Joe Perez (writer)

Joe Perez (born 1969 in Moses Lake Washington) is an American writer in the fields of gay spirituality and Integral theory.

Life

Born as Joseph Mark Perez in 1969 in Moses Lake Washington, Perez attended public schools until beginning his academic career at Harvard University, where he earned a Bachelor's degree in The Comparative Study of Religion with Philosophy as Allied Field in 1991. Subsequently, he attended The Divinity School at The University of Chicago. [1]

In 2004, Perez published a bi-weekly newspaper column called Soulfully Gay, which was distributed through at least one gay community newspaper, the Contax Guide of South Florida. The column addressed "spirituality from a gay man's perspective." Simultaneously, he published a Weblog called The Soulful Blogger on his own personal Web site. [2]

The following year, Perez founded the Gay Spirituality & Culture Weblog (still published as the MyOutSpirit.com Gay Spirituality Blog). Initially a solo blog by its founder, later the Weblog became a group Weblog, attracting notable contributors such as Toby Johnson and Joe Kort.

Perez attended the Gay Spirit Culture Summit in 2005, a gathering of "spiritual leaders" and "agents of change" seeking to shift consciousness in the gay community and raise visibility of transformational experiences in order to change the conversation about what it means to be gay. [3] According to the journals published on the Gay Spirituality & Culture Weblog, Perez's role at the summit included a daily blog of his experiences there. [4]

Perez is author of two books on spiritual development: Soulfully Gay: How Harvard, Sex, Drugs, and Integral Philosophy Drove Me Crazy and Brought Me Back to God, a book combining a variety of short writings including memoir, journal entries, reviews, and interviews, about his discovering of an Integral approach to understanding the spiritual significance of homosexuality; Rising Up: Reflections on Gay Culture, Politics, Spirit which advances an agenda for gay activism informed by an evolutionary psychological model.

Ken Wilber, the American psychological theorist, wrote a remarkable column on BeliefNet devoted to praise of Joe Perez's Soulfully Gay, over a year in advance of the book's publication. He wrote:

Joe Perez's book is perhaps the most astonishing, brilliant, and courageous look at the interface between individual belief and cultural values that has been written in our times. By a homosexual, or a heterosexual, or any other sexual I am aware of. [5]

Perez's central idea is that worldviews about homosexuality evolve in progressive stages of increasing validity and value, and that the cultural, political, and religious controversies facing the gay rights movement are best understood in the context of spiritual evolution. The concept of "Homophilia" is central to his writings, and he argues that it is equivalent to "Agape" in Christian theology. [6]

One of the most notable features of Perez's career is his role in founding the Bridge of Light cultural tradition in 2004. Bridge of Light is a distinctive LGBT/gay holiday occuring on New Year's Eve. According to the autobiographical account in Perez's Soulfully Gay, the holiday originated under the name Yuletide as a unique queer winter holiday modeled after Kwanzaa, the African-American cultural festival founded in 1966 by Ron Karenga. [7] From 2005 to 2006, Bridge of Light evolved into a celebration of the "spiritual heritage of the gay community and universal spiritual principles." [8]

In 2009, Perez founded a new Weblog called Integrally Gay, the goal of which, he says, is "to advance the development of a dialogue around Integrally-based thought and practices within the communities of the sexually marginal, and to advance awareness of Integrally-informed perspectives on all sides." [9]

Perez lives in Seattle, Washington.

References

[1] Editors, “Integral Naked Presents Joe Perez: Soulfully Gay. Part 1. Out of the Closet, Into an Integral Embrace,” Integral Naked, 2007. (http://in.integralinstitute.org/talk.aspx?id=976)

[2] Editors, “At 2:20 p.m. – Soulfully Gay,” KUOW-FM The Beat, 2007. (http://www.kuow.org/program.php?id=12975)

[3] Editors, “Gay Spirit Culture Summit,” White Crane, 2007. (http://www.whitecranejournal.com/summitcall.asp)

[4] Various Authors, “GSC Summit,” MyOutSpirit.com Gay Spirituality Blog, 2004. (http://gayspirituality.typepad.com/blog/gsc_summit/)

[5] Ken Wilber, “Integral Spirituality in Real Life: Ken Wilber shares with Beliefnet.com users a forward he wrote to the not-yet-published volume 'Soulfully Gay,'” BeliefNet, May 2005. (http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Angels/2005/05/Integral-Spirituality-In-Real-Life.aspx)

[6] Editors, “Integral Naked Presents Joe Perez: Soulfully Gay. Part 2. The Power of Integral Reconciliation,” Integral Naked, 2007. (http://in.integralinstitute.org/talk.aspx?id=980)

[7] Joe Perez, "Soulfully Gay: How Harvard, Sex, Drugs, and Integral Philosophy Drove Me Crazy and Brought Me Back to God," Integral Books/Shambhala, 2007.

[8] Joe Perez, “Bridge of Light,” MyOutSpirit.com Gay Spirituality Blog, 2005-2006. (http://gayspirituality.typepad.com/bridgeoflight/)

[9] Joe Perez, “Welcome to Integrally Gay!” Integrally Gay Weblog, 2007. (http://www.integrallygay.com/2009/11/welcome-to-integrally-gay.html)

As Author

• Soulfully Gay: How Harvard, Sex, Drugs, and Integral Philosophy Drove Me Crazy and Brought Me Back to God
• Rising Up: Reflections on Gay Culture, Politics, Spirit

External links

• Official Website of Joe Perez
• Integrally Gay
• KUOW-FM The Beat Interview with Joe Perez