Date: Tue, 31 May 94 9:46:06 EDT From: "Louie Crew" *The Voice of Integrity* Winter 1994 This is an electronic reproduction of The Voice of Integrity, the quarterly publication of Integrity, Inc., the lesbian and gay justice ministry of the Episcopal Church. All materials except those reproduced from other sources are copyrighted by Integrity, Inc. You may reproduce all original material herein if you state "Reproduced from the Winter, 1994 issue of The Voice of Integrity, the quarterly publication of Integrity, Inc., the lesbian and gay justice ministry of the Episcopal Church." Material may not appear exactly as published since some changes were made after the document was transferred to desk top publishing format. We encourage you to join Integrity. We encourage non-Episcopalians and non-lesgay persons to join. If you are a lesbian or gay Episcopalian and don't belong to Integrity, you're benefitting from all our work and we hope you'll strongly consider helping us by joining. Individual annual membership $25, Couple's annual membership $40, Low income/student/sr. citizen $10. Please mail check or money order to Integrity, Inc., P.O. Box 19561, Washington, DC 20036-0561. ******************** Winter 1994 *The Voice of Integrity* Volume 4, Number 1 Published by Integrity, Inc. P.O. Box 19561 Washington, D.C. 20036-0561 Telephone 718-720-3054 Bruce Garner, President Edgar Kim Byham, Publisher R. Scott Helsel, Editor Contributing Editors: Claudia Windal, Louie Crew Paul Woodrum Book Review Editor: Keith McCoy Dorothy Gunn, Production Editorial Office: 201-868-2485 PO Box 5202; NYC, NY 10185 Member Episcopal Communicators Associate Member Gay Lesbian Press Association copyright 1994 ******************** *TABLE OF CONTENTS* House of Bishops Meeting A Chilly Welcome Heats Up The House Awkward Bishops' Meeting Bishops Continue To Search For New Style Of Leadership At Meeting In Panama Openly Gay Deacon Ordained In Pennsylvania Montreal Murder Leaves Legacy: Washed In The Blood Of Martyrs Homophobic Chicago Parish Leaves Church General Theological Seminary Repents (We Hope) Massachusetts And Rhode Island Call For Commitment Rites We Are Republicans, Too! And We Have Friends Who Are Democrats The ABCs Of Gay Bashing National Board Nominations Sought Inherit The Earth: Address by Dr. Louie Crew At The First Integrity National Convention, 1975 Dr. Crew Part Of Major Lawsuit A Divine Sermon: Bruce Garner Preaches At New York Cathedral Ball Violates General Convention Resolution Episcopal Women's Caucus Supports Outcasts in San Joaquin Claudia's Column My Vocation Trinity to Sponsor Ex-Gay Training! Recent EDS Graduate Gay Bashed: Was Near Death In Boston Strategies For Success: Lesbian Coming Out Walt Szymanski Moves To Pittsburgh The Life And Death Of A Gay Priest *Book Reviews* Act Up! Jesus Did Lambda Gray *cc'd* A Letter To The Salvation Army Magazine From Our Production Coordinator A Letter To Share Pro-Gay Bishop Consecrated In Minnesota Bishop Swing: We've Gone About As Far As We Can Go! Barrios Dismissed: Full Story To Come A 100% Heterosexual Texas County An Absence Of Malice And Integrity Following Orders Proposed Amendments To The Bylaws Of Integrity, Inc. Bylaws Ballot President's Column Integrity 20th Anniversary Logo ******************** MEMBERSHIP FORM INTEGRITY, INC. P.O. Box 19561, Washington, DC 20036 I want to share in Integrity's work for justice for lesbians and gay men. Please enter my membership as checked below and begin my subscription to *The Voice of Integrity*. [ ] Individual annual membership $25 [ ] Couple annual membership $40 [ ] Low income/student/sr. citizen $10 Mr./Ms/Miss Mrs./Rev./Dr. __________________________________________ Address _________________________________________________ City _________________________ State ___________________ Phone ________________________ Zip _____________________ Please mail with your check or money order to: INTEGRITY, INC., PO Box 19561, Washington, DC 20036-0561. All contributions tax- deductible to the extent permitted by law. ******************** *FROM THE EDITOR* First, I would like to thank all of our readers who wrote with comments about the new format which was first used in the Fall 1993 issue. All letters received were favorable, with a few readers expressing that either format was acceptable. As you read through this issue, you will notice that there is a lack of photographs. If you have pictures of recent Integrity events please send them to the editorial office. ******************** *LETTERS TO THE EDITOR* Dear Editor, I enjoyed the article "Brooke Cleans Up!" and the photo of Brooke Bushong cleaning up the highways with the Bay Area Career Women (Fall '93). Perhaps your readers would like to know that the Hampton Roads Lesbian and Gay Pride Coalition has adopted the highway which runs just outside Pat Robertson's huge complex in Virginia Beach, VA. Unfortunately, there has been frequent vandalism of their sign and the state has threatened to stop replacing it for them. Ann Carlson *LETTERS: FROM ONE OF OUR CHAPTERS DOWN UNDER* Dear Brothers and Sisters, We of Integrity/Adelaide have been grateful recipients of your newsletter for some time, and would appreciate you continuing to supply it. We have a new postal address and ask you to change your records accordingly: P.O.Box 8001 Hindley Street South Australia 5000 Australia The change of address is only one of the changes happening herein the last two years. We have taken on a formal structure and declared our aims, which was designed to give us the opportunity of being a more prominent force within the Anglican Church in Australia. Our brief on educating the church with regard to gay and lesbian issues began last month with a workshop held specifically for our clergy. This is to be repeated, and probably adopted into the Post Ordination Training program. We feel that we are achieving at last, and obliged to inform you that without the constant messages of hope and support that receiving your newsletter gave us we may never have made it thus far. Yours faithfully, Malcolm Swalling Secretary ******************** *Responses to "Should Change How it Addresses the Clergy?"* Dear Editor: I am writing concerning the article entitled "Should Integrity Change How It Addresses The Clergy?" which appeared in the summer issue of *The Voice of Integrity*. I feel that Integrity should not adopt the forms of title and address that the Committee on the Status of Women of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church has suggested. It has been said again and again that the church should celebrate diversity and that women bring a special gift to the clergy. By using titles which do not distinguish between men and women we are erasing this special aspect and this special gift. I find it comforting to address a priest who is a women by the title "Mother" and a man by the title "Father." There is a special relationship between a priest and his or her flock. A priest is not a "buddy" but a special person to whom one can go for advice and counsel when the need arises. There must be something there which distinguishes the priest from lay people. That something just does not seem to exist when to go to Mr. Smith or Ms. Doe or to Dick or Jane. Sincerely yours, James A. Tons, Passaic, NJ Sir, I am writing with regard to the proposed changes in forms of address for the clergy. May I offer the viewpoint of an English Anglo- Catholic Priest not yet affected by colonial grammar! It is always incorrect to use "The Reverend Doe" both as a written and a spoken form of address. The title "Reverend" is intended for use with the Christian name, or at least with the initial. Hence, "The Reverend John Doe", or "The Reverend Jane Doe" are correct, as is "The Reverend J. Doe." If the title is to be used without the Christian name or the initial, then the correct designation is "The Reverend Mr./Ms. Doe." It would be correct to use the salutation "Dear Reverend Jane," or "Dear Reverend John"; or, when speaking to say "Reverend Jane," or "Reverend John." However, to an English ear, this sounds like an excerpt from the script of a B Movie western! Far better as a form of written or spoken salutation is the title "Pastor." This is a term used for some time by the Reformed traditions of the Church, and is now increasingly used by our Roman Catholic brethren as the form of address for the Parish Clergy. Here, then, is an English Anglican compromise! Written: The Reverend J./John/Jane Doe Dear Pastor Doe Spoken: Hello, Pastor John/Jane (or Pastor Doe for the more formal) Yours somewhat 'tongue in cheek', The Reverend Derek Palmer Rector, St. George's Episcopal Church, Riviera Beach, FL Dear Editor: It has recently come to my attention that the Executive Council's Committee on the Status of Women has objected to the use of *Mother* as a form of address for female priests, arguing that it "is not an appropriate equivalent to 'Father' because of the very different values and roles assigned to male and female parents in our culture." They recommend instead the use of *Mr./Ms.*, *Reverend*, or *Pastor*. *Pastor* is an appropriate and useful form of address regularly employed by Lutherans and others which we miqht well incorporate into Anglican usage. *Reverend*, on the other hand, is not only bad grammatically but sounds at once pompous and patronizinq. Curiously, *Mr.* or *Ms.* are certainly viewed by our culture as designating roles every bit as dissimilar as those of *Mother* and *Father* - if not more so, since *Mr.* is ultimately derived from "master," and *Ms.* from "mistress"! Both *Mother* and *Father* are terms of endearment coupled with respect indicating a ministry of spiritual nurture while at the same time acknowledging an innate distinction of gender (which no amount of "politically correct" unisex wish projection can ever really abolish.) Indeed, *Mother* as a form of address recognizes and honors the inclusion of the feminine within the presbyterate. Faithfully yours, Kenneth D. Aldrich, Jr. Rector, Trinity Church, Red Bank, NJ Dear Editor: I have very mixed feelings about wanting to join your discussion of appropriate forms of clerical address. This is clearly an issue that falls into the theological category of things indifferent: nothing of importance, in my view, hangs on how the matter is resolved. Mindful of Jesus's warning about titular honorifics throughout the Gospels (Mt. 27:7-12; Mk. 12:38; Lk. 11:43), it's important to keep the whole question in perspective. Now, having said all that, I want to offer "Dame" as an appropriate form of address for women clergy. "Father," while commonly used today in the Episcopal Church, superseded the previously-used forms Mister or Doctor, which are still correct forms of clerical address. It follows that Miss, Ms., Mrs., Madam and the variant Ma'am can all be used in the direct address of women clergy. The underlying problem here is that "Father," while popular today, was unknown in Anglicanism before the 1850s and was copied in any case from Roman Catholic usage. "Father" makes sense as a form of address only in a patriarchal context. The proposed use of "Mother" attempts to identify an equivalent substitute, leaving the question of context unchallenged and unchanged. "Dame," on the other hand, has no particular resonance in patriarchy, but it has been associated in England both with women religious and with women of rank and authority for hundreds of years. Dame Julian of Norwich and Dame Hilda of Whitby both come readily to mind. "Dame" is also used of women admitted to orders of knighthood, which may be, finally, an argument against its use in the United States. "Dame" may just be too foreign and class-bound. The vast majority of (ordained) Christian ministers in the United States are addressed as "Reverend" or "Pastor." Though I was taught differently, frequency of use in the case of "Reverend" may now determine appropriateness. To hold otherwise constitutes the kind of purism, as Jacques Barzun said in another context, that "haggles over trifles and refuses to acknowledge when errors or confusions no longer matter." Sincerely yours, (The Rev.) Reginald G. Blaxton Washington, DC Dear Sir; I read in your last newsletter with disgust of the tempest in a teapot being waged over the question of clerical titles. Women have what they wanted, at great cost to the Church. If the sensible and logical title (God forbid that we should ever be logical or sensible, and most certainly not simultaneously) for a male priest is "Father," the head of a famlly, then the logical and sensible title for a female priest is "MOTHER"! If women don't like the title, they shouldn't get ordained, at least not in this Church. The argument that "Mother" connotes sexuality is really zany. Are we to believe that Miss, Mrs., or Ms. do NOT indicate gender? News to me! Maybe I've been missing something all these years. Otherwise, keep up the good work and zap it to EURRR and the Synod! Very truly yours, Robert F. Dorum Poughkeepsie, NY P.S. Why don't you provide a place for gift memberships in your renewal applications? Who knows, we might pick up a few new members or at least get more publicity that way. Of course we don't want to get too large too fast. Might be like the Roman Empire, which got real big and then collapsed! Dear Editor: As a member of Integrity and long-time ordained (1955), I have decided that it is a must to comment on "how to address the clergy." During college I became a convert from "prot" to raving "anglo-catholic." For many years I was deeply attached to the title "Father," but have mellowed on that someway since the 60's. I think the best direct address is to use a person's name -- for me, Alden. Since we have women ordained, it seems least sexist to use the title "Pastor" as other groups do. In being formal I find that many people are uneasy in addressing ordained without some title. The statement that objections to "Reverend" reflects an upper class bias... etc., is utter stupidity and absolutely a haughty reverse snobbery from my point of view. "Reverend" as direct address STINKS and is a denigrating usage! PAX... Alden Franklin, Cathedral Church of St. Paul, San Diego *MORE SAINTS IN ONTARIO* Dear Scott: On my way to lead three workshops at an AIDS Awareness conference in Timmins, ON, I took the day's mail, including the Fall issue, along with me. Chris Ambridge's "I sing a song..." served as the moving closing for all three workshops. What a wonderfully affirming piece! How characteristic of the magazine and of Integrity! May God richly bless all of us in our efforts. In Christ, (The Rev.) Bruce Duncan Rector, St. Luke's Anglican Church, Hornepayne, Ontario ******************** *House of Bishops Meeting* A CHILLY WELCOME HEATS UP THE HOUSE by Scott Helsel Integrity's presence at the interim meeting of the House of Bishops in Panama caused controversy at the outset of the meeting. Fred Ellis, Integrity's Director of Development, and I, as Executive Secretary (and editor of this journal), went to Panama City to cover the meetings. Several members of the House were apparently not happy about having lay Integrity members present. Early on Friday (the first day of the meeting), the Presiding Bishop and Bishop Hulsey (Northwest Texas and chair of the Kanuga Planning Committee) called Fred and me to meet with them. At the meeting we were told that a mistake had been made in approving Integrity reception scheduled for Saturday evening. Somehow, this reception was going to destroy the camaraderie of the House! (The fact that Integrity had several times in past years sponsored such receptions at House of Bishops meetings without destroying the House seems to have been overlooked.) While excuses were made, and Church Center personnel named and blamed for approving the reception, misinformation was spreading rapidly and unfortunately continued to spread after the meeting by "The Living Church" and "United Voice." Integrity was told that the reception was a violation of an "agreement" among the House of Bishops that no outside interest groups be present during house meetings during this triennium. (No vote was ever taken on this "agreement.") The General Convention Office - responsible for planning and arranging House of Bishops meetings - was not aware that the "agreement" was for the entire triennium nor were many other bishops. Indeed, in setting up the reception, the Integrity representative specifically asked about the openness of the meeting and was assured that the Panama meeting would not be like the Baltimore and Kanuga meetings. During our meeting, Fred Ellis asked, "Are you asking Integrity to cancel our reception?" The Presiding Bishop replied that he didn't think he had the right to cancel the event since we had gone through all of the proper channels in both registering for the meeting and requesting permission to hold a reception and because of the cost of our being there. (Actually, I made Panama a stop-over on a business trip to South America and Fred, as an airline employee, had managed to get there for minimal cost.) INTEGRITY RECEPTION GETS ANNOUNCED and ALL MEDIA EXCLUDED The following day, after a discussion on the status of the Church in Province 9 (Central and South America), Bishop Hulsey addressed the House. Bishop Hulsey's address singled out that Fred and I had mistakenly been registered by the General Convention Office and that Integrity was hosting a reception later that evening. The House was then informed of the "agreement" concerning outside groups [perhaps for the first time?] and told clearly that "no outside groups were invited by the Presiding Bishop or the Kanuga Planning Committee." The same excuses and naming of personnel were then given to all present along with an announcement that the remainder of the sessions in Panama were to be closed to all except bishops and a few invited guests. This excluded all media coverage of the meetings. It was announced that press meetings would be held each day to inform reporters of any issues which the House wished to share. "Episcopal Life" and "Episcopal News Service" staff were shocked at their sudden banishment from all meetings. Once again, the issue of closed meetings came as a surprise even to those at the Church Center whose business it is to keep abreast of such things!. Later, Fred asked Bishop Hulsey why he thought it important only to announce the presence of Integrity representatives and exclude announcing that "United Voice" (journal of Episcopalians United for Revelation, Renewal and Reformation) editor Doug LaBlanc was also present. Bishop Hulsey responded by saying that EURRR was not hosting a reception, and thus there was no purpose served by announcing Doug's attendance at the meeting. RECEPTION A SUCCESS! Thanks to the added publicity for the meeting over 20 bishops and 10 bishops' spouses attended Integrity's reception. The gathering provided Integrity representatives a wonderful opportunity to meet with those bishops in attendance and discuss many issues which are facing the Episcopal Church. Many bishops also had a chance to greet other members of the House in a casual and relaxed atmosphere. Discussions focused on sexuality, of course, but also on racism, the presence of the church in Province 9, the structure of the church and the confusion surrounding Integrity's presence at the meeting. It was clear that the controversy and announcement brought several bishops to the reception, while keeping several others away or at least causing them to run by the reception room on the way to their hotel rooms. ******************** AWKWARD BISHOPS' MEETING An editorial from "The Living Church," October 24, 1993 The interim meeting of the House of Bishops in Panama will be remembered not for what it accomplished, but rather for the glitches which occurred. There was the presence of members of Integrity, the organization of gay and lesbian Episcopalians and their friends, to put on a social reception for bishops. The problem was, the reception was a violation of an agreement among members of the House of Bishops that no outside interest groups be present during house meetings in this triennium. ... The question of whether to permit Integrity to hold its reception became all the more awkward when it was made known that the organization had gone through proper channels to gain permission to put on the reception. Arrangements for meetings of the House of Bishops are made through the General Convention office at the church center. Integrity went through that office in July when it sought approval for its reception in Panama. Permission was granted at that time, but in Panama, the Most Rev. Edmond L. Browning, Presiding bishop, said the General Convention office should have turned down Integrity's request, and didn't do so because the office supervisor was not present when Integrity registered. Because Integrity had followed correct procedure in seeking to be present at the meeting, and because the organization had invested considerable time and money to go to Panama, it was decided to allow the reception to take place. In one sense, it was unfortunate that Integrity was the organization involved in this incident. Those bishops who challenged the wisdom of allowing Integrity to hold its reception will be labeled as homophobic. Media raising the issue probably will be stamped with the same label. But a question needs to be asked: Would the reception have been permitted if it had been sponsored by, say, Episcopal Renewal Ministries, or the Consortium of Endowed Episcopal Parishes? We wonder *Response by Louie Crew* That last question is easy to answer: No one would have even remembered the "agreement that no outside interest groups be present during house meetings in this triennium." And if someone had, the person would have been shushed by reminders that the reception was a private occasion during the bishops' free time, not an intrusion into House deliberations. "The Living Church" should recast its concluding question to get to the heart of the matter: "Would the reception have been permitted if it had been sponsored by, say, EURRR." Ah, yes, that's a much tougher question. But ~The Living Church~ would not dare ask the question that way, because EURRR *was* present in Panama, albeit subtly, in the presence of the reporter "The Living Church" chose to give its account of the events there, namely, Doug LaBlanc, EURRR's major journalist. "The Living Church" counts on its readers who disagree with EURRR not to notice this connection. Why did Bishop Hulsey not name EURRR and Doug as he named Integrity and our ambassadors Scott Helsel and Fred Ellis when he specified Integrity as a disruption, in comments on the floor of the House? Was the objection to our reception just a smoke screen. We offered not to cancel that, but it was the PB who insisted that we proceed, pointing to our expenses. But we would have incurred our travel expenses had we not even hosted a reception. Our main purpose for being in Panama was to cover the House meetings. Our ambassador Scott Helsel, editor of "The Voice of Integrity," had cleared his press credentials with Episcopal News Service well in advance of departure for Panama. We threw in hospitality gratuitously. I agree that "if accredited media are not to be admitted to this meeting, or any church-related gathering, it should be stated clearly well in advance of the date of the event." EURRR's reporter (doubling as "The Living Church's" reporter) and "The Voice of Integrity" reporter were all duly accredited and not told. Given no access to the meetings, Doug LaBlanc had little else to report except his suggestion that we had kept him out. Ironically, it was the few bishops who support EURRR who cut off Integrity's access and hence his and that of the other press. Queer power indeed. Queer, queer. Even strange. ******************** *MORE FROM THE HOUSE OF BISHOPS MEETING* BISHOPS CONTINUE SEARCH FOR NEW STYLE OF LEADERSHIP AT MEETING IN PANAMA By James Solheim and Jeffrey Penn At their annual meeting in Panama, the bishops of the Episcopal Church continued their search for a new style of relating with each other -- and tested that style in reacting to drafts of pastoral teachings on two of the most difficult issues facing the church, racism and sexuality. In moving the house towards its agenda, Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning reminded the bishops that since the 1991 General Convention in Phoenix had exposed some deep rifts in the house, the bishops had "made a covenant to be in relationship in a different way." He quoted from a statement at the 1992 special session of the house at the Kanuga Conference Center in North Carolina when the bishops said, "We resolve to define ourselves primarily as a community of prayer, worship and biblical and theological reflection in which to give and receive one another's gifts, and to seek God's will for our lives and our work as the servants of the church." In keeping with the style they developed at Kanuga, the bishops met around 15 small tables for prayer, Bible study and discussion. In an effort to protect the developing sense of community, Browning announced that the planning committee had decided to close even the plenary sessions to staff and the press. SEXUALITY ISSUES CONTINUE TO DIVIDE The same small-group technique was used to approach the sexuality issues. "The committee sought a way to help the church continue the dialogue, rather than draw lines that would divide us," said Bishop Richard Grein of New York, chair of the committee, in discussing its approach. Like the racism issue, Grein said that the bishops were trying to model a new approach in their small groups. "We worked very hard, listened to one another -- and that's what we hope the church will do," he said. In a plenary address to bishops, Dr. Julian Slowinski, a noted sex therapist from Philadelphia, encouraged them to focus on "sexual health, rather than on sexual sins." "The pressure for those in authority to move towards certainty is enormous," Slowinski said. "These times are fraught with issues that tempt us to respond reflexively rather than reflectively," he added. Slowinski said that the Judeo-Christian heritage has received a "legacy of conflicted understanding of our sexual nature." He encouraged the bishops to view the question of sexual ethics from an incarnational approach. "A sexual theology, as opposed to a theology of sexuality, asks the question, `What does our experience as human sexual beings tell us how we are to read the scriptures, interpret the tradition, and attempt to live out the meaning of the Gospel?'" SPEAKING OPENLY ABOUT SEXUALITY Before the bishops adjourned to small-group discussion, Slowinski urged them to speak to one another with the goal of self-understanding. "We as a church and individuals are people who have difficulty speaking frankly ... and clearly about sexual matters," he said. "We were not raised to speak openly about sexuality -- our own, or others. How then can we expect to be able to ... speak openly and plan a pastoral teaching of such importance? In plain American language, how can we understand where we are coming from when we try to talk openly about sexuality?" he asked. In an interview following the small-group discussions, Grein said his committee represented a very broad range of opinion on sexuality issues and operated on a consensus style, even though that required a great deal of patience. "We didn't get bogged down in fighting because we didn't come at the issue from frozen positions," he added. The committee includes six members from the House of Deputies, "the first time we have tried to do a pastoral this way," Grein said. The process seemed to work so well, and the acceptance of the draft by the House of Bishops was so high, that "we will probably do this again," he said. Because the pastoral will go through several more drafts before it goes to the General Convention in Indianapolis, Grein could not be coaxed into revealing any of its contents or whether it will advocate specific church policies. He said that many bishops expressed surprise and relief that the draft was more than they thought possible and "they were quite excited" with the progress towards some consensus. "But we still have a long way to go," Grein warned. BISHOP DISCLOSES THAT HE IS GAY As bishops discussed the draft of the pastoral teaching on sexuality, one development since their meeting in Kanuga last Spring added a new dimension to their common life. In a letter prior to the meeting in Panama, Otis Charles, former bishop of Utah and recently retired dean of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, disclosed to his colleagues that he is gay. Yet, there was no open or formal response to Charles's letter in Panama. "It is hard to read silence," said Bishop Tom Ray of Northern Michigan, "because you cannot read into what people don't say." However, Ray said that he had heard no negative comments regarding Charles's disclosure. Ray described Charles's disclosure to colleagues as "an historic moment. Our discussion of gay and lesbian issues will be forever changed," Ray said. "No longer will we in the House of Bishops be able to discuss gay and lesbian issues on merely an academic or intellectual level because it is now publicly a part of our own life." "At one level it was helpful because it intensified for us the need to deal with these issues very carefully," said Bishop Sam Hulsey of Northwest Texas regarding Charles's letter. "It encouraged us to take it seriously and to be present with one another." The most direct reference to Charles's announcement came on the final evening of the meeting during tributes to retiring bishops. Following a warm tribute to Charles, Suffragan Bishop Barbara Harris of Massachusetts said, "I want to personally thank you for shedding the sunlight of your reality into this house by opening a long-closed door." BISHOPS LEARN THAT EPISCOPALIANS ARE DEMONSTRATING OPENNESS TO SEXUALITY ISSUES By James Solheim Nearly 20,000 Episcopalians have participated in parish-based discussions on sexuality mandated by the 1991 General Convention in Phoenix -- the so-called A104s/a resolution -- and, based on a preliminary look at questionnaires they filled out, they display some surprisingly open attitudes. Nearly all those who responded, for example, said that one can be a faithful Christian and be divorced or divorced and remarried. Three-quarters said that one can be faithful and live with someone of the opposite sex without marriage and 70 percent said that it is possible to be a sexually active gay or lesbian person and still be a faithful Christian. In a preliminary report he shared at the annual meeting of the House of Bishops in Panama, retired Bishop O'Kelly Whitaker, who chaired the steering committee that facilitated the survey, noted that 75 of the church's 96 domestic dioceses have taken part in the survey, or to put it another way, one percent of the church's communicant membership has participated. The resolution at the 1991 General Convention also mandated that the House of Bishops develop a pastoral teaching on the subject of sexuality, taking into account the findings of Whitaker's committee. A CLIMATE FOR DIALOGUE Whitaker said that his committee worked under "an enormous amount of pressure" in "a highly charged area" in order to "implement a process that opens up a climate for dialogue." Throughout the church, parishioners participated in at least five sessions focused on the subject of the sexuality and the church's teaching. Two resources -- one adapted from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and another developed by Province 7 --were the basis for small-group discussion. Following the series of meetings, participants filled out a questionnaire that was sent through the diocese to Whitaker's committee for tabulation. According to Whitaker, the committee carefully prepared the questionnaire with the help of professionals who were trained to solicit honest, objective responses. Facing almost certain distrust of the process by some in the church, the questions were tested in several dioceses and in training sessions for diocesan leaders. "We knew it wouldn't be easy to move from the debate mode to a conversational one," Whitaker said during an interview at the House of Bishops meeting in Panama. "And we knew that the issues of sexuality are constantly shifting." THE WILLINGNESS TO BE OPEN While the committee attempted to avoid any suggestion that the questionnaire is a "referendum on church policy, theology or legislation," Whitaker said that "there has never been such a sweeping survey of church members." He pointed out that there is nothing "scientific" in the survey and those who responded "do not necessarily constitute a representative sample." When asked what was the biggest surprise in the results, Whitaker answered, "the willingness to be open. The process has helped to de-politicize the issue and to bridge gaps between people," he said. Speaking personally, Whitaker said that he hopes the church can learn to "share differences and learn to live openly, based on our baptismal covenant." While acknowledging that some regulations are necessary for the order of the church, he is convinced that "issues of human sexuality will never be solved by legislation." Although Whitaker's committee presented a preliminary report to the House of Bishops for their consideration in the development of a pastoral teaching, it will continue to receive and evaluate responses from across the church. For example, still to be sifted are a bundle of responses to essay questions in the questionnaire. The committee is charged with presenting a report on the dialogue to the 1994 General Convention in Indianapolis. ----- The articles by James Solheim and Jeffrey Penn appear courtesy of "Episcopal News Service." ******************** *OPENLY GAY DEACON ORDAINED IN PENNSYLVANIA* Despite the presence of about a dozen protesters, the Rev. James B. Robertson, an openly gay man, was ordained to the vocational diaconate at St. Asaph's Episcopal Church in Bala Cynwyd, PA, on October 9, 1993. Robertson has lived in a committed relationship with another man for over 20 years. Speaking at the point in the service where objections may be raised, the Rev. David Moyer, rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, PA, told the ordaining bishop, the Rt. Rev. Allen L. Bartlett, Jr., that "you will hurt the Diocese of Pennsylvania if you do this." Moyer and four laymen who spoke claimed that the ordination was an "illegal act" that would flout the "discipline of the Church." Bartlett responded that the "compassion of Christ and the compassion of the church encompass both you and what we do here today. I pray that you will come to believe that, too. ... There is no impediment to what we are about to do ... the ordination will proceed." Here is the text of a letter sent by Bishop Bartlett to the clergy of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, regarding his intention to ordain Robertson: October 7, 1993 Dear Sisters and Brothers: God willing, James B. Robertson will be ordained to the vocational diaconate by me on Saturday, October 9, 10:30 am at St. Asaph's, Bala Cynwyd. Because some have raised questions this week, I want to share with you the following information. Mr. Robertson is a graduate of the Diocesan School for the Diaconate and has passed the necessary written and oral examinations administered by that School for those seeking ordination. He has passed the necessary physical and psychological examinations required by the Canons. He has received the endorsement of the Commission on Ministry and the Standing Committee, as well as receiving my approval for ordination. Mr. Robertson has been supported throughout the process by the clergy and lay leadership of his home parish, St. Asaph's, Bala Cynwyd, and more recently, by the parish of Holy Apostles, Penn Wynne, where he has done his fieldwork. Mr. Robertson has been in a stable and committed relationship with another man for more than 20 years, and has been discreet but honest about this from the outset of his discernment. The Standing Committee, the Committee on Ministry, and I do not believe that questions about the sexual orientation of persons seeking holy orders should be addressed in the public arena. Recognizing that sexuality is only part of what makes us whole persons, we believe that it is the responsibility of the authorized diocesan and parish bodies to ascertain that persons seeking ordination are living as faithful Christians in both their personal and professional lives. This ordination will not violate any canon of this diocese or the Episcopal Church. A statement adopted by the Standing Committee and Commission on Ministry when they considered this issue in February 1992, without reference to any individual, is attached. It is our belief, validated by many people in this Diocese, that James B. Robertson has been called by God to ministry as an ordained deacon, and we believe that, with God's help, he will exercise that ministry faithfully and responsibly. Faithfully, Allen L. Bartlett, Jr. Bishop of Pennsylvania The February 1992 statement of the Commission on Ministry and Standing Committee attached to Bartlett's letter reads: Concerning the Discernment of Call and Determination of Fitness of Aspirants to Ministry as Ordained Persons in the Diocese of Pennsylvania: Our practice in the Diocese of Pennsylvania in carrying out our responsibility to assist the Bishop in providing persons for ordination as deacons and priests is to help each person who believes herself/himself called to ministry as an ordained person in the discerning of her/his call and in determining each individual's fitness, physical, intellectual, moral, emotional and spiritual. During this process, all those with specific responsibilities make their own judgements, individually and corporately, on the adequacy of the call and the personal fitness of each individual. In our Anglican tradition this has always been a diocesan responsibility, involving in this Diocese Rectors, Vicars, Vestries and congregational PACM [Parish Advisory Committee on Ministry] Committees, designated members of the Bishop's staff, specially selected professional persons (e.g., physicians, psychologists, psychiatrists), seminaries or other educational institutions, clinical pastoral education, the Commission on Ministry, the Standing Committee, and the Bishop. We intend to continue this way of carrying out the specific directions and intent of Title III, Canons 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 of the Canons of the Episcopal Church. ******************** *MONTREAL MURDER LEAVES LEGACY* *Washed in the Blood of Martyrs* by Kim Byham Toronto, November 15, 1993. It was the funeral of another gay Anglican priest. Almost nine hundred filled St. James Cathedral to standing-room only. Bishop Terence Finlay was in attendance. The service lasted over two hours. Many, if not most, Integrity members have attended such services in recent years. Although not an AIDS death, it was a result of an anti-gay murder which made it unusual but far from unique. What was extraordinary about this funeral service was that the preacher, the Rev. Canon Glenn Pritchard, acknowledged the priest's sexuality, saying, "Being gay is no reason to be murdered. This death is nonsense because it makes no sense." The Rev. Warren Eling, found slain in his rectory on November 10, 1993, was a victim of "the forces of hatred and fear," Pritchard continued. "We are all victims of these dark realities." Eling, 53, was found strangled and bound to a headboard in the rectory of downtown Montreal's St. James the Apostle Church, where he had served for two years. As of late December, the police had not announced any leads in the case. He had served as a curate at the Cathedral in Toronto from 1964 to 1973 and then as rector of various Toronto parishes before moving to Montreal. In his eulogy, Pritchard praised the "devotion, energy, creativity, decency and order Eling brought to the Anglican church and its parishioners." Police say that Eling, unmarried, frequented gay bars in Montreal's west end. The killer stole his wallet, computer, sound system and his car. The car was found abandoned on the Toronto waterfront on November 12. Roger Leclerc, spokesman for Montreal's Committee of Gays and Lesbians Against Violence, told the press that Eling was the 14th gay man slain in a little more than three years in that city and that he is fed up with police inaction about the slayings. "How many bodies will it take before police realize that a problem exists?" he asked. Leclerc said there are too many similarities in many of the killings not to suspect that someone is stalking gays in bars, accompanying them home and killing them. "The manner in which they met their deaths is chillingly similar." In addition to the service in Toronto, there was another equally affirming memorial service for Eling at his parish church in Montreal on November 12. The preacher was The Ven. Peter Hannen, Archdeacon of Montreal. People may never know whether Eling's killing was a case of violence against homosexuals, Hannen told 900 mourners, " ... but in terms of why we're here, it doesn't matter. Such speculations don't change our revulsion at Warren's death, neither should they make any difference to our affirmation of his life. "If this outrages you enough, then there's something you can do. You may want to make common cause with those who will appear before the Quebec Human Rights Commission early next week to demand that something be done about the apparent concerted gay-bashing in our community. "We regard it as monstrous that people should be murdered because they're the wrong religion in Ireland, or the wrong tribe in Africa, or the wrong race somewhere else. So here in Montreal, it is equally monstrous that anyone - be it a beloved colleague and a friend, or even a total stranger - should be done to death, possibly because of his or her actual or alleged sexual orientation." "Warren was the victim of violence and, as a result, so are we all," the archdeacon said. "So let's fight fire with fire." *REACTIONS* BY HIS BISHOP The Rt. Rev. Andrew Hutchison, Bishop of Montreal, said police should "pursue with vigilance any and all evidence that points" to the possibility that Eling's slaying was motivated by a hatred of gay persons. "If ... the speculation is correct that this crime is in some way related to sexual orientation, then we are doubly outraged, for it makes of it not simply a violent crime, but one motivated by hatred," the bishop told reporters in a statement. "This is a threat to the well-being of our community and a terror to a large segment of the population in particular: namely, the gay community," the bishop said. "Regardless of what may have been Father Eling's sexual orientation, he was a good and caring man. His whole life was lived out in profound commitment to challenging the bigotry of a violent world." BY EDITORIAL WRITERS "The Montreal Gazette," November 16, 1993 Crimes of hatred; A coroner should look into killings of gays To their credit, Anglican officials were quick to speak out against anti-gay violence. ... Indeed. A coroner's inquest could help label the killings for what they are. Mr. Ryan should not wait until there is another victim. FROM A RELIGION COLUMNIST by Harvey Shepherd, Columnist for "The Montreal Gazette," November 20, 1993 Living, and dying, with secrets; Redemption still may be found in way murdered Anglican priest had lived public, private lives I heard Rev. Warren Eling preach only once, on what you might call a randomly selected occasion. A few days after Father Eling's brutal murder, I find thinking that my recollection of the sermon, however vague, probably demonstrates what they say about Father Eling's effectiveness as a preacher. The ability to remember the themes of sermons I have heard a year ago is not one of my characteristic talents. In the homily at the funeral service, Archdeacon Peter Hannen of Montreal urged Christians to "let our present suffering be redemptive" and "lead to a new understanding of God's love." The archdeacon also said perhaps only Christians could hope to understand that. At first I thought with some irritation that I certainly didn't understand it, anyway. But later it occurred to me that there may be some redemption here, even in the murderer's brutally dubious accomplishment of making Father Eling's sexuality a public issue as well as killing him. And it is a public issue today, if only because of its obvious relevance to the police investigation. Whether or not Father Eling was gay up to 12 days ago, his martyrdom cannot now be thought of without also thinking of the sufferings of homosexuals. That, at least, is how I felt during the funeral service. And if, by any chance, his murderer thought he was in some way attacking or weakening homosexuality, how wrong he was! Father Eling is today a powerful emblem of much that is best in the gay tradition: its frequent delicacy, its hard-won sense of nuance and subtlety, the special holiness of the secrets of our hearts, some of which might be seen by the world around us as sordid. FROM HIS FAMILY A hush fell over the Quebec Human Rights Commission hearing into violence and discrimination against homosexuals when the Rev. James Ferry read the message from Eling's half-brothers and sister-in-law. "Gays and lesbians have faced persecution, beatings and death because of their sexual orientation and they will continue to be victimized as long as we, as a society, continue to turn a blind eye to the realities of this ugliness," said the letter from Ross and Clarke Hopkins and Bettyanne Track Hopkins. "Warren's life requires no validation by us, his friends or the scores of anonymous individuals who reached out to him for pastoral care and received it." The family appealed to the commission for actions that would ensure "that Warren's death was not in vain." "You have been given an opportunity to start the process toward change -- first, by acknowledging once and for all that this kind of hatred exists and, second, by insisting through our legal and educational systems that changes be put in place to end this bias and bigotry. "Society's silent acceptance of persecution has given a segment of society the strength it needs to terrorize and destroy. That silence must end." The family spoke again in a letter handed out at the Toronto Synod on November 19: ... "Warren was a great priest, pure and simple. But we believe that Warren could have made a far greater contribution to the life of the church had he not had to wrestle with its policy on sexual orientation. "Warren was not alone. Many other priests find themselves in a similar dilemma and it's hindering their ministry. "The issue of sexual orientation is one which the College of Bishops must address -- and soon -- for the sake of many. "Bishop Terence Finlay of this diocese and Bishop Andrew Hutchison of Montreal have been of enormous comfort to us during the past week and we thank them for their support and prayers. Their unswerving willingness to deal honestly and openly with the horrible details of Warren's murder was courageous. It is our hope that Bishops Finlay and Hutchison, having been touched so deeply by Warren's life and death, will be the vanguards for change. "If anything positive is to come from Warren's death, let it be *change* -- change in the way society as a whole treats the question of sexual orientation and change in our church's policy on homosexual priests." FROM HIS FORMER BISHOP by the Rt. Rev. Terence Finlay Remarks made to the Synod of the Diocese of Toronto, November 19, 1993 "...this week we mourn the death of a caring, gifted priest who was a victim of the mindless violence that characterizes so much of life today. It has been suggested that this is another tragic example of the negative implications of secrecy concerning sexual orientation. If this be true, then I call upon all of us in the Church to stop this charade. Let us build communities based on understanding and acceptance and work to become honest and trustworthy with one another. Let us make our communities safe places to be open about sexual orientation." FROM AN INTEGRITY MEMBER by Chris Ambidge In a very real sense, the Church killed Warren, by not letting him love openly and celebrating himself; and instead he ended up "frequenting west end bars" (as the "Toronto Globe and Mail" said) and engaging in high-risk sex. Will the church start listening NOW?? Did we have to have a martyr? The sermon at the funeral was great -- Glenn Pritchard spoke about anger. We need to listen to how our silence is doing violence. Three years ago I could not have believed that sermon could be spoken (and the preacher have a job the next day). Yet everyone (including the bishop) thought it was well said. Maybe the church WILL start accepting some of the blame for the violence against lesgays (and all of us, not just extreme cases like Warren). Maybe Warren's death, horrible as it was, will wake some people up. I surely hope so, and there is indeed grounds for hope. FROM A PRIEST/COLUMNIST by the Rev. Tom Harpur, "Toronto Star" Columnist, in the November 21, 1993 issue. Gay priest's murder must prompt Church to ask a hard question Warren Eling was, as everyone who knew him agrees, an exemplary minister and a witty, talented man. The Very Rev. Duncan S. Abraham, Dean of St. James, told me this week that Eling had "a tremendous impact" in all the parishes he served, including St. James. In the service itself, Bishop Terence Finlay, Anglican Bishop of Toronto, described him as a "gifted priest and a good person." In an interview, Hutchison, the Anglican Bishop of Montreal, told me Warren was "a super priest." He never told his parishioners he was gay. In fact, the funeral preacher, Canon Glenn Pritchard, told the mourners that the most common comment from everybody has been, "We thought we knew Warren." He went on to comment, "Perhaps he wasn't free to let us know him." That's precisely the point. Eling was gay and if, as it seems, he was the victim of entrapment by a killer of gays, it's not just our homophobic society in general that has to examine its conscience and take steps to end homophobic hatred and violence. The Christian Church, and the Anglican Church in particular, has some deep soul-searching to do. The current Anglican (and Roman Catholic) rule of ordaining gays but forbidding all expression of gayness is forcing many priests to live double lives. They're compelled to lie and deceive - and to engage in casual sex with all the risks. It involves the church in hypocrisy and the clergy in practices dangerous to their own well-being, spiritually and every other way. As Abraham says: "We drive them to it by our policy." He is convinced, as I am also, that the "only fair and just solution" to the problem is Christian acceptance and "some form of service or rite of affirmation" in which the church could bless the life-long union of any committed same-sex couple wanting it. It's not enough to be outraged over Eling's death. Anglicans must ask themselves the hard question: "Would Warren have been picked up by a killer in a bar (his home had no sign of forced entry) if he had been able to let people know openly who and what he was and to form a fulfilling relationship with one person?" As Pritchard noted in his sermon, Anglicans find it easy to lay the blame for crimes like Eling's murder at "every doorstep but our own." It's time to end the pretence and the silence. What's more, there are homosexuals in every denomination. It would help enormously to combat violence against all gays if more churches would join the real world and face up to this. Today, religion is a major player in reinforcing anti-gay prejudice. FROM A FORMER LOVER by Douglas Chambers, a professor of English at the University of Toronto, in the "Toronto Globe and Mail," December 3, 1993 Priest's death was violent, but not mindless Warren Eling was my first boyfriend more than 30 years ago, and his death has continued to outrage and anger me ever since I first heard about it. My outrage is against the evidence of continuing homophobic violence that it represents: the death throes of a murderous patriarchy wreaking its random vengeance on gays now as it did on women in Montreal five years ago. My anger, though, is for the underlying causes, the causes behind the causes, that led to Warren's death. The police are after the killer, probably a piece of rough trade who picked Warren up in a bar and lured him home to his death. What will they find if they *do* find anyone? A killer, yes, but an agent of something that probably even he does not consciously understand. The Bishop of Toronto has spoken of this as an act of "mindless violence." It is nothing of the kind. This violence, this killing, like the violence in our society generally, is promulgated: by the media, by the state, by the churches themselves. "Hatred is not a family value," read the bumper stickers, but everywhere it is legitimated by the ravings of a popular press now legally prevented from inciting racial hatred (though not sexual hatred) and by Sunday-morning TV. The denunciation of alternative sexuality is the accreditation of violence. It escapes culpability (and the rigors of the human-rights code -- even the law) under the cloak of religion. And such "respectable" denominations as the Anglican Church have done nothing to dissociate themselves from it. A man who urges another to crime is an accessory before the fact, but a church that harries its gay clergy out of the chancel, out of the church itself, is no less guilty. It condemns them to a life devoid of secure loving relationships, one of furtive secrecies, of complicity in the hypocrisy of sexual denial. It is the "final cause" of what happened (and goes on happening in less overt ways) on the night of November 8. Warren Eling left the Diocese of Toronto in the wake of the Jim Ferry case: the case of a priest in a stable and loving relationship who had been "outed" by one of his congregation and, thus, dismissed by his bishop. That case was *Kristalnacht* for any Anglican priest known to be gay, no matter how "respectable." At any moment, the jackboots of denunciation might be at the door. Warren went to Montreal, far from most of his friends and the community he knew, depressed and increasingly desperate -- in the literal sense of "without hope." He went to his death. Was he simply a victim ... or a martyr? One of the great priests of his own church, John Donne, recognized that the line between the two is often difficult to establish. In TS Eliot's "Murder in the Cathedral," one of the murderers tries to persuade the audience that Thomas a Becket was asking for what he got. It's an easy way to avoid looking at the issues. And ours is, after all, a society in which victims of rape are made to feel guilty for inviting their own abuse and victims of poverty for their shiftlessness ... though not, interestingly, victims of heart disease for their diet. Those priests who thought themselves under grace have found themselves condemned by the scribes and pharisees who "bawl allegiance to the law": a law, whether religious or social, that has been prompt in the past to regard all but white male heterosexuals as inferior. It will not do for bishops to deplore the consequences of the hatred -- sexual as well as racial -- that their own churches have promulgated overtly and covertly. The bishops have had a hand in this death. A torrent of denunciatory rhetoric is not a substitute for thoughtful examination of why this "fine priest and good man" is no longer alive, let alone a bishop. I am not one of these Christians, but I can tell vocation when I see it, and many of these clergy -- Warren among them -- are called by something as powerful as their sexuality. But then, so were the apostles, and the only evidence of apostolic relationships that the Gospels provide is one of "special friendship," not heterosexual bliss. John was the "disciple whom Jesus loved," a phrase that would not be misconstrued as passionless (as it has been) if John's name had been Joan. In 1673, Edward King, a promising young priest forced out of England by a ruthless and uncompromising church, was shipwrecked at sea on his way to Ireland. In his memory, Milton wrote the finest elegy in the language, "Lycidas," and he was in no doubt as to the cause of King's death: not the sea, not the wind, not the rock ... but the bishops. "Blind mouths that scarce themselves know how to hold a sheephook," he called them. I wish I could write as powerfully for Warren. ******************** *HOMOPHOBIC CHICAGO PARISH LEAVES CHURCH* by Kim Byham and Louie Crew The Rev. William Beasley, Rector of the Church of the Resurrection in West Chicago, and his wife Anne, the parish's deacon assistant, asked Bishop Frank Griswold of Chicago to release them from their ordination vows because they could "no longer in good conscience" be in communion with the bishop as the ecclesiastical authority of the diocese. The Beasleys said that they made the request because of Griswold's sympathetic stance on the participation of homosexuals in the life and ministry of the diocese. By allegedly reducing biblical authority to an advisory status in order "to sanction the ordination and sustaining in ministry of priests who practice homosexuality," the bishop and the diocese, they charged, have abandoned the church's historic faith and doctrine. In a separate letter, Resurrection's vestry announced they would also disassociate themselves from the diocese. Phone calls from "The Voice of Integrity" to the Beasleys were not returned. The Beasley's claim that the Diocese of Chicago is overly supportive of lesbians and gay men is strange since the diocese is no more supportive today than it was in 1974 when St. James Cathedral hosted the first national Integrity convention and Suffragan Bishop Primo was the celebrant. Ann Beasley was Ann Bales at the time and 14 years old so she should have known full well the stand of the diocese when she sought ordination from Bishop Griswold six years ago. Was it merely a matter of convenience that she held back her reservations when she agreed to join this "evil" diocese? Bishop Primo himself ordained her husband, William George Beasley. Did William George withhold his condemnation of the diocese until after he got ordained? ******************** *GENERAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY REPENTS (WE HOPE)* The Board of Trustees of the General Theological Seminary (GTS) in New York City has agreed to reconsider the seminary's current housing policy that prohibits domestic partner households. The decision, reached at an October 19-20, 1993 meeting, follows a long controversy after a tenured faculty member charged GTS with discrimination on the basis of marital status and sexual orientation. Last June, Dr. Deirdre Good, professor of New Testament at GTS and a member of Integrity/New York, filed a complaint with the New York City Commission on Human Rights when the seminary requested that her female companion vacate their shared apartment. The seminary's housing policy stated that couples must be married "as understood by the Episcopal Church." [See "The Voice of Integrity," Summer and Fall, 1993.] At the board meeting, Trustees consulted a variety of legal opinions, including that of David Beers, Chancellor to the Presiding Bishop. This was followed by a report from Prof. Thomas Breidenthal, chair of the Dean's Advisory Committee on Seminary Housing. Prof. Breidenthal outlined areas of committee consensus which included the need to preserve the Seminary's residential character and to respect the authority of the House of Bishops and General Convention. He also discussed areas in which it had not been possible to reach a consensus. These included proposals to suspend or review the present policy and the suggestion that students must have the written permission of their Bishop or ecclesiastical authority before householding at GTS. Bishop Anderson spoke following the presentations and suggested the possibility that God might be using the Seminary to help the greater church find a way to face these matters squarely. He reiterated a determination to end what he termed a "conspiracy of silence around this issue." To promote further discussion, the Trustees then formed smaller groups to explore a set of questions formulated by Bishop Anderson in an attempt to help bring a theological and moral focus to the deliberations. Trustees later received a number of reports and petitions, including a report from the GTS faculty, a letter signed by faculty members of the Union Theological Seminary in New York and a draft statement signed by nearly 50 GTS students and spouses -- all three calling for a change in the current housing policy. Bishop Craig Anderson, dean and president of GTS, shared with the Trustees his own position on a number of the topics discussed. He acknowledged he had felt the need to withhold his own thoughts on the subject in the interest of keeping conversation open and providing consultative support to the Trustees and others. His intention, he said, was to take a stand without taking sides. On the central underlying question of the nature of homosexuality, he outlined a number of differing perspectives and said he was certain that many of these viewpoints were represented by the Trustees, point to not only a discontinuity of practice but of opinion. He admitted his own struggle with the issues, but said that he had himself come to accept the validity of sexual orientation that does no harm and results in relationships marked by commitment and love, and that he supported the ordination of gay and lesbian persons. The ultimate goal of the Seminary, he said, must be to develop a way of living together that promotes honesty and justice: "I am convinced of the need for time and space to continue dialogue," he continued. Regarding the City of New York, Bishop Anderson reiterated his conviction that the seminary not concede to outside pressure, but continue to work within the structures and teachings of the Church. In suggesting a future policy, he said he supported an approach involving shared responsibility between the seminary and diocesan bishops regarding householding at GTS and that the church's bishops need to be more explicit about their expectations for the students from their individual dioceses. In an executive session, the board of trustees reached a consensus that the present policy needed to be changed. A housing advisory committee will draft a new policy by early December so that trustees will be prepared to act on the measure at their meeting in early January. ----- Based on reports by Bruce Parker, Director of Communication at GTS and "Episcopal News Service." ******************** *DIOCESE OF NEW YORK SUPPORTS DR. GOOD* At its convention on October 23, just after the GTS Trustees met, the Diocese of New York called for the Episcopal Church to end unequal treatment of its employees. A direct outgrowth over the GTS controversy, the resolution was introduced by St. Clement's Church, Manhattan, and was overwhelmingly approved. The resolution calls for its introduction at General Convention in 1994. NONDISCRIMINATION IN THE PROVISION OF BENEFITS BY INSTITUTIONS AFFILIATED WITH THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH @ Resolved, That this 217th Convention of the Diocese of New York adopts the following statement and proposes the same to General Convention: Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in the provision of benefits, including housing by seminaries and other institutions affiliated with the Episcopal Church, violates the teachings of the Church regarding the dignity and value of all human beings. EXPLANATION: Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is neither required nor warranted by the 1979 resolution of General Convention regarding the ordination of homosexuals or the 1991 resolution which affirmed the teaching that "physical sexual expression is appropriate only within the lifelong, monogamous unions of husband and wife" (which touches on issues of divorce and infidelity) and "that this Church continue to work to reconcile the discontinuity between this teaching and the experience of many members of this body." ******************** *MASSACHUSETTS AND RHODE ISLAND CALL FOR COMMITMENT RITES* by Kim Byham On Saturday, November 6, the conventions of both the Dioceses of Massachusetts and Rhode Island approved versions of the resolution suggested by the self-appointed "Consultation on the Episcopal Church's celebration of the commitment to life together of gay and lesbian baptized members" which was reported in the last issue of this journal. Rhode Island, in a vote by order, approved the resolution exactly as proposed by the "Consultation": Resolved That the 71st General Convention direct the Standing Liturgical Commission to prepare and present to the 72nd General Convention proposed supplementary rites and ceremonies with commentary, which may be used under the direction of the diocesan bishop by clergy and congregations celebrating the commitment of gay and lesbian members of this church to life together. The Massachusetts resolution, on the other hand, included considerable amendments and represented a marked departure from the proposed format since it merely "urged" its deputies to submit such a resolution. This would make it a "D" resolution (one submitted by any deputy, of which there are hundreds), rather than a "C" resolution (one submitted by a diocese, of which there are usually only about 20). The Massachusetts resolution is as follows (with the language of the "Consultation's" original proposal in bold): Resolved that this 208th Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts urge its deputies to the 71st General Convention of the Episcopal Church, 1994, to submit the following resolution: Resolved, To *direct the Standing Liturgical Commission to prepare and present to the 72nd General Convention proposed supplementary rites and ceremonies, to be used under the direction of the diocesan bishop by clergy and congregations celebrating the commitment of gay and lesbian members of this church to life together*, provided that adoption of this resolution, or subsequent adoption of any such liturgical forms as it envisions, shall not be interpreted as imposing on any minister or this church the obligation of assent to its provisions nor obligation of functioning under them, and further, no minister of this church shall be subject to any censure or inhibition for their conscientious inability to minister its provisions. The resolution was adopted by a vote of 126-91 among lay delegates and 116-42 among clergy. The convention of the Diocese of Massachusetts, the largest diocese in the Episcopal Church, also approved by a vote of 142-82 among lay delegates and 119-39 among clergy a companion resolution: Resolved That this 208th Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts urge its deputies to the 71st General Convention of the Episcopal Church, 1994, to submit the following resolution: Resolved To remove the obstacles to ordination for qualified candidates who are living in committed same-sex relationships. The debate in Rhode Island lasted for about 1 1/2 hours and was highlighted by a mother's plea that her gay son have the right to have a life-long partner. In Massachusetts, the debate lasted about 70 minutes and was frequently acrimonious. At one point, supporters of the two measures tried to cut off all debate and force an early vote. Opponents offered substitute measures opposed to the proposals, and at another point warned that the church was violating its constitution by approving actions illegal under civil law, such as sodomy, which remains illegal in Massachusetts despite that state having a gay rights law. In presenting the resolutions, the Rev. Anne Carroll Fowler, co-chair of the study committee on sexuality and rector of St. John's Church in Jamaica Plain, said, "Out of our work and study have come two powerful conclusions. The first is that God measures human relationships by the presence and activity of love in them, and not by whether or not they unite persons of different sexes. The other is that the church cannot justly bless or celebrate any human relationship while it devalues and denies other relationships in which love is likewise made manifest." "The church's failure to bless and affirm all loving, committed relationships, and its denial of holy orders to persons specifically because they enjoy such relationships, cripples the church's witness to the integrity of all of us, the sexual nature which we have created, and it expression in our relationships with each other," the committee report said. A resolution on the blessing of lesbian and gay couples was first submitted to the Massachusetts diocesan convention in 1987. At that time it was passed only by the clergy, but the convention also responded by forming the committee on human sexuality mentioned above. According to "The Boston Globe," Diocesan Bishop David E. Johnson said afterwards that there will be no immediate change in local practices pending action by the General Convention in 1994. "We will participate in change if adopted by the national church, but we will not do it unilaterally." On the other hand, he had said in his opening address: "Every baptized sister and brother, regardless of race, creed, ethnic back-ground or sexual orientation bears on his or her brow ... the sign of the cross. It is simply wrong when we dismiss each other, separate ourselves from each other." In addition to coverage in "The Globe," the Boston Fox network TV news program at 10 pm on Sunday led with the story. A significant part of the coverage was an interview with a lesbian couple who decided to come to church for the first time in many years after reading about what the convention had done. ----- This story is based in part on an "Episcopal News Service" report. ******************** *WE ARE REPUBLICANS, TOO!* by Kim Byham In the hit play "Angels in America," one of the laugh lines is: "Well, oh boy, a gay Republican!" The character is a Mormon and in the closet so it doesn't seem so strange, but what about an openly gay Episcopal priest, would you expect one of those to be a Republican? Longtime Integrity/New York member, Gerardo Ramirez, was featured in an article on the Log Cabin Club, a national group of gay Republicans (the only organized group of gay Republicans) in "New York Newsday" on November 18, 1993: "'The Uncle Tom Club,' Barney Frank, openly gay (and Democratic) congressman, has called the Log Cabin Club. "The members of the Log Cabin Club of New York City are used to outcast status, what some call their 'double closet.' When Gerardo Ramirez was growing up in Flatbush, he felt isolated and alone, not as a gay person but as a Republican. 'I was the only person in second grade whose parents were voting for Eisenhower,' he says. Now, after a detour as a Democrat and an actor, the Rev. Ramirez is an Episcopal priest and an enthusiastic Log Cabiner. "'We're planning on doing more, since we have new members and we're kind of fired up now,' says Ramirez, who claims 150 members for the New York City club, which does not have its own clubhouse, meeting in members' homes or at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center." Another Episcopalian, Tony Brooks, who is related to the late, noted [and gay] Bishop Phillips Brooks of Massachusetts, was also featured in the article: "'You self-hating, Republican jerk,' people said to Tony Brooks when he moved from Philadelphia to take a job in Manhattan. In his new office, every one of his colleagues carefully avoids talking to him about politics, perhaps because they wish, above all, to avoid any violence; Brooks, a Log Cabin member, works as development director of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Antiviolence Project. "'I have less of a problem being gay in the Republican Party,' Brooks says, 'than I do being Republican in the gay community.'" Sound familiar? "Begun in California in 1978 to help defeat a referendum that would have banned gay schoolteachers, Log Cabin has grown to 33 clubs in 22 states, with 8,000 members. Fully a third of its growth has occurred just in the last year, thanks to a single event: the Republican National Convention in Houston. 'There were always gay Republicans,' says Abner Mason, Log Cabin national president. 'But they were either closeted or had no voice; they had no way of making themselves known in the party.' That changed last year, thanks to the two Pats, Robertson and especially Buchanan, who gave an antigay speech that columnist Molly Ivins said must have sounded better in the original German. "'I think I was the only one booing,' recalls Brooks, who was there as a page." ******************** *COMPANY OFFERS COMMITMENT CEREMONY SERVICES* Colours of Pride announces a new service and product line relating to commitment ceremonies for the lesgay community. Through the use of a network of gay- and lesbian-owned businesses throughout the United States and Canada, Colours of Pride will help plan a personalized commitment ceremony that reflects each relationship. Among the services offered are: o summaries by state of laws and regulations concerning same-sex partnerships; o referrals on all ceremony needs including catering floral arranging and honeymoon planning; and o a full line of retail accessories including ceremonial candles, commitment jewelry, and, of course, the same-sex cake topper for you commitment cake. For more Information contact Matt Jiovanni at Colours of Pride, P. O. Box 64, Lyme NH 03768, tel 603-795-2722, fax 603-795- 4201 (call voice first). ******************** *AND WE HAVE FRIENDS WHO ARE DEMOCRATS* by Kim Byham Massachusetts has become the first state in the nation to outlaw discrimination against lesbian and gay students in public schools. The state already has a lesgay rights law that bars discrimination in housing, credit, and employment. The bill that Republican Governor William Weld signed into law on December 10, 1993 affirms that gay and lesbian students have the same rights as their heterosexual school mates. Byron Rushing, the Democratic State Representative from Boston who sponsored the bill in the House, is an active Episcopalian and chairs the Massachusetts deputation to General Convention. At convention in 1994, as he has for the past several conventions, Rushing will be floor coordinator in the House of Deputies for the Consultation, the umbrella group of progressive organizations of which Integrity is a part. The bill passed the State Legislature after an extraordinary lobbying campaign by hundreds of high school students -- gay and lesbian, as well as heterosexual. The law is intended to affirm the rights of openly lesgay students to many rituals of adolescence: to form alliances and clubs, to take a date to the prom, to participate freely in sports. The law will make it easier for gay and lesbian students who suffer harassment and violence -- and who are not protected by school officials -- to bring lawsuits against their schools. "They will have recourse," Rushing told "The New York Times." "They will be able to sue." The lobbying effort involved hundreds of lesgay students who told legislators emotional stories of feeling isolated and afraid at school. They told of being physically threatened, attacked and cursed at in class and in school hallways because of their sexual orientation. Supporters of the bill said the students provided faces to Federal statistics that show an alarming rate of suicide among gay and lesbian youth, as well as a high dropout rate. For their day of lobbying at the State House in October, 150 students were divided into groups, with eight team leaders. Four or five students visited the office of each senator. Thirty students met with a top aide to the powerful State Senate President, William M. Bulger, who had previously opposed the bill. At the time of the meeting, the bill was stalled in the Senate Committee on Steering and Policy, where it had died the previous year. After the meeting with Mr. Bulger, the bill got out of committee. It passed the Senate by a voice vote, with no debate. Mr. Rushing said: "It was very refreshing to see so many young people use the process. It was driven by students, both gay and straight students." The major opponent to the bill was the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. "The ultimate purpose here is to introduce homosexual programs into the public schools," said C. J. Doyle, the group's director. "The homosexual lobby is exploiting public education in an effort to validate homosexual behavior." Rushing responded to that claim in an interview on National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition." "There is nothing in this legislation that is going to give gays and lesbians in public schools any kind of an affirmative position where they then can argue that they have to have courses on gays and lesbians in New England colonial history, something like that." Rushing has long been a supporter of lesgay rights, but had an openly gay opponent in his 1990 reelection bid. "The Boston Globe" of September 24, 1992, reported on the gay Republican phenomenon: "The first Log Cabin Club was formed in ... Massachusetts two years ago, emerging from the failed campaign of Michael Duffy, a gay Republican who challenged state representative Byron Rushing in the 9th Suffolk District. "Gay Republicans were suddenly saying, 'God, there are other gay Republicans,'" recalls [Richard Tafal of Cambridge, president of the Log Cabin Federation, a collection of 26 local gay Republican groups claiming 6,000 members in 14 states.] That campaign caused divisiveness in the gay community - Rushing is a straight, black liberal who has supported gay causes..." ******************** *THE ABCs OF GAY BASHING* Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey spent a week in late October in the United States, lecturing on Anglican identity and hosting a fundraising event at the United Nations for the office of the Anglican observer. The first stop for the Archbishop was the national offices of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in Chicago, reciprocating a 1988 visit by ELCA Presiding Bishop Herbert Chilstrom to former Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie. Carey spent October 22 visiting staff and discussing ecumenical issues. At a news conference Carey highlighted the agreement already in place between the Church of England and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany that provides for sharing the Eucharist. He also pointed to proposals for a new relationship between Anglicans and the Nordic and Baltic Lutherans. Carey also expressed his appreciation for the dialogue between the ELCA and the Episcopal Church in this country, calling the proposals for full communion a "model of theological clarity." The release of an ELCA study document on sexuality at the same time as his visit was attracting national attention and reporters asked Carey about his church's views on homosexuality. [See below.] Speaking at the closing session of the Anglican Institute's 1993 convention in Colorado Springs on the theme, "The Practice of Anglicanism," Carey said, "We are a roomy church -- let us rejoice in that roominess." He argued that the church was broad enough to embrace conservatives and liberals without abandoning its fundamental teachings. Rather than be dismayed by some of the controversies raging in the church, Carey said that "they are proofs that we reflect Anglicanism at its best." While understanding why gays might feel estranged from the church, Carey offered no hope that they would be welcomed soon in the priesthood. He told of meeting recently with a group of gays in England. "I felt their pain when they said that they felt the church did not accept them as people. I was stirred by the force of their despair and anger." Based on an "Episcopal News Service" release by Jim Solheim ANGLICAN LEADER FROWNS ON HOMOSEXUAL CLERGY from the "Chicago Sun-Times," Saturday, October 23, 1993 by Andrew Herrmann, Staff Writer The Archbishop of Canterbury - spiritual leader for some 2.5 million American Episcopalians - said in Chicago on Friday that he disapproved of homosexuals as clergy and could not "conceive" of church sanction of same-sex marriages. Speaking to reporter, George L. Carey's remarks came as the Episcopal Church prepares to debate these subjects at a national convention next summer in Indianapolis. Carey's power comes through influence rather than command over Episcopalians and the other two dozen worldwide church bodies that make up the 70-million member Anglican Communion. While he said he did not want to "interfere" with decisions made by the American arm, he did say he would speak to Bishop Edmond Browning, the head of the U.S. Episcopal Church, on the two issues. "We believe higher standards of behavior are expected from clergy," Carey said. Clergy, he said, should "model the kind of exemplary Christian lifestyle that we expect." Carey said he did not wish to create a "witch-hunt" atmosphere but said that homosexuals who already are priests should not "indulge in genital activity." As for same-sex marriages, Carey said: "I can't conceive of a marriage on those terms. It seems to me that a marriage is talking about - in the Christian sense - man to woman. "We believe there should be room in our church for homosexuals. We are inclusive churches. But we do not believe that homosexual relationships are on the same level as heterosexual marriages." He said that keeping homosexuals out of the clergy would be difficult and seemed disinclined to pursue it aggressively. "If you've got a single person coming in [asking for the priesthood], why should we focus on their sexuality any more than someone who is a married person? We have to be very sensitive about these human factors," he said. Some Episcopal officials acknowledge that some same-sex marriages already are performed by episcopal clergy and that some clergy are homosexual. Some observers of the Episcopal church are predicting that the summer meeting will be a key moment in its history. Conservatives are threatening to break away from the church if homosexual rights are extended. The church already has lost 1 million members in the last 30 years. Carey was in Chicago to visit officials of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. DR. CREW RESPONDS TO THE ABC October 27, 1993 Most Rev. George Carey Archbishop of Canterbury Gentle Archbishop, As the founder of Integrity, the international lesbian and gay Anglican ministry, and as the elected co-chair of the Diocese of Newark's deputation to General Convention, I urge you to give me specific and public clarification of your the "Sun-Times" report of your visit to Evangelical Lutherans. This report is generating much anguish. Your remarks have the chilling subtext: "You Lutherans and others can say good things about these people all you want, but for me and my house, we will never bless their commitments nor allow them to desecrate holy food." When I posed a question to you before hundreds of lay leaders whom Trinity Church had assembled in Washington, DC in September 1992, you pled for me to be patient as you began to study the plight of lesbian and gay Samaritans, and you stressed that in the interim all of us are welcome at God's Anglican tables. I gave you a copy of my book in which 52 lesbian and gay Anglicans tell their stories. Has this informed your thinking? Lesbians and gays throughout the Anglican Communion have the impression that you have not been in communication with us. I agree. To rectify that, I hope that you will meet with the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement in the United Kingdom and with representatives of Integrity in Canada, Australia, and the United States. Faithfully, Louie Crew THE ABC'S SECRETARY FOR ECUMENICAL AFFAIRS RESPONDS 11 November 1993 Dear Dr. Crew The Archbishop of Canterbury has asked me to thank you for your letter of 27 October and to reply on his behalf. I am afraid that a number of the Archbishop's comments on homosexuality were misquoted. He was keen to point out that in recent months he has had opportunities to meet with homosexual people and is aware of their feelings toward the church. He noted in his response in Chicago to journalists that he was aware that homosexual people often feel that the Church is oppressive and unloving in its attitude to them. He affirmed his commitment to the statement of the House of Bishops of the Church of England "Issues in Sexuality" (sic). This report made it clear that homosexual relationships were not ruled out of court. It did, however, continue to affirm that the Church could not support those who are ordained and of a homosexual orientation, living with a partner. The Archbishop was keen to affirm a real pastoral care for all people of a homosexual orientation, and noted that he continues to struggle further with the question. Yours sincerely, The Rev. Canon Stephen Platten BISHOP YATES ALSO RESPONDS 17 November 1993 Dear Dr Crew I'm afraid your letter addressed to the Archbishop and dated 27 October arrived only recently here at Lambeth, and just at the time when the Archbishop was flying out for an extended visit to Anglican Churches in South East Asia. He will be away until the end of the month. I should guess that the article you refer to in the "Chicago Sun- Times" gave offence mainly because of the phrase in its opening sentence that the Archbishop "disapproved of homosexuals as clergy." No verbatim record of the press conference in question is available here, but one can be quite confident that the Archbishop would not have used those words. Deliberately or otherwise, the phrase is misleading and ambiguous. I am not of course in a position to say exactly how the Archbishop's personal pilgrimage of thought and conviction has been developing over the months and years. He will of course see your letter on his return to this country and may wish to comment on that himself. His public utterances, however, have consistently lined up with the statement published by the Church of England Bishops corporately almost two years ago, in the booklet entitled "Issues in Human Sexuality." I dare say you were already familiar with this statement. [It was reprinted in substantial part in the Summer, 1992 issue of this journal, with comment from many, including Dr. Crew.] Not surprisingly it tends towards caution and a conservative stance, as one might expect. It does not equate homophile relationships with marriage on theological grounds, but entirely accepts the right of homosexual couples acting in good faith to take their place fully within the fellowship of the Church. It accepts similarly the value of homosexual men and women within the ordained ministry, but does not offer to homosexual clergy the same liberty as that given to heterosexual clergy within the institution of marriage. The introduction to this little book expressly disclaims any suggestion that it should be regarded as the last word on the subject, accepting in the spirit of the last Lambeth Conference that there is much study still to be done. It would be futile to pretend that from the point of view of Integrity and similar groups this basic approach to homosexuality does not fall short on several counts. But it would surely be a travesty to identify it with disapproval of homosexuals as clergy. I fear it rather looks as if journalism has rather triumphed over truth once again. Nor is it accurate to suggest that the Archbishop is not in any kind of communication with lesbian and gay people. The pressures on his diary and timetable are such that he has to decline almost every invitation to meet representatives of campaigning groups within the life of the Church here, whatever the issue involved. But only within the last few weeks, for example, he was visiting one of London's main centres ministering to those affected by the HIV virus - not of course exclusively homosexual people, but many of them homosexual. Although I was not there myself I am told there was a very open and personal meeting of hearts and minds. With every blessing and good wish to you in your own work and ministry. Yours sincerely. Rt. Rev. John Yates Bishop of Lambeth Lambeth Palace [signed in his absence by C. D. Goodyear] DR. CREW COMMENTS Bishop Yates is considered by most lesgays as our friend. He chaired the 1979 Board of Social Responsibilities report "Homosexual Relationships: A Contribution to Discussion." He became Bishop of Lambeth (in effect, the Archbishop's chief of staff) in September 1991. Before that, Yates was Bishop of Gloucester. Yates was succeeded as Bishop of Gloucester by Peter Ball, who resigned when charges came to light that he had abused a young novice monk sexually ["VOI," Summer 1993]. Yates' function at Lambeth regarding lesgay issues is viewed largely as "damage control." Few expect him to speak negatively about the Archbishop's position, but it is his job and his inclination to give those comments the best "spin." It should definitely be noted that the Archbishop is disingenuous to suggest that he does not meet with "campaigning groups." He applies this designation capriciously: he has met often, e.g., with groups "campaigning" for the rights of the handicapped; he has met often with groups "campaigning" on both sides of the issue of ordaining women. "Campaigning groups" is his code phrase to identifying those not considered legitimate at any one time; and apparently the Archbishop does not consider lesgays "legitimate," at least, not at the present time. The Archbishop has disguised the visit to AIDS patients as evidence that he meets with lesbians and gays. This is duplicitous, not on the part of Bishop Yates, but on the part of the Archbishop. The Archbishop has never met with the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement in Britain, nor with representatives of any other group of lesbian and gay Christian organizations. JUDGE FOR YOURSELF: EXCERPTS FROM THE TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRESS CONFERENCE Andrew Herrmann, "Chicago Sun-Times": The Episcopal Church here in the United States next summer is going to debate the issue of human sexuality and the ordination of homosexuals. Where do you stand on those issues? Carey: I stand on those issues, uh, uh, -- if you want to read the House of Bishops report "Issues of Human Sexuality" which is 18 months ago. That is where I stand theologically and [unclear]. If you are not sure what that term amounts to, it is that we believe there should be room in our church for homosexuals. We are inclusive churches. What we've said in that report, that we do not believe that homosexual relationships are on the same level as heterosexual marriage. It also makes it clear that priests who are homosexuals should not indulge in genital activity. That is the mind of the Church of England. Herrmann: How about same-sex marriages? Carey: I cannot conceive of a marriage on those terms. It seems to me that marriage is talking about -- in a strictly Christian sense -- of a marriage of a man to a woman. Herrmann: Will you try to influence the Episcopal Church in this country? Carey: You see the way that the Anglican Communion works that we are a collection, a federation if you like, of autonomous churches. We share in one another's life. It would not be right for me to do that kind of thing. I don't interfere. But rather obviously one can share in the life in terms of keeping careful interest in what is going on and to talk with my fellow archbishops. And of course my relationship with Ed Browning, the Presiding Bishop, is very close indeed. ... And I will be seeing him in a few days time, and I will certainly be talking to him further about this. Michael Hirsley, "Chicago Tribune": Can you explain the vote in Parliament [on ordaining women], and can you speak about the status of I believe these issues, homosexuals as far as ordination in the Church of England? Carey: ... As to the second question, I recommend you read the House of Bishop's report which was on human sexuality, [which sets] what high standards of behavior are expected of the clergy, and that chastity and [unclear] has to be expressed. We have set forward this document which is an instruction document. And we would expect those who are homosexuals to abstain from any form of genital activity. Hirsley: Will they be ordained without any question being asked of their sexual preference? Carey: That's right ... do not make that a major factor in the selection of clergy. Because why should that be if you've got a single person coming in, why should we focus on their sexuality and ignore someone who is a married person? We have to be very sensitive about these human factors. But I repeat our point that in our criteria we look for people who can model the kind of exemplary Christian lifestyle that we expect. ... The whole fundamental point about the Christian life is that we are sinners saved by grace, which can [unclear] there. But we are a very healthy denomination, one in which we are compassionate, and we allow for human weakness and always the possibility of God's redeeming [verb] awfulness and sinfulness. ----- Our thanks to David Skidmore, Communications Officer of the Diocese of Chicago, for this transcript. ******************** *NATIONAL BOARD NOMINATIONS SOUGHT* Nominations are now being sought for the following offices, whose two-year terms will commence October 1, 1994: o President o Secretary o Treasurer o Midwest Regional Vice-President o Northeast Regional Vice-President o Southeastern Regional Vice-President o South Central Regional Vice-President o Western Regional Vice President Nominations must be received by February 15, 1994 and must include the signature of BOTH a nominator and the person seeking office. No particular form is required, simply state: "I hereby nominate ______ for the office of _______, signed ______ " and "I hereby accept nomination for the office of _______, signed _______." Both must be current dues-paid members of Integrity. A questionnaire will be sent to candidates as nominations are received. Those questionnaires must be returned by March 1. Nominations will be announced in the Spring 1994 issue of "The Voice of Integrity." Balloting will occur between May 1 and 30. All nominations must be sent to Dr. James Carson, Chair of the Nominating Committee, at the address below. *Please do not send nominations to Integrity, Inc.'s Washington post office box.* Dr. James Carson 1406 Elmwood Ave. #3E Evanston, IL 60201 (708) 491-1743 ******************** *INHERIT THE EARTH* Address by Dr. Louie Crew at the First Integrity National Convention, 1975 In the joy here yesterday and today, I have been deeply aware of the contrast in setting with that of the place where I first experienced joy in corporate Gay experience. Ten years ago this summer, at 28, I had experienced shared orgasm only eight times, twice in frightened adolescence and six times in drunken adult anonymity. Otherwise I had buried myself teaching in an Anglican boarding school and fattened myself to a fairly safe and superficially jovial 260 pounds of loneliness, which more and more I realized could not long hold back the flood of feelings which I did not know how to handle otherwise. When a 15-year-old student fell in love with me, I knew the dam was going to burst. My Church had taught me that to reciprocate my kind of affection would be sinful, and I knew no other kind. Feeling that I could not be responsible for leading my student into "sin," I fled his love. I knew enough of English literature and of the rumor of the *malade Anglais* to know that England would be an appropriate place in which I could burst out as a sinner, especially after the Wolfenden Report, so I took off to London. But it was in New York City, before I ever got there, that I had the first of a series of revelations that have continued to lighten my darkness through an experience that gave me just an inkling, but a very important one, of what I have felt and heard here at the first national convention of Gay Episcopalians and our friends. About ten of us crowded into a small underground room of a Harlem subway station, all strangers, of diverse races and classes. Even I considered ours a criminal setting, with danger ubiquitous midst the two stalls for standing and maybe three for sitting; but the five minutes we had all been standing there were enough even for me to know that I was safely with my own. We heard silver dime slash the metallic slit. All of us in a body inspected the newcomer meekly, self-effacingly, as only Gay people can in such suspended moments, but no one made the slightest move to leave. The intruder estimated us instantly and blanched, fumbled in his pockets as if for an unneeded exit dime, and rushed from our room. Someone chuckled. Everyone smiled. Then, for what seemed like an eternity, laughter flooded that room, joyfully, not raucously: Happy are the meek, for we will inherit the earth! The verb of our inheritance, if not of our happiness, is in the future tense. We need no prophet to remind us that we have not inherited the earth yet or to tell us who now owns the land promised to us. Like twenty million Moseses we have all been hidden by our mothers in the houses of the ruling homophobes. Most of us here tonight know as much about passing unnoticed and rewarded through the comfortable corridors of Pharaoh's house as we know about body language in our ghettos. Yet tonight, even in this place where our homophobic rulers are wont to come to be oiled with feelings of righteousness, we are meekly gathered as corporate outcasts, not only to celebrate our secret joy, but also to question how best to demand of Pharaoh, "Let our people go!" Anyone risking exposure just by being here is a witness to a major dilemma we Gays and our friends regularly face: can I save myself by continuing to hide among those who would hate me if they knew whom I loved, or must I sell all to begin a tedious 40-year journey across the wilderness with my people, possibly never to see the promised land myself except from afar? From one perspective, our having a potential of twenty million Moseses may be more of a curse than a blessing for our Gay community. The Israelites had trouble enough trying to rally around just one Moses, who had some fairly unambiguous claims to inside information from the Almighty, with twenty million Moseses it often seems easier not to leave Egypt and not to stand together with our more vulnerable sisters and brothers in the brickmaking ghetto. Even in the ghetto itself many of the Moseses seem to treasure their individuality more than they treasure one another. It is as if the Pharaoh of old had acted with better riot training, allowing one group of Israelites to continue making bricks with straw and establishing thereby a hierarchy of the straw and the strawless brickmaker. At the risk of seeming to set yet another rival ideology, I assess our most urgent need as Gay people, and not just as Gay Episcopalians or even just as Gay Christians, to be the need to love one another. Unquestionably we will require the Grace of God, but until we shed our own homophobia learned in the parlors of Pharaoh, and welcome instead rich Gay catholicity, Gay diversity, I see Gay people trapped in Egypt forever. One does not have to give up her individual tastes before being able to welcome as sisters and brothers persons with different tastes. My faith is not very mature if I require about me only those who share or never challenge my beliefs. Yet again and again I pick up in us such insecurities, often used to justify our not supporting a sister or brother Gay in time of need. One person is embarrassed by another's effeminacy. Another of us is embarrassed by a sister or brother's views on the ordination of women. Another person is embarrassed by another Gay person's personality or by her/his social credentials. Surely our masculinity and femininity are variously important to each of us, as are our views on the ordination of women, our individual styles, and our social credentials or our desire to be free of same. But if before we as Gay people will stand by our Gay sisters and brothers we require waiting until our catholicity has become a uniform identity, ideology, style, or whatever, then we will never be blessed of God meekly to inherit the earth. I dream of a time when the catholic needs of the least of these our Gay sisters and brothers will be of more concern to us than they seem now. I look forward to the day when we will be more embarrassed by a Church which shuts up or shuts out our lesbian sisters than we will be embarrassed by those whose views differ from ours on the ordination issue; when we will be embarrassed more by a Church which gives Gay young people no place to meet one another for healthy social and spiritual communion than by a brother who seems prissier than we see ourselves or by a sister who seems more militant than we would like her to be; when we will be embarrassed more by a Church which refuses to support any Gay relationship striving to be responsible than by a Gay couple that seems to us too promiscuous. I look forward to a time when we will be embarrassed more by our pleasure in guilt itself (ooh! I'm so wicked!) than by any one of our sexual experiences that for whatever reason did not meet our expectations. Surely there is much that is wrong about Gay people, much that we will want to change. But as Christians we are right to demand that first we emphasize what is right with us, the Gospel itself, viz., that God loves us ALL as we were made, with our affectional orientations intact! It is perverse to do penance for who we are! >From what does that leave us to be delivered as temptation? The myriads of temptations which face all persons face us, to be less than complete, less than responsible, less than loving. I believe that the Gay community, particularly when we are alone and with friends, is advanced enough to be very honest about some of our internal problems. Only by being secure enough to admit problems are we going to be in a position to effect any solutions. We need a bold honesty, not just the public relations of our homophobic rulers. We also need good sense. I remember in the early sixties bragging to a friend in the NAACP about my refusal to indicate my race in the space provided by the whites at Delaware's chest X-ray center. "Man, you're wrong," he countered; "Black folks have more TB than white folks, and how we gonna persuade white powers to do anything about it if you mess up the statistics?" What about the incidence of VD among us Gays, or of crimes by us, or of neurosis in our community? Of course we are right to counter the stereotypes that we are always diseased and neurotic criminals, but at the same time a minority's oppression is measured precisely by the monopolies of VD, crime, and neuroses the ruling majority thrust upon it. While there is no sexual orientation to disease, crime, or neurosis, there is a sexual orientation to those who control access minorities have to remedies. Gay apologists, for example, are always reminding the public that 85% of all persons in prison for child abuse are heterosexual, but if Gays represent only 5 percent (admittedly a conservative estimate) of the population, then our 15 percent of the child-abusers is three times our share!, regardless of extenuating circumstances. I would bet, too, that we have more than our share of suicides, and I would like to see the nonGay power structure fund studies designed to identify our needs rather than, as in the past, to identify our persons, the better to inflict capricious penalties. It is time for us to alert the homophobic majority to the evil that is institutionalized against Gay persons, demanding from them healthier spaces in which we can grow in this culture. It's time that we spoke honestly about the dangers of their own marrying one of us if they cannot make the world safe for us to know and love ourselves. I confess personally very readily that as night after night I jog through the Georgia summer heat, literally spat upon by children on bicycles, 8-, 10-, 14-year-olds, who shout their obscenities (cocksucker, homo, fag ... ) to the pleasure of their parents on porches, I am often amazed that our Gay retaliatory crime rate is not higher! Our Church, instead of offering support, has mocked our experience of holy Christian relationship, a mockery which affects are defacto excommunication, with no parish in the area willing to welcome us on a par with heterosexual sinners. Of course, if we would just cooperate, acquiesce, keep our mouths shut, and quit trying to integrate our neighborhood, the pressures would cease, as clearly as if we were dead. It is no consolation that the pressures come only when you stand tall; the only alternative, simply not to stand, is a violation of the worst order. And we hear these children innocently venting their parents' homophobia, as we answer the hate calls, often from faraway clergy, and hate mail, typically from colleagues in college English departments across the country, I have learned fresh meaning from the Scriptures, particularly from the Psalms, which to my earlier consciousness in Pharaoh's closets had seemed more or less maudlin, self-pitying, even ghetto-ish. Now it is refreshing, illuminating, to discover that for us as Gays the world really does at least on some major issues polarize into the goodies and the baddies, into us and our enemies. The Psalms and the subversive Gospel narratives (turning out money changers, teasing the powerful, bringing restoration to the profane ... ) are refreshingly free of much that for the powerful passes as sanctimonious, lukewarm moral ambivalence, as in the typical sermon in any liberal parish in America next Sunday. Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies! becomes a healing liturgical means of spitting out the homophobic poison fed us as an hourly diet by the rulers of this society. Working for INTEGRITY, I am learning much about our church, with its few oases for Gay persons, and its many deserts. I grow angry watching many of its Gay persons -- women, priests, street queers -- drop quietly into the oblivion of a nervous breakdown, a police arrest, unemployment ... victims of the Church's lovelessness. Often there is no one with whom to share the suffering, no one to whom the protests can be made. Even were we to be free of every homophobe at this moment, we would have years of work to do to remove the institutionalized ways in which we are oppressed into thinking more lowly of ourselves than we ought to think. I have gone to bed restless and bitter, aware that some bishop has just conned me into thinking that he had honored my people merely by taking the time to speak unctuously and ill-informed against us. I have been frustrated by having to apologize for just rage, so that some scared "liberal" won't go running away as from a "screaming sissy" when there is so much that really needs to be screamed about. Praise God for the love and the prayers that Ernest and I have been able to share as we have made it through these nights in each other's arms! For me, before this year it was easy, at least when I thought of the Church, to think that somewhere "out there" a few good persons in power, if only they could be found, are actively working to right these wrongs and bring justice. But I must report, I have not found enough of such persons to give much hope at all, surely not enough for the jobs that must be done. Most people "out there" are jealously fighting to protect whatever power they have, and certainly they have no time to give to the lepers into whom they have made us. It is now my belief that if you want to find healing, love, and strength, you will never find it "out there," but only within yourselves, in the living ministry of the Holy Spirit. I believe that our real liberation comes only as one by one we tap this spiritual energy and then take seriously the commission to tell others about its unconditional availability. I believe that God is calling INTEGRITY to this kind of ministry. Too many persons think the word integrity means "having the respect of the community," but it means, rather, "having all aspects of yourself together as of one piece." Integrity is a prerequisite for health and for strength. Our sexuality is but one of many parts of our own wholeness, but it is a part that we Gay people are systematically taught to deny, detest, or otherwise abuse. I believe that until one has experienced the joy of divine presence in loving sexual union, that person has been deprived of one of the most fulfilling revelations of God. But why then bear this name, Gay, which to many threatens wholeness by seeming to be obsessively sexual and one-dimensional? As soon ask Moses, "Why forfeit your fully secure, multidimensional life with Pharaoh and bear this newly discovered name 'Hebrew'?" Maybe some Gay people ought to stay in Pharaoh's house, at least until they discover the energies our tribe is going to need in the wilderness. Each will know in her own time. As I watch us timidly, meekly, coming together in the very place where we have been outcasts for almost two millennia, I am sensitive to the reality that our very presence here is just cause for hope in the hearts of many of our Gay sisters and brothers who could not possibly, at this time, make the step of being with us. At last the Church has an opportunity to recover the spiritual climate of the Catacombs; at last the despised and the rejected with whom our Lord cavorted most freely have been invited. David, in eating the temple bread, and Christ, in feeding on the Sabbath, demonstrated conclusively that buildings and places do not bring dignity or holiness to persons; persons must bring to buildings and places any dignity or holiness that they can have. Merely by being here we are giving brick and mortar in this, and in other places like it around the world, a long overdue chance to serve our genuine spiritual needs. At present, we are but a small leak in the dam of the Religion of Respectability, a dam perversely making God's love and mercy inaccessible to twenty million Gay Americans for whom Christ died. Our being the small leak in that dam is not merely fortuitous happenstance. In a paraphrase of that most Anglican of insights, "God moves in just such mysterious small leaks true wonders to perform." Our subterfuge of the Religion of Respectability by bringing holiness to this place signals the living ministry of the Holy Spirit. We await impatiently for the flood of true religion, the Religion of *Dis*respectability, as revealed in Christ Jesus, in Whom God so manifest love for ALL persons that Christ was made to suffer the ultimate ignominy of the cross as a ransom for us all. *We will inherit the earth.* ******************** *DR. CREW PART OF MAJOR LAWSUIT* Suit to End Denial of Partner Health Benefits by Rutgers On November 15, 1993, five lesbian and gay Rutgers employees filed suit against the university and the State of New Jersey to obtain the same health coverage that has been routinely given to heterosexual employees for generations. The suit calls for retroactive benefits from 1981, when Rutgers guaranteed an end to discrimination in employment and benefits on the basis of sexual orientation, and for compensatory damages. Joining in the suit as plaintiff is the Rutgers Council of the American Association of University Professors. The American Civil Liberties Union is providing counsel. The five Rutgers employees include one dean, three professors, and an extension agent. Since 1981, Rutgers has had a non-discrimination policy which outlaws discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and on marital status, yet the university continues to deny lesbian and gay employees the same coverage for their family members that heterosexual employees get. In 1991, Governor Florio signed an executive order to halt discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation by the State of New Jersey in employment and the provision of benefits. In 1992 the legislature passed and the governor signed into law a bill that bared discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in employment throughout the state. Yet the New Jersey Division of Pensions, which administers state health benefits, has refused to provide to gay and lesbian state employees the same health benefits provided to heterosexual employees. The President's Select Committee for Lesbian and Gay Concerns of Rutgers University has urged the university to provide the same benefits to lesbian and gay employees as are provided to heterosexual employees since 1988. The university has begun to provide bereavement leave, access to athletic facilities, library borrowing privileges for the "bona fide sole domestic partners" of lesbian and gay employees, and it is planning to open family housing to gay and lesbian graduate students, but it has rejected efforts to extend the single most important employment benefit of all -- health insurance and health care -- to the life partners of lesbian and gay employees. The experience of both private and public employers has shown that the cost of supplying health benefits to gay and lesbian employees' partners is typically less than 1% of the total benefit budget. Another national leader of the lesgay Christian movement is also a participant in the suit. Dr. James D. Anderson has, since 1980, served as the national communications secretary for Presbyterians for Lesbian and Gay Concerns. At Rutgers, he chairs the President's Select Committee for Lesbian and Gay Concerns, as well as the Committee to Advance Our Common Purposes, the university-wide initiative for helping the entire university community to celebrate its diversity, its common purposes, and its multicultural communities and to do away with all forms of prejudice, bigotry, unjust discrimination, and harassment. The plaintiffs hope that this suit will help the university reclaim its commitment to end all forms of illegitimate discrimination at the university and to promote equity for all persons who share the mission and goals of the university. ******************** *A DIVINE SERMON* Bruce Garner Preaches at New York Cathedral I want to extend my thanks to the Dean and staff of the Cathedral for honoring me with the invitation to speak to you this morning. I have long been aware of this wonderful house of God and its ministries. It never occurred to me that I would ever stand in its pulpit. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, oh God, our strength, our redeemer, our lover and our friend. The topic this morning, as you know, is People of Exile. So your immediate thought might well be: What's that white middle class guy in a suit (there is one underneath the robe) got to do with people in exile? He doesn't appear to be of color. He doesn't appear to be poor or homeless. He's not female. There's no obvious ethnicity: He doesn't appear to be Asian or Middle Eastern. His speech doesn't seem to reflect foreign origins. (Though some of you *may* consider Atlanta, my home, as somewhat foreign!) So how does he fit? What could he know or have to say about exile? What may or may not be apparent to you is that I am gay. In the secular terms of exile, I'm a faggot, or a homo, or a pervert, or any of a number of epithets used to denote those whose sexual orientation is homosexual. The exile resulting from sexuality is different from other reasons for exile. It isn't necessarily a permanent situation. In fact, for me, whether I am an exile depends on two primary factors: Where I am, and how much someone knows about me. There may even be degrees of exile. I can avoid exile by not telling you about my sexual orientation. You know, don't tell, I won't ask! Whether in the secular world or in the church world, if I do not tell you about my sexual orientation, if I don't come out to you, you are not likely to know I am gay. I can pass. Passing can prevent my exile from you, inasmuch as it doesn't necessarily give you a reason to exile me. And I can assure you, there have been times when I did avoid the exile -- they were mostly in the past, however, and they were directly related to the levels of safety and security I experienced in a given situation. I have reached a point in my life where justice is more important to me than safety and security. So, unless I choose to share what constitutes me -- there is generally no reason for other people or entities to put me in the category of an exile -- there is no reason to cast me out, literally or figuratively. I have, in fact, chosen to be subject to the possibility of exile. I am out of the closet about my sexual orientation and have no intention of ever closing that closet door again. I don't think I could, anyway. I broke the closet door off its hinges when I came out of it a good many years ago. Mindful of that, how does my notion of exile by *location* fit? It cannot be a surprise to anyone that if you are lesbian or gay, where you are in this country and this church determines whether or not you will be exiled or embraced. In this diocese, I feel comfortable in saying I am not an exile or I very likely would not be standing before you. At the opposite extreme would be the diocese of San Joaquin, where I would experience almost total exile -- exile from serving as a lay eucharistic minister, church school teacher, or virtually anything else. There I would find an exile that would prevent even gathering together as part of a lesbian and gay community -- namely Integrity -- even to worship. I would not find a hospitable church home, nor would I likely find a priest who would risk celebrating the eucharist for such a gathering. The spectrum of exile is rather broad. In the dioceses in the state of Texas, I would experience everything from begrudged acceptance to absolute disdain. In Rochester I would be embraced. In West Tennessee: exile -- at least at the level of the episcopacy. There is a lengthy litany of where I am an exile for being gay and where I am not. There's a comparable list for secular locations. In my home diocese of Atlanta, I observe a slightly smaller version of that same spectrum. My parish accepts the gifts I bring without question. Yet other parishes would prefer I didn't darken their doors. My bishop is supportive -- to a point. He has too much of a social conscience to want me in exile. He understands the inclusivity of the Gospel at an intellectual level -- even if the emotional level has not yet caught up. Yet as other gay and lesbian folks seek to explore such issues as ordination, the fences of exile begin to rise. I won't exile you as long as you are not sexually active, i.e., not "practicing," even if it is in a committed relationship. Perhaps even in the *best* of circumstances, exile always remains a possibility lurking just around the corner -- if you are gay. I am very blessed when it comes to the subject of exile. There have been few times when I have been treated as and felt like an exile. Unfortunately one of those times, perhaps the worst, was a few months ago. Deputies, alternates and others from Province IV gathered in one of what will be several pre-convention synods. Among our activities was the small group discussion centered around Bible study. Each table had several lay, several clerical members, and one bishop. They wouldn't allow more than one bishop per table -- must be some kind of message there! The bishop at my table was the bishop of West Tennessee. His disdain and disapproval of me were clearly visible. The simple fact of my presence was distasteful to him. I didn't exist for him as a person, even as a child of God -- despite the covenant we share through baptism and the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ. We are ALL one through the waters of baptism, whether we like it or not. The pain of that exile was very real and made more so by the fact that it had rarely happened before and never with such directness. Just a few months earlier I had basked in the glow of a standing ovation from my own diocese given in reaction to a reflection I had shared with them on family values and sexuality. What a difference. In retrospect, I needed to experience that exile. I had gotten somewhat complacent. Perhaps I had even become jaded, failing to recall the ongoing and very real exile of so many of my sisters and brothers in Christ, within and without this church. I doubt I will ever forget again. Maybe God was trying to gain my attention. Maybe God was helping me recall reality and redirecting me toward being who I am. So, being out can result in being in exile. But *not* being out also results in a form of exile. That exile is from oneself. That exile is from the person God created each of us to be. That exile prevents us from realizing our full potential as children of God. That exile prevents the sharing of what God has given -- a gift kept hidden cannot be given. I remember the Old Testament story of the people of Israel being carried off into a physical exile by the Babylonians. The reason for that exile was that the Israelites were not being faithful as who they were chosen and created to be. Could it have been that the people of Israel were not being the people of God? Exile comes from not being who God created us to be. And, exile may also come as a result of being who God created, but *that* exile is not *of* God. As Christian people, we have no basis, no model for putting others in exile. Exile is not of the Gospel of Jesus Christ -- not for any reason. The Gospel message is a message of inclusion, of gathering in, not exclusion, not exile. Even Jesus could not get away with it the one time that was recorded when He tried to exile someone. Recall when Jesus attempted to exclude the Canaanite woman from his ministry? He tried to place her in more of an exile than the secular world had already done. She rather pointedly and bluntly reminded Him that even dogs got the crumbs that fell from their masters table. And, at that, Jesus repented -- He knew His ministry could not be and was not a ministry of exiling any of God's children. His was a ministry of inclusion -- the inclusion of all who heard his message and believed. He embraced the one He initially tried to exile. He embraced all whom society would seek to cast out. Those of us in the lesbian and gay community who claim the name of Jesus Christ are subject to another form of exile: that from our own community. Exile by your own can be the most painful of all. We are asked how we could possibly claim allegiance to an institution that bashes us, berates us, and exiles us. We are often viewed with distrust and suspicion for being Christian. Those view points are quite understandable. In some ways we are crazy as hell to embrace that which often seeks to cast us out. My response to my own community is always the same, however: God and the church don't always agree. I choose to side with God. It is the church as an institution that sometimes seeks to exile me, not God. There's a tremendous difference. I know that God will be just. I cannot always expect that from the church. Perhaps someday the Body of Christ will heed the words of the writer of the Old Testament lesson ordinarily used for today: ".. let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream." (Amos 5:14) In exile, there is no justice. It has been and continues to be the mission and the ministry of Integrity to seek that justice for the lesbian and gay members of this church. Our witness to our church has been the sharing of the pain we have experienced when we are exiles. Our witness has been to put a human face on the children of God that some would seek to exile from this church because of their sexual orientation. We have learned that when we put a human face on a faggot or a dyke, they cease to be faggots and dykes. They become simply part of the rainbow of creation that constitutes the children of God. Integrity's mission to the lesbian and gay community is to help our sisters and brothers experience the liberating power of Jesus Christ. To accomplish that we must convince them that they are beloved of God -- and that they are beloved just the way they are -- the way God created them to be. I am not certain which portion of our mission is the more difficult portion. But I *am* certain that our mission has been given to us by God through the power of Jesus Christ in the Great Commission. And, as people of exile, our only choice is to pursue that mission. Many who have gone before us are now robed in white -- they have been through the exile -- they have been through the great ordeal spoken of in today's epistle. They depend on our ministry. We each have choices about our own exile. We can be the creatures God created us to be. With that there may be a risk of exile from those around us -- especially if we are lesbian or gay or somehow different. That risk is the result of bigotry and prejudice. Whatever the source, the exile can be an honor for us, despite the pain of exile. For in that exile we embrace who we are as children of God, we embrace our God, and we do so simply as we were created by that God. If we fail to be who our creator intended, the exile we risk is exile from God. And in that exile we separate ourselves from the wonderfully inclusive love of God and the liberating power of the redemption of Jesus Christ. Can we truly believe that God would have created in us anything we would need to hide from God? Can we truly believe our relationship to God is that of exile? The one who experienced the ultimate exile did not endure being nailed to a cross to perpetuate that exile. He took the agony of thorns, nails, and death to finally bring an end, once and for all time, to our ever being exiled from God again. We can experience exile from other human beings. It is most likely not our choice but theirs and it probably results from our being who God created us to be. We can also experience exile from God, but that exile is our choice, not God's, and it probably comes from our failure to be who God created us to be. So I stand here talking to you from my own experience about exile -- but it has not been an exile of my choosing and it has not been exile from God. If I am not exiled by or from God, can any other exile matter? In the name of God, I don't see how. As we heard earlier in the words of Jesus: Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. What more needs to be said? AMEN ----- This sermon was given on November 7, 1993, at the close of the fall meeting of the National Board in New York. ******************** BALL VIOLATES GENERAL CONVENTION RESOLUTION Why do some bishops feel that the 1979 resolution of General Convention saying it is inappropriate to ordain sexually active lesbians and gay men has the power of canon law while the 1976 resolution saying the church supports civil rights for lesgay people is not binding? This is the second time Albany Bishop David Ball has openly opposed equal rights. The first time was before the Albany City Council. In 1993 it was before the New York State Legislature. The measure was defeated by the Republican-controlled Senate, of which Senator Marino is the Majority Leader. The bishop was so proud of his letter defying General Convention that he had it published in the June issue of the "Albany Episcopalian" The Honorable Ralph Marino Dear Senator Marino: I have read and seen news reports which state something to the effect: religious leaders support [gay rights legislation]. It would be more accurate to say that some religious leaders support gay rights legislation. This one does not. The issue, I believe, is not a civil rights issue in the usual sense of that term. It has to do, among other things, about sexual behavior. The avowed goal of many groups is to make homosexual sexual activity the moral equivalent of heterosexual sexual activity. It is not. I realize, Senator, as you do, that these are sensitive matters involving many ingredients and they must be taken seriously. They should also, I believe, be taken in their full perspective. Sincerely, + David S. Ball Bishop, Diocese of Albany ******************** *EPISCOPAL WOMEN'S CAUCUS SUPPORTS OUTCASTS IN SAN JOAQUIN* by Ian Snider Joyous noises of praise, love, and inclusion broke the sounds of silence in the dusty San Joaquin Diocese. From the shores of Delaware to the coast of California, from the plains of Texas to the mountains of South Dakota, the Episcopal Women's Caucus (EWC) shared their loving inclusion and discussed their frustrations in the little town of Stockton, California. The national meeting was called "Supporting Outcasts in Traditionalist Dioceses." Stockton, California, was chosen because it is in the diocese headed by one of the church's most far-right bishops, the Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield. For two days, women, laity and clergy, discussed the vital role women have as creations made in the image of God. The strength being rejected by the "traditionalist" dioceses made for lively discussion among the hundred men and women of all age ranges. The Rev. Chilton Knudsen, from the Diocese of Chicago and moderator for the convention, made the point that women were not the only outcasts being offered a voice at this convention. Integrity of the Sierra was welcomed openly and enthusiastically by all as living, spiritually supporting members of the Episcopal Church. The warmth and unconditional love offered to Integrity members in attendance spoke volumes as to the overall mission of the Episcopal Church. Deacon Sylvia Hedlund said in her homily: "We are called to continue, to persevere, to proclaim, to seek and serve, to respect." The women meeting in Stockton echoed that cry over the two days. Hedlund also charge, "I call upon each one present to rise up and help our beloved church to discard its bias against persons who differ from the stereotypical Episcopalian.... I believe the Episcopal Synod of America is designed to keep women, people of color, lesbians and gay men in their place.... While the ESA are decrying the iniquities of feminists and homosexuals, the work of the church is not getting done." Commenting on the event, Integrity of the Sierra Secretary Sandy Adams said that this convention was an outpouring of Christ's unyielding and unconditional love in its most pure form. "This is the most supportive group of feminists and womanists a persons could meet. How wonderful to finally feel accepted as a person of worth in the Diocese of San Joaquin!" The convention ended on a high note with an invitation from the people of Dallas/Ft. Worth to meet in their area in 1995 to continue the work begun in Stockton. ----- Ian Snider is Convener of Integrity of the Sierra ******************** *Now Available!* The new revised and updated edition of COMING OUT TO PARENTS: A TWO-WAY SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR LESBIANS AND GAY MEN AND THEIR PARENTS by Mary Borhek This edition reflects on how AIDS has affected the gay and lesbian community and the coming out process and has a vastly expanded chapter on religious viewpoints -- Jewish and Christian. The original has been a classic in the field for over ten years now -- and this new edition is better than ever! Mary is a long-time Integrity member and was a regular contributor to one of this journal's predecessors. She is also author of "My Son Eric." ******************** *CLAUDIA'S COLUMN* "I ask everyone present here to consider the agonizing pain this election is continuing to cause throughout the church. You are gathered here in the symbolic presence of the 8,000 Episcopalians whose petitions are but a token of the thousands and thousands more who are in anguish over this breach of unity in our church. But you are also surrounded by an even greater cloud of witness: those saints who have labored and suffered down through history that the church might be one." Roger Boltz, objecting to the consecration of the Rt. Rev. James Jelinek as Bishop of Minnesota Ever so slowly, the required 59 Standing Committee votes reached the National Church office. Most of us breathed a sigh of relief, believing that the necessary votes of 59 bishops would be a much easier process and that we would proceed as scheduled with the Consecration of James Jelinek as Bishop of Minnesota. The date was set: October 29, 1993. On Sunday, October 24th, members of the diocese received the distressing word that the consecration was uncertain; that there were not yet enough votes of affirmation. I called the diocesan office on Monday. "We'll have an answer for you tomorrow." I called again on Tuesday, and received the same response. Wednesday's response varied slightly. "We'll have to have an answer by noon tomorrow." "I can't believe this is happening; it's like a bad dream," I nearly shouted at the secretary. "It's not like other bishops haven't been ordaining lesbians and gay men for years!" "That might be true, but that's not the only issue, you know ... there are other things too." What, I continued to muse, would the diocesan office secretary offer as the "other things" that so hampered the necessary episcopal votes needed to proceed with Jim Jelinek's consecration. "The clear teaching and doctrine of this church is now and has always been that genital sexual relations are only appropriate within the bonds of holy matrimony between a man and a women, and that anyone who refuses to be bound by the commandments as understood by the church does not live a godly, righteous and sober life, and is therefore unqualified for holy orders, according to the canons of the church." Roger Boltz speaks the *only* issue, clearly and bluntly. The conversation with our diocesan office secretary as well as the objection raised by Roger Boltz in the name of Episcopalians United, clearly evidence for me the necessity of Integrity's work and presence through General Convention. Our charge, my sisters and brothers, is to be visible witnesses of lesbigay persons who do indeed live godly, righteous, and sober lives; who turn to Jesus Christ accepting him as our savior; who put our whole trust in the grace and love of Jesus Christ; who promise to follow and obey him as our Lord; and who believe the promise of Jesus Christ that "we have been marked as Christ's own forever" (BCP, Holy Baptism, pg. 309). "If you consecrate this man, before you and your fellow bishops change church teaching to approve his promised actions, you will be endorsing a renegade episcopate; you will mock the unity of our one holy catholic and apostolic church ..." Just what constitutes "unity within the one holy catholic and apostolic church?" Mr. Boltz clearly confuses unity and enforced conformity. Consider the parable of the fisherperson as illustrated in the Gospel According to Matthew: "Again, the Dominion of Heaven can be illustrated by a fisherperson -- who casts a net into the water and gathers in fish of every kind. ... When the net is full, it is dragged up onto the beach and its contents are sorted into edible and non-edible. That is the way it will be at the end of the world -- the angels will come and separate the wicked from the godly." Matthew 13:47, 48. There is a great emphasis that the Dominion of God (and the church as a microcosm of that dominion) gathers every kind of creature: women and men, young and old, unhealthy and healthy, lesbian, bisexual, and gay, and persons from every land and nation into one body. It is equally clear that the decision to keep or not keep; to accept or not accept is that of God; not of individual bishops or individual Episcopalians, and not that of Episcopalians United or members of similar organizations. We, you and I, my sisters and brothers, present ourselves at the General Conventions of our Church to evidence the diversity within the Body of Christ and to speak to unity in diversity celebrating the strength of the many gifts and talents within our church. We will not be separated from the Body of Christ by mere mortals. There are perhaps a few within our organization, my friends, who believe that the needs of only a handful of lesbigay Episcopalians are served at the General Convention or that representation of lesbigay Episcopalians is limited to the Board of Directors and a small group of volunteers who promise to adhere to a "secret agenda." That is certainly not true. A cross-section of Integrity members are represented at the General Convention by the various volunteers. "The Voice of Integrity" has as one of its intentions to keep you -- members of local Integrity Chapters and at-large members -- informed about proposed legislation impacting lesbigay Episcopalians. It also tells the stories of persons whose lives in the church have been negatively impacted: denied ordination or licensure as lay readers and chalice bearers; excommunicated; kept from parish, diocesan, or national church committees; verbally "bashed" and ridiculed solely because they openly, honestly, and proudly own their lesbigay identities. Members of the National Board and those who serve on the General Convention planning committees work to stay abreast of news from around the church, disciplinary actions taken in various diocese involving lesbigay persons, refusals to ordain, and resolutions to be brought to the General Convention, so that these can be both brought to you -- members of local Integrity Chapters and at-large members -- and can be responded to on your behalf. We members of Integrity must stand side by side with the "cloud of witnesses": those saints who have labored and suffered down through history ..." as reminders that members of the church continue to suffer oppression and exclusion and that our Church *is not yet one* ... and that we will not be one until all persons regardless of race, nationality, sex, ability, age, and sexual orientation are recognized and accepted as equal members of the Body of Christ by the Church. "GOD: First, we pray that this may not be merely a superficial outward form of prayer to which we give a respectable attention that we believe is socially proper, yet may actually ignore or even rebuke as a mere outward form drained of inner dynamic and honest, radical meaning. "Second, we offer thanks for the love ethic you have given us, and for all social justice, nonviolence, and peace, wherever these are found and particularly where they indicate active opposition to injustice and false peace. "Third, we ask for your judgment upon immoral systems that pervert the law to serve their own unjust ends, all totalitarian persecution, and any racial/(sexual) discrimination. "Have mercy upon us. Unite us in the common cause of social justice, in worship that is dynamically related to life, and in the upholding of moral law. Grant us tension in the midst of false peace, and grant us that peace which passes all understanding, in the midst of the struggle in which we are engaged on earth for the dignity of people. Amen." The Rev. Malcolm Boyd, "Are You Running With Me, Jesus?," P. 173. ----- The Rev. Dr. Claudia Windal was elected Midwest Regional Vice- President at the National Board meeting in November. She fills the unexpired term of James MacKay, who was removed by the Board for failure to attend Board meetings, which term expires October 1, 1994. She may be reached at 5349 Park Ave. South, Minneapolis, MN 55417, Tel: 612-822-6846. ******************** *MY VOCATION* by David Allen White Some years ago I truly believed that God had called me to the priesthood. When I approached my bishop (Scott Field Bailey of West Texas), he said he wasn't concerned about whether I was called to the priesthood, only whether I was employable in his diocese, and it was his belief that I was not, due to my sexual orientation. Rather than allowing me to complete the selection process, he washed me out early on so that I wouldn't have to bear the pain and disappointment of being turned down later. (That was the way he explained it.) Needless to say, I was very angry, and it took me a number of years to get beyond the anger. Finally I did. Now I can barely remember wanting to be a priest. I certainly don't want to be one now. I was telling this to a friend, and I said, "What did it all mean? I really believed I had a vocation. Now I don't. Was I wrong then? Or did God give me a vocation and then withdraw it?" And my friend said, "Maybe God gave you the vocation to be a layman who was turned down for the priesthood because you're gay." And I thought, "What kind of a vocation would that be? If God wanted me to be a layman, I was already a layman. God could have left well enough alone." I was thinking of the result, the way humans do. But my friend was right. Being a layman who was turned down for the priesthood for being gay is part of my identity. That has a lot to do with how I see the Church, the world, other people, God. I think that was part of who God wanted me to be. And I wouldn't have been that person except for that experience. ----- David Allen White is a member of Integrity/Washington and is a former editor of this journal's predecessor. ******************** *TRINITY TO SPONSOR EX-GAY TRAINING!* The Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, PA, the church's most right-wing seminary, has announced that it will train persons "to minister to the sexually broken ... by sexual problems ranging from homosexuality to childhood abuse." To meet what it calls "the urgent need" for such training, Trinity will offer its "Living Waters Leadership School" from January 10-14, 1994. This is believed to be the first such course at a seminary of any "mainline" denomination in North America. Trinity's dean and president, the Rt. Rev. William C. Frey, has long been associated with so-called ex-gay ministries. The program is called "Living Waters Sexual Redemption in Christ" and was devised by Andrew Comiskey, 35, a self-proclaimed ex-gay now married with four children, and a pastor of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Santa Monica, CA., an "independent evangelical church." The course will train people to lead the Living Waters program in their own parishes. The aim is to convert lesbians and gay men by persuading them that their homosexuality is a "blockage" along the way to becoming mature, heterosexual adults. By putting their faith in Christ, they can be "freed." The training session will be led by Comiskey, founder and director of Desert Stream Ministries and author of "Pursuing Sexual Wholeness: How Jesus Heals the Homosexual." Comiskey told "The Times" of London in 1991: "I am now a heterosexual man but in the past I took a major detour. The gay community will quake at the thought that people can change, but they can." Comiskey is also a former president of Exodus International, the umbrella organization of the approximately 50 local "ex-gay" groups around the country. An article in the September, 1987 issue of "The Advocate," condemned Desert Stream for visiting AIDS patients at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center without invitation in an attempt to "convert" them. In the September 1987 issue of the Desert Stream newsletter, Comiskey justified his actions by saying, "In the case of a Christian who refuses to submit his homosexuality as a sin that requires confession and repentance, as well as spiritual/psychological wounding that requires healing, admonishment is in order." Comiskey will be assisted by the Rev. Christopher Guinness, an English priest, and the Rev. Josephine Spinuzza, the "international coordinator" of the Living Waters program. The training program at Trinity is closely modelled after one held in 1991 at Oak Hill Ministerial College, London, where Dr. George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, used to teach. The training in England was supported by the Rt. Rev. John Klyberg, Bishop of Fulham [Suffragan Bishop of London], who appointed Guinness, a member of the brewing family and assistant vicar at the wealthy evangelical parish of St. Michael's, Chester Square, Belgravia. The program was not well received in the Church of England, however. The Rt. Rev. David Sheppard, Bishop of Liverpool, chair of the Church of England's Board for Social Responsibility and a leading liberal within the church, called the therapy potentially dangerous. He said: "I would be extremely unhappy about saying that if you have enough faith Christ will alter your sexual orientation. For some homosexuals, it could be extremely damaging and misleading to come up against this." The training was introduced to Britain by independent, evangelical church groups. Its acceptance by part of the Anglican church was greeted as news by "The Times" of London and other media sources. Many of those who attended the course in Britain were critical. Brian Smith, 43, an art school lecturer in London, said in an interview with "The Times": "It is so dangerous because it parades as an answer to the problem, and if it doesn't work somehow it's your fault because you're being sinful and you're not giving yourself to God." A 26-year-old actor from Devon who attended the same course said he was encouraged to relive being raped by a stranger at the age of six. "Afterwards I had to be put on tranquilizers for six months by a doctor." Dr. John Money, an American psychologist who has made a study of ex-gay courses, said: "I would consider it as a kind of brainwashing. It's similar to a religious cult." The Rt. Rev. David Jenkins, Bishop of Durham, described the new therapy courses as manipulative and exploitative. "They do not face up to the serious probability of science that there are a number of homosexual people who are so by their very nature, and so they could be inflicting real violence on people. It's in danger of interfering with nature and it's exploitative, and has nothing to do with Christian grace." A spokesman for the Archbishop of Canterbury commented on the British program to "The Times" in September, 1991: "The Archbishop would be appalled were the church to indulge in any victimization of those of homosexual orientation or refuse to welcome them into their worship, and welcomes a greater acceptance which is taking place." However, Dr. Carey subsequently, in April, 1992, told "The Independent" that while he had not had any contact with "ex-gay" counselling groups, "in general, because I believe that the Christian life is all about a life-changing encounter with the living God, I do believe that people's behavior can be changed." But he warned that people offering such aid should work with professional counsellors. "When enthusiastic amateur groups decide they know best, they can do a lot of damage." No American bishops to date have spoken against the Trinity program. Although long eschewed by Methodists, Presbyterians, and even American and Southern Baptists, "ex-gay" ministries have found support in the Episcopal Church. In addition to Frey, who attempted exorcisms of gay clergy in Colorado, Bishop John Howe of Central Florida initiated an "ex-gay" ministry in his parish in Virginia. Like many of these programs, it was abandoned when the director was accused of molesting the clients. Regeneration, the Exodus affiliate in Baltimore, is housed in an Episcopal parish. The late charismatic leader and Episcopal priest, Dennis Bennett, also sponsored such a program in Seattle. ******************** *RECENT EDS GRADUATE GAY BASHED: WAS NEAR DEATH IN BOSTON* David Gellatly, a former member of the vestry of Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland, a recent graduate of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, and at one time an aspirant for holy orders, was attacked and severely beaten in Boston on October 11, 1993 in one of many recent assaults on gay men in the Boston area. His body was found in the Back Bay Fens near the Victory Gardens. His skull was split open, and his head so viciously battered that doctors found teeth in his stomach. He had been attacked with a baseball bat by a group of youths. In the first ten months of 1993, 19 men were assaulted in the Fens, nine of them requiring hospitalization, according to the Fenway Community Health Center's victim recovery program. No arrests have been made. Those attacked are not necessarily gay, police said; some are assaulted while simply walking through an area frequented by gays. But activists have classified some of the attacks as gay bashing. Gellatly was initially in a deep coma but is now recovering at New England Rehab Hospital, Woburn, MA. Please keep his recovery in your prayers. ----- This article was taken from electronic postings by Andy Lang and from "The Boston Globe." ******************** *STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS: LESBIAN COMING OUT* by Patti O'Kane I have just read one of the best articles (very short but what a gem!) on lesbian disclosure/coming out that includes sound advice and strategies to assist women in disclosing their sexual orientation. The title of the article is "Lesbian Self Disclosure: Strategies for Success," by Sharon Deevey, "Journal of Psychosocial Nursing," Vol. 31 No. 4. While it is written by a psychiatric nurse who describes her professional and personal journey of disclosing to colleagues and friends, lesbians and even gay men have much to learn from her story. I am willing to send a copy of the article to anyone who writes to me: Patti O'Kane 55 Pineapple Street #7G Brooklyn, New York 11201 Consider reading the article, not just for your own personal use, but pass it on to therapists, pastoral counselors, supportive clergy, and others who might benefit from the experience and techniques offered. When the author, Sharon Deevey encountered the "you're a sinner" response, she developed the category "The God Hates You Attack" and offered this public response: "I respect your religious beliefs but I insist that you treat me with respect." Deevey includes 16 categories (which are fun to read) and typical responses that gay people could use to express their feelings, educate peers/family, display honesty, etc. The article is warm, courageous and packed with useful ideas for coming out of the closet. ******************** *And The Bible Says ...* Lesbian comedienne Lynn Lavner told the following joke during her comedy routine at PFLAG's annual convention in New Orleans: "The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need more supervision." *WALT SZYMANSKI MOVES TO PITTSBURGH!* by Susan Jordan This article appeared in "The Empty Closet," July 1993, and is reprinted with permission. The Rev. Walt Szymanski of Calvary St. Andrew's Episcopal- Presbyterian Church, who inaugurated the practice of performing gay and lesbian union ceremonies 20 years ago, will soon be leaving Rochester and closing his ministry there. Walt spoke recently with "The Empty Closet" about his 20 years of working for gay and lesbian rights within the church. EC: What are your future plans after leaving Rochester? I hear that you'll be moving to Pittsburgh. Will you undertake a new ministry there? WS: I may still be a resident of the Diocese of Rochester, and under the jurisdiction of the bishop here, and I will be doing an interim ministry around the Pittsburgh area. An interim minister serves parishes in between pastors, helping them review where they are and where they want to go. It's a ministry I'd been planning to do during my senior years, and it gives me the freedom to engage in gay and lesbian ministry wherever I travel -- in this case it's my hometown, Pittsburgh. I have two hometowns -- Pittsburgh and Rochester -- which represent the two extremes of gay and lesbian acceptance within the church. Rochester has been a history-making diocese for the Episcopal Church in gay and lesbian ministry. Pittsburgh has been recognized as headquarters for the Biblical fundamentalist segment of the church. They have their own seminary and the Bishop of Pittsburgh is well-known within the church for his opposition to gay and lesbian issues, such as same-sex marriages and ordination of gay and lesbian clergy. I don't think he opposes gay civil rights as such. If I were to be as active in Pittsburgh as I have been in Rochester, I'd encounter a lot more resistance. That's why it's wise for me to be canonically a resident of Rochester. EC: How did you first begin performing marriages for gay and lesbian couples? WS: It was a cooperation between then-Bishop Robert Spears and myself. Episcopal jurisdiction means that the Bishop has to authorize any particular ministry or ritual. In 1973 the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester established a precedent in gay/lesbian ministry among mainline churches, and established the first authorized gay and lesbian ministry. The ministry was initiated principally by me. I developed the concept and presented it to the Bishop, who agreed to authorize it. It wouldn't have meant diddly without authorization, so that's the impact made on the gay and lesbian community by Bob Spears. He thought the church should be open to civil rights for gays and lesbians, and that they should be able to discuss their needs within the diocese. I had discussed celebrating some form of acknowledgement in a religious way of the relationships of gay and lesbian persons. At that time we didn't call them "unions" or "marriages." The term used was "pastoral service acknowledging gay and lesbian couples celebrated in a religious setting or in their homes," which also involved blessing the home. That was the original process. We were to learn that this was the first mainline instance where gay and lesbian relationships in any form were celebrated in a religious way, in this country or anywhere in Western Christianity, as far as we knew. I was surprised to hear it hadn't been going on elsewhere; I was new to the church at that time. EC: Did this get you into trouble with the national church? WS: Bishop Spears did this at great risk to his status in the House of Bishops, which has the authority to censor members. For example, the House voiced dissent with New York Bishop Paul Moore's decision to ordain to the priesthood a lesbian deacon in 1977. I was at no risk because I was under Bishop Spear's jurisdiction. If he had been censored, I would have had to suspend my ministry and stop performing the rituals. But he wasn't censored. He is a magnificent man. On several occasions I have observed him addressing the House of Bishops, speaking without equivocation, very strongly and with theological precision, articulating concern for gay and lesbian rights, and I was very impressed with the way he handled himself. It would have taken a very strong and well- informed bishop to challenge him. Bishop Spears came in second for Presiding Bishop [to John Allin in 1972], and the grapevine said that he lost the election because he had supported the ordination of women. His pro-woman stance was well known. Had he run in 1976 he probably would have won because that year the General Convention confirmed the right of women to ordination, and also confirmed the civil rights of gay and lesbian persons as "children of God." (Ordination of gay clergy wasn't an issue yet.) The 1976 convention was probably one of the greatest recent conventions of the Episcopal Church. EC: What changes have you seen in the church and in the gay and lesbian movement for inclusion in the past years? WS: In the church I've seen strong growth of the Biblical fundamentalist backlash. The case isn't settled in the Episcopal Church -- we can't feel very comfortable. There was a setback in 1979 -- the Episcopal Church was influenced by the Presbyterian setback [in 1978]. An overwhelming backlash at the General Convention could close the door on gay lesbian ordination and the celebration of relationships. There's unstable movement in conservative America. They are powerful people with a lot of money, and they are committed to opposing gay rights. They use the gay and lesbian movement as a rallying point and appeal to people's fear of the unknown. The majority of Episcopalians sit on the fence and aren't certain where to go. They could move either way. So the Presbyterians are struggling and the Episcopalians are very aware of that struggle. The next Episcopal General Convention is in 1994 in Indianapolis. Integrity (the lesbian/gay Episcopal organization) is already hard at work, getting volunteers and developing a budget for the Convention. ******************** *THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A GAY PRIEST* by Ann Carlson Early Sunday morning, September 19, 1993, the Rev. Herbert G. McCarriar, Jr. of Coudersport, PA jumped to his death from the ninth floor of a hotel in Williamsport, PA. McCarriar was vicar of both Christ Church, Coudersport and a mission in Brookland, PA. He was long a member of Integrity and a pastor with a reputation for "sticking his neck out" on social justice issues. He had a tenure of more than seven years in the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania, during which time his Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Charlie McNutt, Jr., described their relationship as positive, and McCarriar as a person who accomplished much for his congregation and the diocese. Members of his congregation and friends described McCarriar as "eccentric" and "blustery" but agree that he had many good points and accomplished much in his ministry. Yet, something drove him to despair so great that he could no longer face life. I spoke with Bishop McNutt, the Rev. Canon Dr. Andrew France, the Rev. Canon John McDowell, and a few of McCarriar's friends to see if I could begin to understand what drove him to such an action. In the spring of 1993, Fr. McCarriar began to show signs of the stress which would lead to tragedy. In May he circulated a document pertaining to corporal punishment of adolescent males by their fathers. His exact intent is unclear, but in at least one case he appeared to recommend actions which our current society would consider abusive and psychologically dangerous. Unsure of the import of his actions, congregation members first approached McCarriar with their concerns and later approached Bishop McNutt when they felt unsatisfied with McCarriar's response. The Bishop told me that he did not feel the incident itself was serious. But he worried that McCarriar, when approached, seemed unable to understand the concerns of his congregation and their reasons for objecting to his actions. The tensions in Coudersport continued. After more complaints from the wardens and vestry of Christ Church, the Bishop called a meeting with McCarriar, including two wardens, a mental health worker from Coudersport and a counselor from the diocese. Recommendations from that meeting involved getting counseling and working for a time with Canon France, President of the Diocesan Standing Committee, in a mentor relationship. At about this time, friends started noticing changes in Fr. McCarriar's behavior and began to communicate their concern about his mental state. Several urged him to get counseling. Others attempted to get him to talk to them, to be open about what was causing him so much turmoil. None were successful. McCarriar also refused to take the Bishop's recommendation of counseling, although he did start meeting regularly with Canon France. At one point in early July, Fr. McCarriar was taken to a state hospital by concerned friends for involuntary commitment. They believed he might be a danger to himself and possibly to others. The psychologist at the hospital did not find sufficient grounds for involuntary commitment, but did communicate to Bishop McNutt that McCarriar felt he was under tremendous pressure. Anything which could be done to relieve that pressure would be helpful. Because he seemed deeply troubled by the recommendation for counseling, the Bishop told McCarriar that he would not require that if he continued meeting with Canon France and could show improvement in the situation at Coudersport. The Bishop believed this would reduce the pressure and allow McCarriar the space to work out his problems. But it was not to be. Shortly after this, McCarriar wrote to "selected friends" the following about his situation: "... it has caused me times of anger, rage, or heartbroken despair, as I feel that I was an undeserving victim of betrayal, treachery, and sabotage, by a few people who are not supportive of my ministry or pastoral judgement. These reactions are only normal and temporary, and are entirely due to the unnatural stress perpetrated upon me by Bishop McNutt. If he would cease and desist, all would be well, I promise you, if you keep faith with me." After this, the Bishop saw the situation worsen and found himself compelled to take action to resolve the conflict in McCarriar's congregations. Canon McDowell went to Coudersport to meet with the vestries and to hand deliver a letter to Fr. McCarriar from the Bishop, again requiring that he get counseling and that he continue to meet with Canon France as a mentor. Bishop McNutt was to be in Coudersport on Sunday, September 19th, for his annual visitation. He was scheduled to meet with the vestry after the morning service. It seems likely that McCarriar, who had been encouraged by Canon France in their sessions to consider relocation and starting over, believed that he would be removed from his position at this time. In any case, Fr. McCarriar did not show up at either the morning service or the meeting thereafter. In fact, he had gone to Williamsport the previous evening and on Sunday morning jumped to his death. Bishop McNutt was with the congregation when they were told of their Vicar's death. Canon France was with them the following two Sundays both to preach and to be available for the people in whatever way he could to promote healing. The Bishop is appointing a new vicar, to save the missions from conducting a search during their grief and healing process. In the interim the pulpit has been filled on Sundays by two priests from the diocese. Healing seems to be coming to the congregations at last. A good friend of his told me "Herb could have been helped. No one behaved inappropriately, but it just didn't happen." As I searched for clues, one theme which repeated continuously was McCarriar's fear of psychiatrists, psychologists and all forms of counseling. Against all assurances, he believed his counselors were spies for the Bishop, reporting all they heard in supposed confidence. A friend also said "there was so much denial in Herb. He was terribly injured, but wouldn't let anybody in. Even in good times, there was never any connection." It seems Fr. McCarriar was adept at helping others, but simply could not ask for or receive help himself. We may never know what fears kept him shut off from all those whose true desire, I believe, was only to help and to heal. He created a place which was a true anomaly; a rural congregation characterized by inclusiveness, welcoming to gays and lesbians, committed to justice. McCarriar often claimed the Coudersport congregation had the first openly gay couple in the nation to stand as godparents at a baptism [See "Integrity News & Notes," Winter, 1990, pp 6-7.] Yet, he who accomplished so much and helped so many was ultimately neither able to help himself nor to receive from others the care which he so freely gave. ----- Dr. Ann Carlson was confirmed on November 21 by the Rt. Rev. Frank Vest. We welcome her immense talents to the Episcopal Church. ******************** *BOOK REVIEWS* ACT UP! JESUS DID. "Jesus Acted Up: A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto" by Robert Goss Harper San Francisco, 1993 $12.95 Abraham Joshua Heschel once said that "the only image of God we are to fashion should use the medium of our entire lives." Although he doesn't quote Heschel in this book, Robert Goss firmly believes that we need to bring our entire lives to our theology, co- creating our unique image of God. *We* are creatures made in God's image; we have been given *our* lives, and they are all we have to give back to God. Goss has given us some of what God has given him; he has fashioned an image of God in this book that is to the benefit of him, us, and God. Not only do we see God's image of Robert (and vice versa), but we are affirmed in all *our* difference on our own journeys toward the face of God. Reading this book helped me to re-member things that have lain dormant for much too long. We *am* queer. We have always been queer. That's the way God planned it, that's the way God wants it to be (to borrow from a Billy Preston song). We *am* different. We don't act, think, dress, play, love, or anything else like other folk do. In important matters, I always try to act as if God dwells in me (doesn't she?, and don't you act that way too?) This has meant, in part, not *denying* our difference. Perhaps this is the reason I find the dress code that Integrity imposes upon us as a condition of service at General Convention so odious. Part of homophobia, and of any suppression, includes the attitude that everyone must look the same to be accepted. We are *not* the same as everyone else. To "pass," and be accepted by dressing like everyone else is an individual decision; to make that demand of the entire Integrity delegation at General Convention is to fall prey to internalized homophobia. Goss understands this to be reformist rather than transgressive (as Jesus was), and begins "Jesus Acted Up" with the heart of the matter. 'Blatant homophobia mutilates you without pretense: it forbids you to talk, it forbids you to act, it forbids you to exist. Invisible homophobia, however, convinces you that closetedness is your destiny and impotence is your nature: it convinces you that it's not possible to speak, not possible to act, not possible to exist.' This paraphrase of a quote from Eduardo Galeano in Chapter 1 of "Jesus Acted Up" frames the current debate over the free existence of queers. The institutional church allows that "homosexuals are children of God," and even occasionally decries violence against lesbians and gays. However, there are still too many people who feel themselves called to define the parameters of our lives, both practically and spiritually. This is a form of idolatry: these people worship their idea of what our relationships with God and each other should be, rather than respecting God's idea of what those relationships should be. They would prefer that we stay quietly in the closet, forgetting that God calls all of *us* to use the medium of *our entire queer lives* to fashion God's image. Gays, Lesbians, and Bisexuals are denied equal rights, rites, access to the ordination process and given countless other hurts because this idolatry passes for truth rather than the bias that it is. Listen to what Goss says: "The nature of Christian practice is God's practice of liberation ... The Christian task is to present liberating images of God in the Bible, to live Jesus' basileia practice of solidarity with the oppressed, and to actualize God's liberating practice in society. Christian social practices try to produce God's truth for justice by remembering (anamnesis) and imitating (mimesis) God's practice of justice within their own practices. Too often, many churches confuse themselves, their social practices, and their authority with God's reign ... God's reign is not identifiable with any particular institution; it is identifiable with the human practice of social justice, the struggle for justice and freedom." We are put in an untenable situation when asked to choose the Church's bias over our love. The Church is demanding that we agree to its image of God, while its purpose should be to encourage us to greater love, not to judge the hows and whys of it. When the church fails at this, it is our responsibility to remind them, as Deirdre Good has reminded the folks at General Theological Seminary, and as Robert Goss so determinedly reminds us. "Jesus Acted Up" deals with eight topics: 1) the social organization of homophobia (how we are hated); 2) queer discourse and how it is practiced; 3) a queer Christology and the retrieval of Jesus' basileia practice (using the symbol of God's reign to speak of God's liberating activity among us); 4) a queer biblical hermeneutics (and the privileges God gives to nonpersons); 5) how to embrace the exile (by creating base communities that practice healing and reconciliation, among other things); 6) the struggle for sexual justice (or how to turn the tables over in the temple when the good folks piss you off); 7) God as love-making and justice-doing (the liberation of the sexually oppressed *and* their praxis); 8) prophetic queers (How we can follow in the footsteps of Jesus, and ACT UP). Goss capitalizes on the work of Michel Foucault, a French philosopher who died in 1984 of HIV complications. He is also heavily indebted to both the feminist and liberation theologians (aren't we all). It is good theology; even we wimmin were pleased, because Goss does not presume to speak for us, but understands that "the liberation of gay men is not only linked to the liberation of lesbians but to the liberation of all women." This book is the most concise and best articulation of a queer theology to date, and it should be required reading for all self-respecting queers, especially if you're not self-respecting (Chapters 3-6 are worth the price of the book). Bring it to your parish for study, give it to your rector and bishop, and read it in bed with your lover (we did). Then let's sing a more profound Alleluia! Ana M.T. Hernandez Susan F. Jones August 1993 "LAMBDA GRAY A Practical, Emotional, and Spiritual Guide for Gays and Lesbians Who Are Growing Older Farrell, Lorena Fletcher, editor. Van Nuys, CA: New Castle Publishing Co., 1993. $12.95 by an anonymous reviewer "Where were you when I needed you?" An oft asked question and a question I feel qualified to ask in this review. I am in my seventies and could have used "Lambda Gray" years ago. The book presents no definitive answers, that is not possible in a small book. It is questionable that it could have done so in a large book. What it does do is provide excellent roadmaps and personal companions. I only know one of the contributors, Malcolm Boyd, an Episcopal priest. I have read much of his writing, all of it before I met him. I don't always agree with him, but never fail to find him interesting. In his essay he explains living as a gay man -- whether out or closeted "getting there is half the fun -- so it's the journey that occupies me now." Malcolm seems to be the only male contributor to this collection with a younger lover. Their lives mesh so well together since they are both writers, yet diverge in the area of religion. It would seem identical views are not the only road to travel with happiness. Another author, Morris Kight, found his way in political and social action. To make life worth living is the important road. He says "a satisfied and fulfilled life is so much better than a barren and incomplete one." Volunteering and serving are the guideposts he offers. The emphasis on youth in the male gay community does dis- turb. Raymond Berger relates an experience, "When do we stop being young? When I was in my twenties I remember an elderly gay gentleman telling me I know I may be old and wrinkled on the outside, but on the inside I'm still twenty." He then describes his feelings now, (at the age of forty something). "Now I think I understand what he meant. Twenty year olds are still attractive, but so are forty or fifty year olds." Each of the eight personal stories have common threads -- aging, awaking to ones sexuality, searching for community, coming out to family/friends/employers. The women seem, at least in this book, to have an easier time with some of these threads than the men. They became educators and/or active feminists and thereby gained support systems. Generally the women seemed not to have experienced the degree of difficulty men did with "age." Jeanne Adleman details her coming out in stages, starting with the statement "I have always disliked the phrase 'coming out.' I recognize now that it is a kind of shorthand for a series of steps." She then describes her five steps of coming out. Her story "To Find a Place" is an exquisite roadmap which at least to some degree we all have experienced. "Lambda Gray" concludes with two sections of rather detailed directions, sort of a expanded view of a city along the map. The first is legal, with great advice for gay and lesbian couples and individuals and their relationship to governments. Gail Koff, a founding partner of Jacoby & Myers (best known to must of us through their TV commercials) covers gay and lesbian rights -- from breaking up to wills and estates, children and illegal sexual behavior. Chapter 10 by William Hubbard provides a very complete resource list for the journey -- much like the AAA triptik. It can provide much in the way of support during this wonderful life! "One of the things that scared me most as a young gay man was the stereotypical image of the older homosexual: predatory, pitiful, a lonely outcast even among his or her own kind. ... With my twenties and thirties behind me, I stand looking expectantly into middle age and beyond. The view is not dim, but lit with promise and real anticipation of the of wonder to come." Mark Thompson in the forward of "Lambda Gray." ******************** *cc'd* In this issue we continue our feature cc'd. Two letters appear in this issue. The first letter objects to equating sexual orientation with pedophiles and child molester. A reply was received just prior to this issue going to press. We hope to reprint it in the Spring issue. We received several other letters, some of which have been incorporated into news articles. Please continue to send copies of your correspondence. *A Letter to The Salvation Army magazine from our Production Coordinator* December 6, 1993 Mr. James C. Kisser, Jr. Managing Editor, "Good News" Dear Mr. Kisser, As a Salvationist (albeit inactive) I was vaguely aware of the Army's stance on homosexuality. Since I am heterosexual, I gave it little thought. BUT, I am rather appalled, shocked, and whatever adjective I can think of, by your ignorance (meaning 'having no knowledge of'). I'm not calling you 'stupid' but obviously you are completely ignorant of "sexual orientation and preference." You used that phrase in the first paragraph of your article "A Position Statement on Human Relations" in the November 1993 issue of "Good News." But, in the next paragraph you wrote that the Army should not be "forced to hire pedophiles," and in your last paragraph "child molesters." Did you really mean to say, or do you really think, that all persons whose sexual orientation is gay or lesbian are pedophiles or child molesters? Are you trying to say that sexual orientation is synonymous with pedophilia and/or child molestation? What you may think is one thing, but what you put in print is another. I wouldn't be surprised if the implication in the article you wrote isn't actionable. Doesn't someone in command read these articles to vet such erroneous implications? Or perhaps the Army's attorney should read what's written before it's put into print. If "Good News" were a secular publication, I would expect, or even demand, a retraction of the implied condemnation of all gays and lesbians as pedophiles and child molesters. But, I would certainly expect the Army to clarify this mis-statement. I am saddened by the thought that this implication has been planted in the minds of readers who are as ill-informed as you. Have you ever read any of the studies regarding pedophiles or child molesters? If you had, you would know that the vast majority are heterosexual males. As statistics also show that 10% of the population's sexual orientation is *not* heterosexual, do you think that this percentage is not reflected in Army officers and soldiers [ed. note: clergy and laity]? Let's not be that naive. It's reflected in the medical, legal, educational, clerical (clergy) and every other profession or calling. I am fortunate to have as friends many gay and lesbian Christians, and I can only try to imagine how this kind of erroneous stereotype wounds and hurts them. Sincerely, Mrs. Dorothy Gunn Glendale, NY ----- As you might have guessed, for many years before her retirement Dorothy was a legal secretary. *A Letter To Share* Dear Friend, At some future time, congregations will come to understand that gay and lesbian people are first of all simply people, brother and sister human beings who are no different from heterosexual people. We all hunger, we all thirst, we all cry, we all bleed. We need acceptance. We all need to give and receive love. The gender of the person to whom we give our deepest and most intimate love does not matter. What matters is the quality of our caring and relationship, whether it is egotistical, manipulative, and exploitive or whether it contributes to our emotional and spiritual growth and the emotional and spiritual growth of our loved one. That change in understanding will not come about through argument and proof texts, nor even through careful, insightful explanation of the real meaning of those Bible passages which speak of homosexual acts. It will come about because people lose their fear and begin to understand with their hearts. We can help bring about this change. The means to do this, the power to do this are available to us in abundance. We need only to learn the ways in which we can avail ourselves of this abundance. The Bible promises us many things: "Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened." (Mt. 7:7-8) "You do not have, because you do not ask." (James 4:2c) The Bible also tells us of the abundance available to us. Jesus said: "I come that they may have life, and have it abundantly." (Jn. 10:10) "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, "Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water." (Jn. 7:37-38) The writer of Ephesians promises that we have access to a power within us which is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine. (Eph. 3:30) Agnes Sanford, known for her healing ministry, gives us some clues about how to bring this abundance of spiritual power into practical operation. The first principle is this: "The thing upon which we fasten our attention tends to become true." (Behold Your God, p.124) If your glass -- to use the old cliched chestnut -- is half empty, you live in lack. You are seeing negatively. If your glass is half full, you are a have, and you are seeing positively. This must be at least one of the meanings of Jesus' words: "For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have in abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away." (Mt. 13:12) Another suggestion from Agnes: "When you go to church, offer yourself to God as a channel for his light. His light must have a channel, just as the light of electric power must have a fixture through which to shine. Wipe off the dust from this fixture of your soul; remove from your inner being any dust of old resentments that you can remember, and ask God to cleanse from your mind any evil or fearful thought that might interfere with the clear shining of His light. God is love, and His light shines on the thoughtwaves of love." (Creation Waits, p.117--hereafter CW) For your church: "Simply pray for God's light to shine in that church so powerfully that miracles will happen there." (CW, p.120) "Joy gives power to prayer; sorrow weakens it. The prayer of desperation is not so powerful as the prayer of joyous expectancy." (CW, p.73) "Christians who in their ignorance look forward to persecution and distress are bringing trouble upon themselves, and it is only by the grace of God that we have come as far as we have." (CW, p.54) And again, "The thing on which we fasten our minds tend to become true. That is an inexorable rule that cannot be altered ... The picture we see in our minds takes precedence over the prayer and renders it of no avail." (CW, pp.60,61) In other words, let us see our congregation filled with light and love of God, not as a backward, contentious, unloving group of people. Before you begin, however, sit down -- or if you want, lie down -- and rest your hands comfortably in your lap or beside you, palms open in the gesture of receiving. Say: "I receive the abundance of the light of God." Or: "I receive the abundance of the love of God." Repeat this over a few or many times, as you wish. End with: "And I am grateful." You may address this to God, Creator, Spirit of Christ, or whatever designation of deity seems natural to you. In fact it is not even necessary to address Anyone. It is not necessary to have any feelings of anything happening at that point. That may happen later. Or as you claim your inheritance as a human being created by God (this in essence is what your are doing), you may feel flooded with feelings of joy, spiritual power, light, love. There is no "right" way to feel. You have sent out your message, your prayer. Know that the answer will come, is coming, IS. Above all, know that first, last, and always, love is the means of casting out the incredible fear that surrounds the whole matter of a same-gender orientation. In whatever guise fear presents itself -- hatred, judgementalism, literal interpretation of the scriptures -- know that "[God's] perfect love casts out fear.." (1Jn.4:18) Somehow this letter has reached you, whether directly or in a roundabout way. Please feel free to duplicate it and pass it on to others whom you believe might join in this great movement of prayer for our beloved church and for the reign of God here on earth. In the early days the Moravian Church accomplished miracles through the long-continued hourly intercession. There are many other ways of accomplishing miracles. Although we may be scattered throughout the church and may not know if there are more than one or two others praying as we are, know that you are being joined daily by many others. We are like seed, hidden seed, broadcast over the whole field of the Church. We are not only one tiny pocket in one tiny place. In another analogy, we are the yeast that works within the loaf. The love of God is unstoppable, but it needs channels -- us. Our glass is more than half full. It is overflowing with the abundance of God's love, in ways we cannot even imagine. Out of your daily moments of prayer, and those of many others, God fashions miracles. In whatever ways those miracles manifest themselves, they are the love of God working to bring about far more than we can ask or think. Let us be part of bringing those miracles to pass. In love and joy, Mary ----- Mary Borhek, a long-time Integrity member and regular contributor to a predecessor journal, is author of "My Son, Eric" and "Coming Out." ******************** *PRO-GAY BISHOP CONSECRATED IN MINNESOTA* The Rev. James Jelinek was consecrated on October 29, 1993 as bishop of Minnesota. Jelinek's election had been challenged by Episcopalians United for Revelation, Renewal and Reformation because of his position in favor of ordaining gay and lesbian individuals. They disputed the election process, contending that the diocese only considered candidates who were open to the ordination of "practicing homosexuals." Integrity should perhaps consider making similar challenges to consents for anti-gay bishop-designates in dioceses where all of the candidates have been opposed to equal access to ordination. Gary Gleason, president of Minnesota's standing committee and former Executive Secretary of Integrity, Inc., said, "We are pleased that the larger church has upheld the Episcopal tradition of respecting a diversity of positions, trusting that the Spirit of God will lead us through our differences to a fuller vision of God's will." Jelinek thanked the standing committees for their support, saying that "their courage and generosity of spirit shows that, even in the midst of controversy, the Episcopal Church is vital and healthy." Prior to his consecration, Jelinek had authored an article for "The Living Church" (September 19, 1993) "What I've Learned from Homosexuals" By James L. Jelinek, Bishop-Elect of Minnesota: The issues of ordaining homosexual persons and of blessing same sex relationships are matters of inclusion, sacrament, and the nature of being human. These, in turn, are rooted in our knowing Jesus and our developing understanding of holy scripture. My experience is similar to Peter's, who in his vision heard God command him to kill and eat food which was expressly forbidden in the book of Leviticus. He did not know what the vision meant until he met Cornelius and his household, Gentiles all. He ministered to them, and when the Spirit came upon them, he baptized them as well. It was not long before the early church ordained Gentiles as well as Jewish Christians. Similarly, Jesus, in the gospel we heard on August 15, had an encounter with a Gentile woman who sought healing from him. He said to his friends, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." Was she being arrogant or was he caught up in the prejudice of his culture when he said to the woman, "It is not fair to take the children's food and give it to the dogs"? She replied, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table." (Matt. 15:25-27) Jesus sees in her the faith he longed to see in "his own people" and grants her request. He learns something from her and, from that time, he has a new breadth and openness in his ministry. With Peter, and with Jesus, I make bold to claim a parallel experience and learning with another group of societal "outcasts." >From that experience, I have had to do further prayer, study and reflection. I have also been informed by scholarly studies in scripture, moral theology and pastoral care. The church must wrestle with whether or not the present discussion regarding homosexuals is analogous to Peter's experience with the Gentiles and Jesus's experience with the Gentile woman. But let us be clear that the issue is not "Bible versus sociology" but differing ways of being faithful to scripture and to the example of Jesus. On these our church has always allowed a diversity of views to be held. OPPOSITION The Rt. Rev. Alden M. Hathaway, Bishop of Pittsburgh, not only declined to consent to the election of Bishop Jelinek, he published the text of a letter to the then Bishop-elect in the diocesan newspaper, "Trinity": "I share your pastoral concern for people of homosexual orientation and public lifestyle expression. It is my conviction however that ordination and blessing of unions call into question the classical teaching of the church and the culture with a devastating effect upon any kind of comprehensive moral order for human sexuality. All persons regardless of orientation are thereby diminished. I recognize we are in fundamental disagreement about this." ******************** *BISHOP SWING: WE'VE GONE ABOUT AS FAR AS WE CAN GO!* In an October 4, 1993 letter to the clergy of the Diocese of California following the House of Bishops meeting in Panama, the Rt. Rev. William Swing shocked many people by proclaiming: "Concerning 'human sexuality' I came away with several personal theories. At this moment I guess that 100% of the bishops who discover that there are homosexual clergy in their diocesan ranks will not take action to depose homosexual clergy. Thus, I think every bishop has made peace with the reality of homosexual clergy in their own midst. "I also guess that 98% of the bishops will not allow same-sex marriages or blessings; nor is this percentage likely to change in the next decade or two. For the time being this is a dead issue in terms of expecting a legislative change. "I further guess that 95% of the bishops will not ordain 'practicing' gay and lesbian people. Most bishops will tolerate the actions of the 5% of the bishops as long as those 5% bishops do not set out to exploit the issue and whose primary concern appears to be furtherance of the Church's mission in a particular diocese. (This '5% solution' invites three modes of response which are: (1) *Trust* whereby the 95% trust the 5%; (2) *Wedge* whereby both sides have a legislative goal ... and vice versa, the 5% to increase its constituency and win, which the 95% might want to pass legislation to completely tie the hands of the 5%; (3) *Media* whereby the appeal is made to the media so that regardless of how the legislation turns out, some folks will be vindicated by way of news coverage. All three modes have operated in the recent past and now we are trying to get back to "Trust," having seen that "Wedge" and "Media" modes are not conducive to long-range institutional health in regard to an unresolved subject such as homosexuality in the Church.) "It seems to me that the Episcopal Church has placed the key issues of gay and lesbian Episcopalians on its agenda for the past few years and for the moment we've gone about as far as we can go. On the one hand, there is a heightened sensitivity to the savage, totally unfair, prejudice visited on homosexual people, and what was once a taboo subject is now much more of an option in conversation. Also, the civil rights of gays and lesbians receives greater support from the Church. On the other hand, the prevailing sentiments of the Church toward the key gay and lesbian issues is still negative either because of Biblical bias or latent homophobia or institutional inertia or the unresolved nature of the underlying questions (biological or environmental source? impact on traditional families? etc.) "(Again, these are my musings, not anything that centered upon the Bishops' deliberations about a Pastoral Letter on Human Sexuality.) "What I would predict is that the main forces of the Church will move away from the gay/lesbian agenda to a broader consideration of human sexuality. There are millions of people who have been burned by our culture's promises and expectations about what sex will deliver. These folks would benefit from a Church that would leave some markings on the trees of the sexual forest, so that they could find their way home to loving and enduring relationships." Chris Hansen, former convener of Integrity/Chicago and now living in San Francisco responds: "I am appalled. "It seems to me that Bishop Swing (not a noted prophetic voice on any issue in the Church), is trying to wish away the problems concerning access to the sacramental life of the Church by gay men and lesbians. Do other people think that only 5% of bishops would ordain openly gay men or lesbians? Do other people think that we've gone about as far as we can go with these issues? Are the prevailing sentiments of the Church on our issues negative? "Do other people think that Bishop Swing, with all his good wishes toward us, could do more to influence the House of Bishops on these issues?" The Rev. Robert Cromey, Rector of Trinity Church, San Francisco, responds: "This smug letter went to the clergy of the Diocese who are easily 40% homosexual. "Swing will continue to give non-prophetic leadership to issues of lesbian and gay rights. He will continue to play ball with the "old (mostly) boy" network of the Episcopal House of Bishops. They no longer debate substantive issues but sit around circular tables, have Bible study and prayer. They talk about good ideas for how to run the institutional church rather than pass legislation that will move the whole church to compassion and justice. It is by debate, dialogue, discussion and legislation that change occurs. "I am horribly disappointed with Swing's smug and self-serving letter and attitude. He gets income from thousands of homosexuals who contribute to the coffers of the diocese yet he makes it clear he will not fight for the rights of those same people who support him financially. He also says stop fighting, it will do no good. Institutional inertia has conquered all. Noting that Swing didn't mention Bishop Otis Charles' coming out in the House of Bishops at all, Cromey continues: "It will be interesting to see if Swing allows Charles a license to officiate in this Diocese. And if he does grant a license, will he allow Charles to function as a Bishop. I'll bet not." He ends with a challenge: "I call on the clergy and laity of the Diocese of California to: 1) condemn Swing's letter as insensitive and callous to the lives and ministry of homosexual Christians. 2) write and call him with your views. 3) withhold funds to support the Diocese and Bishop's salary until such time as he provides effective leadership for the full rights of homosexuals in the church. 4) establish an Act-Up program to disrupt conventions on the Diocesan and National level to assure that homosexual rights be dealt with, until justice prevails." Mark Graham, former convener of Integrity/Atlanta responds: Dear Bishop Swing: I have recently read your letter to the clergy of your diocese following the Panama House of Bishops meeting. I must let you know how deeply offended I am at your presumption that "for the moment we've gone about as far as we can go" concerning justice for gay and lesbian members of the Episcopal Church. While your flagrant disregard for the Gospel's call to justice will do much to hurt and alienate further your gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, we will continue to press forward. Within the Body of Christ, the Gospel does not permit justice to be tempered by political expediency. As a bishop of the Church, you have vowed to "boldly proclaim and interpret the Gospel of Christ ... stirring up the conscience of your people," and to "be merciful to all ... and defend those who have no helper." I pray that you will take these vows seriously at all times and so walk in the footsteps of the apostles. Yours in Christ, Mark Emory Graham Dr. Crew Responds: October 18, 1993 Gentle Bishop Swing, You speak of the 98 and the 2, of the 95 and the 5. Jesus speaks of the 99 and the 1. In 1974, had I heeded your mathematics instead of Jesus's, the House of Bishops would still be talking about "queers" and what to do with them. Jesus came that we might have life and have it more abundantly, not that we might have "dead issues." Do not try to preempt the work of the Holy Spirit, even in the House. The last shall be first again and again and again. Drink deeply from Samaritan Wells; then you will never declare ours Dead Issues. Faithfully, Louie Crew ******************** *BARRIOS DISMISSED: FULL STORY TO COME* An Episcopal priest who believed that part of his mission was to deal head-on with the social ills buffeting his community, was removed from his South Bronx church on November 5, 1993. He had been suspended in May after questions arose over his understanding of church policies and conflicts with its leadership. The Rt. Rev. Richard F. Grein, Bishop of New York, terminated the Rev. Luis Barrios as the priest in charge of St. Ann's Church, saying he had "no confidence" in the priest's ability to heal the rifts and protests that had besieged the congregation since the suspension. Fr. Barrios, who had been at St. Ann's since late 1991 remains a priest in good standing. The long-promised "full story" on this complex story will appear in the Spring 1994 issue of "The Voice of Integrity." ******************** *A 100% HETEROSEXUAL TEXAS COUNTY* The Apple Computer company will build a facility in Williamson County, Texas, after a county commissioner reversed his earlier vote to deny tax benefits to the company because it provides health benefits to the partners of its lesbian and gay employees. In casting his original vote against Apple, the commissioner said: "If I had voted yes, I would have had to walk into my church with people saying, 'There is the man who brought homosexuality to Williamson County.'" Perhaps he decided to change churches. ******************** *AN ABSENCE OF MALICE AND INTEGRITY* Why Gay Men and Lesbians Were Invisible at the 1993 Parliament of the World's Religions and Why It Matters by Edouard T. Fontenot In a rainbow of robes and a whirlwind week of prayer and discussion celebrating the unity and diversity of the religions of the world, representatives of scores of traditions -- old and new -- converged in Chicago from August 28 to September 5 for the 1993 Parliament of the World's Religions. At the first parliament in 1983, held in conjunction with the Colombian Exposition, there was no official Anglican representation because the Archbishop of Canterbury saw no point, saying that "the Christian religion is the one religion." Things have changed and Anglican presence ranged from the English priest and interfaith scholar Marcus Braybrook to the Bishop of Chicago and a large Episcopal Host Committee. But while the Episcopal Church has long been active in the interfaith movement and has shown a similar interest in the concerns of gay and lesbian people, these two points of concern have yet to find each other. The 1993 gathering took special pains to recognize the physical and spiritual damage that religion has inflicted on myriad peoples and cultures in the name of God. An hours-long Plenary Session was dedicated to hearing the "Voices of the Dispossessed," including those "who feel dispossessed while still on their historic turf." Despite the fact that gay men and lesbians are denied full political and religious citizenship in states and religious institutions across the world, hardly a voice was raised at the Parliament to recognize their "dispossession," or to herald the healing religious communities which lesgay people have found among the world's traditions, or created themselves. Of the over 700 workshops, seminars and roundtable discussions in which the 6000 delegates participated, only a single offering directly addressed issues affecting gay men and lesbians. For all practical purposes, gay people had no voice at the Parliament. Three questions present themselves with regard to the turn of events in Chicago: (1) Why does the omission of gay and lesbian voices at the Parliament matter? (2) How did it arise? (3) What should be done about it? The lack of identifiable lesgay presence at the Parliament matters because lesgay people comprise somewhere between five and ten percent of the world's population. Large numbers of these men and women are constituent members of the world's religious traditions. At the 1993 March on Washington for gay and lesbian civil rights, scores of religious groups were represented. The absence of an official presence of organizations such as Integrity at the Parliament was a great loss, not only for lesgay Episcopalians, but also for those in other traditions who need the witness of Integrity that lesgay people are religious people too. The omission should also matter to those who do not identify with religious institutions. In the emerging global community, gay men and lesbians are increasingly connected to all people and are affected by the decisions and actions of international gatherings which influence global opinions, especially opinions on morals and ethics. Religious institutions have power, and in the post-Cold War order their power to influence is increasing. Their positions and decisions directly and indirectly affect the lives of lesgay people who know all too well how damaging the opinions of religious institutions can be. To ignore the power of religious institutions, and of the coming together of religious institutions to declare a "Global Ethic," as did the Parliament, is to invite disaster. When religious groups gather together there is much discussion of truth, love and justice. Most can agree on these conceptions in the abstract. But what does the 1993 Global Ethic mean when it says, "We shall commit no sexual immoralities." How will the interreligious community flesh out such an ambiguous concept? Lesgay people certainly do not advocate "sexual immoralities." In light of history, however, gay men and lesbians cannot read such a statement without wincing. How will the abstracts of truth, love and justice be contextualized in the Global Ethic of the new world order? How did the situation at the Parliament occur? Some of the blame must be placed on pervasive societal homophobia. The Council for the Parliament of the World's Religions refused to be interviewed regarding the paucity of identifiable lesgay presence so it is impossible to judge whether there was any overt attempt to exclude lesgay religious organizations; the CWPR Press Office denies any such attempt. Nevertheless, it is clear that no proactive effort was made to include lesgay people. Such passive prejudice does not see the lack of participation of lesgay people as detrimental to the goal of a plurality of religious voices. Moreover, because secular identity is such a controversial issue, it is likely that the Council was relieved at the lack of lesgay presence. A visiting religious leader from Africa noted that members of his tradition specifically questioned him as to whether or not the "gay lobby" could use the Parliament to their advantage. Gay and lesbian people cannot, however, avoid primary responsibility for the debacle by pointing fingers at Parliament organizers. Passive homophobia should not come as a surprise, rather it should be expected. Lesgay people bear the burden of responsibility for accessing the avenues of power, for demanding a place at the table. Whether or not lesgay religious organizations were invited, or even informed, by the Council is really beside the point. The Parliament of the World's Religions was widely publicized in religious and academic communities. Seminars, roundtable discussions, workshops and the delivery of academic papers at the Parliament of the World's Religions were virtually all proposed *by the presenters and facilitators themselves*. All one had to do to lead an encounter was simply to invent one. The possibilities for fruitful discussion were virtually endless. The Rev. Tony Larsen, a Unitarian-Universalist minister and author from Oak Park, Illinois, co-facilitated the single lesgay- oriented seminar, "Gay and Lesbian Clergy Ask: Can You Be Gay and Lesbian and Still Be Religious." He found the lack of gay and lesbian presence shocking and disheartening. Another Parliament delegate put an announcement in the daily newsletter imploring lesgay people to speak up: "... where are the voices of my brothers and sisters. I am lonely ..." No major American religious denomination -- certainly not the Episcopal Church -- meets in convention without addressing lesgay concerns. But lesgay people need to reevaluate the assumption that their concerns will automatically be discussed and take responsibility for making a lesgay presence. As an organization dedicated to the liberation of lesgay people in the Anglican Communion, Integrity must consider whether its ministry does not also call it into the interfaith movement. If denominational lesgay organizations do not become involved, then who will speak for gay and lesbian people? Sexual identity is a painful issue within denominational families and lesgay people should not expect that those who engage in dialogue will raise the specter of conflict without some prodding. In a time when lesgay identity is finding greater acceptance, too often lesgay people rely on others to be their presence and their voice. This time no one spoke. Finally, what should be done? The greatest success of the Parliament of the World's Religions was its generation of enthusiasm and good will, the addressing of past wrongs perpetrated in the name of religion and the creation of the space to form relationships. To a large extent, gay and lesbian people missed out on these opportunities. The cause, however, is not lost. Lesgay religious people need to grab firmly onto the enthusiasm for learning and the good will generated at the Parliament and insert themselves into the interreligious conversations which will ensue, in whatever form they take. To do so, gay men and lesbians need to be informed about interreligious activities in their cities and neighborhoods. If none exist, create one and then give voice to all your concerns. ----- Edouard Fontenot is a research fellow at Harvard University specializing in American Religious Pluralism. He is the former editor of "Advance," the newsletter of Integrity/Philadelphia. *This article raises many important points which will be addressed by the National Board and we hope will be addressed by local chapters as well. Integrity was not invited to participate in the Parliament but we would have made sure we were represented had the National Board been aware of the event. If you become aware of important opportunities for Integrity's witness, please contact someone on the National Board -- don't assume we already know about it. We note with some concern that one of the principal organizers of the Anglican pre-Parliament meeting in Chicago is a long-time Integrity member.* ******************** *FOLLOWING ORDERS* by Harry Coverston Jesus said Come unto me *all* you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. The preacher said from his tele-pulpit that homosexuals were an abomination. He cited Leviticus and said they all deserved to die. And so one of them did in a filthy bathroom in Sasebo, Japan, far, far from home; far from the Mother who had "accepted" his being gay had stopped blaming herself and him and now awaited his return; He was close, ever so close to the discharge which would mean Freedom: freedom from the torment of his fellow sailors once "word leaked out," freedom from their resentment of his supervision over them. The Senator said "We won't be able to protect them if they are allowed in the Navy ..." "We won't obey the command of our civilian commander-in-chief; if you order us to let them in we will quit rather than submit; morale will completely break down." So said the institution whose defense to the My Lai village massacre was the required following of orders the same institution charged with protecting all of us. The Coroner said it was lucky Allen Schindler had dental records because there wasn't enough left of the face of this man who, like Francis of Assisi, loved and cared for animals, to identify him when Terry Helvey got through with him that night. Like the preacher, Terry was "disgusted with homosexuality" and so he registered that dis-ease with the heel of his boot in the bloody pulp of Allen Schindler's face. His Mother's wait finally over now as she positively identified her son's body by his tatoo. Both Terry Helvey and the Senator said they would seek to establish Justice; to promote the general Welfare; to provide for common defence; to prevent the denial of equal protection of the laws; all of this they promised "So help me, God..." upon taking office. The Priest said "Let us renew our Baptismal Vows: to seek and serve Christ in all persons loving your neighbor as yourself; to strive for justice and peace among all people; to respect the dignity of every human being." And the People all said: "We will with God's help." Jesus said: How can you love God whom you have not seen if you do not love the brother and sister whom you do see? When Allen Schindler's body was taken home to be buried just before Mother's Day the Senator said: See, what did I tell you? The now sober Terry Helvey said to Allen Schindler's Mother: "If I could trade places with your son I would not hesitate." The President said Maybe it's better if we simply don't ask and they simply don't tell. So long as no one admits the truth and identifies the elephant standing in the barracks it'll all be OK. The Priest and his People and his Bishop and his Presiding Bishop and his Archbishop all said Nothing. And that silence was deafening and deadening. Jesus said: This is my commandment that you love one another. No one has greater love than this to lay down one's life for one's friends. And the People said: Crucify him! ----- Harry Coverston, who was a founder of Integrity/Central Florida, is a student at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific. PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO THE BYLAWS OF INTEGRITY, INC. *Additions are shown in bold*, There are no Deletions. CHAPTER 3. BOARD OF DIRECTORS. ARTICLE 6. ... COMPOSITION. Section 1. Members There shall be a Board of Directors of Integrity, Inc. (hereinafter "Board"), which shall consist of the elected National Officers, *the immediate past President*, not less than four Regional Vice Presidents, and additional Directors as provided, *all of whom shall be members of Integrity*. *New: Section 3. Immediate Past President* *(With subsequent sections renumbered)* *The immediate past President shall be a member of the Board ex officio for a period of two years following the election of a successor.* CHAPTER 2. BOARD OF DIRECTORS ARTICLE 9. ... ELECTION OF OFFICERS Section 1. Terms of Office. The President, the Secretary, the Treasurer and the Regional Vice-Presidents shall take office on October 1 of even-numbered years or immediately upon their election, whichever is later in the calendar year, and shall serve for two years or until their successors are elected. *The President shall be limited to two consecutive terms.* Reason for proposed changes: The Board at its Fall, 1993 meeting voted to recommend these changes to the membership in the hope of both assuring greater continuity and preventing possible burnout. Dignity has for many years used its immediate past presidents to excellent effect as members of its national board. The insight that can be shared is immensely helpful and they have often assume "trouble-shooting" roles. As to a term limitation, no prior President of Integrity has ever served more than 3 years (Bruce Garner is now in his fourth), and the burnout rate has been exceptional -- Kim Byham is the only former president to remain a member of the organization after the expiration of his term. The chances that someone could function effectively as President for 6 years seem slim indeed. PROPOSED EFFECTIVE: April 29, 1994. *OFFICIAL BALLOT* Please cut out this ballot or copy and follow instructions below. ____ I approve the proposed bylaw amendments. ____ I do not approve the proposed bylaw amendments. _________________________________________________________________ Please print your name on this ballot or on the envelope in which your ballot is mailed. Without your name, your ballot cannot be counted. _________________________________________________________________ Please mail to: Dignity-Integrity/Mid-Hudson P.O. Box 356; LaGrangeville, NY 12540-0356 ENVELOPES MUST BE POSTMARKED BY APRIL 1, 1994. ******************** *PRESIDENT'S COLUMN* I have gotten into the habit of going to a neighborhood bar on a couple of Sunday evenings each month. I go to see a show. The show is "The Gospel Hour," and it's performed by a group called The Gospel Girls. The "girls" of course, are not girls. They are three men with incredible singing voices who dress as women and put on a show every Sunday night. The show is indeed a gospel show. And while there are a few lip-synched songs, most are performed live. The songs are a mixture of old time gospel standards and contemporary Christian music, and includes everything from soft ballads to hard driving, tambourine banging, revival music. It's all wonderful and fascinating. The atmosphere is, as would be expected, somewhat camp. There is a constant banter from the performers that would rival the likes of Tammy Fay Baker or Jimmy Swaggart. If you closed your eyes you might even think you were at a campground revival or an "all night gospel sing." (We used to have those in Atlanta. My grandparents attended regularly - praising God in song, quite literally, all night long.) But, under the camping and banter I have noticed something: for many in attendance, these shows are a form of worship. For some, it *is* church. For many, it may be as close as they can *safely* get to anything remotely resembling organized religion, i.e., to anything remotely related to God. I look around the bar during the performances and it's quite clear that most of these folks *know* the songs being sung. They haven't learned them at the bar either. Their knowledge of the music comes from a time in their lives when God was viewed as love, not judgement. Their knowledge stems from a time when they felt connected to church families rather than estranged; when God was worshipped with joy rather than avoided as the source of doom. I see eyes that sparkle, if only for a moment, with memories of a happy time, a spiritual time that was snatched from them by churches which neither understood nor accepted them. I watch those memories surface as voices are raised in familiar songs. Every so often, during a particularly rousing number, I glimpse a unique part of the dominion of God - even in a bar filled with smoking, drinking and talking. In this place, God is found far, far, from a nave lighted by sunlight filtered through stained glass, far from a pipe organ, a marble altar, and a golden cross. But God *is* present. I sometimes grow somewhat melancholy at this scene. I see this spirituality, some of it suppressed by life experiences, some of it bubbling over, and I realize that most of God's churches will not even acknowledge this spirituality. Its existence is discounted because it is associated with lesbian and gay people, who, of course, by their nature, can't be Jewish or Christian, cannot have a relationship with God. I grow sad thinking about this wonderful resource lost to the church. I grow sadder thinking about those who never hear the true message of the Gospel, the inclusiveness of the redemption brought by Jesus Christ. The church just can't seem to believe and practice what it purports to preach. What I witness on those Sunday evenings is a vineyard waiting for workers to come and tend it. What I witness is vines waiting for the harvest, but beginning to wilt because no one has come to offer them spiritual food and drink to assuage their hunger and quench their thirst. No one has brought living water to the vineyard. And thus it lies - waiting for the workers, waiting for sustenance. That vineyard, even the part in a gay bar, is the focus of the ministry of Integrity. Those of us who have seen God revealed by the light of the Gospel are the workers for whom the vineyard waits. Our obligation is to do what most of the church will not do: take the message of the Gospel to that vineyard, no matter where we find it, no matter who the vines are, no matter what their sexual orientation. Maybe someday our witness to the truth of the Gospel will lead the church into these vineyards. As General Convention 1994 approaches, our tasks grow more vital. There are those who want us out of the church and will work for our expulsion. There are those who want us "healed" of our sexual orientation. There are those who discount us as without worth. There are those who just wish we would shut our mouths and quietly fade away. And there are some who even see us as the source of evil in the church. We can't quit. We can't bail out. We can't abandon the vineyard. There are lives depending on what we do - some in the bar/vineyards, some even in our church. The next time I am blessed to hear the mellow voices of the Gospel "Girls" raised in praise to God, I hope I remember that God's house isn't always stained glass and gleaming brass and marble. Sometimes the vineyard, God's house, can even be a "queer bar," the preacher a bartender, and the choir three men in drag. Maybe some day the church will understand that too. And maybe someday the church will also send its laborers into those vineyards to nourish the wilting vines. And maybe, just maybe, it won't be too late. ******************** *CHALLWOOD STUDIO* Victor Challenor Paul Woodrum Custom designed and made ... EUCHARISTIC VESTMENTS PREACHING GOWNS - STOLES ALBS - SURPLICES - TIPPETS 100 Lexington Ave., Suite 1-L, Brooklyn, NY 11238 Phone: 718-398-2877 Pontifical vestments commissioned for the investiture of The Rt. Rev. Clarence Coleridge as 13th Bishop of Connecticut. ******************** *Integrity 20th Anniversary Logo* The logo has been selected as Integrity's official 20th Anniversary Logo. A glossy sheet with this logo and other Integrity related symbols will be sent to all chapters early in 1994. A calendar of 1994 events was published in the Fall 1993 issue of "The Voice of Integrity."