He Hath Risen. And He is carbon-neutral.
On Easter Sunday in unseasonably sweltering heat, thousands of San Franciscans cheered 28-year-old Miguel Velez, aka “Renewable Jesus,” on to victory in the city’s annual and fiercely competitive Hunky Jesus contest. Velez, whose long, curly dark hair was bedecked with a crown of tiny solar panels and who carried a mini windmill for a staff, narrowly beat out “Cheez-Its” Christ, aka 44-year-old Daniel Imani, for the title this year.
Held in Dolores Park and set to thumping club music, the contest was the apex of a six-hour long, pointedly political Easter celebration organized by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a legendary queer order of nuns celebrating its 47th anniversary. After a kids’ Easter egg hunt in the morning, the Sisters, accompanied by local luminaries including activist Honey Mahogany, held court until mid-afternoon.
This year’s theme was “Love Thy Neighbor,” a classic Christian maxim that nonetheless carries overt political messaging in an era marked by the Trump Administration’s ongoing and violent campaign to deport as many immigrants as possible, including many who have lived in the U.S. peacefully for decades.
“It’s a declaration to our community and to ourselves; we have to love each other enough to take care of each other,” said Sister H. Ivy Positive, a member of the Order and one of the Easter Celebration’s primary organizers. The team had opted for a unifying message over a more overtly anti-ICE slogan, according to event producer PTyrone Smith: “It’s a simple message and it means the same thing.”
The turbulent state of U.S. politics underlay much of this year’s event, with many contestants and honorees chanting “Fuck ICE” and encouraging eventgoers to reject the authoritarian and anti-immigrant and LGBTQ-hostile stances of the Trump Administration. In addition to the Hunky Jesus competition, the Sisters also host an annual “Foxy Mary” contest, won this year by “Santa Maria de Exorcism,” a Marie Antoinette lookalike who “exorcised” a deflated Trump doll from under her voluminous skirts. The Sisters also nominated four prominent San Francisco figures as “saints,” including the author Rebecca Solnit (who told the crowd “Democracy is the theology that every soul matters,”) and local activist and Navy veteran Jim Martinez, who exhorted the crowd to “please keep fighting.”
The Sisters also host an Easter Bonnet Competition, which featured a parade of contestants in increasingly absurd and gigantic hats, though this contest had a decidedly less political outcome than the others. Two bonnet-wearers shared this year’s title: Bruce Baudette, aka Magenta Easter, whose bonnet consisted of a giant, boxy pink mesh structure festooned with glittering Easter eggs; and Aaron Dence, i.e. “Golden Cock” Bonnet, whose pope-style hat concealed a golden statue of a rooster that he revealed onstage.
But the star of the show was undoubtedly Velez, who beat out a crowded field of dozens of wannabe Jesuses with his climate-focused messaging (and six-pack abs, it must be said). A musician and songwriter, Velez said he came up with his costume in the same way he drums up song ideas, by drawing on what he cares about most. And he won because his concerns about climate change resonated with the crowd, especially on a hot day at the tail end of an historic heat wave across the western U.S.
“It feels like summer in the middle of spring,” he said, gesturing out at the crowds of people furiously fanning themselves under an unforgiving sun. “Probably should do something about that.”