I apologize to those offended by any reference to religion.  I post this
message here for its historical importance, not to add more pain to those
whom religion has fiercely abused.  If lesbigay Christians want to discuss 
it, I urge you to take a pew in our electronic catacomb of lesbigay 
Christians. To do so, send me a private e-note saying:  LUTI YES.

Bishop Charles was most recently the dean of the Episcopal Divinity School
at Cambridge, Mass.  He is a close personal friend and mailed this to
me just before he left for the House of Bishops meeting now in session
in Panama.  He gave me permission to share it.

Louie/Quean Lutibelle
Founder of Integrity, the Lesbigay Justice Ministry of the Episcopal Church

===============


September 1993

To:           The Bishops of the Episcopal Church

From:         Otis Charles, Bishop of Utah, Retired

       For the past several months, I have openly communicated 
with my family and with growing numbers of my colleagues and 
friends that I am a gay man.  While in many way I would have 
preferred that this communication remain a personal and private 
one, I am well aware that given my vocation and my calling as a 
bishop, and given the general climate of public speculation so 
prevalent today, that could not long be the case.  Out of respect 
for the collegiality of the House and for our personal 
relationship, as well as to avoid conjecture I want to communicate 
with you directly.

       For 45 years I struggled with my sexual identity.  In the 
isolation and darkness, I felt that there must be something wrong 
with me.  I turned to others for help.  I prayed with all my heart 
to be healed.  Nothing changed.  I was still me, pulled apart 
inside by feelings I schooled myself to believe were unnatural.

       Then God did a marvelous and wonderful work in my life.  
God led me to Agnes Sanford.  God led me to ask Agnes Sanford to 
pray with me for my healing -- to pray that I might be delivered 
-- and God heard my prayer.  I was healed.  To my surprise it was 
not from homosexuality but from my fear of myself, from my 
discomfort about who I am.  It was a charismatic moment for me.  I 
was born again and yet the power of the learned experience that it 
was unacceptable to be both priest and gay kept me silent.  I said 
nothing to my wife, my family, my bishop.

       Only very much later in another moment touched by the Holy 
Spirit did I have the courage to say aloud what before I had 
spoken only to my confessors and to Agnes Sanford.  Since that 
evening of truth telling to Elvira and our friends Bill and 
Barbara Frey in July 1976, I have for the most part remained 
silent and by my silence have given power to the forces that work 
to maintain the culture of silence within the church and the 
community.

       As recently as the summer of 1991, I sat silently through 
the Phoenix General Convention.  I did not join the debate openly 
and honestly, simply saying "Hey, you are talking about me.  I am 
a gay man."  I allowed myself to be one of "those" spoken about 
outside the House -- the guessed-about number of Bishops who are 
gay.  I was sufficiently troubled by my silence that I 
subsequently told the Presiding Bishop what I had been carrying 
silently in my heart for so long and, one by one, I have been 
doing so with other bishops and colleagues, as well as family and 
friends.

       Some may question what calls me to speak out now.  After 
all, I am 67 years old.  My children are grown and independent.  I 
have retired from my ministry as Dean of the Episcopal Divinity 
School after eight fulfilling and fruitful years.  Why not simply 
and quietly live out my years in a respectable, comfortable 
arrangement with my wife and family, or else pursue my expression 
of my sexuality quietly, outside the glare of public notice and 
attention?  Some may even wonder if all this is being made known 
now because of some incident or misconduct that has come to light.  
That is not the case.

       My choice to make myself known in this way and at this time 
is a personal one, whatever motive or meaning others may infer.  
Sexuality is part of the richness, the complexity of God's 
creation.  It is an essential part of our human experience, and it 
is a part of the experience of priests and bishops.  Indeed it 
deserves -- perhaps even requires -- to be dealt with as 
straightforwardly and sensitively as matters of doctrine and 
pastoral care.

       I have promised myself that I will not remain silent, 
invisible, unknown.  After all is said and done, the choice for me 
is not whether or not I am a gay man, but whether or not I am 
honest about who I am with myself and others.  It is a choice to 
take down the wall or silence I have built around an important and 
vital part of my life, to end the separation and isolation I have 
imposed on myself all these years.  It is a choice to live my life 
as consistently as I can with my own integrity, a choice to be 
fully who I am and to be responsible for all that I am.

       It is also a choice that has deeply affected Elvira and our 
children.  Speaking the truth to Elvira forever changed our 
relationship.  To say that the years since 1976 have been painful 
is totally inadequate.  They have been wrenching for us and for 
our family.  Elvira and I began our life together with a deep 
commitment to have and hold each other in sickness and in health, 
for richer or for poorer, until departed by death.  Our marriage 
has been blessed.  We have five healthy, intelligent, creative 
daughters and sons and nine wonderful grandchildren.  Out life 
together has been good.  Slowly, however, Elvira and I have come 
to realize that we must live our lives separately.

       In reaching this decision, I have been moved and humbled by 
the support and love of Elvira and our children and their 
families, by their openness to me, their willingness to hear me, 
and most of all by their affirmation and love for me.  Still, it 
would be unreal not to acknowledge that for each of us this is a 
very different experience.  There is anger, grief and loss, and at 
the same time we are stronger than ever before in our 
communication and our understanding of reconciling love.

       I am aware that the reactions to my openness about my 
sexuality will encompass the whole range of emption and opinion.  
For those for whom homosexuality is an incomprehensible (or even 
reprehensible) aspect of human behavior, there may be a sense of 
shock and perhaps revulsion and sadness.  For those for whom the 
expression of their sexuality as gay and lesbian men and women has 
long been hidden, suppressed, and scorned, there may be a sense of 
affirmation and perhaps even victory.

       Beyond the reactions, beyond any sense of winning or 
losing, beyond any opinions and feelings about what is right and 
what is wrong, I would hope for people to be able finally to see 
in my story neither a victory nor a loss but a fellow human being 
and Christian on the journey that life is, a human being subject 
to all the feelings of joy and sorrow, of pain and wonder, of love 
and fear, a human being doing his best to follow his heart and his 
Lord and to live a life of integrity and service to others.

       This may be particularly difficult within the Episcopal 
Church.  For the past twenty years or more, the subject of our 
diversity - racial, sexual, cultural - has been controversial, 
painful, and often divisive.  Yet something new is being done in 
our midst -- in spite of our reluctance.  We now have three black 
diocesan bishops.  Three women have been elected to the 
episcopate, one a diocesan.  The same diocese that elected a woman 
to be its chief pastor seriously considered a gay man, living in a 
covenanted relationship.  Blacks, women, gays -- all have had to 
struggle and continue to struggle to be visibly present with voice 
in the exclusive world of white, male, heterosexual dominance.

       Because we are a people of faith, our quarrels have at 
times taken place as theological and moral arguments -- after 
ignoring or even threatening the very ties of brotherly and 
sisterly love that binds us together as a community of believers.  
But precisely because we are a community of faith, bound to one 
another in that faith, I believe God is breaking the walls of 
separation.  The Spirit is drawing us to a new understanding and 
experience of inclusion.  I also believe God has drawn me to speak 
the truth of my experience.  And I believe that as gay men and 
lesbians speak openly, telling the stories of their lives, the 
community of faith is strengthened.

       As for the future, I expect to continue to live my life in 
the context of my calling as a priest and bishop.  After a period 
of reflection and prayerful mediation on what God is calling me to 
do, I intend to find ways to allow my experience to inform my 
ministry and to make a contribution to others.  I have made this 
commitment to myself, for myself, and for the church I love.

       I count on your continued prayers and support and look 
forward to being with you at the meeting of the House of 
Panama.

-- 
  ==========================================================================
  Louie Crew, Academic Foundations Department, Rutgers University, NWK 07102
  lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu                                   201-485-4503
                   Preferred:  P. O. Box 30, Newark, NJ 07101