Tag Archives: Episcopal (Anglican)

Bishop Robinson’s retirement

Integrity USA is the principal gay-advocacy organization in the Episcopal Church. The organization sprang to life in 1974 following a newsletter postmarked Fort Valley, the county seat of Peach County, Georgia. Louie Crew, a young professor of English was behind the mailing, and Dr. Crew remained a mainstay of the organization for many years.

The Episcopal General Convention meets every three years, and the Integrity worship service has become a highlight, an institution attended by thousands. At the General Convention in Indianapolis this past summer, the Integrity worship service was preceded by a cocktail party in honor of Dr. Crew. Through his prior writings, phone conferences, and email correspondence, Dr. Crew has been an invaluable resource for me, and I was privileged to finally meet him face-to-face before and during the cocktail party. This is a picture of Dr. Crew being honored during the Integrity worship service.

Dr. Crew had been one of the select few invited to be part of Bishop Robinson’s consecration as Bishop of the New Hampshire Diocese in 2003. Of course, the ice arena of the University of New Hampshire was full of guests, and the procession included hundreds of priests, bishops, and other dignitaries, and Dr. Crew was part of the contingent of family and friends who processed in with the bishop-elect.

It was also fitting that Bishop Robinson offered the sermon during the Integrity worship service that followed Dr. Crew’s party. I was also privileged to meet the bishop and his partner, Mark, during the party. I visited with Bishop Gene, Mark, and former Integrity president Rev. Susan Russell.

All of this is introduction to a blog post penned by Rev. Russell that appeared today on the Huffington Post. Rev. Russell paraphrased the Simon and Garfunkel song “Mrs. Robinson” as she lauded the tremendous progress made recently in the church and society for LGBT inclusion. Click below to check it out.

“Here’s to you, Bishop Robinson. Jesus loves you more than you will know. And so do we!”

Shout it from the rooftops

Last week I received a comment that I refused to publish because it attacked an individual or a group. Apart from the personal attack, the commenter attempted to make the point that gay friendly resolutions by mainstream churches explain a general membership decline.

Au contraire.

Two years ago, a book entitled American Grace became a national best seller, and I blogged about it in a post entitled Conservative Christianity Driving a Generation Away From Religion. That post included this quote from another blog that suggested American Grace:

makes the case that the alliance of religion with conservative politics is driving young adults away from religion …. Among the conclusions [of a major survey] is this one: “The association between religion and politics (and especially religion’s intolerance of homosexuality) was the single strongest factor in this portentous shift.”

Today I ran across another blog post about a more recent book that makes the case even more starkly. Here’s the open-ended survey question that formed the basis for the book:

What words or phrases best describe Christianity?

How would you respond? What’s the first word that pops into your head? Then, give yourself a couple of minutes to think and then answer again. What’s your answer after reflection?

Now shift your thinking. How do you think others, self-identified as non-Christian and aged 16-29, responded to the question? What of those who self-described as Christian?

With an open-ended question, one would expect a wide variety of answers, but it turns out there was a single theme that was listed on a startling 91% of the responses from this youthful age group that self-identified as non-Christian. What do you think that one answer was?

Ready?

Antihomosexual.

Ouch! Thanks UMC and General Conference 2012 (GC2012) for reinforcing the perception.

Well, what about the self-identified Christians in that age group? How did they respond?

Antihomosexual.

But, it was only 80%.

The blog post contains this quote from the book, unChristian, by David Kinnaman.

“The gay issue has become the ‘big one, the negative image most likely to be intertwined with Christianity’s reputation. It is also the dimensions that most clearly demonstrates the unchristian faith to young people today, surfacing in a spate of negative perceptions: judgmental, bigoted, sheltered, right-wingers, hypocritical, insincere, and uncaring. Outsiders say [Christian] hostility toward gays…has become virtually synonymous with the Christian faith.”

That’s the bad news. The good news is when a problem is so clearly defined, the solution also becomes obvious. The United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church, the ELCA Lutherans, and the PC(USA) Presbyterians have opened their doors. They understand that “all means all”. They have decided to become part of the solution rather than part of the problem. By inviting gays into their pulpits and to serve at their altars, they have welcomed the whole host, the entire gay community, into full communion, full participation, full inclusion in the life of the church.

Don’t be shy, don’t be embarrassed, don’t hide your light under a bushel. Tell the world what you have done. Shout it from the rooftops!

UMC leadership structure

I’ve been paying a lot of attention to the five, principal mainline Protestant denominations lately (UMC, ELCA, PC(USA), Episcopal, and UCC). The ELCA is a full communion partner with each of these, and I heard Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefforts Schori speak highly of the Episcopal/ELCA partnership at an Episcopal Diocesan Convention.

Both the ELCA and the Episcopal Church function with a national presiding bishop, a full-time, long term position. Bishop Mark Hanson, only the third ELCA Presiding Bishop since the denomination was formed in 1988, is nearing the end of his second term. Presiding Bishop Schori serves out of the Episcopal Headquarters in NYC though she was previously Bishop of the Nevada Diocese. She is only the 26th presiding bishop in Episcopal history which goes back to Revolutionary War days.

The UCC has a General Minister/President, the Presbyterians have a General Assembly Moderator, and the Methodists have a President of the Council of Bishops who serves a two year term while continuing to serve as bishop of his or her regional body.

At the upcoming UMC quadrennial General Conference in Tampa, delegates will consider revisions to their organizational structure. Among the proposed changes is the creation of a full-time President of the Council of Bishops without responsibility for any jurisdiction other than the national church.

Would this position be more like the presiding bishops of the ELCA and Episcopal Churches? “Commenters have called the proposed position everything from a United Methodist archbishop to the denomination’s CEO.”

Click here for full details from a UMC News Service report.

I’m back!!

Well, at least for the moment.

I have been pouring hours and hours into my book project, Gays in the Pulpit. My working draft is now over 170 pages, which is probably half. And the stories! And the people!

Chicago is home to Reconciling Ministries Network—the Methodist LGBTQ advocacy group–and I have visited with Troy Plummer (their director), Pastor Bonnie Beckonchrist (their board chair), Pastor Morris Floyd (activist in the 80’s and 90’s), and Mark Bowman (original founder). Bowman is also the director of LGBTran Archives, which contains biographies and more about leading LGBTQ icons. Turns out I already knew Steve Webster of Madison, Wisconsin who organized the first Methodist gay caucus back in 1975.

Thanks to these excellent resources, my draft includes chapters covering the Methodist history up to around 2000. The Methodists are the remaining holdout among the five principal mainline Protestant denominations. The others (ELCA, Presbyterian, Episcopal, and United Church of Christ) all ordain gay clergy, but the upcoming UMC quadrennial General Conference may change that. It’s close, with US delegates firmly on board, but because the UMC also has delegations from Africa, the Philippines, and elsewhere who tend to be very conservative vis a vis LGBTQ issues, the US delegates may need around 65% positive to offset the likely 90% negative from outside the US. The Conference is scheduled the end of April in Tampa, and I’m thinking I may attend and do some live-blogging as I did during the historic ELCA Assembly in 2009.

I am also up to around the year 2000 in my ELCA chapters. Chicago is home to both the ELCA archives and the Lutherans Concerned (LCNA) archives. I recently returned to Minnesota and had a delightful lunch with Ruth Frost and Phyllis Zillhart of the famous extra ordinem ordinations in San Francisco in 1990, and I have been in email correspondence with Pastor Jim Siefkes (who organized the first Lutheran gay caucus back in 1974), Jeannine Janson (who compiled a booklet containing early LCNA history), Amalia Vagts (the director of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries), and others.

Louie Crew, the founder of the Episcopal group Integrity, has been very helpful during phone conversations and email correspondence. His stories also go back to the mid 1970’s. I have exchanged emails with Ellen Marie Barrett, the first Episcopal lesbian priest way back in 1977, who provided a poignant look back at the pain of rejection but also the triumph—“I am a priest forever!” My Episcopal chapters go to around 1990.

The Presbyterians and the UCC still require a lot of work—those chapters only cover the very early 1970’s. I have been in touch with More Light Presbyterians and the UCC Coalition, but I now need to follow up on the leads they have provided. Retired dean of the United Theological Seminary Clyde Steckel has been helpful with early information about the UCC. Trips to Cleveland and Drew University in New Jersey are likely in the offing, which is where many key persons and records are located.

In addition to these contacts, I have also kept the nearby Arlington Heights Library busy with dozens of inter-library loan requests. Many official records of national church conventions are available online as well.

Gays in the Pulpit

I have several writing projects underway. I recently posted about Prowl, a compilation of five short stories based upon my Vietnam experience. I have also been working on a sequel to A Wretched Man. Third, last spring I started work on a non-fiction piece, tentatively titled Gays in the Pulpit, which will be a forty-year retrospective on the gay rights movement within the church. Now that we are settled into our new digs in Arlington Heights, I have again picked up that project in earnest.

I am personally acquainted with many of the more recent heroes of the push for full inclusion including Lutherans Anita Hill, Ruth Frost, Phyllis Zillhart, and Emily Eastwood; United Methodist Amy Delong; and Presbyterian Scott Anderson. If you click on their names, you will link to prior blog posts about these individuals.

My current research is also introducing me to earlier heroes. In 1968, Troy Perry was a gay Baptist/Pentecostal preacher who founded the Metropolitan Community Church, which now numbers over 250 predominantly gay congregations internationally. Father Robert Mary Clement was a gay priest who marched in the first gay pride parade in Greenwich Village and whose Beloved Disciple Church ministered to the gay community of New York City in the early ‘70s. Bill Johnson was the first openly gay man ordained by an established denomination way back in 1972 by the United Church of Christ. Ellen Barrett was the first out lesbian to become an Episcopal priest in 1977.

As I am reviewing the data from these early days, I have received invaluable assistance from Rev. Clyde Steckel, retired dean of the United Seminary of the Twin Cities. Rev. Steckel was witness to and participant in the UCC steps toward gay inclusion in the ‘70s. The record in the UCC is striking because they were so far ahead of the other mainline denominations. The UCC accomplishments in the 1970s foreshadowed the actions of the Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Methodists a full generation later.

More to come.

The Power of Woman

As a former attorney, I appreciate the line of Charles Dickens spoken by Mr. Bumble, the law is a ass. In the context of the novel, Oliver Twist, Mr. Bumble recognized that his own wife was more powerful than he in their marriage relationship, and the patriarchal presumptions of the olde English common law were false.

The first half of the twentieth century witnessed the successful struggle for woman’s suffrage, and during the second half the women’s liberation movement achieved notable social and legal successes. To be sure, the victory is not yet won, and pay inequality in the workplace is an obvious example of residual sexism in our culture.

So too the church. Except for a bright, shining moment in the earliest days of the Jesus movement, the men have been in control until recently. Contemporaneous with the women’s movement in secular society, the role of women in the church has changed, and the wide advance of female clergy is eloquent testimony; yet, in my own ELCA, only a handful of women have yet been elected to the episcopate, which remains mostly but not exclusively male. This weekend, I will travel to South Bend, Indiana to attend an Episcopal Diocesan Convention, and the honored guest of the Northern Indiana Diocese will be the Most Reverend Katherine Jefforts Schori, the presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the USA, who is the first and only female to head a major Christian denomination in the US.

Though female leadership in the church is not yet completely de jure, along with Mr. Bumble I recognize the de facto power of women. Theological critics of the 2009 pro-gay actions of the ELCA are right in one thing—it was the women’s movement in the church a generation ago that set the stage for the recent successes of the gay rights movement: a “slippery slope” some would claim, but I prefer the metaphor of opening the door.

History repeats itself and not always in a negative way. The civil war in Northern Ireland finally ended when Protestant and Catholic women said enough. More recently, the women of Liberia rose up and ousted the corrupt Charles Taylor regime and elected a female as the first head of state in an African nation.

One of the Liberian women leaders was Leymah Roberta Gbowee, a Lutheran and the keynote speaker at the Women of the ELCA Triennial Convention in Spokane this summer. Earlier, she had been a scholarship recipient through the International Leadership Development Program of the ELCA in 2006-2007 to support her study in peace building at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va. An announcement from Oslo, Norway this week named Gbowee as a co-winner, with two other women, of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The following is from an ELCA press release:

The starting point of the women’s movement was war fatigue, said Gbowee, a mother of six children. She grew tried of watching children die from hunger and “waking up every morning and not knowing whether a tomorrow was possible. You can’t plan for the future.” Along with thousands of other women from across Liberia, Gbowee wanted to dream of a better community.

She decided it was time to stop the war and called together women of all faiths — Christian, Muslim, indigenous and others — from across Liberia to “step out,” recognizing that Liberian women can play a critical role in peace building.

Using the experiences of the women before them, Gbowee used prayer, picketing and silence to further their mission. Despite insults and other behaviors that came their way, Gbowee said, “We kept quiet because we had a sense of purpose and sense of direction.” The women also put together statements of peace for African governments, engaged the media and initiated personal, one-to-one conversations with power brokers “to see how we could get the peace that Liberia was searching for,” she said.

“Leymah Gbowee’s life and leadership are a witness to the power of women to resist forces of violence and domination by creating a movement for reconciliation and peace,” said ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson. “In Liberia, I experienced her passionate commitment to rebuilding a nation torn by civil war not by seeking vengeance, but through her faith to encourage dialogue and inclusiveness at all levels of society.”

Bumble concluded his soliloquy: the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.

In Remembrance

We pay homage today to a pair of clergy leaders in the LGBTQ movement for equality, inclusion, and respect. To call them icons would be incorrect because that term implies a well-known public face, and these two were quiet crusaders, both of them straight allies.

Seventy-five year old Paul Egertson, ELCA pastor and one-time bishop in California, died at his California home yesterday. Lutherans Concerned North America (LCNA), the LGBTQ advocacy group within the ELCA , issued this statement honoring Bishop Egertson’s memory:

While bishop of the ELCA Southwest California Synod, he participated in the 2001 ordination of Pastor Anita C. Hill of St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church, St. Paul, Minnesota. For this act, he subsequently resigned his position as bishop, and tirelessly advocated for the policy change that finally occurred as a result of the decisions of the 2009 Churchwide Assembly.

Emily Eastwood, Executive Director, Lutherans Concerned, said, “Paul Egertson stood up for us and in opposition to the discrimination of the church against us when that was neither popular nor safe. His witness to Christ’s redemptive grace and his commitment to helping the church see the error of its position are a shining beacon of prophetic righteousness in the face of determined opposition – and he did it with grace and eloquence, as befits a follower of Christ. He was a friend and mentor — always available, with words of calming wisdom. He made a profound difference. He will be missed.”

Under a blog post titled We’ll Take it From Here, blogger Casey, an ELCA seminarian, wrote of being a young student of Egertson without knowing his history. She regrets her sophomoric attitude then but now treasures his advocacy with the benefit of a maturing, retrospective point of view.

But as I continued in the Religion department and spent time with professors in discussion outside of the classroom, I found that this man was interesting.

He was a progressive voice in a generation that would not hear him. As the generation that has heard him, it is our responsibility to go forth into the ELCA that he has helped to shape, and to continue to fight along the lines he laid down. I am proud to have been a student of his, and to be joining the ranks of ordained clergy in the ELCA, in order to effect the same kind of change.

Of course, the ELCA and the Episcopal Church are currently in the forefront of progressive Christian denominations that have moved toward full inclusion of the LGBTQ community. A generation earlier, the United Church of Christ (UCC) became the first mainstream Christian denomination to openly affirm their gay members.

But even before that, a Christian denomination was formed expressly for the purpose of ordaining and celebrating gay inclusivity. This denomination is known as Metropolitan Community Churches, (MCC), and the second person we honor today is Pastor June Norris who died this week at the age of eighty-eight. Norris was the first straight person and second woman to be ordained to the ministry of MCC. From a San Diego Newspaper:

She grew up in a Baptist family in Illinois and married at age 15. She had three children by the time she was 20, divorced after 28 years of marriage and moved to California to seek a new life.

Friends and family said she was a soft-spoken, tenderhearted crusader for equality. “She was nonjudgmental and extremely compassionate,” said her sister, Ruth Mahan. “She accepted people as they were.”

Nephew Ted Sweet, who introduced her to MCC, said he and his aunt agreed to attend her church on Saturday and go to his church on Sunday. “I took her to (MCC) and she never left. The people were so receptive to her and welcomed her,” Sweet said. Rev. Norris would later say she felt called to the ministry at the L.A. church.

Sweet said Rev. Norris had a gift for helping people. “She had one of the most soothing voices in the world. No matter how upset I was, I just had to talk to her on the phone and I’d feel better,” he said. “She just had a way of communicating that took all the pain and hurt away.”

We conclude with the sentiment expressed by blogger Casey. With thanks for these early leaders, Casey promises, “We’ll take it from here”.

A Lutheran Christmas

Northfield and the greater metro area of Minnesota are extremely snowy this year … apparently the snowiest since they began keeping records, and more snow is on the way next week. Our cul de sac is shrinking as the snowbanks shoved to the edge by snow plows are over ten feet high and encroaching onto the roadway. This photo of daughter Karin, holding our granddaughter (Karin’s niece) was taken before the latest dump of six inches. Here’s a link to Karin’s own blog post with wood smoke, wintry remembrances.

We attended the last of three candlelight services at our congregation at Bethel Lutheran last evening. The music ministry at Bethel is always spectacular with unbelievable talent within our congregation. Last evening, Anton Armstrong, the conductor of the world renowned college choir at St Olaf and Bethel member, offered an a capella solo rendition of “Sweet Little Jesus Boy”, St Olaf choir soprano and Bethel member Rachel Dahlen offered several solos—as part of a women’s ensemble and also to cello accompaniment, and harpist Rachel Miessler offered harp preludes as well as a solo offering of “Silent Night” between Scripture readings. What is amazing is that different soloists and ensembles, including the full Bethel choir, provided music at the earlier two services.

On Thursday morning at the regular Bethel Men’s group, we shared personal Christmas stories and family traditions. For a group that is mostly Scandinavian, there were a variety of traditional family meals featuring dishes, besides Lutefisk, that were unknown to others (suet pudding??). Retired St Olaf baseball coach Jim Dimick remembered his Christmas away from home in the military, pulling guard duty late on Christmas eve, but the far off strains of “Silent Night” from a nearby chapel eased his homesickness and resulted in a a transcendent moment when he felt the strong presence of God. Reminds me of one of my favorite definitions of divinity: “God is what’s there when there’s nothing else.” Former Northfield High School choir director Wayne Kivell led the men in a harmonized closing of “Silent Night”.

A week ago, thirty-four Pearsons (my wife’s family) gathered at Green Lake Bible Camp in Western Minnesota. Brother-in-law Pastor Keith Pearson (Hector, Minnesota) is on the Green Lake Camp board of directors, and he made the arrangements. The photo is yours truly playing the role of Santa Claus, but my granddaughter Awashima wasn’t real pleased.

Here are a few other Lutheran themed Christmas notes.

Blogger Jim Kline apparently left an Illinois congregation earlier this year when the congregation voted to exit the ELCA. Jim found another ELCA congregation, which he joined on Reformation Sunday, and he reported on his own Christmas Eve candlelight service experience:

As the late afternoon service began, I noted that the light through the windows was slowly waning. As we progressed through the service, the familiar carols and prayers brought a sense of closure to me, culminating with the incredibly moving experience of the congregation singing “Silent Night” to the glow of our individual candles. The familiarity of this ritual, accompanied by communion, brought a sense of peace as I look back on the changes in my religious life during the past year.

Earlier this fall, I attended the Fond du Lac Episcopal Diocese annual convention where I met many new Episcopal friends including Bishop Russell Jacobus. Last evening, an ecumenical candlelight service was offered at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in Fond du Lac. Bishop Jacobus presided over the Eucharist and the Rev James Justman, the local Lutheran Bishop (East Central Wisconsin ELCA Synod), offered the Christmas eve sermon. A combined choir from the host Episcopal parish, a local ELCA congregation, and the choir from Community United Methodist Church offered a choral concert just prior to the Eucharist service.

Merry Christmas to all and God bless us, every one.

Native Americans and Christianity circa 2010

Without researching actual statistics, I doubt whether the percentage of native Americans within any Lutheran denomination is significant. Although the ELCA has general goals for minority membership, the reality remains that most of us are descended from northern European immigrants. The reasons are primarily historical; when our ancestors arrived to make America their new home, they were not here as missionaries, and their communities remained insular. My home congregation in Upsala, Minnesota, formed by Swedes in the 1880’s, continued with services in the language of the homeland until the 1920’s. Even the small pockets of Danes in the neighborhood were largely outsiders. When my grandfather Julius (the son of Swedish immigrants, and the youngest, rebellious sibling) married grandmother Olga (daughter of Danish immigrants) around the time of WWI, it was a mixed marriage.

Not so with Roman Catholics and Anglicans who came to the midwest first as missionaries to native Americans, and thus there are vestigial pockets of Catholic and Anglican native Americans. This was especially obvious to me as I attended several Episcopal Diocesan conventions this fall. In the Minnesota delegation and the northern Wisconsin Diocese of Fond du Lac, the Ojibwe lay and clergy presence was significant. Two years ago, an Ojibwe priest was a finalist for the office of presiding Bishop for the Minnesota diocese.

To what extent should native American cultural and religious heritage be reflected in their Christian religious practices? Earlier this fall, I attended a weekend religious retreat consisting of mostly Lutherans. A young man, a native American from Minneapolis, who had been raised Lutheran by his adoptive parents, was asked to offer a prayer. He did so with a native American chant, which I found refreshing and spiritual, but I wondered how others received it. No one said anything.

Yesterday’s Star Tribune newspaper (the leading Minnesota daily) contained an article about a small Roman Catholic congregation located within the native American community of Minneapolis whose members are nearly all native American. Seems the local archdiocese is coming down hard on certain of their rituals:

Buffalo hide adorns the altar. Sage is burned to help cleanse the heart, soul and mind. Ojibwe and Lakota languages are used in many of the prayers and songs. Traditional Indian elements like these have been part of the worship service for decades at the Church of Gichitwaa Kateri in Minneapolis, the only Twin Cities Catholic parish with a predominantly Indian congregation.

Founded in 1975, Gichitwaa Kateri has added Indian elements to the Catholic ceremony for nearly two decades. A lodge made of willow, structured like a dome-shaped Ojibwe wigwam, contains a bundle that holds sacred things, including the Eucharist. Traditional Ojibwe medicines such as tobacco, cedar, sage and sweet grass are used as regular parts of the Sunday Eucharist. Drums and prayers and songs in Ojibwe and Lakota are also prominent.

The future use of Indian practices, however, is being questioned by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, which temporarily suspended mass at the church last month after conflict arose over the use of specialized wine.

The congregation had been using mustum, a grape juice with minimal fermentation, as part of the Eucharist, the Sacrament of Holy Communion. Not only does mustum have linkages to native American culture, it also is safe for the numerous recovering alcoholics within the congregation. Not good enough, says the archdiocese, and mass has been suspended at the congregation.

Maureen Headbird, 54, a church trustee, said the nearly 100 members of the tight-knit parish would be greatly saddened and disappointed if their church lost its distinctive elements, because they are an important part of their Indian heritage.

“We want to make sure our community stays the way it is,” said Headbird, who is Indian and was raised Catholic. “When you come to our parish, you really have to have an open mind to see what we do. Sometimes that doesn’t work out for everybody.”

Stonewall: Forty-one years and counting

This is essentially a reprint of my Stonewall post from a year ago. The response to the police raid on Stonewall, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, New York City, June 28, 1969 marked the beginning of the gay rights movement. For many, progress toward full equality and inclusion of LGBT folks seems slow; yet, for one like me who thinks like a historian, the progress since 1969 has been remarkable, and the same is true for the advances since this post first appeared.

In the last year, two major, mainline protestant denominations took significant steps toward full inclusion of LGBT folk. Following the encouragement of Integrity (an Episcopal LGBT advocacy group), the Episcopalians now offer “all the sacraments to all the baptized”. In practical effect, this means that the episcopate is fully open to gays and lesbians, and the year saw the election and confirmation of suffragan bishop Mary Glasspool, a partnered lesbian, to the diocese of Los Angeles. My own Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) committed itself to recognize and affirm publicly accountable, monogamous, life-long same gender relationships and to allow persons in such relationships to be fully rostered as ordained clergy. There were also advances in Judaism, which already boasted an enviable record of inclusivity.

2009 & 2010 saw advances in LGBT legal and political rights: gay marriage became the law of Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Washington D.C.; partners of gay federal employees received expanded benefits; and the military policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t tell” appears to be in its last days. What will the next year bring?

The following is my post from a year ago under the heading “June 28, 1969: Where were you?”

Many of you probably weren’t born, so I guess this is a question for the baby boomers, like me. But, I encourage the young’uns to read along, anyway, to get a better understanding of who and where we are this Sunday, the fortieth anniversary of Stonewall.

Here’s my answer. I had just turned 21 and had just finished my army infantry training in the heat and amongst the snakes and spiders of Fort Polk, Louisiana, “Fort Puke, the arm pit of America,” we called it.

“If’n one of them coral snakes bites ya, here’s the proper military procedure,” droned the drill sergeant. “Spread yer legs to a comfortable military stance, put yer hands on yer knees, bend down at the waist as far as you kin, and kiss yer sweet ass goodbye.”

A few weeks earlier, over Memorial Day weekend, our battalion received back to back three day passes, a rare treat toward the end of our training. We were all headed to Viet Nam to become “grunts”, anyway, might as well allow us a good time. My new girlfriend of less than six months drove down from Minnesota — along with my parents, brother Mike, and his girlfriend — and we all camped out at Aunt Carol’s place in nearby Lake Charles. In front of a sultry red sun of dusk, under the bearded Spanish moss that hung from the live oaks that leaned over a dusty country lane, I had proposed, but the girlfriend had turned me down.

But now, three weeks later, I was back in Minnesota on a 30 day leave before departing for my one year tour of duty as an infantryman in Viet Nam, and the girlfriend had finally consented under my relentless urgings, and she allowed me to purchase an engagement ring. I needed that lifeline, that sense of commitment and belonging, that sense that there was a future beyond the jungles of Southeast Asia, and her assent to one day becoming my bride gave me that grounding. Lynn still wears that ring, today. I didn’t know then what a privilege it was to ask the one I loved to be for me; to hold my hand and keep my heart close; to send and receive trite, and silly, and melancholy missives; and to wait and to be there when I returned.

Bobby Dylan was singing and saying that the times were a’changing, but it wasn’t clear in what direction. Tricky Dick was in the White House. Dion was lamenting the losses of Abraham, Martin, and John: “but it seems the good, they die young,” and in my narcissism I knew the song was about me. I wasn’t much concerned about what was going on in Greenwich Village, NYC.

If there were any gay people in my life then, I didn’t know it. Oh, there was elderly Emil, a hapless figure who would buy the small town boys cigarettes, but we all knew not to go behind any buildings with him. Maybe some did, I don’t know. I suppose somebody had to be the source of the giggling about the comic old man. In hindsight, I know that an older cousin later died in alcoholic squalor, never fully able to come to grips with who he was, and I have a younger cousin who thrives in a long term relationship with Robert. Perhaps there is symbolism in the differences between the older and the younger. In a reunion with my younger cousin a few years ago, he laughingly recounted how he loved to come and spend time with us in Minnesota and with dear old Grandma Olga because she allowed him to dress up in girl’s clothes.

Queers were deviates, so said the medical and psychological establishment. Fags were outlaws and security risks, so said the FBI, State Department, US Postal Service, as well as state and local law enforcement agencies. Homosexuals were sinners who had chosen the wrong path and needed repentance, so said the word from Christian pulpits. And these others, whoever they were, were mostly invisible:

a secret legion of people, known of but discounted, ignored, laughed at or despised. And like the holders of a secret, they had an advantage which was a disadvantage, too, and which was true of no other minority group in the United States. They were invisible. Unlike African Americans, women, Native Americans, Jews, the Irish, Italians, Asians, Hispanics, or any other cultural group which struggled for respect and equal rights, homosexuals had no physical or cultural markings, no language or dialect which could identify them to each other, or to anyone else. Wikipedia, the Stonewall riots.

When the eight police officers knocked on the Stonewall door at 1:20 a.m., June 28, 1969, and announced “Police! We’re taking the place!”, they didn’t know they were about to make history, any more than the bus driver who ordered Rosa Parks to surrender her seat on the Montgomery, Alabama bus to a white passenger 14 years earlier. Spurred by the successes of the civil rights movement, the bra burning feminists, and the college students protesting the war, the response of the gay community of Greenwich Village to the routine police raid on the Stonewell Bar of Christopher Street, said Dylan was right, the times were a’changin’.

We all had a collective feeling like we’d had enough of this kind of shit. It wasn’t anything tangible anybody said to anyone else, it was just kind of like everything over the years had come to a head on that one particular night in the one particular place, and it was not an organized demonstration…. Everyone in the crowd felt that we were never going to go back. It was like the last straw. It was time to reclaim something that had always been taken from us…. All kinds of people, all different reasons, but mostly it was total outrage, anger, sorrow, everything combined, and everything just kind of ran its course. It was the police who were doing most of the destruction. We were really trying to get back in and break free. And we felt that we had freedom at last, or freedom to at least show that we demanded freedom. We weren’t going to be walking meekly in the night and letting them shove us around—it’s like standing your ground for the first time and in a really strong way, and that’s what caught the police by surprise. There was something in the air, freedom a long time overdue, and we’re going to fight for it. It took different forms, but the bottom line was, we weren’t going to go away. And we didn’t.

Michael Fader quoted in the same Wikipedia article.

Will the occasion be noted from any pulpits this Sunday? Some, I hope, but only a few, I fear. Probably not in my own church, even though I know my pastor is willing, but the congregation isn’t ready. Not yet. But, someday, and sooner than you think. It’s blowin’ in the wind.