GLHS 1998 Dinner Program

GLHS 1998 Dinner Program

From private papers of Paul Gabriel.

Page 1:
The Gay Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California 9th Annual Fundraising and Awards Dinner

Wednesday, October 14, 1998
The Radisson Miyako Hotel, Japantown
1625 Post Street, San Francisco

Cocktails 6:00 P.M.
Dinner 7:00 P.M.

Awardees:
For Individual Historic Achievements: Don Lucas and Trinity Ordona
For Historic Achievement by a Group: SFSU Human Sexuality Studies Program
The GLHS Founders' Award: Council on Religion and the Homosexual (CRH)
GLHS Volunteers of the Year:
Rod Geddes and Karen Gehrman

Page 2:
Council on Religion and the Homosexual (Founder's Award)

Established as a result of a conference in Mill Valley in 1964, the Council on Religion and the Homosexual (CRH) brought together concerned clergy and activists from the local homophile movement and helped launch a wide-ranging reassessment of traditional religious concepts about human sexuality. The Council pioneered a model of radical change based on coalition politics across lines of difference: class, gender, race, sexuality, and religion. The Council sponsored talks at various seminaries; brought priests, ministers and bishops to the Tenderloin for their first direct contact with homosexuals and the prejudices faced by them; and exercised a quiet and profound effect on hundreds of key clergy throughout the nation. The Council's work led directly to the first celebrated same-gender unions, the first openly gay ordained ministers, the first queer-friendly Christian church (the Metropolitan Community Church), one of the first college-level human sexuality academic studies in the United States (at San Francisco State University), and one of the first and most influential human sexuality education programs, originally part of the original National Drug and Sex Forum, the Institute for the Advance Study of Human Sexuality. The work of the CRH involved mainly the Methodist, Lutheran, United Church of Christ, and Episcopalian churches. The Council helped to establish the Night Ministry, the Suicide Prevention Hotline, Larkin Street Youth Center, Huckleberry House, Central City Poverty Program, and the first citizen-based police watc organization, Citizen's Alert.

The original group of active CRH ministers are Rev. Ted Mcllvenna, Rev. Cecil Williams, Rev. Lewis Durham, Rev. Fred Bird (all Methodists), Rev. Robert Cromey (Episcopal), Rev. Charles Lewis (Lutheran), and Rev. Clay Colwell (United Church of Christ). Other key CRH ministers include Rev. Don Kuhn (national outreach), Rev. John Moore (whose two-part sermon on the relationship between Christianity and homosexuality was reprinted on the front page of The Chronicle), Rev. Ed Hansen (co-founder of the Central City Poverty Program and other agencies), and Rev. Bill Johnson (the first openly gay, ordained minister in the U.S.). Activists who helped establish the CRH include Phyllis Lyon, Del Martin, Hal Call, Don Lucas, Rick Stokes, and the infamous three who were arrested at the CRH 1964/65 New Year's Eve Ball at California Hall: Herb Donaldson, Evander Smith, and Nancy May. The police crackdown at the Ball marked a turning point in the press coverage of homosexuals and a change of public opinion. Within two years, San Francisco had its first gay community center, had Candidates' Nights for gay and lesbian voters attended by the likes of Willie Brown, Jr., and Philip and John Burton, saw the first national protest of gay organizations on Armed Forces Day in May 1966, and hosted an international CRH conference and a national convention of gay organizations in August 1966. The work of the CRH continues through other organizations to this day.