded in "thee" elevating community ties to the sacred.

Baby, You Are My Religion is ideal for scholars and students of queer studies, women's history, theology, and religious studies, offering a framework for understanding how lesbian experiences shaped the very foundations of queer spiritual thought.

Inhalt

Preface: Myrna's Story
Preface to the Second Edition: #OrlandoStrong: Yes, Baby, the Gay Bar is Still Our Church
Acknowledgements

1 It was the Only Place

Part I: The Stories

2 The 1940s "Thank God the Japanese Surrendered"

3 The 1950s ""I Should have Made a List of my Girlfriends!"

4 The 1960s "It Was ... Hollywood! We did a Girlfriend ... Daisy Chain!"

5 The 1970s "We were ...Women in Overalls Dancing with Women in Overalls. They Kicked us Out."

6 The 1980s "I Really did Think i was Jess from Stone Butch Blues Reincarnated."

Part II: Sacred Space Context

7 What Came Before

8 Braiding Theology

Part III: Thee-logy: The Lesbian Bar as Sacred

9 Experience is Primary

10 What is Theelogy?

11 Four Tenets of Theelogy

12 Conclusion...Last Call!

Afterword: Saving the Hershee Bar and Why Lesbian Bars Matter

Appendices
Bibliography
Index