Council on Religion and the Homosexual Organized
Exhibit Map
Introduction
The participants in the Consultation on the Church and the Homosexual agreed to continue working together following their May 31 to June 2, 1964 retreat. In the following weeks and months they began to construct plans for a new organization that would educate religious communities about gay/lesbian issues as well as enlist religious leaders to advocate for homosexual concerns. The pioneering work of these religious leaders and homosexual activists had immediate and ever-growing social impact.
CRH Formed
Energized by their experience at the Mill Valley consultation, the San Francisco participants sought to continue learning and working together. They, along with several other local clergy and homosexual activists, held a formal meeting on July 7, 1964, to form the Council on Religion and the Homosexual. NOTE: This was the first group in the U.S. to use the word “homosexual” in its name.
Coalition Proves Mutually Beneficial
Over the following months, clergy and homosexual activists worked together to propose purpose, goals and activities for CRH. This coalition of clergy–almost all heterosexual–and homosexual leaders was proving to be mutually beneficial. Homosexual leaders received the “cloak of the cloth” (as described by San Francisco historian Paul Gabriel) to sanction their activities while clergy expanded their sphere of social justice ministry. Most of the homosexual activists in CRH were also leaders of the other homophile organizations, so the total number of people involved was small, no more than a few dozen. However, the significance of their impact belies their numbers.
CRH Incorporated
In December 1964, CRH was formally incorporated. The group emerged into the public view through a feature story in the San Francisco Chronicle and coverage in the prominent national religious magazine Christian Century.
