Address by Billie Talmij to the Consultation

Address by Billie Talmij to the Consultation

Published by San Francisco Daughters of Bilitis. Private collection of papers provided to LGBT-RAN.

Page 1: "TALK GIVEN AT RELIGIOUS CONFERENCE SPONSORED
BY THE GLIDE FOUNDATION OF SAN FRANCISCO
1964
The orthodox god of orthodox religion is a flat .. unmitigated failure ..... I didn't say that ... George Bernard Shaw said it, many years ago. Shaw also said that Man had created God in His image ... then deliberately broke the mold and scattered it into a thousand, small, hard, inflexible pieces ... and that each fragment was quickly caught up ... still small. .. still hard ... still inflexible ... to become the tenets and dogmas of a thousand protestant divisions.
Well ... perhaps Shaw was an extremist .. many still think so ... but there is always
an element of truth in his writings.
And I'm inclined to agree with Shaw somewhat .. but of course, we homosexuals may be more than a little defensive ... and who can blame us?? For you know, the homosexual has been called "unnatural" for eons ... yet there is nothing alien or unnatural about the act of homosexuality in nature, itself.
But yet the murderer has only contempt for the homosexual ... the thief feels he is better ... the man who rapes his child, physically or mentally, feels he is above him ... the liar slanders him ... the adulterer despises him ... yet can you, the experts, tell me which one of the Ten Commandments the homosexual, just by being homosexual" ... which commandment has he broken???
As I said ... the homosexual may be more than a little defensive ... we are also
more than a little prejudiced.
In the olden days, it was the Christians versus the Lions ... today it is the Heterosexual versus the Homosexual ... because all the heterosexuals are at this conference hoping to understand the homosexual better ... and all the homosexuals are here because they hope you will.
This minority role is really quite a role, you know ... gives you a zest for living, if you really take it to heart ... and we women are actually a minority within a minority, within a minority ... for we are certainly outnumbered in this conference, which is a minority ... we are on the so-called homosexual side, which is a minority ... and we are in a somewhat religious conference ... and the religionist is certainly a minority in this day and age ... so maybe we can all feel a  common bond in this respect, anyway.
But along this women's minority bit ... I am reminded of Susan B. Anthony .. the famous leader of the Suffragette movement. These women were really in a bad spot, for they had absolutely no one to turn to ... especially in the beginning. They were ridiculed .. defamed .. de-sexed .. and certainly not defended ... not for a very long time. In fact, it took a war .. World War I...to give these woman any real backing ... But one of Susan B. Anthony's adversaries said to her, in talking to her about the fact that no one would listen .. that she should confide in God.. and her answer was classic ... she said, "Yes, I will. Maybe SHE will listen." ..... Man, if God were a woman ... wouldn't that be a kick in the head!!!!"

Page 2: But, on to more serious matters ... in the Daughters of Bilitis, we have an
activity called the "Gab N Java", which is an informal-type discussion for a group of women ... and since those of us who represent the Lesbian counterpart of this distinguished team .. were to the last one of us .. non-church-goers .. we felt a little inadequate to speak on the church aspect of this problem. So ... brought the topic to one of our Gab N Javas ... and found some interesting statistics.
Of the 25 women present at this particular Gab N Java ... only 2 still went to church regularly .. which was interesting in itself. Of the remaining 23, only another 2 actually quit going to church because of the homosexuality angle. The rest of those present stopped attending long before they were consciously aware of their homosexual tendencies.
We also found that because we did not attend church ... that we were out-dated in
our concepts of church and clergymen, I, for one, found that my strongest image of a churchman was the hard-shelled Baptist preacher who shouted fire and damnation from the pulpit and refused to utter the dirty word of sex ... yet who later tore the blouse from a fourteen year old girl whom he tried to seduce in the choir loft.
So ... when I say we are more than a little prejudiced, I am including each of us ... for there is not a person in this room who doesn't have preconceived notions on this subject ... regardless of his or her sexual proclivities .. sexual activities ... or sexual anxieties.
If there is such a thing as "original sin" .. then to me .. it is the sin of ignorant, inflexible .. wall-to-wall thinking ... and I would venture to say that each of us in an "original" sinner in this respect.
So, we of the Daughters of Bilitis offer a challenge, for the length of this conference at least ... a challenge to the Gay and the Straight, alike ... a challenge to dislodge a brick or two of this four-walled thinking ... and ... to help matters along ... we offer you some Demolition Fuses...some ideas to contemplate .. to cogitate .. to renovate .... some of these ideas are bombs that may blow up tempers ... some may fizzle and not last the week-end .. some are slow-burning "sleepers" guaranteed to dislodge a brick or two on both sides of the wall.
We offer them to each of you .. and we also offer our respect to each of you who
even contemplates accepting our challenge .. for that, at least, is a step in the right direction .. the direction of climbing over a wall that was mutually constructed."

Page 3: "DEMOLITION FUSES FOR FOUR-WALLED THINKING
1. "The Church of England and the Catholic Church of England relegates homosexuality to the area of private conscience'. ... The Church is the custodian of the moral picture of society even though only 6 to 8% of the population identifies with the Church". (1)
2. ((Organized religion, itself, is in a confused diffused state of flux. The old precepts and concepts of Biblical teaching are badly behind-step of present customs. The prevailing materialistic attitudes of most people today certainly do not include the seemingly "soft" versions of love, but are composed of the hardened crassness of materialistic success. Thus, the 6 to 8% of church-goers versus the greater majority of non-church-goers.))
3. ((Biblical references such as the one of Sodom and Gomorrah are used to substantiate the sin of homosexuality, as being anti-Biblical, anti-Church, and anti-Christian. Yet what of the Christian 11Love Thy Neighbor ... Love Thy Brother". This, then, in simple terms, falls back on one I s own interpretation of the word, "love".))
((How does the homosexual relationship fit into human affairs?? Does it inhibit the person, spiritually??))
5. In the "Quaker View of Sex", it is stated that the Friends group soon found that the study of homosexuality and its moral problems could not be divorced from a survey of the whole field of sexual activity .... a few pieces of the jig-saw puzzle could not be identified without the whole picture. (2)
6. ((Many pastors believe that "all of us are sinners; all of us are saved by the Grace of God; all of us need love and sympathy". Is the homosexual more a sinner than an Adulterer?? Than a Murderer?? Than an Atheist??))
7. "It has been the tradition of the greater part of the Christian church to lay down firm rules as to conduct, to fix a definite pattern as to what is 'moral' or 'sinful' but to be humanely tolerant of the waywardness and sinfulness of the ordinary man, offering him a ready opportunity for contrition and atonement. Sexuality, looked at dispassionately, is neither good nor bad, but simply a fact of nature, as well as a glorious gift of God". (2)
8. ((The greater the sin, the greater the satisfying experience of so-called repentance ... there is nothing more straight-laced than a reformed prostitute.))
9. "Homosexuality is not wholesome on the young". ((What kind of sexuality, as
practiced in America, really is?? I haven't heard of any "mate-swapping merry-go-rounds", on an organized basis, practiced among the homosexual suburbanites.)) ((At least, among the lesbians.))
10. Not even lip service is paid to the traditional ideals of chastity by our adolescents because they see only lip service paid to them by their elders. People who are not professed Christians do not feel that Christian morality has any claims upon them. (2)
11. "Given proper circumstances, man is an animal. We can make an environment of
shame or make it a world where an individual can have a sense of respect. " (1)"

Page 4: "12. ((Theodore Reik, well-known author and psychologist, states that psychology does not know what sexuality really is. I wonder if the church does?? Is
not a sermon simply one 1 s own particular interpretation of so many words of a much-revised collection of writings??))
13. "The Ten Commandments are valid so long as human experience remained the
same, but norms devised centuries ago are now inadequate when confronted with the present problems of sexuality today". (1)
14. ((Clergymen are also a minority, not just those of us who follow the homosexual path ... for the religionist's path is certainly a lonely one.))
15. ( ( Infidelity by "changing partners" is not unique in the homosexual world.))
16. ((The climbing rate of divorce is a good example of the gradual loosening of the church's fear-inspiring punitive powers over the acts of the individual".
17. "The homosexual is in constant conflict since he or she was brought up in a heterosexual society which builds habit patterns which in turn, make it difficult for the homosexual to adjust". (2) ((Why go to a church which makes such conflict even more evident with guilt-imposing rules??))
18. "Those who have written or spoken about sexual matters as professed Christians have too often given the impression that their sexual path has been smooth, that apart from a hint of solitary difficulties as adolescents, it has fallen into line with Christian principles. This is a false impression". (2)
19. ((The difficulty in coping with sexuality in "practice" versus sexuality as "taught" leads to a condemnation of "hypocrisy" heaped upon the heads of clergymen.))
20. "Condemnation oppresses. It does not liberate". Anon.
21. "To tell a homosexual that his sexuality is 'unnatural I is like talking to the wind ... for nature expresses homosexuality in many acts, and it is certainly far more 'natural' to him than is the so-called normal approach". (2)
22. "Since the chief condemnation of the homosexual stems from the church, itself, the homosexual must remain in constant conflict, or dissolve that conflict by remaining away, and somehow resolving it, by an individual approach to God". (l)
23. ((The punitive answers posed by religion does not result in easy answers ... and wont until churches face the facts that we are human and not divine, in the old theological definitions of those words.))
24. "One should no more deplore homosexuality than left-handedness. People are neither homosexual nor heterosexual, but predominantly one or the other. Homosexuals are no more necessarily promiscuous than heterosexuals are necessarily chaste". (2)"

Page 5: 25. ((If a human fulfills himself, is he then not fulfilling God??))
26. In the words of Dr. Evelyn Hooker, "Perhaps there is need for an effective,
non-authoritarian religion which would make a serious attempt to understand people's needs; a religion which would work toward the mental health of the homosexual and all people". (3)
27. ((The churches must become more concerned with the individual than with
their own "edifice" complexes.))
28. ((Mental health problems of yesterday were kept tightly locked in the attic. Mental problems, so often sexual in basis, are still on the attic-stairs today .. a little further out in the open ,, but not in the parlor ,, and certainly not in the living room, where the "living" must be done. There is a changing standard of mental health, so that it is often discussed ... and the speeded-up lives today are of ten speeded-up beyond human endurance .. and the dis-integration of mental health is accelerated, also.))
29. (( If only "clean vessels" can administer the duties of the church, then where do the "sinners" go?? The line forms to the right, (or would it be to the left in this instance) ... and those of you who are committing the sin of pride by professing "clean-ness", you lead the way.))
30. ((Homosexuals exist in every strata of society, in every activity, and in every occupation.))
31. ((We who represent the homosexual world are, for the most part, out-of-date. Just glancing through the September issue of "Pastoral Psychology" shows me that mental health; the emotional factors of grief; the Woman of the Month being Margaret Mead; the letters to the Editor; the ads for such books as Love and the Facts of Life for the Teen-ager; and for Strangers In Our Midst (which deals with problems of homosexuality in American Society); to mention but a few topics, show me, personally, that my remembrances of my conflicts with the precepts, tenets, and personalities of my childhood church are mine, alone, and that my own idea must change. Just as I am sure that your ideas must alter a bit, if we are to fully comprehend meanings and have any sense of communication.))
32. ((One article in particular I noted in this issue of "Pastoral Psychology" was called, "The Church As A Matriarchy" ... and since I am primarily a woman who happens to be a homosexual, this struck my fancy. What is the role of the woman in the church, other than (as one of our members so aptly put it,) "A putter-on-of-church-suppers "??)) (4)
33. "Regardless of an appreciative or an apprehensive attitude, the place and role of women in the church is an issue of vital concern". (4) ((Well, this doesn't surprise me ... in fact, it is very familiar ... and a statement that lends itself to education, politics, business, science, and every phase of life, even the astronautical one.  Incidentally, tho' it is not publicly known, the first woman astronaut, American, is a lesbian .. which is an interesting fact, in itself.))"

Page 6: "34. "There seems to be fear that women are taking over the reins of responsibility which rightfully belong to men. In short, women have been fighting for their right to share the responsibilities of life, while the men have resisted with a vengeance". (4)
35. "As has been true in other areas of its faith and life, so in this, the church is learning from society part of the truth of its life it had forgotten: namely, 1 God created man (mankind) in his own image, in the image of God created he him (mankind). Male and Female created He Him (Gen 1:27) . ... There is neither male nor female, fot we are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:28). Sexuality is subordinate to humanness". (4) ((Is not homosexuality, then, subordinate to humanness??))
36. ((There is a difference between being a "man" or a "woman" and being a "person".))
37. ((Is celibacy an answer?? If one cannot have sex in the so-called normal way, then should he or she forego sex completely?? The medical answers to this are as numerous as the inmates of mental institutions. What is the religionists' answer??))
38. "There has never been, anywhere, so far as is known, a law against homosexuality, as such, in any secular legal code. It is only in what he does that the law is concerned. It is misleading to say that 'homosexuality' is illegal", (2)
39. "Unless these contrasting complementary qualities of maleness and femaleness are blended in a person, there emerges a destructiveness within that individual that adversely affects not only one's self, but all with whom one comes in contact". (2)
40. ((Sex is a God-given force. To repress it or to deny it is an affront to a gift of God. Is this being Christian??))
41. St. Paul seemed to think that homosexuality, if allowed by the church, would be more attractive than the heterosexual approach, and that everyone would turn to it ... People don't follow his admonitions that women should not speak in church, or that women should not pray with their hats off .. so why should his other personal views be so rigidly the final word?" (2)
42. In one research project in which D.O.B. members took part several years ago, 30 out of 40 homosexuals experienced guilt feelings in their awareness of the church's attitudes toward homosexuality and their own exclusion from church participation. ((Look at the heterosexual's guilt feelings, and you have one answer as to why your congregations are so damnably small. Who wants to go where he is made to feel uncomfortable?? The hell-fire and damnation concept doesn't work, because nowadays, people want instant coffee .. instant relief .. instant faith .. not instant turmoil. They've got enough of this, already.)) (3)"

Page 7: "43. ((The Rites of Death are varied in every culture ... does it not follow that the Rites of Birth (of which sex plays a part, certainly,) would also vary??))
44. ((Defenders of Women's Rights, as well as defenders of Civil Rights, meet resentments on both sides.))
45. "We should view maleness and femaleness as a potential, not a problem ..
whether that maleness and femaleness is expressed openly in one individual, or a group of heterosexuals or homosexuals. For the blending exists in both, in all, in each". (2)
46. ((Who's to say what's right and what's wrong?? The Clergy?? Yet one of the basic tenets of the Bible is, "Judge not lest you be judged". I don't envy the shoes of the religionist ... he steps upon a thorny path .. and I should hope that his "sole" is of the Jewish kind that does not wear out.))
47. "The last word has never been spoken on the implications of Christianity, and every religious expression is open to critical examination. 'The Word of God' is not stagnant, final nor cemented". (2)
48. ( (Birth and Death seem to fall under the auspices of religion .. "from womb to tomb" .. as the saying goes .. but what of the interim?? If Death is the fearful unknown that drives a man back to the faith of his childhood, then the function of religion is the "pacifier" .. the "Judas Goat" that lulls man into a sense of peace and then .. whump!! .. you've lost a new church-goer!))
49. ((Grief is an important emotion that clergymen must deal with on a constant
basis. What of the 11voice in the wilderness" which belongs to a homosexual?? Must his anguish be denied or his tears ignored?? Must he be "saved" from his "sexual sin" before he is counted among "God's Children"?? Are only the "sin-less" (and if sex = sin, then this means sex-less) ... then ... are only the "sex-less" to be considered as "Children of God"??))
50. ((Civilization is changing. Religion must change, too, or perish.))
51. ((The devoutness to a code of falseness and fixity is a force for evil.))
52. ((It is because of early religious training in this sense of rigidity which is the chief reason why homosexuals wind up on the psychiatrist's couch.))
53. "I've never met a clergyman yet who wasn't defensive about his God .. which
always strikes me as an affront to God's potency as well as his Omni potency". (Mark Twain)
54. ((Productivity does not relegate itself to the production of procreation.))
55. ((I am a human first; secondly, a woman; thirdly, a lesbian. I sometimes think that homosexuals get this order reversed, and because they approach every one antagonistically as a homosexual first, then they are always treated as such ... and are always surprised when this is thrown back in their faces.))"

Page 8: "56. ((The religionists give off the attitude that they are the extensions of God, rather than a teacher or an interpreter .. and therefore become so authoritative that a rebel, such as I, will discount all they say, rather than just the false things they utter.))
57. ((The "Gay Bar Crowd" is a stereotype .. a group that has ceased being viewed as individuals. Why does everyone need a scapegoat?? For a scapegoat is a stereotype and the stereotype has been the sexual scapegoat for centuries.))
58. ((The scapegoat in classic history was the one upon whom was heaped all the sins, all the evils, all the resentments of society and then sacrificed to the god of the day. Blood-letting is passe' today, but the need of the scapegoat still exists, for as long as men must find an answer outside themselves for their lack of compassion, then the "escapegoat" must be sought, degraded, de-sexed, and killed. The de-sexing of the scapegoat was a definite and important part of the old ritual.))
59. ((The hypocrisy of the churches is equivalent to the hypocrisy of the homosexual.))
60. ((The minority (the scapegoat) reflects the attitudes of the times. Hatred, which is the isolation of the soul, the disintegration of communication; has as its focal point any minority group that happens to be handy.))
61. "The potentiality of the psychopath is latent within all of us. None of us is immune ... and all of us, at one time or another behave psychopathically". (6)
62. ((The church has attempted to be the "common denominator" of mankind. But in so doing, it has diagnosed, catalogued, and defined "evil" as this thing .. as that thing .. as the "thou shalt nots" .. until the purpose, the direction, has been lost.))
63. "As long as mankind is viewed as a mass, rather than a multiplicity of individuals, then the psychopathic murder known as war will exist. And just as there is love on different levels, just as there is sex on different levels, then there is 'war' on different levels". (7)
64. ((There is not a person in this room who is free of prejudice, preconceived ideas, pre-judgments. And anyone who says he is not the conditioned result of intolerance is himself a fool or a hypnotized hypocrite.))
65. ((Separateness is the basis for anxiety. And because our youngsters feel themselves so separated, they band together in packs for mutual protection .. with a code so rigid that it makes our "authoritativeness" ashamed.))
66. ((There have been many disagreements among the homophile organizations, but one basic idea upon which we all agree is the blatant fact that the generation coming up is in need of a great deal of help. Our offices are filled with correspondence and telephone pleas which represent the cries for help for countless people, teen-aged in particular. And one way the churches can help, is to realize that not just the young adult, but the young teen-ager is in need of understanding, counsel, acceptance-- and love. Don't "preach" them ... reach them!!!)))"

Page 9: "67. ((Most homosexuals may not reject God .. but they certainly reject the
"churchiness" surrounding God. And in this, they are simply representative of most people today.))
68. ((Most homosexuals have had to resolie the conflicts stemming from the church and his particular way of life. He has had to resolve it (and usually, this means "dissolve" it) or become, inevitably, a psychotic of the first order.)
69. ((No one can survive such a schism and remain sane... he cannot change, so, to retain sanity, he must forego the organized approach to God. He can do this, and still maintain individual approach to spiritual things, and live in a semblance of wholeness.))
70. ((The attitudes of a society are reflected by the minority of that society .. then view the homosexual as a mirror. The homosexual is not the cause of any moral breakdown .. nor is he the result .. simply a reflection, an integral part of the sexual aspect of life.))
REFERENCES
1. Wolfenden Report.
2. Towards A Quaker View of Sex, Friends Home Service Committee, Friends
House, Euston Road, London, N.W. 1, 1963.
3. "The Ladder", Daughters of Bilitis, 1232 Market St., San Francisco, Calif,
August, 1962.
4. "Pastoral Psychology", September, 1963.
5. Must You Conform?, Robert Lindner, Grove Press, New York, 1956.
6. The Art Of Loving, Erich Fromm, Harper Brothers, New York, 1956."