A Curious Church Controversy; California’s Impending Junk-Fee Ban–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Feb. 19, 2024

Indy Digest: Feb. 19, 2024

Growing up, I went through a sampler, of sorts, of Christianity.

I was baptized as a Lutheran. I went to a Baptist church and Bible camps as a kid. I had a lot of Catholic friends—and even more friends who were LDS (aka members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, aka Mormons). I became a member of the LDS Church when I was 19, but left about six years later due to both the church’s treatment of LGBTQ individuals and some of its history.

All of this left me with a religious dichotomy: I grew to dislike most religious institutions, for a whole lot of reasons—but I’ve always loved and tried to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Jesus was a dude who didn’t look down on others. He encouraged everyone to love and help their neighbors. He taught values like kindness, forgiveness and fellowship.

One of those aforementioned reasons why I grew to dislike most religious institutions was (and is) that I didn’t see a whole lot of Christ’s teachings in a lot of their actions.

This all was on my mind when I read a story about the uproar over the New York funeral of Cecilia Gentili, an activist and performer who died on Feb. 6 at the age of 52. I first heard of Gentili—an outspoken advocate for transgender people and sex workers—when she spoke at the LGBTQ Community Center of the Desert’s Center Stage gala last fall.

(As an aside, here’s what she told Interview magazine about Palm Springs shortly after Center Stage: “It’s just a whole bunch of older gay men, many of them with a lot of plastic surgery, living in the middle of the desert. Palm Spring is the gayest place I’ve ever seen. Everybody looked like they may be 70, but they look 49. Which is the goal.” I don’t agree with much of this, but it made me laugh.)

Her funeral was held last Thursday at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. This is how The Washington Post described it:

The cheering began shortly after the priest opened the funeral.

Bold-colored outfits dotted the hundreds of people in the pews of St. Patrick’s Cathedral for transgender advocate and avowed atheist Cecilia Gentili’s funeral Thursday.

“Welcome to St. Patrick’s Cathedral,” said Edward Dougherty, the priest presiding over the event at the Manhattan church. “Except on Easter Sunday, we don’t (usually) have a crowd that is this well turned out.”

As Dougherty chuckled into the mic, Gentili’s family, friends and a few celebrities applauded, with some chanting “Cecilia.” They were celebrating a woman who advocated for sex workers, immigrants and people living with HIV. The funeral was punctuated with cheers for a trans woman who exemplified their struggle for safety and acceptance, and speakers prayed for transgender rights and access to health care.

In the days since the service, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York has expressed major disdain. What was so offensive, leading church officials—led by Enrique Salvo, the head of St. Patrick’s—to use terms like “scandalous,” “deceptive” and “sacrilegious”? According to that Washington Post piece: “New York Archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling told The Washington Post that Salvo’s statement was about ‘the behavior of some of those in attendance at the funeral—including comments like “the mother of all whores” or changing the words of the “Ave Maria,” a sacred hymn, to “Ave Cecilia” to cite just two examples.’”

The piece later says:

Gentili’s family pushed back on the archdiocese’s statement, saying the funeral brought “precious life and radical joy to the Cathedral in historic defiance of the Church’s hypocrisy and anti-trans hatred.”

“Cecilia Gentili’s funeral … was a reflection of the love she had for her community and a testament to the impact of her tireless advocacy,” the statement continued. “The only deception present at St Patrick’s Cathedral is that it claims to be a welcoming place for all.”

Nobody was harmed by anything done at Cecilia Gentili’s funeral. Nothing was damaged. The only problem is that uptight, privileged church leaders got offended—because they disregarded the teachings of Jesus himself.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• The CDC is considering allowing some people to get a COVID-19 booster shot in the spring. NBC News says: “A spring booster would be the same vaccine that was approved last fall, which was formulated to target the XBB.1.5 subvariant. The vaccine is also very effective against the JN.1 subvariant, which is causing almost all Covid infections in the U.S. right now. … ‘Waiting till the fall, I think, is a mistake,’ said Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. ‘We have clear evidence that either vaccine or previous infection probably gives four to six months of relative protection against serious illness, hospitalizations and deaths, but wanes substantially after that.’ … Advisers to the CDC are expected to vote on whether to recommend a spring Covid booster during a meeting scheduled for Feb. 28, according to a source close to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. It’s expected that the panel will focus its discussion on those most vulnerable to Covid, including people age 65 and older and anyone with a weakened immune system, such as organ transplant recipients.”

• A state ban against “junk fees” will go into affect on July 1—and some businesses, restaurants especially, are not pleased. The Los Angeles Times reports: “On July 1, Senate Bill 478, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law in October, is set to prohibit ‘junk fees’ across a wide swath of businesses, including online ticket sales, hotels, restaurants, bars and delivery apps. … Many owners of restaurants and bars rely on now-ubiquitous surcharges to offer employee benefits such as healthcare and higher wages and often note surcharges on menus; some are listed as ‘elective,’ left to the discretion of the diner. As implementation of the law looms, some now say the consequences could be disastrous and ‘upend’ the industry. The restaurants will need to factor surcharge fees into menu prices, as opposed to simply advertising them at the end of a bill, state officials said. ‘At this point, we are going to have to raise our prices a big chunk,’ said James Beard Award-winning restaurateur Caroline Styne, co-owner and wine director of the Lucques Group of restaurants and wine director of Hollywood Bowl Food & Wine.”

• Today’s recall news involves … Hyundai Genesis-es? (Or is it Genesisi?) Anyway, here are the details via ABC News: “Hyundai is recalling more than 90,000 Genesis vehicles due to a fire risk and owners are advised to park outside and away from structures until a repair is completed. The recall includes certain 2015-2016 Genesis, 2017-2019 Genesis G80, Genesis G90, and 2019 Genesis G70 vehicles. A letter from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration states that water may enter the starter solenoid and cause an electrical short, which can result in an engine compartment fire while parked or driving. Hyundai said in documents that it has confirmed a dozen ‘thermal incidents’ with starters in the U.S. from Sept. 29, 2017 to July 9, 2023.” As Dave Barry would say: “Thermal Incidents” would be a great name for a band!

• Our partners at CalMatters say a bill to legalize psychedelic drugs to treat mental illness has led to a surprising bipartisan alliance: “Assemblymember Marie Waldron is a Republican from San Diego who was the GOP caucus leader for three years at a time when California’s Democrats were waging a legislative war with Donald Trump. San Francisco Sen. Scott Wiener is a Democratic rising star who’s considered a leading candidate to replace one of the right’s biggest villains, U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, should the former House speaker retire from Congress. … Waldron has appeared twice beside Wiener in recent weeks. Most recently, they addressed reporters at a press conference to announce a new bill they coauthored that would allow adults 21 and older to use psilocybin mushrooms, MDMA, DMT and mescaline under the supervision of a licensed and trained facilitator. And, in January, they sat side-by-side before the Assembly Health Committee to advocate for Waldron’s bill which would convene a workgroup to study psychedelic-assisted therapy with the goal of making recommendations for regulating treatment by Jan. 1, 2026.”

• From the “real estate laws can be weird” file: The NBC News headline is “A loophole got New York City man a free hotel stay for five years until he claimed to own the building.” The details: “(Mickey) Barreto says he had just moved to New York from Los Angeles when his boyfriend told him about a loophole that allows occupants of single rooms in buildings constructed before 1969 to demand a six-month lease. Barreto claimed that because he’d paid for a night in the hotel, he counted as a tenant. He asked for a lease and the hotel promptly kicked him out. ‘So I went to court the next day. The judge denied. I appealed to the (state) Supreme Court and I won the appeal,’ Barreto said, adding that at a crucial point in the case, lawyers for the building’s owners didn’t show up, allowing him to win by default. The judge ordered the hotel to give Baretto a key. He said he lived there until July 2023 without paying any rent because the building’s owners never wanted to negotiate a lease with him, but they couldn’t kick him out. Manhattan prosecutors acknowledge that the housing court gave Barreto ‘possession’ of his room. But they say he didn’t stop there: In 2019, he uploaded a fake deed to a city website, purporting to transfer ownership of the entire building to himself from the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, which bought the property in 1976. The church was founded in South Korea by a self-proclaimed messiah, the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon.”

• And finally … Air Canada used a chatbot to help out customers, and in one instance, the chatbot invented a refund policy by itself. The airline then refused to issue a refund according to that policy—and one of the airline’s arguments was particularly strange. ArsTechnica explains: “On the day Jake Moffatt’s grandmother died, Moffat immediately visited Air Canada’s website to book a flight from Vancouver to Toronto. Unsure of how Air Canada’s bereavement rates worked, Moffatt asked Air Canada’s chatbot to explain. The chatbot provided inaccurate information, encouraging Moffatt to book a flight immediately and then request a refund within 90 days. In reality, Air Canada’s policy explicitly stated that the airline will not provide refunds for bereavement travel after the flight is booked. … According to Air Canada, Moffatt never should have trusted the chatbot and the airline should not be liable for the chatbot’s misleading information because Air Canada essentially argued that ‘the chatbot is a separate legal entity that is responsible for its own actions,’ a court order said.” Moffatt was eventually granted a partial refund by Canada’s Civil Resolution Tribunal.

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