Now, if Mary has an egg cell, then Jesus gets 50 percent of his genetic make up from his mother. And if his mother is a child of Adam, she, too,is fallen so Jesus is not perfect.

If you begin to give people hope that there is a brighter future, there is a new tomorrow, then the people who were yesterday's terrorists become tomorrow's elected officials and they're part of the system.

My sense is if the Episcopal Church can't stand challenge within its own ranks, then it is not a church I would want to be a member of anyway.

The thing that intrigues me about Matthew is that I don't believe anybody would read it if they aren't Jewish and understand it. And so to say that publicly as a Christian is kind of interesting.

I learned early in life that you get places by having the right enemies.

I didn't choose to be white, I didn't choose to be male, I didn't choose to be heterosexual, I didn't choose to be right-handed. Those are the givens of life. And I don't know why the church can't deal with that, why they can't understand that. Well, I do know why: because people are always afraid of anybody who's different.

So much organized religion, in my opinion, ends up being life-denying.