Baby You are My Religion

<p><em>Baby You Are My Religion</em> argues that American butch-femme bar culture of the mid-20th Century should be interpreted as a sacred space for its community. Before Stonewall—when homosexuals were still deemed mentally ill—these bars were the only place where many could have any community at all. <em>Baby You are My Religion</em> explores this community as a site of a lived corporeal theology and political space. It reveals that religious institutions such as the Metropolitan Community Church were founded in such bars that traditional and non-traditional religious activities took place there and that religious ceremonies such as marriage were often conducted within the bars by staff. Baby<em> You are My Religion</em> examines how these bars became not only ecclesiastical sites but also provided the fertile ground for the birth of the struggle for gay and lesbian civil rights before Stonewall.</p>