The Oasis is a support ministry for gay Episcopalians. It has chapters in the dioceses of California, Missouri, Newark, Michigan, Rochester and New Jersey. Contact information can be found on each chapter’s website.

Nancy M. Martin is an associate professor of ethics and department chair in the religious studies department at Chapman University in Orange, Calif. She teaches a course in gender in world religions and can discuss the role of women in Hinduism. She co-edited Love, Sex and Gender in the World Religions and wrote the chapter “Love” for The Oxford […]

The Bay Area Anti-Trafficking Coalition holds annual gatherings focused on building community awareness and mobilization against human trafficking.

Norris W. Palmer is an associate professor of religious studies at St. Mary’s College of California in Moraga, Calif. He wrote a chapter on Sai Baba for Gurus in America and contributed an article in 2006 to Nova Religio on how Hindus use their temples to negotiate their identity in America.

Cynthia Ann Humes is an associate professor of philosophy and religious studies at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif. She is the co-editor of Gurus in America, to which she contributed a chapter on Transcendental Meditation and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Linda B. Hess is a lecturer in religious studies at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif. She is an expert in the poetry of 15th- and 16th-century Hindu saints and can discuss their continued influence.

Chanchanit Martorell is executive director of Los Angeles’ Thai Community Development Center‘s Slavery Eradication and Rights Initiative. She advocates on behalf of Thai men, women and children trafficked to the U.S.

Thomas E. Buckley is a Jesuit who teaches American religious history at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, Calif. He wrote Church and State in Revolutionary Virginia, 1776-1787 and is working on a study of Jefferson and religious freedom.

Dianne Amato is program director of the Mary Magdalene Project, a Los Angeles-based outreach to sex workers.