Article Featuring CRH in Newsweek Magazine

Article Featuring CRH in Newsweek Magazine

Copyright 1964 by Newsweek, Inc. Reprinted by permission from Newsweek, February 13, 1967, page 63.

God and the Homosexual

To Moses, homosexuality was an "abomination." To St. Paul, it was a "dishonorable passion." Indeed, throughout the Bible, sexual deviation of any sort is condemned as unnatural, unmanly and ungodly. Even so, a group of Protestant ministers in San Francisco thinks the churches ought to drop their strictures against homosexuals and welcome them into the fellowship of the heterosexual faithful.

Organized two years ago as the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, some 50 clergymen–plus leaders of four Bay Area homophile societies–are trying to overcome what CRH president Dr. Clarence A. Colwell of the United Church of Christ calls the Bible's "heterosexual bias." Colwell argues that if God accepts every human being as a person, regardless of sexual proclivity, the church can do no less. In fact, insists Methodist pastor Ted McIlvenna, 34-year-old founder of the CRH, clergymen working with the homophile community "have discovered that there isn't all that much difference between the way most of the hetero- and homo-sexuals live."

Council clergymen have come to know every side of the homosexual world: from the dimly lit "gay" bars where the homosexual "queens" are pampered and protect by their male courts, to the married deviates who drive in from the suburbs at night for a casual affair. And, they have learned to feel for themselves something of the fear of exposure that haunts every homosexual. When, for example, a dozen ministers and their wives attended a large New Year's Day party given by homosexuals and lesbians to raise funds for the CRH, police greeted them with photographers who snapped pictures of everyone present. More recently, the ministers have tried to bring young male prostitutes into the church. Working with the Glide Foundation, a private Methodist philanthropy in San Francisco, they have even sponsored gay Coke dances where the boys can dance with each other to jukebox music.

'Closet Queens': Not surprisingly, such efforts to bring homosexuals within the orbit of church life have drawn gasps of disapproval from less venturesome churchmen. Episcopal vicar Robert W. Cromey, for instance, has been severely criticized by members of the diocesan council of California for "overidentifying" with the homosexuals' problems. In turn, Cromey charges that some of sharpest critics "closet queens"–that is, homosexuals living ostensibly heterosexual lives who fear discovery. Cromey says, in fact, that all Bay Area schools would have to close down immediately if all homosexuals currently working in the school systems were discovered and–in keeping with state law–dismissed.

Much of the council's efforts are aimed at gaining full civil rights for homosexuals, including state laws permitting voluntary sexual acts between adults in private. (Currently, only Illinois allows such sexual freedom.) Beyond that, Cromey and his colleagues believe the homosexual should be allowed to take his normal role in church functions–in the choir, the vestry, church schools, social-action committees and study groups. "Homosexuals want to be able to go into a church and be themselves," argues Phyllis Lyon, CRH vice president and former officer of the Daughters of Bilitis, a national organization for lesbians. "They don't want to feel that they'll have to leave if they drop their guard."

'Pastoral Problem': Naturally, most Bay Area clergymen are rather guarded themselves about endorsing such goals. Thus far, the United Church of Christ is the only denomination to endorse the council officially, thought the Methodists are deeply involved through the Glide Urban Center. A few Lutherans and Baptists are council members, and later this month Cromey and other Episcopalians will ask officials of the California diocese to recognize the CRH as an "official arm of the church."

But even among CRH advocates, there is disagreement as to how far the church should go in accepting homosexuals. Episcopal Bishop C. Kilmer Myers of California, for instance, supports CRH efforts to free homosexuals from police harassment and oppressive laws but he does not feel that they can maintain healthy relationships like heterosexuals. For the church, Myers believes, "homosexuality is essentially a pastoral problem dealing with brokenness in humanity the same as many other moral maladies."

But the aggressive Cromey, father of three children, wants to take the church beyond conventional moral judgments. "The sex act," he argues, "is morally neutral. I also believe that two people of the same sex can express love and deepen that love by sexual intercourse." Furthermore, he concludes, in a statement that would surely redden the face of St. Paul, "I say that if two people of the same sex have a loving, responsible relationship with each other, they have an obligation to express that love in whatever way they deem appropriate."

Talking Back
The Roman Catholic Church in France, known for centuries as the Vatican's "eldest daughter," doesn't hesitate to talk back to the mother church. Typical of this often maverick behavior of the French hierarchy was a spirited letter to Rome last week criticizing Vatican heresy-hunters.

The bishops' 4,000-word missive was written in reply to a query last summer from ultraconservative Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani in which the Vatican's theological watchdog warned of "urgent doctrinal problems" affecting the church (Newsweek, Sept. 19, 1966). Ottaviani specifically listed ten points of doctrine, ranging from the dual nature of Christ to the inspiration of the Bible, and invited the world's bishops to examine–and presumably condemn–contemporary efforts to reinterpret them.

Instead, the French bishops refused to discuss Ottaviani's list of "audacious opinions" and warned the Italian prelate against using church authority to repress theological speculation or paralyze research. On the contrary, they argued, the extraordinary evolution, of contemporary life and thought has necessarily elicited "adventurous responses" from theologians which the hierarchy should try to remedy, not condemn.