59 20 2502 https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/51d6006e5a25717ee7fc7f73c6ea4394.png a339222e215c82c19f3e7a1f7e5bafea YouTube Video A video hosted on YouTube. Embed Code The html embed codes for this object. <iframe width="600" height="337" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HZcAVKa8sNM" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br /> <p><em>with <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1437">Rev. Malcolm Himschoot</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1420">Rev. Gwen Fry</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1450">Nicole Garcia</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1401">Avery Belyeu</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1436">Rev. Louis Mitchell</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1383">Rev. Dr. David Weekly</a></em></p> <p>Join a conversation around the history of trans-identified persons in the Church and the issues, challenges and achievements experienced by those identified as transgender or non-binary. What remains the same? What has changed?</p> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Session 5B: Emerging Transgender Identities in the Church Avery Belyeu David Weekly Emerging Transgender Identities in the Church Gwen Fry Louis Mitchell Malcolm Himschoot Nicole Garcia RTSA Session 5B https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/10d437ea8f59056be3b449489da0a698.png b3e6200a009c469e56c260ff8a4369d5 YouTube Video A video hosted on YouTube. Embed Code The html embed codes for this object. <iframe width="600" height="337" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3v0eq8WS9iY" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br /> <p><em>with <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1416">Dr. Dianne L. Neu</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1352">Drv. Dr. Pamela Lightsey</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1448">Rev. Dr. Neil Cazares-Thomas</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1441">Matthew Vines</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1446">Rev. Dr. Nancy Wilson</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1444">Morris Floyd</a></em></p> <p>The members of this group share their perspectives on queer theologizing over the years. We take note of some of the early seminal thinkers, comment on the queering of the Bible and its relationship to such reflection by and in other communities, discuss recapturing faith as a way of life, and consider the application of queer theology to social justice activism in our particular contexts. Other topics include theologizing in action through worship and ritual and exploring how to decolonize and detoxify queer theologizing beyond what may be validated in the academy or among “progressives.”</p> Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Session 5A Queer Theologizing RTSA 2017 Morris Floyd Good afternoon, everyone. At the risk of interrupting what I know are fascinating conversations, I will begin the programmed conversation for today. My name is Morris Floyd. I agreed to serve as the moderator for this group, which is about Queer Theologizing. I'll introduce the people going from my right. You have your program books. So you know, you can look up their more information about us if you want to. Nancy Wilson and Matthew Vines. And Neal, I forgot to ask how to pronounce your next name, Casares and Pamela Lightsey and Diann Neu. And we agreed that we would start with our conversation by having each of us take a few minutes to react to the question of "what has been the most significant influence or one of the most significant influences in your theology, theologizing over time" and kind of move through the conversation based on that, trying to give a sense of of the of the history and the thinking of this group of people. And perhaps we somewhat represent the movement over a number of over a number of decades. Welcome to you all. Thanks for being here. I'm instructed to say the session is being videotaped, and if it's not, it's the audio tape. Unidentified I don't see him. Is there a camera there? Yes. Morris Floyd Well, I hope they'll edit this part out. The session is being videotaped and eventually will be available on the LGBT Religious Archive Network. We hope that this conversation will include all of us because we think there's probably we all have some important insights. And so we'll save some time at the end to make sure that we have more interaction. And I'm going to encourage interaction among the group as we go forward. So Matthew has agreed to start us out with the conversation. And we'll I'm going to we just think that our conversation will move organically. I'll be prodding if necessary. And I also have some index cards to hold up in the event somebody is going on too long. Matthew Vines Well, hello. Thank you so much, everybody, for being here. It is a real honor for me to be here, and I don't feel like I should be doing first since I put in fewer years and do this by virtue of being part of the youth contingent than anyone else here. But that would only make it more appropriate for me to start with something when we've been discussing this conversation over email. One particular thing that I wanted to talk about was to make sure that we paid homage to our forebears who helped to pioneer this conversation at the theological level in the academy, helped to make this a conversation that anybody who disagreed even needed to respond to and helped to create space for so many of us so that when people like me, who aren't even born at the time, that they were doing this work come along, I could then realized that I was gay at age 19, having grown up in a conservative evangelical church in Kansas. And even though that was still a very daunting thing to face, it was a possible thing to face in a way that it would not have been a generation earlier. And it was possible for me to even attempt, even though I was not successful. It was possible for me to attempt to come out and stay in my community to have dinners and conversations and certainly things with so many of my friends and mentors growing up. And I think-- and again, there's still a long way to go in some of the communities--But the fact that people like me are even able to attempt to have conversations in more conservative and evangelical communities. Today is a testament to people who 30, 40 plus years ago were facing vastly more hostile climates and were dedicated their lives to open up this conversation. I would say the main person, the person who I feel kind of the most of a connection to personally is John Boswell, which it looks like most people are familiar with. But I do feel like most people my age and most LGBTQ Christians my age are not familiar with it all, which I think is a real shame, because not only was he an exceedingly brilliant man, but he showed such tremendous courage in... He was a professor at Yale when at age 33, he published his seminal work, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality. But from our standpoint today, writing the topic, writing about that at Yale doesn't sound that difficult. And yet, actually, in that context, for the years he was doing that research in the late 1960s from when he was just early 20s to 1980, he was he faced incredible headwinds of hostility and prejudice. There were not the same liberal meccas that were much more welcoming spaces. And... Just to the extent to which he laid down a gauntlet for other people to feel forced to respond, whether they wanted to or not, that he created space for this conversation, there's a lot that has happened since. But I think that he played an absolutely vital role in creating the space that so many of us have lived into to this day. And he's not alone in that. But I think he has a special place in that. And I've always just felt particularly indebted to him. So I just wanted to start with that. And we love you, John Boswell. wish you were here. Morris Floyd I wonder if others had thoughts about a national theological thinking... Rev. Dr. Nancy Wilson I think to understand our context, we have to think of everything from the social gospel movement of the late 19th century, Walter Rauschenbusch, and then understand the civil theologians of the civil rights movement in the 60s and Martin Luther King. But then eventually, James Cone, liberation theology that that liberation theology that was happening in Latin America influencing women's theology became feminist theology. That was the crucible, I think, in which anything like queer theology couldn't be if it were not for that. And I even throw in the antiwar movement. I think those those things were all just huge influences. And I think it's also important, though, academically, that people like John Boswell and Virginia Mollenkott and Tom Horner and others were not theologians, persay. They were not in a theological... They were not teaching in seminaries or they were from other disciplines, English, history, psychology and other things, because it wasn't safe to be a scholar. And in the you know, in the Guild of Scripture scholarship were in the or theology in seminaries in the US or other places. So the first people doing really good theological work were theologians, but not that wasn't their primary discipline. And so I think that's important to know. And I would also say just that. I think for me, queer theology was born in having to preach every Sunday from the time I was 22 in NMCC congregation where there were very few books and you were borrowing from other people and disciplines and bringing people. Rev. Dr. Neil Cazares-Thomas So I tend to agree with you, Nancy. I and to preach every week for a queer context was certainly informative and mentors that that became theologians. Certainly. I wrote my dissertation for my doctoral study in 2008 out of San Francisco, and I read my title as Queer Theology: An Introduction and the committee rejecting it because they said there was no such thing as queer theology. So even as late as 2008, people were still struggling with the notion that queer theology was I could understand queer theory, but had no understanding of what queer theology was. But I also want to raise up late Mathias Reid, who is an inspiration and in the context of queer theology to say Tickle, Phyllis Tickle, thank you for this article. Two incredible women who I think deserve a lot of credit for where we are as a movement in that sphere. So I bring our names into this realm. Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey For me, I want to bring in womanist theologians, and I want to bring in womanist theologians who weren't thought of as scholars, but were sort of scholars in their own right and are scholars in their own right, something you Renee Hill, Irene Monroe who really push the systems for inclusion. I'm also thinking of a black feminist, Audre Lorde. I'm thinking also of the vast numbers of scholars who were in the closet but who were yet doing the work and making inroads for us very quietly. So often we forget about scholars who were in the closet but were doing the work to pave the way for us. And there they are, just unnamed and I just want to bring them into the room. Also, one other person. Pauli Murray. Dr. Diann L. Neu Oh, I get the short end. Oh, no, it grows. Thank you. I'm going to bring in my colleagues, at GTU, where I studied my theology. As I said at the Dignity dinner last night, I was a young Catholic nun all dressed up for ordination. And I arrived at the GTU, the Jesuit school theology in 1977 after the Episcopal women were ordained in '74 and I met Dignity. I met lesbian and gay people and came out to myself and realized I was in love with my first-grade teacher, right? So it wasn't that it wasn't there. It was that was the opportunity for me. We created in the 70s, I think, the roots of queer theology because we had to challenge our professors on everything. I mean, I love how we connect our movement with all the movements gone before us. They didn't know about feminist theology. They were teaching us liberation theology. I mean, these are Jesuits, right? And the professors at the GTU my colleagues here that I was a student with Mary Hunt, Deb Heavey, Celeste Mary, Jane Spahr, as I can go on and on and on. We looked at one another after the panel, the feminists trans panel, and said, wow, we got something. And I'm giving that back because I think as a community together in our theological places, we are creating whatever the next is, whatever the hope is, we can't do it alone. And we stand on the shoulders of all these people, but we are the ones. Morris Floyd So this helps to explain why we titled this group Queer Theologizing. Right, because we agreed that in a way, it's a continuous process that we're doing both individually and in the larger communities that we're part of it is that we don't we're not there yet, probably in terms of queering of theology. And I'm learning to use that word this week, actually. It's a new one for me. And it strikes me that that is kind of the next question is, given that we have sort of two I'm going to say table's not pillar's because pillars seem dangerous to me to try to stand on-- two tables that were standing on. One you might call the traditional Christianity, since we have grown up to some degree out of out of that. And another table that we're now standing on also, which is of the process of trying to queer where we started. And for example, Nancy, when you think about taking the Bible and queering it and turning it into preaching, how do you do it? Rev. Dr. Nancy Wilson And I think my I think a lot about that process, because it has led me to write the book Our Tribe, and in about 1995 and my premise was there that most of what in the early days we dealt with in terms of scripture was here on the clobber passages, the passages that have been used to batter us. And so what is our best defense? And much became written and has been written about that. But at a certain point in my preaching, I realized that that what I was really doing in mining and looking is taking scripture not literally but seriously and and having still having that orientation that that and finding that. I was said there's always new stuff in the Bible. It was never there before. I absolutely convinced it was never there before. And finding using the scholarly tools, using hints and from different places that are. But were there actually people recognizably what we would refer to as LGBT or gender nonconforming or queer in some way? And were those people in the Bible? And I think that, you know, like John Boswell, who said there must be marriage ceremonies for LGBT people and he found them at the Vatican library because in a sense, I think he believed that they were there and. They were the same thing was finding as you preach these stories and you begin to see your own experience reflected in that story and saying to our congregations, if we can't see our own story in the Bible, then who is it scripture for? You know, how does it even matter to us if these stories are not also about us and if we are not there in that story in some way? And so it's how the stories I think, to keep from being bored may be to part way of saying, you know, how do we find the story in a new way and see, you know, ask yourselves what of this character? What if I'm seeing this character, you know, through a heterosexual lens? And what if I shifted my lens and began to open up and then to find all this richness? You know, I've had no idea how many eunuchs there were in the Bible until I began to do that research because not many people have done that research because why would they care? And then to find what the roles of eunuchs really were will begin to say, oh, my gosh, there's a whole world here, a subtext, a hidden text that needs to be teased out and brought to the fore. And you know, you know well. And that we have every right and every responsibility to do that work, to make it come alive and to see ourselves in those texts and to take the risk of doing that and that the Bible is not fragile and it will not die if I do that or even if I'm wrong about how I interpret something. So I think for me, it was having the courage to engage and free myself from, you know, whatever lenses through which I had looked at these stories and my own experience and day-to-day coming out working with community taught me to see the Bible totally differently. Morris Floyd Someone mentioned in the group that I was in this morning the story of the Ethiopian eunuch and how when you stop to think about it, this is actually a Black queen. You know, and how just that the use of that image begins to enliven the story in a way and embody the story in a way that it certainly wasn't before, particularly if you hadn't investigated what eunuchs really were all about. Pamela, I'm sure you have something to add to this. Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey Well, I don't know about the eunuch, but I just feel I've been wrestling with this idea of traditional Christianity as one of the tables. And in you know, in my context, Black people have been queering the Bible for a long time, and that is out of necessity. So I've been asking myself about it. I make myself a note to just say a word about what do I think about the term "queering". So in many ways, for me, when I think about queering something, I'm thinking about being transgressive with this kind of radical sensibility about the biblical text and about Christian theology, which is part and parcel of who I am as a Black woman in America, and the sense that the that I bring a hermeneutic of suspicion, not necessarily by choice, but in order to survive as a Black person, in order to thrive as a Black queer lesbian in America. And so queering, for me seems quite a natural kind of adventure for me as a theologian. Now it is you know, the term is certain, means different things work for different people. But for me, it continues to be a way for me to to to articulate my sensibilities about who I am, about who the community that I am accountable for is. And to insist that that that who we are is not an anathema or is not something that's sort of in vogue, but that we are, that we exist, and we continue to exist. And I just say this. I do want to honor the presence and spirit of Naomi Washington-Leapheart, who is ill and can't be with us here. I'm sure if she was here, she would speak about the necessity for Black women to utilize queer theology, to articulate their experience in the world and to also demand say... Yes, I'll stop right there. Rev. Dr. Neil Cazares-Thomas But for me, this whole notion of queering is also about reclaiming and reclaiming sacred texts because this traditional table that we continue to to lift up, I think actually gives power to to a group of people who have converted and brought about what I would call in the United States of America, specifically a political Christianity has actually nothing to do with the values of Jesus. And that has been sold to us as traditional Christianity. And we give power to that over and over again. When I would say that even when we call ourselves progressive Christians, that somehow we're less than Christian whenever we put another word in front of it. And so I've been recently reclaiming myself as an evangelical fundamentalist. I'm fundamental that Jesus loves every person just as they are. And I'm going to be evangelical about it because I'm not going to allow them to steal my language and to yield that language because I think it is the compelling gospel. So for me, it's about reclaiming and naming what is perverted about Christianity in America today. And this whole sense of queering is about taking it back. It's about reclaiming it. It's about seeing the many, many voices that have been left off the table and to see them. And I'm always fascinated. Monday is a way, but sometimes I just go back and listen to straight people preaching, especially from the evangelical Christian wrong. And I love to go back and to sometimes even the same text that I just preached on Sunday. And just like I did reading the same Bible. Where did you get that or how did you see that? And it's always fascinating to me to see where this political move of evangelical Christianity that's less than 100 years old in America has perverted this sense of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Even to call Jesus, Jesus is a perversion of an anti-Semitic move away from Judaism and to separate us out as one predominant culture. And that has to be dealt with in this whole queering of scripture. Morris Floyd Just to pass this on to Diann, thinking about all of this, queering, how how do we reflect that, enable that, embody that in liturgy and ritual and turning it into an active theology and not just sitting around listening in the pews or in the classroom? Dr. Diann L. Neu Thanks, Morris. My good theological liturgical training says liturgy worship rituals where people meet theology, where they meet spirituality. That's where it happens. So like it or not, I think those of us who create the worship services have to bring all of our understanding of a queer theology right there. In my early days of teaching liturgy classes, I used to talk about inclusive casts who are the people that are visible at these services. I used to talk about inclusive language, what's the language. Somebody raised that today in the feminism trans workshop or conversation or whatever we're calling these sessions. We're still there, but we're there in a whole new way. How is language of our community reflected in the worship services that we do, not only male, female, trans, LGBTQIA whatever the next round is, but what about God? How are we talking about the holy? I don't even use God-language anymore, the divine, of many names. And what is an inclusive script? When I was working on the ritual this morning, I must say in my 20s I was the go-to person for anything scripture. When I went to seminary, I became allergic to scripture and we used to say on the front of the Bible, this is bad for every woman's health. Now I know I'm sitting among scholars here, so and preachers, but I would say for us as a queer community, this could be bad for our health, too. So this morning I brought the ritual with me because I wanted just I knew I was sitting in the midst of those of us who value scripture at some level. And I thought, OK, so what's the scripture? That's the rolling the stone away. And I went to all four of the gospel writers. I usually go to John and John didn't do it for me. Then I went to all this inclusive scripture books and finally came up with-- and this is what we used for Matthew-- "After the Sabbath as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary of Magdala came with Mary to inspect the tomb. Suddenly, there was a severe earthquake and an angel of God descended from heaven, rolled back the stone, and sat on it." Now, in my youth, I used to call that a feminist twist. Now, I would call it a queer twist. What's the twist that's going to wake us up? Well, here are two women coming together. OK, that's fine. That could go on. An angel of God. Who is that angel? This is All Saints Day. So this is a great one for angels, right? Rollback the stone. And we named all kinds of stones of injustice and sat on it. Now, Candy read this for us? We were all standing as she read the Gospel of the Day. And at the very end when she said and sat on it, I said, Let's all sit down. What did we do? And then put the stones of injustices into the basin and eventually poured water on it. I say that it's so simple on the one hand as I'm talking about it, but there's such power. If we break open all of the symbols and all of the readings and it's also who's reading, are we going to raise up, whose names are we going to raise? And we have that power as liturgist. Grab it. It's where queer theology happens. Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey Can I just add this has to do with my being in the classroom teaching queer theology. I'm not clear that we all in the room understand what we mean by queer. And I'm of the mindset that some people may have come to try to figure out what the term even means and how it's being used today. I remember when I was up my own self trying to figure out my identity, the term "queer" seems so ambiguous and over the years I've just settled on not using queer by itself for the sake of my community, but say queer lesbian because it is if it helps me to be clear with my community that I am speaking in terms of non gender conformity. So, you know, that's one sensibility. But there are not..there are any number of meanings when we speak about "queer," and I'm wondering if we may need to have some time to interrogate the very term itself. So, you know, and this is that I think that's what's so for some. So I speak about ambiguity. The term is ambiguous. It has a very I mean, the history of the term "queer" is a painful history for some people because that term is used very much like the term "nigger" is used. And I don't use the "N word" because I want people to feel the impact of that word. But just like "nigger" has been kind of brought back in among African-American people and used within the community in a way that is less pejorative. So also the term "queer" and it is a reclaiming of a word that was used to hurt, that was spoken, that was articulated to hurt people, a particular generation. The term also has a political sense for some people, rather than saying gay is an umbrella term. And I think the challenge with the umbrella term is also the erasure of that. The term can't imply the erasure of lesbian women because the term is very often seen as more related to gay men than women. So from a from a sensitivity to intersectionality and intersectionality that is concerned not just with how we all are united or how we all come together, but intersectionality, if we're truly talking about it, considers the ways in which persons are erased and seeks to always bring, seeks to always consider those persons who are made invisible by the very discriminations themselves. So I've got it started. I'm a leave it to the rest of my colleagues to carry it on, but I just thought that would be important for us. Rev. Dr. Neil Cazares-Thomas So queer for me is, you know, it's original for me was around odd, peculiar, different. And so when I used queer theology in my thesis, I. Determined that queer and queer theology for me was anyone who would stand against dominant culture, which made the table really big and coming out of an understanding of queer theology, bridging from Black theology, liberation theology, feminist theology, gay theology, all of all of those that were single minded and single issues and had a particular hope for an outcome that didn't necessarily fulfill all of its dreams and purposes, that queer theology had the opportunity to bring that table together. And more so when I when I used the word "queer" from the pulpit. I always say that for me, queer means anyone who stands against dominant culture. And I'll be honest in our culture and my culture, I believe that there are so many straight people who are far queerer, than queers in today's world, and glad to have them in not standing against dominant culture of white male to point to children. Conservative, Christian, evangelical [unidentified] with the damage. Matthew Vines That raises a...I have a question for you, Neil. Based on what you have shared, so are you are you comfortable with a straight cis, people identifying as queer? Rev. Dr. Neil Cazares-Thomas Yes. Matthew Vines OK, because for some reason I'm not. Something about it feels appropriative. Um, and I feel like I'm not interested in going on police and people's identities. I don't know exactly what the boundaries are. But my thought is that if you are not subject to any form of systemic discrimination or marginalization on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation, then you might be many wonderful things, but I am not sure how that's queer in a way that doesn't make queer so expansive as to be less meaningful. Right. So that's right. That's kind of my concern, hesitation about that. Rev. Dr. Neil Cazares-Thomas And I get that. I think, you know, I think the word "queer" is problematic and continues to be because it's not it's not a word we've defined extensively. What I would say is that I think that from a theology point of view that we perhaps are moving to a theology of radical inclusion rather than using the word queer. But I've met, I know many, many straight folk who I would not have any problem calling queer, who in relationships that are very, very different than the heteronormative and who do face discrimination and who do face some of the similar issues that other folks have faced. And so I don't think it's just something that's around gender or gender identity or sexual orientation. It's bigger than that. Audience member To the extent that what do we get in that exchange? I think it has a challenge that I'm a challenge around theology here. To what extent are we talking about an ontological queerness? That is, which I think is philosophically there is a lot of language, but theologically, I am not sure that there is. I mean, we all have a hermeneutic and we can we can we preach it and we draw people in. But I guess the question I have when you all are having an exchange, to what extent are we do we have a question about ontological queerness? What did it mean to be queer as a theological construct? The reason I ask the question also because I think one of the things I'm challenged with is when you read womanist theology, womanism has been very powerful in broadening the human scale such that we're talking about theodicy. We're talking about justice, reproductive, economic justice. How do we...because if that's the language we're having, I think then we we may be limiting ourselves. To what extent we limiting ourselves we're not talking about a broader thing or is this morning about the AIDS thing I thought about to what extent are we talking theologically about theodicy, queer people or gay people suffering? How are we hermeneutically we're good at this, but I'm not sure we're having those larger discussion. Rev. Dr. Nancy Wilson So I feel like I'm somewhere in between here and a little bit, which is, I do think part of the critique that queerness is...Or where we were breaking the rules and the dominant culture and transgressing at least the entry point is about sex and sexual identity and gender identity, and so that in that sense, you don't want to erase that and the power of that because there's so many temptations to do that. So and I think it is a word of defiance around gender role and patriarchy that is just said this is the only way to be human is to be in this form and to say absolutely not and to claim that freedom, to queer it, and to say with my body, with my sexuality, with my gender. And so I think somewhere in between there... And there is a point about it's... There is a fluidity in this. And as generations, that all the time, all my life and ministry in MCC, there have been people who live... There are vast configurations of how people live sexually and in their gender fluidity and identity. So I think it's we can't also not de-complicated. it is complicated. But I think we we lose something if we don't say that there's a sexual outlaw piece of this that got us into this in the first place, that sense of breaking the power that those rules and those limitations. Morris Floyd I wanted to, I want to, I guess, I support the notion of specificity. When I first started to think of the word "queer." I have given all of these painful associations, the one that I chose to associate was unique, different. And I'm going to tell a short story about how this to me is kind of became a practical sort of thing in our work in the church. Years ago, well, I'm a United Methodist by background, and we have something called Annual Conference every year, God help us. And and so one of my coworkers in the struggle, an intimate friend and I were sharing a motel room together at Annual Conference. And my mother's pastor had said that he would like to come and visit with us and meet us and made an appointment to to meet us at the motel. He showed up about an hour and a half later than we were expecting. So we had sort of decided he wasn't going to come. And we're getting ready for bed, motel room with just one bed. And Lyle was almost completely undressed and lying on top of the bed, and I was slightly more dressed because I was not quite so comfortable with my body, maybe Lyle was. But so Byron arrived and knocked on the door, and unthinkingly, I just went to the door and opened it. And I believe that that did more for Byron as an ally. Then anything I could have said, and I know that he repeated that story to my mother, who a few years later said, "well, you know, one of these days sex is going to become much less important to you." And I was 35 at the time. I said, "oh, mother, I certainly hope not." So I think there is this danger not only of disappearing of a particular group, let's say like Black lesbians, but also just disappearing a fundamental element of who we are that we are to begin with, as you say, defined by what we do sexually and with whom we do it for better or worse. And I've thought for a long time it was about time that I'm going on and on. But I'll just say that one of the things one of the. Things that I've that I've noticed as I watch mostly now from a distance, watched the evolution of things in our communities, particularly as they relate to what's going on in the churches, is the sense that we are maybe being too polite about this, that we are maybe too nice in that respect. Somebody said maybe. Yeah. So that's that's a thought on that. Rev. Dr. Nancy Wilson And just to say, you know, I fought for marriage equality and, you know, benefit from it. But I know that part of what marriage equality does or did to us is it's the hook of a middle class identity. And so that so that is very hard for us to talk about the fact that when those of us who are legally married are not necessarily monogamous or don't have the same sense of what it is to what our marriage covenant is, number one. And do we have more of a sense of the compulsory marriage? Is that part of what we're saying and how are we buying into all that? It's it's very hard at the very top, I think that this tremendous sexual diversity and richness, I think it's no secret in one sense that that gets challenged by or we get tempted and sent into silence into that kind of you know, that people may make assumptions about us or what we do or we are. And I think that's that's problematic for us in terms of, I think, our queer identity. Rev. Dr. Neil Cazares-Thomas I was going to say. So I arrived in Dallas two weeks prior to the Supreme Court decision. I knew nobody really in Dallas or the landscape. And the day of the announcement, I got a phone call from WFAA, Channel eight, saying we'd like a representative from the church to come and do a live interview with Dr. Robert Jeffress, who's the senior minister of First Baptist Dallas and who now is the one of the chief architects of much of the religious crap that's coming out of the White House right now. And I because I didn't know who he was. And so I said, yes, sure, I'll be there in 10 years. So as I'm leaving the office, the communications director of the church said, you know who Jeffress. And I said, no, let me brief you on the way. So we get down there. Um, I could say a lot about Dr. Jefferss he's the only man I knew who can lisp on a "f" and I met him as he was coming out of the restroom after quipping his hair and making sure it was sprayed beautifully so that it didn't move on camera. And so in our conversation, he said that he believes in biblical marriage. I was like, well, thank you for opening that door. So I managed to have a conversation with him that actually I believe in biblical marriage to. And let's go back to biblical marriage then, shall we? I mean, for me, that really is about this queering text. It's about really helping people to understand that this dominant understanding of what we assume scripture to say without ever reading it humanistically, what it really say. And so for me to be able to say to Robert Jeffress and what you've just go red, I don't know, in fury or embarrassment, that I would absolutely support biblical marriage from a queer perspective. Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey So I think where we are here is in terms of problematizing the term itself is the challenge we have between normativity, essentialism, and social constructions. OK, so at the very top, someone on the panel mentioned LGBTQI, whatever, whatever, OK. And that said a mouthful, and I've heard this before. And what it suggests to me always is our concern about being able to articulate our self identity with some specificity without yet again adding another or creating another social construct. Because at some point in time, here's a few's a fear. At some point in time, you the more we attempt to speak of ourselves with a particular specificity, that leans toward essentialism. OK, there we run the risk of actually making ourselves invisible. So is the steady delusion of who we are. I think that's that's what I'm hearing in this conversation. And I think we actually think we need to have more conversations about that within the LGBT community. And these are conversations that are being had about the very, how valoid a term "queer" is in light of all the things we are beginning to think about with regards to sexual self identity. And I think that's what we're bumping into here today. Dr. Diann L. Neu I think you raised some really important issues, Pamela, and what I hear in what you just said is how can the container be big enough that no one becomes invisible? And I think with each addition of another letter, perhaps someone is not visible at the table. I mean, I think when we talked about lesbian and gay and then it kind of morphed into gay then lesbians, were saying more women, where are the women? And then when we talk about I'm going to I'm I feel like I'm going on an edge here. But when we talk about mujerista, womanist, feminist, well, where is everybody in this space? And then when we talk about trans, trans, how trans, who and where is everybody in this space queer, does that mean it's space for all of us, or does that mean that some people are still invisible and pushed to the margins? That's the challenge. And I keep going on. That's the challenge that I hear in this conversation about what is queer. It's really how are we all seen? Morris Floyd Now, if the group is willing, I want to would like to suggest some conversation here about God. As they say, whatever that may mean to you, because I can't we can't be sure that we can agree on that any more than we do agree about "queer" the I come at this from the perspective of having worked for more years than I want to admit sometimes on trying to move a particular denomination, particularly immoveable denomination, as it happens, on the issue of including-- of understanding us. And I'm trying to be as inclusive as possible as I can about that, understanding us as a part of the church, as a part of God's people who are no less or more worthy. This is a denomination that says on the one hand that we are entitled to the ministry and guidance of the church and on the other hand, that we are incompatible with Christian teaching. So it's a political piece of work in a way. And my work has often been trying to offer a theological rationale for that inclusion, sometimes in earlier days. From what I now see as this really naive, as you mentioned, Nancy, finding exceptions or the different understandings of what the Bible says about same-sex love and to to now beginning to think about what same-sex love, in a way, says about says about Christianity in that in that dialog. So I want to raise the question about whether or not we queer Christians, to use that word, who believe that we were created of God with all of that means, and as that sometimes said, that God doesn't make any mistakes. Can we actually be in the same churches? Do we actually believe in the same God as that portion of the other side of the discussion, who as a fundamental matter of faith, cannot accept that notion? Now, I think people are against us being in the church openly for a lot of reasons. But I convinced more and more, particularly after the United Methodist General Conference last year, that there's a sizable portion who believe in their heart of hearts that they have been created, that we have not been created in a godly way like they were. It is a heterosexist supremacy idea. I just wonder how can we even want to be, let alone claim to be in the same faith community with those people? Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey Well, I think part of MCC strategy in the early days was to, in one sense, try this experiment on our own and find out in some ways what and then be empowered to have to, in a sense, create our own experiment in in faith-building faith community. And so it's a different at the same time, we're part of a culture that claims the same term that we're you know, it's not like we're not part of that Christian expression or identity. So I think it continues to be that's a deep existential question for us of what part do you say? It's not about logic. It's not about so many other things. It's about conversion. People really coming to understand and embrace the humanity and to understand that expression of humanity, to be diverse at its core, and that anything other than that, in some ways there's that just terrible rift that, and I've seen it be healed in individuals and in communities. But you can see. And how much the political. Usefulness of that ideology keeps it continuing to do its damage. Matthew Vines OK, so many thoughts. One thought I have is that if Christianity had started in America in 1609 or that I don't think I could be a Christian because Christianity came to this land as the good news of genocide and white supremacy and enslavement. And in that sense is what it takes for me, I guess, is just recognizing going back to the scriptures, going back especially to the New Testament, to the Gospels, to the teachings of Jesus, and not that Christianity has ever been perfect. Not that pre-Constantine. It was this pure, glorious thing that had there was not complicit in any oppression and in any way. But I do think that seeing especially the teachings of Jesus, those are something that I want to live my life by. Jesus is somebody who I want to be like. And I feel like his teachings around how we're supposed to treat other people in particular are the most demanding and compelling that I've really come across in any kind of ethical system. What's so unfortunate is that the church has really done a pretty, pretty sad job of living that out. But for me, because I feel like what is there at the core with Jesus in particular is good and is something that makes is something that the world needs. That's why I want to be a Christian. That's why I still believe in God. That's why I want to be part of the church, not because I think the church, certainly not the American white church, deserves us or deserves it, because if we were looking at from that framework, they probably don't. But because I. Yeah, I guess I just that's the nice thing for me. Even when I can get pretty disillusioned. And about the state of things, looking at white American Christianity, today is one of the most depressing things you can do on a daily basis. I still just know, you know what? Christianity has been around for 2000 years and some of these folks, trying to use gentle language here. Some of these people, some of these charlatans have been using it in the name of their own oppression and power for quite some time. And yet they are not its founders. They are not ultimately what Christianity started from or what it's about. And so that's why I guess I'm not wanting to just leave it with them. Rev. Dr. Neil Cazares-Thomas I agree with you, Matthew. I think we live in exciting times. We just celebrated the 500th anniversary of the Reformation and it's still happening. And if you look back through history about every 500 years, the church reforms. And so we're out of that reformation. But I think that we actually have an opportunity to to recreate it. One of the great things about Christianity is dying in America and the way of Jesus is finding its birth. And that's what keeps me hopeful. As I watch people leave organized religion in their droves, they are coming back to a sense of what does it really mean to be a follower of Jesus? What does it mean to reject dogma, but still hold on to faith? What does it mean to have been kicked out of the church? Not necessarily because you identify as LGBT these days, but you get kicked out for any reason that they decide they can. But people who look to the lives of LGBT people who have done the hard work of deconstructing and reconstructing scripture, and I'm finding evangelicals in almost every day who are saying, hey, how did you reconcile those clubber passages and still remain faithful? And how can I reconcile the scriptures that were used against me and still remain faithful? And so I'm I couldn't be more excited about where we are today because I'm finding people who are wanting to live by the values of Jesus and not by the dogmas of any particular church. And to me, that is that is the reformation that we are living in. And we should be excited about it and we should be living it. And that's what keeps me falling in love with Jesus day in and day out, over and over and over again. Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey So, big sigh. I think about if I only had to worry about God language in the Christian church, you know, maybe my my work would be easier, but it has been my work to work through the racism in the LGBTQ community with persons who call themselves Christians. That is the most painful for me. So when we came to Ferguson in August 2014, I came with some people who are communications persons with Reconciling Ministries Network. And prior to that time, we had a lot of conversation about anti-racism with that organization. It was that we had hard conversations and we came down when I came down to Ferguson, was supportive in my work with reconciling by Reconciling Ministries Network. It was it was very painful to look at the videos that our man was putting up on their Facebook site and reading the comments from white gay men, asking the question and white folk asking the question, why would RMN be in Ferguson? What had they to do? What was there? How is that any of our business to be in Ferguson? So I don't I you know, there are a lot of gods that I'd take issue with. And I'm not I'm certainly not of the mind that any of us in the LGBTQ community who claim to be Christians worship the same God. Dr. Diann L. Neu There's so many ways to enter this, I work ecumenically and interfaith and I just.. God of many names Is my ground of being, if you will. And I think we have to get to that if in this country where we are so politically divided, we're going to cross any divides because this government is just annihilating group after group after group. And if we who come from the faith traditions we say we come from, can't offer something that's going to bridge that nobody is. I don't think that's one response to the god-stuff. My other response is I don't put myself any more in places that are abusive or violent, and that goes for liturgy and ritual. I don't have to go to church every Sunday. I don't want to I want an experience like we had today, this morning that's going to take. For months, I want to hold on to that, I don't want that interrupted by a worship service where I'm going to be insulted by the God who's raised up, are angry at the language that's used. I'm I think we all need to be beyond that or challenge it. I mean, maybe that's the gift of being a Catholic woman standing at the back and protesting over and over again in my seminary days. And it worked. The St. Louis Jesuits do inclusive language. I was amazed. I was the lead singer with them. I challenged Dan Schutte and Rock O'Connor every time when their language was not inclusive. Some of the women at Harvard talk about throwing M&Ms to their professors when they got it right. We can do things like that. We've done things like that. Audience member Was it like I think it is an issue of hermeneutics and I really agree with the proposition that Maurice is stating about the issue of do we worship the same God? And I I think where I'm at this point is to realize that there's a certain amount of schizophrenia language wise within Christianity. Christians can hover around the risen Christ and that can become an amorphous sort of call to almost anything as opposed to like the Albert Schweitzer in Search for the Historical Jesus. What did Jesus actually do? Who did, whom did he encounter? What was he doing with this thing called the Kingdom of God? And when I start putting and considering those things, it seems to me I'm at a place now as I keep mutating, mobilizing my thoughts is to say that those who are homophobic and racist, misogynistic, etc. are people that are anti-Jesus. They may see themselves as Christian, but in terms of actual human hermeneutics that they're working out of how they define what they're about in their approach, they give is an amorphous sort of Jesus can do anything, whatever or whatever. But he didn't do everything. He did some very specific things, which is to include people and to stop people who try to zoom other people. In the sight of God, we're all equal. And he really, really, really pushed that point. And so I'm at the point saying, I guess along the lines that Morris is talking about, and the invitation he gives us all to think about is to say that we need to really confront that and call it for what it is, which is really people who are with the side of Jesus and those who are outside the side of Jesus. Now, how does that deal with the issue of queer? I guess the the whole issue of how do we deal with a heteronormative society so that anybody that finds themselves outside of that is somebody that sidelines themselves on the side of Jesus because hetero normative realities or as I understand it, does not allow variation. We must all follow the patriarchy. And as I said in one of my groups, what does that have to do? It has to do with seven seconds of male orgasm, seven, seven seconds, seven seconds. As a physician, I know physiology. OK, it's seven seconds. OK, seven seconds. And around that, you know, look at Helen of Troy and the issues there with Agamemnon and all of that and the creation of wars over that seven seconds. Fast forward to all the things that motivate who is zooming whom for, what, seven seconds are left out. And I'm just saying, I know that's a bit of a diversion, but it's still, I think, hits to the central core that Morris Floyd I was just thinking. We should mention that Rick is a medical doctor, among other claims to think so. He's speaking in very precise clinical terms, which may not be exactly the way we experience it. Audience Member # 2 It's something that needs to be said. And this is what I'm pushing. It is something if I been you talking about essentialism is our queerness. These are clear, is dependent upon heterosexism. We do. We spend our time. We have the challenge of what you're saying. I don't disagree with it, but how much of our identity, in the theological truth we're trying to get out is us being apologetics for our existence as opposed to claiming ourselves. Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey I would say the heteronormativity.... Audience Member # 2 That's what it that's what I'm wrestling with here. And what's next... Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey I think that heteronormativity cannot exist without the complexity, the full complexity of human sexuality. Audience member #3 I am not an academic and I tend to think in concrete terms because that's the way I can make sense of things and I'm really thinking about the whole use of the word "queer" and how it's either inclusive or exclusive or both. And I had an experience last week of being with United Methodist and I was with Queer Clergy Caucus. That was just started recently. And I'm not a clergy person. And one of the things that they were talking about was that when they named themselves the Queer Clergy Caucus, there were many clergy in the middle part of the country who didn't feel like they could participate because they didn't, they couldn't claim the name queer. And I don't know those folks. I haven't had conversations with them. I'm not sure what all is involved there. But this is a struggle that this new organization is having is like how to name themselves and how to be inclusive. And and I looked at their leadership list. They have 24 people in their leadership and not one of them... no there was one from the Midwest. The rest of them are bicoastal. And so that I think that's a conversation that it's it's good to be having. And somehow it needs to get out into the churches. And also, I wanted to say, just from my own perspective, my local congregation, the liturgy that happens there is really inclusive. The words are God of many names. And and I am grateful for that. And I think as a white person, I can't say that racism exists out there. It exists in me. It exists in us. And I think we just have to keep working at all of these things. And I, I get nervous when I feel like we're labeling other and claiming something that maybe we can't really totally claim either. Audience Member #4 I think for me, this is hard to speak around all of these folks who know all of these things and have been all of these places. I want to honor the people in the room. I'm a queer Christian. And when I say that, the way I've talked about it in the past in some ways is about the makes and models we bring into this traffic circle with no signs. But I think I've moved a little bit beyond that because I'm thinking about being a queer Christian and the space of reclaiming this word and thinking about the early Christians and the cross who wanted to have a cross be that which they're associated with. In those weeks, months, even years that the tool of death was that. When did that moment happen where they said, this is not my shame. This is not my death. This is who I am. And I think about this often. What does that mean? And I think about we're in the middle of a cultural revolution. And that's the cultural norm that's talking about the essentialism that saying I am not a single thing and not a single essentialist piece, a multiplicity of many, there's many parts of the beautiful diversity that I carry inside of me and I bring everywhere I go. And I'm not going to check one part of the door to be part of the other. And so on my queerness and in my Christianity, I don't want to be summarized to one piece. I want to be all in all spaces and in all ways. And yes, this is about my sexuality because otherwise I could still be in the evangelical Pentecostal church and I could still be present. But no, I'm not because this is about some particularity. So I don't want that erased. I want the multiplicity of it to be there. And I think that's the struggle and that's the challenge. But I wear it as I wear a cross as a Christian would in honor of how we've been. Wonderfully, fearfully, made. Audience Member #6 Yeah, I, too, am certainly not a theologian. I do feel like there are times when I get completely overwhelmed with, you know, the UMC church now and there's not a MCC in Nashville. And it's a huge church. And they sing whatever that hymn is with "the crimson flood that washes us white as snow . And I just thought, oh, my God, like, how is that possible? And the pastor stood up at the end and said I just was listening to the words to that song that hymn and realizing we can't sing it again. And just as my heart was beginning to settle down, he said The Crimson Tide. We're not singing that in Nashville. Apparently that's some sports reference Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was about football. So obviously had the conversation with him. I was quite accustomed to my conversations at church, but I also don't want to lose that. Yes, sometimes it is just one damn person at a time. But I love our community. I love the body hospitality that Nancy talks about that we have in the queer community. I love that there's any of these guys that I can curl right up in bed with and be just fine and and be loved on and accepted and warmed and I love that I see people changing all the time. I just feel that the Reformation Project and I had a young woman who brought her parents to the elevated conversation in Orlando, who said, I'm so glad you're going to be there, because my parents went to that. And it's the first time that they realized that it was an actual discussion, not a "you there. Let us in." Whatever were you in the mouth until you love us, whatever, you know, that it was actually a conversation. And she said, my dad especially is just involved. And I did a seminar there with the dad who got involved writing me eight years ago about how I was leading his queer daughter astray and was there to present with me because he's made the whole turn. And I sang at his daughter's wedding. You went and his daughter is now and counselor to LGBTQ at-risk youth. And so the circles do close and the seeds do sprout. And I just don't want to lose that in the middle of the horror of having my church sing that song. I don't want to lose that. There are good things happening in that we do have an effect and the ripples are going out and that there's a lot of those seeds will fall on dry land, but a lot of them will take it. And I don't want to lose them. Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey So I've been listening and this is why I'm a womanist, OK? Because of some of the conversation, so I don't I think there is a way in which we can hang on to some of the common denominators of life that are healthy and life giving and that every person in the web of humanity will experience, catching a cold, and and hopefully being cared for by someone or some of the some of the common denominators. But at the same time. Demanding the particularity of our experience and demanding that the particularities of our experience and our context are not just on. By persons who demand power and control, so I think this is why I'm a womanist because we understand Western theology. We we've had to digest that. We've had to become experts in it. We've had to sit in classrooms with professors who told us that was it. That was the gold standard and nothing else existed. And yet at the same time, we understood that with all of their brilliance, they were totally ignorant. Yes. When it came to the particularity of our community and other communities. And so I think this for me helps me to think about being a queer lesbian, embracing... Not that I am saying that I demand the erasure of the hetero, the heterosexual community. It is that I demand to be able to exist and to be loved and to be recognized even as I recognize and love others. So I just I think it can be done. But unfortunately, because of the will to power and I'm Michel Foucault here because of the will to power, you kind of always have to tell people, look at you, not today, not today. You won't. Today, ou will not do this. And unfortunately, in our nation, as it stands right now, we've got to we've got to really stand up and say, no, not today. Not today, you won't. Audience Member #7 And I wanted to thank you for bringing up Foucault because I wanted to say that for me, as I study queer theology, some of the best theology comes from non Christians and non-religious folks. I'm thinking of who Foucault, Butler, Halberstam, Munõz, [unidentifiable]. All these people who have who are challenging us to think outside these theological languages and have actually enriched my own theological languages. And I also want to lift up like Marcella Althaus-Reid, who has challenges to think about that queer theology is embodied theology and sexual and it's relational. And I love that, she says, you know, queer theology is doing theology with underwear. So and you know, and I think that it's when I'm in LGBTQ circles, especially religious ones and specifically Christian ones, we forget or we normalize sexuality to this homonormative/ hetero normative context. And some of my best friends who are more Christian than I am, who aren't Christian, are my friends who are puffs, drag queens, leather daddies hanging out at the bars without windows. And they're doing theology more than I am doing theology in the classroom. And they are teaching me how to be embodied and in flesh and to enjoy my body. Because for so long, Christianity has denied that, that the body is important, that is incarnate, and that is who God is. God is embodied. Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey Pulse nightclub. Audience Member I think it should be called Paulinity instead of Christianity, because the hatred of the body, the fear of the body, I think First Corinthians seven does it all by itself. it more than carries half of the weight that sexuality and desire and in it's all problematic and scary and should be put away. So I think the greatest thing to happen to me in my seminary education is when I finally came to the conclusion that Paul did not die on the cross. Jesus did. Morris Floyd I think we're going to hear and remember that we are very close to the scheduled end of our time, and so I would just offer thanks to all of you for participating with us and to my colleagues here in this conversation group for the wonderful thoughts. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Session 5A: Queer Theologizing Diann Neu Matthew Vines Morris Floyd Nancy Wilson Neil Cazares-Thomas Pamela Lightsey Queer Theologizing RTSA Session 5A https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/84bd1017437342b2fcdd3f4c34195868.png f625a75ecbcb5514d58d430aeb0489b2 YouTube Video A video hosted on YouTube. Embed Code The html embed codes for this object. <iframe width="600" height="337" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QAlKfL5zIxU" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br /> <p><em>with <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1433">Larry Rodriguez</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1432">Dr. Keisha McKenzie</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1409">Chris Paige</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1421">Haven Herrin</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1356">Mel Soriano</a></em></p> <p>Join us in grappling with the legacy of white supremacy, gender supremacy, capitalism, ableism, and fascism in the LGBT Christian movement. We gather for truth telling, transformation and healing.</p> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Session 4F: Decolonizing the LGBTQ Christian Movements Chris Paige Decolonizing the LGBTQ Christian Movements Haven Herrin Keisha McKenzie Larry Rodriguez Mel Soriano RTSA Session 4F https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/2bd98b6d64bac1e8050e3819ff44e7d1.png 450eb4006112aa611ce7a42df471c071 YouTube Video A video hosted on YouTube. Embed Code The html embed codes for this object. <iframe width="600" height="337" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/i-jDg0oJJjY" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br /> <p><em>with <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1430">Rev. Dr. Jonipher Kwong</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1435">Rev. Loey Powell</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1455">Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1449">Nickie Valdez</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1453">Rev. Dr. Renee McCoy</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1407">Rev. Cedric Harmon</a></em></p> <p>We tell the stories of how our LGBTQ movement expanded within Communities of Color, exploring how intersectional work can lead us to journey more together beyond barriers that have kept us apart in the past.</p> Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Session 4E: “Widening Our Circle Among Communities of Color” with Rev. Dr. Jonipher Kwong, Rev. Loey Powell, Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, Nicki Valdez, Rev. Dr. Renee McCoy, Rev. Cedric Harmon Wednesday, November 1st,2017 Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-jDg0oJJjY We tell the stories of how our LGBTQ movement expanded within Communities of Color, exploring how intersectional work can lead us to journey more together beyond barriers that have kept us apart in the past. Transcribed by: Ve’Amber D. Miller Summer 2021 :33 Rev. Cedric Harmon: So, welcome to this particular conversation “Widening Our Circle Among Communities of Color”. The description is in your program book. We intend to embody, in this experience, conversation. We also intend for there to be time for some question and response as well, but we're actually intending conversation. You will hear stories; you will hear truth tellers. You will see and hear an experience, preconceptions, stereotypes, and myths around communities of color being exploded. That's the ultimate intent of this conversation, to break open and bust wide open preconceptions, myths, and stereotypes around communities of color. Entering into such conversations is often clouded by those myths, stereotypes, and preconceptions, notions and ideas about communities of color. Especially, in faith communities because the communities of faith that we may be accustomed to may not have successfully fully welcomed and included the presence of communities of color. And we must recognize that there are communities of faith specifically and purposefully created to minister effectively to, with, and among communities of color. 3:20 That makes sense? Ok. Alright. So, we have a wonderful panel, and I'm not going to try to introduce, I will invite the panelists that are before you to introduce themselves. I want to say one other thing and then we'll get started with some conversation, breaking open myths, stereotypes, preconceptions. So, to help frame I want to invoke the voice, the wisdom, and the words of a prophet, a spiritual guide, and elder. Of the Lord said the following “If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive [repeats x2]”. Another such prophet, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said the following, “Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes-hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism”. And then finally this, how many have heard it said that the shortest distance between any two points is a straight line? If you've heard that raise your hand, please. How many believe that? But the hearing of it seems reasonable, logical, even possibly true, but I didn't notice many hands going up indicating that they believe it. Have you experienced it as sometimes true? Is it always true? Blowing up wide open preconceptions, myths, and stereotypes especially around communities of color. So, I’m now wanting to ask our panelists to, in order, that you choose--I'm not going to like point you out--share around the notion of widening the circle around the LGBTQ movement, and there have been movements, and the experiences of places of worship as spaces seeking to be or having been welcoming places around communities of color. I’m inviting you to tell the truth of your experience. Is that okay? Alright. Who would like to start? 7:30 Rev. Dr. Renee McCoy: My name is Renee McCoy and I’ve been around for a long time. I started out with MCC in 1976. As part of my coming to MCC, I realized that there were very few people who looked like me at MCC Detroit, and yet we were dealing with the same kind of issues that was coming out. But, for me, everybody was talking about being gay and gay was like way down on my list of things that were important. And as part of my ministry at MCC, when I came there, a bunch of us also got together started a group called the National Coalition for Black Lesbians and Gays. At that time it was called the National Coalition of Third World Lesbians and Gays, and I can remember the first March on Washington that we had, the first gay March on Washington, and we had a group that was in Detroit, in Baltimore, and DC and that was pretty much where it was and it was all of our faith though that brought us together. The thing for us as African-Americans was that when it came to human rights, civil rights, the church made sense it was the only place that we knew to organize from. And so, MCC of course, as we were in the church all of us who started NCBLG we were also connected with the church and connected with MCC. But we realized that it was bigger than sexuality and for us that there was some unfinished business that we needed to take care of as people of faith and all we had was the Civil Rights Movement to guide us. And that's what we did, and that's that continues to be the challenge in dealing with people of color or communities of color that it's not about your ability to walk down the street and hold hands or kiss whoever you want and now marry whoever you want. That there is an unfinished agenda that was never taken care of. 10:15 And so, when I think about what we do in communities of faith and churches, that the church needed to take care of survival issues for us. That it's not about getting rid of racism, not about getting rid of homophobia, it's about how do we ask people of faith I'll help one another survive. Just survive. I'm not interested in getting rid of racism, I'm not, I mean it wouldn’t be a bad idea, but I'm interested in helping people of color survive and thrive and grow and be the best that they can be in the midst of racism. That's all I know, and so, it becomes issues of addressing violence in our community, not just for gays and lesbians, but for a trans persons and bisexuals. But for people period, that the challenge before us as people of faith is how do we feed one another? How do we cloth one another? How do we take care of issues of despair and hopelessness in our community? Those issues that existed way before we knew about who we were going to make family with and that still is our challenge. And so, for me as an activist my agenda was bigger than that. It was bigger than gay stuff. And the gay stuff, it was okay, it was cute. And you know and now it's really trendy to be gay, but it's not trendy to be homeless and it's not trendy to be hungry and it's not trendy. And so, the trendiness, we cannot stop telling that story. That's the story that we tell, if you dare to recognize communities of people of color, then you dare to recognize all that exists with them and all of that stuff. 12:23 What my saving-- my hope--is always that when you look for God, you look for God when you want to find God, you find people who are beat down. And that's what God has always been from day one. When you look for people who are set for God, you look for people who are suffering, because that's where God is at work. And so, it's not about creating some kind of gay-lesbian faith community, it's about creating a human community. One that really, really addresses the issues that enable us to remain alive. Oh, I got two more minutes? Oh, man. [audience laughing; inaudible commentary] Take three [minutes]? Take three! And, so I think that before all of us you know it's not about how do we get more people to color in our churches, but how do we hold our churches accountable to people of color that exists outside of the church? People of color that exist in the world, how do we hold people accountable? How do we hold--I love Isaiah 45. Where Isaiah says, God says, “I will go before you and make your rough places smooth and I will call you by name”, and so how do we call one another by name? Whatever that name is, that's where you find God. God has said, I will go before you so how do we follow God into a place where there is respect, where there is honor, where there is humility, where there is integrity; that's the challenge. I don't want to be the token person of color that you tried out for time to time to show that you love God. Show me by feeding so-and-so down the street, who I don't know who she or he is sleeping with, I don't care who they're sleeping with. What I care is that they don't wake up in the middle of the night terrified that someone's going to kick in their door. What I care about, and what I think the church is challenged to care about is, I'm old and so how am I gonna be the best I can be? As you heard the other night, I'm a survivor of pancreatic cancer. So, how do we get people in our community to know about cancer, and about breast cancer, and about diabetes. Diabetes doesn't have a sexuality. So, the challenge of the church is how do we get gays and lesbians and trans persons who won't go to the doctor, because they're afraid of what the doctors gonna say, how do we get them to get to the doctor? How do we get care? How do we feed one another, clothe one another, how do we take care of the least of us and join forces? I don't care, you call me a f*g or a bulldagger all you want but feed my people. All right. [audience verbal agreements] 15:41 Nicky Valdez: I'm not gonna be that eloquent. Anyway, when I got asked to be on this---. Rev. McCoy: We need to know who you are. Valdez: Oh, I'm sorry yes. I'm Nicky Valdez and I was born in 1940. Now, in 1940 like I was gonna say, I feel like inadequate to be here because I don't think I really was always very involved in racial issues. I was too busy staying alive, my grenade shed. And being a little girl in my community I was voiceless. What I said and what I felt was immaterial. You shut up and you sit down, and you hear you're not to be heard you're just seen. And so, I really in my growing up, things like going to school and minding my manners and trying to dip into my family in the Latino community in San Antonio. Because like I said back then being a girl, you know, and you hear all these little things. For example, if you're a Mexican, you're a no-kind and what that means is you don't have a vote, so you don't count, your opinion doesn't count. It doesn't matter who you are or what you do, you’re a Mexican, you know, and that's the way they used to say the word. So, as far as thinking about what changes or getting involved in my community, I don’t think there was, well there was the Blue Light, but there was very little organization in being Hispanic. They're always a very little organization to fight for rights, to stand up and say what you felt, and claim a place in society. I think for the most part my issue was when I came out, I had to wait till I was 21 to leave home because being a girl and you couldn’t get picked up and taken back home anytime. In fact, my father when I came out, decided he was going to talk to a psychiatrist and put me in the State Hospital because I was not all right up here. And I was so keen that there was a doctor that said, “Mr. Valdez, your daughter is okay, she's going to be alright”, and he wouldn't speak to my dad anymore, which is good. 19:03 Anyway, my main concern was staying alive when I left home because I knew I couldn't go back. I knew that I was a lesbian and I worked in that circle that’s not really homeless, not really employed. I had finished high school but going to college was something that was like, if I couldn't support myself, have a place to stay, I wasn't going to be going to college. And, I did manage to have one semester, and I did real good in English, so I was very happy that I could quit my chance at college for that semester, but then I couldn’t keep it up financially. And, I couldn't go home and I didn't have a permanent place. I went from this woman that I met that I had a love affair with and then I moved in with a gay couple, Fernando and Leal, that owned the bar. And, we trade me having a place to stay for work and that's how I managed to keep myself alive. So, I think at that time like I said, I thought, “Well, I'm a lesbian. I need to do something about food”, and I was very connected to the Catholic Church. It was where I grew up, and even though it was racist-- we had to sit at the back pew. Just think, we sat at the back of the bus. The bus said, “Front seats are for white patrons”, and we sat at the back. And I remember when my grandmother and I would get on the bus, she and I would head for the back. And in 1952, I think they took the signs down, and I told my grandmother, “You know, we could sit up here”. And she said, “No, those are not for us”. So, you internalized all that and you don't allow yourself to think that you could be better than. Especially like I said in San Antonio, Texas, basically you're very Mexican-Hispanic community, and very attached to the church. So, I thought okay well, I need to get together with folks that feel the way I do about church. That we need to figure out for second, where it belongs, where we belong in that, and what the scripture said, and what did it mean for me in our lives? So, we got together and met in homes and discussed scripture and talked about it, and we did that until we found a place to meet as a group and the church didn't want us there. The archbishop at that time in San Antonio asked the nun that had given this space to move out. He didn’t ask, he told her, “You need to get that group out of the Catholic Student Center”. It wasn’t even church, but it was church property. Anyway, I think from that point on we met. We went on and worked at creating a space for ourselves. 23:30 Robyn Henderson-Espinoza: As a younger person, I just want to hold these stories some space because those stories have created room for me. And so, I thank you for your struggle and for your words. My name is Robyn Henderson-Espinoza. I’m also from Texas, from San Antonio. I’m born of a Mexican woman, not of this country, and an Anglo father. I’m a light-skinned Mexican with white passing privilege. And in many respects, I have throughout my life have been in white serving institutions that have expected me to assimilate into a cultural norm, and act in a way, and behave in a way, and be socialized in a way that was unfamiliar to me. And in many respects, the LGBT movement has demanded that of me. And 20 or so years ago when I was in college and coming out, I noticed the presence of the absence of Latinx folks and of African Americans. And I sort of had this question in my heart, where are my people? And leaving Texas for Chicago and seminary, I noticed the presence of the absence of my people. And it wasn't until I began to say out loud the questions that I was holding in my heart; and naming the racism, and the ways in which the logic of white supremacy was functioning; and our movement that folks were awakened maybe to this issue or to this problem, right? Like, that the imagination, the norm that was in our movement couldn’t hold the complexity of who was missing. And that is a culture of whiteness, right? An inability to imagine who was not in the room. As a light-skinned person of color, I am able to say things that darker skinned folks aren't able to. That there's a different dynamic that happens when something comes out of my mouth, than what something comes out of a darker skinned person’s mouth. And so, for the past 20 years, I have been living in that in-between space of just telling the truth, and asking the questions, and living the questions, and really try to lean into the potential and the possibility of our movement. My survival as a non-binary trans Latinx is made possible by the struggle of Renee and Nicki, and that is important to me in the face and say out loud because without our elders, my people don't have the conditions of possibility. So, I have spent 20 years naming the culture of whiteness that is in our movement, naming the ways in which even welcoming and affirming movements. That that movement is predicated on a particular cultural norm of whiteness. So early on I began sort of bridging together the LGBT movement, and racism, and the ways in which the logic of white supremacy functions and has a repetition in its movements, continuing to marginalize people of color in really, really detrimental ways. So, it is true that trans people of color aren't going to the doctor and aren't receiving the care that is part of a larger socialization issue. And what are the ways that our churches are contributing to the ways in which our people, people of color, are not receiving the care that they need, right? Like what is our theology ethics saying that creates in the minds of people of color that they aren't--that they don't have the chance to be well and whole. 28:00 I am a colleague of Monica Coleman who is an African American Process Theologian has been posting on Instagram questions of “are you ready to be well and whole”? And I think for people of color, we just aren't ready to answer that question. Partially because the conditions of possibility aren't made for us to answer that question. And that is the impact of the logic of white supremacy on our movement. So, I want to say that and sort of name that truth in this space. And that we are all complicit in it, and it sucks, and this is part of surviving the bullshit. The other thing I want to say is in my 30s living in Chicago around a lot of undocumented queers, I learned that I am possible in this country because my Mexican mother, not of this country, married an Anglo man. And so, the opportunities that were afforded me was because I was born in this country to folks who had documents that my mom received documents because of marriage, etcetera. And that undocumented queers face a particular challenge this ongoing diaspora, this ongoing being displaced, and the ways in which our movement cannot hold that. And that is another sort of impact of white supremacy that says who's in and who's out. And so, I have a real heart for undocumented queers and work with a colleague of mine in Atlanta, Georgia in trying to build capacity to respond to that pressing social concern. And we are not there yet. We are still on the way. I think that one of the myths of our movements is that because we have marriage equality, because we have predominately welcoming and affirming churches, that we've arrived. And I want to say that is a lie. That is a lie. Welcoming and affirming movements in marriage equality is about marrying the dominant system. It is about participating in the logic of dominance. That continues to impact our people. And if we are not working for what I call the politics of radical difference, where we can all be together in community--in deep, deep community--and really see one another, and learn to be human again, we will not achieve collective liberation. We won't; and that is a message for all of us. So, I know that [is] my time, and there's no need for me to reclaim my time, I’m going to pass the mic. Thank you. 31:20 Rev. Loey Powel: Thank you Robin, and Renee, and Nikki. I'm Loey Powell. I’m with United Church of Christ. And I'm here--my personal context is that my life partner, my spouse, is African American. We have been together for 20 years. My family, therefore, is African American, as well. And her family is also white, but I want to say some things about what I've experienced in the United Church of Christ. I've been active in the coalition since the mid-seventies, and we struggled for many years to be a place that would be welcoming of all the gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans members and people interested in the United Church of Christ. And we failed most of the time. And there were a few years where at national gatherings we had intentional conversations about racism. About white privilege. About this, “We did our work. We the white men, and did white privilege”, and that people of color there met and you know talked about that, and we met then jointly learned from each other. And they were phenomenal conversations but the organization itself I think was stuck. And once you have an organization that sort of gets almost set in stone, you get stuck. When real change is needed, when real viable options for transformation are present before you and you just don't know quite how to do it yet, but also because you still feel we're not quite there. We still have so many issues to work on around sexuality. We have so many of this and how can we take on everything. All at once. [speaks tongues] So, I confess that that we fail in many places. Even though Bishop Yvette Flunder and other people color are on a panel for the coalition and maintain that relationship and participation, it's still stuck. In the United Church of Christ, we are 90 percent congregations’ membership of white people. We have…but what I tried to lift up last night in Paul Sherry's words is the movement of “we were confronted and graced”. Confronted and graced by people who came to us, communities who have come to us, that caused us have conversation. To be put in a place of faith that said we haven't looked at that, our eyes are opening. We hear you; we want to hear you; want to be with you. You are us; we are one. How do we move forward together? 34:40 And the UCC has been a place that has not always done it right or well or fully or completely, but a place of transformation in and of itself. Especially, in our local communities. So, when the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries came and then the conversations moved over the years to a place where we establish a formal covenant, a partnerships with the fellowship, it was a true moment of joy because many of the members of the fellowship are UCC members now. Maybe the clergy are, not all of them are, and they bring to us a structure that is foreign to the history of the United Church of Christ. We don't have bishops, we don't consecrate bishops, and things like that. So, we have all of us been learning together to honor and respect and learn from our siblings in the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries in full and complete ways. And what I have learned that as a white person and I've known Yvette since forever, since before she started the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, which was out in California beginning, just beginning to get refuge together. I’ve known her for a very long time. She was on the Board for Justice and she's been an active leader in the structures of the United Church of Christ, but what I am learning as me. Low-congregational style white person is to appreciate the multiple ways in which God is given praise and glory. We also have churches in…I mean we're all over as your denominations are as well. We have Latinx, LGBTQ folks, we have Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Rim folks, and Pacific islanders and Asian American folks, etcetera. But we don't do well, necessarily, pulling everybody together. And here’s the model in some ways and learnings from the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries can be helpful but we have to move sometimes from a place of intellectual snobbishness. Like our denomination has this white privilege curriculum to do in the churches and then what we use white people do is check that off, “I've got that, not there anymore”. Come on, god, every single day I'm confronted with my own privilege, my own racism, every single day, but I am NOT a person that is afflicted with white fragility. I hate that term. And so, I want my stuff to get broken through but I want me to be breaking through it because I see what I have done and I don't need to be told that gap is there, but we have our work to do, I know that. But I also know when I have experienced worship and community, true community, or the fullness of God's people with that beloved community that can come together, I'm given new hope, we are all given me hope for what can happen, and for the issues that can be addressed all those multiplicities of issues that the church needs to address to be real. Thank you. 38:10 Rev. Dr. Jonipher Kūpono Kwong: I'm the Reverend Dr. Jonipher Kūpono Kwong and I'm proud to say as a Unitarian Universalist minister, and also part of my identity is actually being born and raised in the Philippines but being of Chinese descent. So, that was a little confusing to me growing up, you know, where do I belong and who am I? And coming to the United States when I was the age of 11 or 12 on a tourist visa further exacerbated the confusion because we were supposed to only stay for six months in the United States, but as y'all could probably attest to one cannot tour the whole United States in six months. So, we kept touring and touring and our tourist visa expired and we're still here so for a number of years I was actually undocumented. And what saved me during that time was I'm belonging to an immigrant religious community. So, I was a Chinese Mennonite of all things right and not the kind that you have in the East Coast where they drive around in a horse and buggy. So, we actually used technology and all of that but nonetheless it was for me kind of restrictive to go to a mono-ethnic Church. And it was also restrictive with my queer identity starting to emerge. I didn't really quite know how to reconcile the two together. And so, my older sister and I decided we wanted to go to a more multicultural congregation, and we joined Calvary Chapel. Which as many of you probably know is not the most queer affirming place on the planet, and that's when I was introduced to the Exodus Movement and several of you have heard about them. I was prayed for or preyed on by someone who had gone through the ex-gay movement himself and you know needless to say it was quite a journey for me to actually get to a place where I could reject that toxic theology that I grew up with and it was at a United Methodist Church in Santa Barbara, California where my heart felt strangely warm. And I hear a testimony today. And that's where I found process theology and feminist theology. That's really what saved my fundamentalist ass from you know what I described as contempt eternal damnation. I was actually converted in, a good way, and made a left turn so to speak. So, fast forward to a few years later when I moved to West Hollywood where I finally thought I could be free and come out as who I am and found the Metropolitan Community Church of Los Angeles. That's when I went to seminary class with Nathan, and I fell in love with Claremont School of Theology. That's where again I had another conversion experience. I was pursuing MCC credentialing at the time but the funny thing about MCC is that it too has its struggles with racism. I don't know if you all have cured yourself of it by now I was hoping that you would but…[laughs and audience response]. Now, I saw Robin Tyler's article our blog or opinion piece yesterday but let’s not go there. So, I think you know well I was struggling with the fact that there weren't that many people who look like me who are also clergy and served in a leadership capacity other than people like the Reverend Elder Hong Tan, for example, who's a wonderful role model. There's also Reverend Dr. Patrick Chang but you know you can really count with one hand the number of the Asian Pacific Islander clergy, and I really to be honest didn't quite feel like I belong in MCC either with my radical process theology. Especially, serving the congregations that I’m serving so there's certainly that disconnect, and I felt like, you know, Patrick Chang once framed it this way. He said, “Jesus once said that foxes have holes, and the birds have trees to perch on, but the child of humanity has no place to rest his head”. 43:14 So, then we really think and grapple with the issue of belonging. Do I belong here as an Asian Pacific Islander person? I thought about jumping ship because I certainly, theologically, felt more at home with Unitarian Universalism and I had seminary colleagues that had these great seven principles that were plagiarized right out of Process Theology, right? [Audience laughter] But I also knew that this denomination is 90% white, close cousins of the Congregationalist. They too were upper middle class, and I just didn't quite feel like I belonged there either. To be honest with you there are still days when I still wake up and feel like I don't belong to this denomination. Going through the candidate process, which is kind of like a prolonged addition in my faith tradition there were house parties. One of the questions asked by that group was, “Well, if we called you to be our minister, will there be a danger that we'd become an all-gay church”? And I thought, “Well, wouldn't that be fabulous”? You'd be the first UU congregation that's predominately LGBTIQ, but I told him I said, “What you really should be worried about is if you're going to turn into an all-Asian church, and that would be fabulous as well because you'd be the first predominately API UU congregation in the whole entire country”, right? Again, these days I still struggle with that, and I struggle with how to dismantle white supremacy from within because just recently we certainly had this hiring controversy within our movement that caused the resignation of our first Latino president Peter Morales three months before his term ended. It caused the resignation of the COO, the Chief Operating Officer, at the record of congregational life all because we still haven't quite dealt with the fact that we do live and operate in white supremacy context and the rules of the games are rigged. To be honest even me with [intelligible] has to wonder over and over again whether I got my position because I'm worthy and I have the experience and the qualifications for it? Or is it because of affirmative action? Or is it because of white guilt? Or is it because of any number of issues? So, all of us I think in leadership positions as people of color constantly grapple with not just a question of do we belong or not, but did we get here because of who we are or what role does that play in terms of our relationship with the people that we serve? I'll just end there. 46:33 Harmon: The first thing to do is I invite those in this room to show appreciation. [Audience Applause] If I did not define myself, for myself, I would be crushed by the fantasies of those who seek to define our Lord. Once again crush; a crushing weight of knowing yourself. Your identities. All of your identities but the particularity of knowing your identities as members of communities of color, where there are dominant cultures that refuse to see you, know you, and seek to know except through lenses of stereotypes, preconceived ideas, and myths. It affects our ability to minister effectively; it affects our ability to belong and feel that sense of belonging; it affects our ability to be in a relationship; it affects our ability to simply make sure that everyone thrives, and survives, and has human needs met, and are understood, and cared for, and valued. This is what we struggle with, and if we don't struggle with it what does that say about us. If we do not stop dealing with it. If we do not do the difficult work of introspection and reflection, how can transformation come? Will it come? Is it what we want? Is it what we desire? Do we desire to check off a box and feel good, or do we desire actual transformation? These are the questions that we must confront. “Widening the circle”. What circle? Perhaps, it's a triangle or a rhombus or rectangle. Perhaps it's not a geometric form. Perhaps, it's a cosmic understanding of the divine. My name is Reverend Cedric Harmon, and I didn't introduce myself. I serve as the Executive Director of an organization titled Many Voices, a black church movement for gay and transgender justice, LGBTQI justice. We specifically named “black churches” because we had seen so many times how in many mainline denominations local programs have sought to do the work within denominations and then wondered where are communities of color. In my experience, my social location, where I grew up not unlike you, my pastor never spoke a homophobic sermon. My church never grappled with sexuality and gender identity. I didn't experience it growing up what I heard my pastor saying is, “Every one of you are gift from God. Every one of you, and my job is to help you realize that”. I saw my pastor minister to the person on the corner who had had way too much wine from a brown paper bag and loved that person just the same as he loved the choir director and associate pastor, and somehow, I believed that this is what God desires. 51:55 So, as I came to understand more fully who I was and announced that I felt the call to ministry, the church affirmed that. My pastor affirmed it. I left home and I went to school in the Northeast and then gay and lesbian persons that were out and I went, “Hm, is that me? I don't quite know because gay doesn't seem like the right term because gay seemed like a character on soap. And that’s not quite me”. I struggled and struggled and discovered and discovered and came to know okay, this is who I am. I remembered my pastor back home still saying “You’re a gift”. So, I prayed to God and I said, “Okay, God, you’re God. My understanding of you, God, is that all things are possible of you. That nothing that is impossible. So, I have a question, if this is not who I am supposed to be, let me know because you’re God and if it's not then you will cause it to be something else”. And God was heard. I never prayed again because clearly if God had a different plan, he would have shown up. That was my belief, but I knew so many others who had prayed so hard as I gone off into the world “Change me, change me, change me” because the message they heard is you cannot possibly be a gift if this is true. There's something wrong that needs to be fixed for you to be acceptable but my experience was opposite that. This is not the story that you often hear especially around black churches, but my experience was that I believe that that was the experience other people had and I believe that we can have that experience for everyone. My color, I knew my color. I knew the experience of them and I knew that that presented challenges. I never asked for that to change. I knew that there would be challenges with that I was told you will have challenges around. Confront them do what you must do this is what it's going to be required of you and you're going to be called some names. You're going to be treated differently but allowed such an orientation and gender I did not have that experience of so many others had and so I put it to you today, this morning, in this conversation: can you imagine a different reality; and can you imagine that the stories of one are not the stories of all; and can you imagine transforming yourself such that there could be greater transformation in the world? Where injustice rears, rises up, shows up, can you imagine yourself stepping into that space to create something very different, the difference that is justice? And now it's your turn to talk with us having heard what you heard and experienced what you experienced. What’s happening for you in this space now? And just before you speak, take three real breaths. [pause] 57:17 Unidentified Audience Member #1: So, this is this idea of thought has been with me and I hope they pass what's matter. So, I want to lift up as one who was a part of both disciples of Christ and UCC. This is just a truth that I need to say in this room and that is it’s problematic for me as a black man, a black queer man, whenever I approach the UCC, and I identify my and-ness that the response is “Do you know Bishop Flunder?”. And what that says to me is that that is our figure, that is our go to, that is our hub of resources. I’m thinking that I know that there are more people beside Bishop Flunder. Brilliant people along with her who aren't being cultivated, who aren’t being brought in. So, I needed to say it out loud because that becomes just an echo in reality that I think the UCC is failing on. When it comes to the intersection of race and LGBT identity. Powell: You're absolutely correct but there's a group of African American women in ministry who have been meeting who are pulled together by Bernice Jackson and Yvonne now for years, many years and they meet every other year. In the recent last three years of their meeting, more of them have been able to come out and be who they are either as trans or as lesbian African American women in their clergy. So, there are networks beyond fellowship affirming ministries that are providing incredible ministries to folks in the United Church of Christ. Henderson-Espinoza: I just want to affirm what you're saying and we often fetishize people of color, both within our community and outside our community. And when we do that at an institutional level that also communicates a particular thing, which is wrapped up in white supremacy, as well. So, I just want to affirm what you're saying and that we're not there yet. McCoy: Just real quickly, I have to again also affirm what you’re saying but I was bridge pastor of a UCC Church for the last year and a half, for 13 month, probably going back into that again in a little bit. One of the things that I realized at UCC is that if you want to talk about race, they love that, but if you want to talk about community, you want to talk about building, you just want to be who you are, there's no place for that. I think the challenge for UCC clergy and disciples of Christ and MCC and all of that is to consistently talk about building community and seeing who we are. Also, what I realized is that as long as we stay in that box and allow ourselves to be in that box, we do not hold one another accountable for what we do to each other as people of color and everything becomes about race. All they see is the color of our skin, so we can go out here and kill somebody and we got a bunch of white folks saying they’re a murderer but they black so if you don't see them as murderers you ain't doing it. So, the reason that people like you have to keep speaking that truth is so that we hold one another accountable for what we do to each other because within that denominational context we're hurting each other. So, I encourage you to be batted. One of my things is I live by is “truth disarms your enemies” and as long as we can tell the truth, then we have disarmed the enemy and the truth is who we are, that we're bigger than that. Reverend Flunder would say the same thing, don't put me in that place, but denominations are comfortable putting the one or two black people that we have in that place, and I have big respect for her and she would not allow it either but we gotta keep saying it. 1:02:33 Randall [Audience Member #2]: Well, as always Renee and Robyn said more eloquently, it's good to say and because of those things and because of what I often think of as the “Onliest One Syndrome”. So, the onliest one - someone picks you to be the onliest black person, and not only do they want you to be the onliest one, just drawing from Judith Butler, they want you to perform the onliest part. You can only be a certain type, my own heritage black person in the room, so the onliest unique one who's articulate but also I think because we're in a cross-generational space and I think when I observe both in academia and in the broader LGBT movement is that there's a moment now where those who have been in those spaces for a long, long time need to begin to open the doors for somebody else to inhabit the spaces and because of the onliest one syndrome, had to struggle to get somewhere in the movement, we sometimes don't do that. And I speak of nearly 60, that we just don't do that well and without intentionality, people saying there is this fantastic younger person who is doing this. Honestly, I hang out with people who are mostly in my age bracket these days, so I need someone to say who are these amazing young folks and let them go because it's often tiring to be speaking at every conference, every time, everywhere in the world and falling into the Onliest Syndrome. Those of us who are either younger and always asked or older and around 40 years and are a little tired we just have to actively say them at this time you choose somebody else. They might not say exactly what you want to script them to say but that's a really good thing because you've heard my rap about liberation for 40 years and obviously if that's not had any impact, so now somebody else needs to come in and tear it up and then you know where you you've worked through the conflict that raises and we might get somewhere. So, that's my only point and I think it bridges the two things that I heard both of you say. Dr. Henderson-Espinoza: I just want to say yes and the thing that I'm learning right now from someone who serves as chosen mother, pastor, teacher, professor is Ruby Saddles who says to me, every time we talk or every time I'm in New York, “we have to reimagine leadership in this moment”. That we cannot do the grandstanding leadership anymore that is not how we're gonna move the movement. So, I just want to say yes, and we have to have these conversations on how do we reimagine leadership. Randall: Can I just say I thank you for that and my response was not meant as a critique about the event. It was a critique of all of us. Just to be very clear. Unidentified Audience Member #3: I'm not entirely sure how to find the words for this but I'm feeling a growing... Last night and today, and this may not be the space for it, but as a local church pastor most if not all of us I presume have some connection to a religious tradition that has a structure, we may have treasure denominational identities, and it comes as no news to any of us that “Church”, air quotes, is declining and dying. And it just feels to me that there's something in this conversation that is speaking to the passing of one way of being “Church” and we can become you know God's people in a different way. Two things that sort of are speaking today, and I'm not exactly sure how we'll talk about that and not even this setting or that setting, but you know we're religious folk coming together. We're gonna talk about the fact that church just isn't the wave of the future. So, two things that I heard here from Renee calling our community to account for those in our immediate community, that feels like the future. That it's more about the people who are not sitting their butts in my pews than getting them to sit their butts in my pews and there's something about evicting her more from Robyn if possible about the politics of radical difference and how that intersects with theology. That is part of a change for all of us. Harmon: Thank you for that, he said it well, he said it well because this transformation is imagining means just that, imagining. Imagining means also that old phrase, “abolition”, to abolish but not for the simple purpose of abolishing but to construct something new. That's scary often, it's unfamiliar most often, and extremely uncomfortable always. Unidentified Audience Member #3: Just because I preached on this on Sunday, Reformation Sunday. I can’t resist. I used the image of “are we at a broken pot moment or at a potter’s kiln”? Are we fracturing or ready to be transformed as something new? McCoy: It's about building community, for real, and for me as a black person you know my family had all of us work together, and I think we got to get there. I’m old, but brother I want to work with you cuz you got energy, but I can send you checks, I can be with you, I can hold you when you're scared. We didn't have that, did we Randall? We did not have anybody Randall [Audience Member #2]: I had you! McCoy: You had me? Yeah, but I always knew, man, that the next step was for me to be there and hold you when you're scared. Nobody held me when I was scared but that's what we are called to do and that's what community was and that's what the black family is for me. 1:10:07 Henderson-Espinoza: So, just quickly, just to address your question on the politics around difference. Two things: one is I am transit theologian of Ephesus so I what I've talked about the politics around difference. I'm thinking how do we shift our theology and social practices to reflect the thing that Renee is talking about which is building community. And then two, I did a film for Work of the People last year and this is 2016, and that film is on the politics around difference and it's around 12 minutes and it is on my website which is irobyn.com. I think the third thing I will say is difference is not the same as diversity. Diversity is a code word for tolerance and that I learned from Dr. Lee Taos and we need to be real careful that we are not creating communities of diversity which mimic the “rainbow coalition” quote-unquote. It's less about having representational identities in the room and more about figuring out how to be human with one another because I think what I call the tyranny of the now, our present moment, is a reflection of our inability to be human with one another, period. We don't know how to be human with one another and so the politics right difference is my attempt to speak theologically to our moment of crisis. That it is less about diversity, and it has to be about difference and I can talk at nauseam about philosophically what difference means, etcetera, and the implication for theology, you can catch all that in the film. Kwong: In twelve minutes! Powell: Can I just say one thing real quick? A couple weeks ago I went to a reception for the new president of Oberlin College who was the first, Carmen Twillie Ambar, who was the first black president there at Oberlin, who said this, “We can't be a place of differences but only the differences we agree with”. Kwong: I love Beth Zemsky’s definition of diversity. She says that diversity is where you count people in terms of you know are we representing the X number of Latinxes, and Asians, and blah, blah, blah, but inclusion is where people count. How we get there she says is through intercultural competency and I'd like to add cultural humility. It takes a lot of listening for us in order to be able to truly understand the humanity in the other. It's interesting how I brought this up, Nathan, because last night as we were singing “Our Journey”, I was thinking of the line or verse that was left out, which is one of my favorite ones. It's “Should the threats of dire prediction causes you to withdraw in pain/ may your blazing Phoenix spirit resurrect the church again”. This is gonna sound weird coming from a Unitarian Universalist, but I actually believe in the resurrection, not a physical resurrection, but I believe that resurrection is possible and what that looks like in my humble opinion is to be centered. The things that we've centered in Christianity and in other faith traditions. So, it's decenter whiteness, to decenter leadership, what leadership looks like so that becomes a leader full kind of movement instead of just ordaining all these names and titles that I don't even know what the heck they mean. My apologies to the Episcopalians and they're “very reverent right” whatever, but let's get real here it's about the people and it's about making the margins attractive enough so that we would go to the margins. So, the church needs to get outside of itself in order to experience resurrection. It can never happen within the walls of the church these days, that's why people aren't coming, because that's not where resurrection is happening in our society these days, can I get an amen? Audience: Amen! Kwong: With that I have to leave. I have a flight to catch. Henderson-Espinoza: I'm glad that Jon brought up inclusion because the logic of inclusion demands exclusion, if we think about that, and we need to ask the question and he read or he quoted the verse of the hymn. I want to ask the question because if logic demands exclusion--I mean if inclusion demands exclusion, we need to ask the question “where does it hurt”? Where's the pain? I think that we're not often asking that question. Valdez: The Reverend a week earlier quoted something about what was executive intellectual snobbishness. I find that because I haven't had the greatest education in the world, so every once in a while when I'm hearing people, I hear them saying things that I think well if that makes me feel like, “Well, I haven't been around. I don't know enough. I’m whatever”. That term hit me because I think we use, with each other and against each other, that intellectual snobbishness and we need to quit that because we don't need to be so great that you make the others feel like they don't know enough. 1:16:37 Audience Member #3: One of the things that I'm trying to figure out how to really phrase this. I’ve been thinking about this is that, I've been in this room a lot of times and a lot of different meetings, and we always say the same stuff but nothing happens outside of the room. And so, my question is Robyn I know in your classrooms you push people. The only two people I know on the panel are Loey and Robin and I know Loey what you have done within our denomination, but we still come back to the same questions, and the same statements. How do we move beyond this room, these rooms metaphorically, into a place where we can stop playing who's more oppressed than the other and recognize that there is a lot of intersectionality in the multiple oppressions that we feel and that we experience, but how do we work together to overcome those so that we do indeed create a different world, a different church, a different room, a different on, and on, and on? Harmon: [counting raised hands] Let’s see, one, two, three, four. Henderson-Espinoza: And we have three minutes. Harmon: And we have three minutes. So, I need to get the other questions in, let’s try that, and then let’s see what we can do. Will that work? Okay. Scott [Audience Member #4]: Hello, I'm Scott and I'm a Unitarian Universalist, so that’s the church I’m a part of. I came to Unitarian Universalism because of being transgender, but I'm also a surviving active transgender community leader in the Appalachian community, where I came from. That's somehow working out for me and my church, it didn't work out very well to start with but it's doing better now, and my question is about the overt racism that's coming out of my community and about the way the church is receiving what is often a lot of people very confused about who they are and the church coming forward and telling them that they're a bunch of Nazis. People coming in saying, “You will not replace us”, and people responding, “Go home, Nazis” and how that's playing out between the church, and my community, and conversations about inclusion, and you know racial and ethnic diversity, and who we are as white people who don't really fit in many of the progressive churches. I do not feel culturally comfortable in a union church, I would not feel culturally comfortable Anglican Church. The only reason I showed up there at all is because I'm transgender and I got shut out of my home church, in my home community, but now I’ve found my way back there and I'm finding that things are working much better than I ever thought they would. I'm wondering okay so what are the next steps? How do we help people find an identity that they want to have that doesn't culturally just make us into the same kind of white people as all the other white people because people are very much against that, but that isn't hateful of the rest of humanity? It's a very painful spot to be in but I'm staying here because it's working better than I thought it ever would. Unidentified Audience Member #5: Thank you there's so much there that we could explore. I just wanted to share around where’s the pain in the next generation. I'm here in St. Louis. I'm privileged to get to be in the streets for a lot of the protests and actions that have been going on. The queerest thing in St. Louis are the people in the streets, the gender non-binary, the genderqueer, and androgynous, asexual, young queer homosexuals. Fifteen to thirty hundreds of queer folks and we were just at a self-care day the other day, my friend Tori and I, and we looked around where 7/8 of the room were visibly queer folks in there. So very much what we've been saying, I hope that's a little helpful and hopeful because where is the pain with the pain right here are black people are being murdered, that's where the pain is. We as queer people, again that falls down the list when black people are being murdered just for their skin. If we have vital real presence, the queer folks are there. Unidentified Audience Member #6: As we're celebrating a phenomenal movement we made in basically one lifetime, we're still alive with the LGBT inclusion in institutional Christian churches. The reality continues that around issues of race we're just back a thousand years and I think we just have to name that the issue of race is significantly different from the issue of sexual orientation in terms of institutional churches in this part of the white European construction of religious belief that has come into American, at least in our UCC tradition. Where we have phenomenally few people of color for such a progressive church that stands on race issues in all the right spots but just isn't there. This is so hard, I agree with you, it's like we talked about this dude we're blue in the face book week. It seems like now with the election we have gone back so far, so fast, maybe it's a tipping point. I don't know but there's just something I guess we just have to name. The gay and lesbian thing I think did come in under the Eurocentric marriage issue and a lot around that brought the welcoming and made us similar to what “us” was in the institutional Church was really not that much difference now between gay and heterosexual but there's still this huge chasm among race and we somehow have to be able to come about this in a new way. Harmon: There's never, ever enough time. And yet there's an abundance of time. Some of our panelists had to leave because they had other engagements, flights to catch. I wanted to say that the question of what happens beyond this room is in fact what's happening in the streets of our cities and towns and in small rural communities that never get the press because it doesn't fit with the prevailing merit. What we must find a way to do is be a community where change and transformation is actually happening. We are more connected and yet more disconnected than we've ever been. We must find the ways where there are these limbers of green sheets popping up every damn where, and go there and help nourish and water so that they flourish in whatever way you can add nourishment. Put your body there, put your money there, put your time there, tell the damn story. Whatever you have to do, we have to make clear transformation is possible, is happening, we must make it wider. That perhaps is the circle we're hoping to widen. Thank you. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Session 4E: Widening Our Circle Among Communities of Color Cedric Harmon Jonipher Kwong Loey Powell Nickie Valdez Renee McCoy Robyn Henderson-Espinoza RTSA Session 4E Widening Our Circle Among Communities of Color https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/dbfb0a79563c0e896726afde3869cadf.png 926f1a1196ebfce9325ae44d91a6d3dd YouTube Video A video hosted on YouTube. Embed Code The html embed codes for this object. <iframe width="600" height="337" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aCA9ohkXBNs" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br /> <p><em>with <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1419">Rev. Freda Smith</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1424">Jan Griesinger</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1406">Rev. Dr. Carter Heyward</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1418">Rev. Dr. Erin Swenson</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1412">Rev. Elder Darlene Garner</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1415">Rev. Debra Peevey</a></em></p> <p>Our lives and loves, our faith and work, have been shaped by ongoing struggles against white supremacist patriarchal misogyny, racism, and homophobia. Where did our journeys begin? What were the conditions of the world/church at the time? What have been some lessons from the past? Why must a passion for justice for all women be kept central to our communities? What can we learn from some historic tensions between lesbian feminist and transgender movements that can help us cultivate community? What resources can help us keep our courage? This panel includes brief presentations from each of us, some time for exchange among us, and an opportunity for questions and reflections from the audience.</p> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Session 4D: Keeping Our Courage: Lesbian Feminism and Trans Women Carter Heyward Darlene Garner Debra Peevey Erin Swenson Freda Smith Jan Griesinger Keeping Our Courage: Lesbian Feminism and Trans Women RTSA Session 4D https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/fa3207dcb56f3515db63b48639139037.png 2130a427b072c9fdb72514012fc36fb1 YouTube Video A video hosted on YouTube. Embed Code The html embed codes for this object. <iframe width="600" height="337" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Hg1B6eQOBcg" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br /> <p><em>with <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1428">Jimmy Creech</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1351">Marianne Duddy-Burke</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1426">Jeannine Gramick</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1454">Rick Huskey</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1427">Rev. Jeff Johnson</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1425">Rev. Dr. Janie Spahr</a></em></p> <p>Faith leaders share their stories and interact with each other about the persecution or sanctions they faced at the hands of religious authorities. Participants reflect on their own experiences of oppression from their religious institutions and if, or how, they felt God’s grace helping them rise from the opposition they faced.</p> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Session 4C: From Trials and Tribulations to Trail Blazing From Trials and Tribulations to Trail Blazing Janie Spahr Jeannine Gramick Jeff Johnson Jimmy Creech Marianne Duddy-Burke Rick Huskey RTSA Session 4C Trials and Tribulations to Trail Blazing https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/d9b91a37085c26e7f2bc733108b9e11a.png 2bd386253a828347ee36f5c7e99dc01a YouTube Video A video hosted on YouTube. Embed Code The html embed codes for this object. <iframe width="600" height="337" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MesMiH2_-VE" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /> <p><em>with <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1344">Rev. Jim Mitulski</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1431">Rev. Karen Ziegler</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1402">Barbara Satin</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1458">Bishop Zachary Jones</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1353">Rev. Dr. Rick Mixon</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1403">Rev. William R. Johnson</a></em></p> <p>Together we consider the ways that the AIDS epidemic shaped and continues to shape our analysis of how race, class, gender, and religion form and deform our lives and the social fabric. We consider how our feelings and experiences of AIDS help us to discern what is going on now, and how to move forward in our spiritual lives and our activism. What does/did AIDS teach us about how to do an analysis of current events and how to shape our lives and activism today? How does AIDS puts us in the heart of intersectionality?<br /><br />Gabrielle Garcia, 2021 summer intern who transcribed this session, wrote this <a href="https://lgbtqreligiousarchives.org/media/page/get-involved/Connection,%20Reflection, and Anger Our Lives Were Forever Changed By AIDS.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reflection on hearing the stories</a> told in this session.</p> Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Rolling the Stone Away Conference: Session 4B Our Lives Were Forever Changed by AIDS with Rev. Jim Mitulski, Rev. Karen Ziegler, Barbara Satin, Bishop Zachary Jones, Rev. Dr. Rick Mixon, Rev. William R. Johnson Wednesday, November 1, 2017 Video link: https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1367 Together we consider the ways that the AIDS epidemic shaped and continues to shape our analysis of how race, class, gender, and religion form and deform our lives and the social fabric. We consider how our feelings and experiences of AIDS help us to discern what is going on now, and how to move forward in our spiritual lives and our activism. What does/did AIDS teach us about how to do an analysis of current events and how to shape our lives and activism today? How does AIDS put us in the heart of intersectionality? Transcribed by: Gabrielle Garcia Summer 2021 Rev. Jim Mitulski: Our lives were changed forever by AIDS. Together we will consider the ways that the AIDS epidemic shaped and continue to shape our analysis of how race, class, gender, and ability form and de-form our lives and the social family. We will consider how our feelings and experiences of AIDS help us to discern what is going on now and how to move forward in our spiritual lives or activism, what does it [AIDS] teach us about how to do an analysis of current events, and how to shape our lives and activism today, how does AIDS put us in the heart of intersectionality. We appreciate that you’ve given enough time in the course of this conference to be here. We know that it was essentially, initially a conference about LGBTQ issues with sexuality and religion, a history conference. And yet I'm sure none of us are all flawless. HIV/AIDS is an interrelated topic. So we look at this past 50 year period. So we wanted to be sure that it was included and for those of us who are the panelists it served as part of our AIDS experience and we also know that there is significant experience represented in the room. And that’s why this is called a conversation. We are part of a planned conversation. We also of course want you all doing this piece as well. So we have some prepared questions that we’ll respond to and then we want to involve you in it. And for us it is about our pasts and as you’ll hear it’s also very much about the present. We’ve come a ways to make that point clear. First, our group chant. Act up. Fight back. Fight AIDS. [x2] But wait there’s more. Act up. Fight back. End AIDS. [x3] And then perhaps you saw in the news in the last just a couple of weeks something that brought a number of us back 30 years. What brought us back to the 30 years was that if you were working in AIDS politics in the 1980s, you might recall in California there was a state count, a state ballot proposition called proposition 64 that was sponsored by a politician named Lyndon LaRouche. Rev. Karen Ziegler: You know, I’m afraid we’re gonna lose this if we don’t turn it off because I keep losing this– Rev. Jim Mitulski: All right, which was about 14 people with HIV. So two weeks ago that failed. Numbers really don’t matter. Two weeks ago Benny Price, state legislator from Georgia had this to share, “...of partners tracking contacts, that sort of thing. What are we legally able to do and I want to say the quarantine word, but I guess I just said it. Is there an ability since I would guess that full public tax dollars are expended heavily in prophylaxis and treatment of this condition. And so we have a public interest in curtailing the spread. What would you advise or– are there any methods legally that you could do that would curtail the spread? Seems to me it’s almost a frightening number of people living there potentially carriers– potential to spread whereas over the past they died more readily. And then at that point they weren’t posing a risk, so you got a huge population of those at risk, then they’re not—” Rev. Karen Ziegler: Well you take away their health insurance so then they won’t be able to pay for their treatment. Rev. Jim Mitulski: You can find this online. It’s a livestream from a hearing before the state legislature in Georgia. Benny Price is a medical doctor. Audience member: You’re kidding me. Rev. Jim Mitulski: We hate to do this, but she is the wife of Thomas Price of Health and Human Services, who just got moved or resigned one step ahead being removed from the Trump administration cabinet for his misuse of air. Private jets. So the fact that this discourse two weeks ago by a medical doctor in the state legislature for whatever reason is being used again or being tested out again or being used again and not being challenged in any significant way. May us all in our planning group realize oh this is not just a history piece this is happening here now again. So we didn't need that, but we just thought to get your blood boiling before we started, raising the temperature of the room. So I'm gonna ask each of us in one sentence—and I’m going to take a risk—to say in one sentence before our panelists do their introductions, in a sentence your name and why you came to this workshop. Okay alright because we're a small group. This might not go around all the way. Is there plenty of cord? And then when we get to the panelists, when it hits them, we’re going to ask them to do their longer first go around, which was your name, your context, your first AIDS story alright. Lynn Gerber: Alright my name is Lynn Gerber. I'm here because I'm writing a history of MCC San Francisco and AIDS and I'm here in part because I really want history, our present, and future to be in conversation with each other and I'm trying to learn how to do that with everyone here. Nancy Wilson: I'm Nancy Wilson, Metropolitan Community Churches. This is a 12-step group for people who are survivors around HIV and AIDS and Jim Mikulski once told me that someday maybe we'd have 15 minutes to process what happened so I'm here for that. Bobby Raymer: I'm Bobby Raymer and I'm a 27-year survivor. I have had zero viral load for well over 20 years and just here to be part of things and to talk about the past maybe and to kind of catch up on what's going on, I moved to Ogden, Utah in 2009 so I feel I'm kind of in a backwater. Aubrey Thonvald: My name is Aubrey Thonvald and I came because my hope is that, one to learn and to listen, to learn through this need, and then just to think about what I can bring forward through my organization for World AIDS Day. Jeanette Mott Oxford: Jeanette Mott Oxford and Empower Missouri is staffing the effort to reform Missouri's HIV specific criminal codes so I'm here to be inspired about that current work. Heather White: Heather White. I'm here because you all are amazing. Brian McKnight: Brian McKnight. When I was the mayor of Boston’s liason to the gay community in 1982, I started the first Task Force on AIDS in the United States at a city level. And there were only three cases in Massachusetts and people were saying you're overreacting and we did some pretty amazing work, including write the blood donation code at the time. Kevin Pilot: I'm Kevin Pilot, a 31 year survivor and just here to learn and to share. Micah Horton: I'm Micah Horton and I came into Metropolitan Community Church in 1984 so I was actually starting to begin ministry right in the AIDS crisis in the Metropolitan Community Church and I wondered where were all the Christians that were helping us, that were supposed to help us in this time and all I knew is at that point I was Gina and not Micah and we were the ones that stood up to take care of our brothers and sisters that were dying. And my first hands on was Darrell Stephens. He was the partner of a district coordinator, Bob Arthur and he had the AIDS virus had gotten to his head. And so I called him and said do you want to come to Montana and be in my home, and Irene Anaria[?] and I’ll take care of you. And so he came to my house on the 26th of May and he had died by June 12th, but I did all the care of myself. The church let me have the time off and they preached his sermons and I did full care totally crossed over, met his parents over the phone, and then got the arrangements made for him to be shipped back to Los Angeles where he didn't want to go because they put his brother in a nursing home. So that was my first hands-on with loving someone as they cross over and it's been a series of that since. Dwayne Davis: I'm Dwayne Davis and I'm here because you know well when I came of age, I came from age and was coming out the cocktail just changed that it was like I didn't really have to experience what so many people gone through. But when I became a pastor and really became a pastor to African-American gay, bi, MSMs [men who have sex with men], and the spread of HIV I just am in this place of frustration and trying to want to know everything that you all did and how you face this challenge because we have a challenge right now that I'm on the ground for in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and in St. Paul and it just it's very frustrating to see that kind of ignorance and I see it every day you know just in working with people in organizations and government. So I just want to know as much, learn as much so that we can do that work and make some change the way the earlier generation did. Justin Tanis: My name is Justin Tanis and I'm here because I know I continue to be impacted by the trauma and the grief that I experienced in the 80s and 90s in ministry. I know that continues to impact me in both positive and difficult ways and because I still have loved ones who are living with HIV who I love very much. Alex McNeal: Hey everybody I'm Alex McNeal and I serve as executive director of More Light Presbyterians and I think part of my role as a younger person working with people across decades is to be a story sharer and collect as many stories and experiences as I can to reflect those back to churches that are trying to figure out how to welcome people, are trying to figure out how to be their best selves. And I often reflect about how much the experience of AIDS in the 80s has impacted our movement and I want to do everything I can to keep learning about that. Lina Lassroom: Hi, I'm Lina Lassroom. First, I second everything you just said as the younger person in the movement I think it’s important to remember the the trauma and also how we can continue to heal the generational trauma that's in our movement and to keep telling the stories of those who are no longer with us so that's why I'm here. John D’Amelio: Hi, I am John D'Amelio. You know AIDS is the most important thing in our history of the last hundred years and more than twice as many people in the US. died of AIDS then US [soldiers] who died fighting in Vietnam in the 60s and early 70s. You can teach the 60s and you always teach about Vietnam. You teach the 80s and it doesn't even appear in books about the Reagan years. It's insane. Steve Fourtner: I'm Steve Fourtner. I was Dignity MCC, now back Dignity again, living beyond AIDS and moving past all of that and saying let's look at the future. We look at AIDS and get stuck in it. We don't look at living beyond that part of AIDS. AIDS holds us. I want to look at further down the road. Rev. Jim Mitulski: Here beginneth our panel. Rev. Karen Ziegler: You beginneth. So that means— Rick is gonna go. Hey don’t whine. [inaudible] Rev. Jim Mitulski: So I’m gonna ask you to change modes slightly: name, context, as we did in our Zoom conferences, what was your AIDS story? It doesn’t have to be comprehensive, just representative. Rev. Dr. Rick Mixon: Oh come on I wanna be comprehensive. I'm Rick Mixon, he/him/his. What do I say? I'm the pastor of First Baptist Church of Palo Alto California currently. But for about 10-12 years I did AIDS work in Berkeley in San Francisco. I was— I did a PhD in Religion and Personality [inaudible] Counseling at GTU (Georgetown University) and my dissertation title which is “Learning the Language of Lament: On Suffering and Human Hold Us” deals with how gay and bisexual men responded to the HIV crisis in particular and what we learned from suffering and the capacity to— for the necessity of learning how to lament, to cry out, to name our suffering so that we could move on. And the story I wanted to tell— [inaudible] told us briefly— it’s in my dissertation, but it's just a story that came to me and stuck with me somewhere in the early mid 80s. I was trained in the Shanti program in San Francisco, which was kind of the premier training program for people who are going to do AIDS support work. Kind of a new agey, kind of spiritual training. And it was a tense weekend of learning how to sit with people at the very deepest level of their pain and their spiritual expression and just the deepest kind of religious, spiritual living that you can— living and dying that you can imagine. And so I was working at the Pacific's— I was a volunteer at the Pacific Center in Berkeley, the LGBTQIA mental health and support agency in Berkeley and I was one of the first group of people trained in Shanti. And I was sent out to see the first AIDS patient from Pacific Center in 1980, whatever it was, and so I went. I got all dressed up and went to Highland Hospital, the county hospital, to see this AIDS patient and of course in those days you’d mask and you’d gown’d and he was isolated in a room by himself. And I went in prepared to have this conversation of great depth and meaning. And he didn’t want to talk about that stuff at all. He had very practically served as a very practical down-to-earth kind of guy about what was going to happen to his apartment, what's gonna happen to his stuff and it was a huge lesson for me and learning to be with people where they are and not come with my set of assumptions, which I think we often tend to do. And it went into my dissertation in the sense of learning something about accompaniment, being willing to be with people where they are, to walk with people where they need to go. It's part of learning as [inaudible] Sutherland said back in the day, “The church has AIDS,” and for people who are willing to be open and to learn something about this, it did have a huge impact on those churches that were open to it and it did help to shape the nature of ministry and helped us redefine what it meant to do ministry in the church. Accompaniment was a huge thing. Rev. William “Bill” R. Johnson: [inaudible] I'm Bill Johnson. Was I supposed to say something else? Rev. Jim Mitulski: A little bit about your context. Rev. William “Bill” R. Johnson: I’m his. Rev. Jim Mitulski: Pronouns, context, tell a story. [inaudible] Rev. Jim Mitulski: Tell a story that’s the most important part. Rev. William “Bill” R. Johnson: It was July 1981 and in New York we opened the New York Times and read about this new disease and 42 men out in California and New York had been diagnosed with illnesses that were not normally seen. Not long after that my very good friend and a friend to several people in this room, Reverend Michael Collins was diagnosed with the strange new disease that had no name. And I became part of his support circle. One day I walked— he was in the hospital— I went to see him and I walked into his room and he was lying in his own excrement. There was a food tray out by the door. He was crying and very distraught and the nurses were not responding to his calls. And that is the day that I became that angry AIDS activist. Up until that time I wasn't quite sure how all this was going to dovetail with all of the LGBT work we were doing in the church. And you know there was part of me though that was sort of happy that this epidemic emerged. Don't over-do that when you hear it and that at least the AIDS epidemic gave us an opportunity to talk about sex in the church in a way that the LGBT conversation never had really gotten to. Now sex was really in people's— well people were thinking a lot more about sex because they were thinking about safe sex and what does that mean. And the church had to start thinking about if we're gonna protect the lives of people or help people protect themselves, we have to teach them more about sex and safe sex and all of that. And eventually I developed a course on safe, safer, and safest sex, which I gave to young people, to teenagers who lapped it up. No pun intended. But the thing about the epidemic from my perspective is you know there were not only colleagues and friends, there are relatives of mine who died of HIV. You know one day when the first person that I knew died I wrote his name on a piece of paper and I added— I created— I began a list. And by the time I left New York in 1990 there were 383 names on that list of friends and neighbors and acquaintances and loved ones that literally died. So the other thing I want to say before I pass the microphone is, and our group has talked about this, I came up— I described it yesterday as post traumatic grief syndrome. I've never, I've never gotten over the grief and I don't know but I ever will get over the grief that I experienced in my life and I suspect that that's a huge part of the ministry that has to be done today with literally hundreds of thousands of people and I'm not sure we're doing it. Bishop Zachary Jones: Thank you. Good morning, I’m Bishop Zachary Jones of Community Fellowship Church Movement. My pronouns are he, his, him, miss thing, girl please, or any of the other— No, not honey girl have you lost your mind. I actually had thought that I could avoid this conversation ever again in my life because I came to this work in 1987 when I buried my lover and common-law husband at that time. But I came to it because I came to the conference as a stand-in for Carl B and when I did finally arrive Mark had already assigned me to be— to this particular panel so it doesn't look like we can get away from it even when we want to because I am still healing. I asked that question in the earlier session this morning because to even dream or imagine a world, our lives, without HIV and AIDS must be just that the dream for some of us, but certainly to touch those who lived pre-AIDS, one can only imagine what that must of been like even with all of the challenges that they had. I guess I could write my story in my introduction and I'll say more as we move forward, but yes. Barbara Satin: Good morning I'm Barbara Satin with the National LGBTQ Task Force. I do the faith work for the task force. My involvement started way before I came out. I was on the board of the Regional Blood Center for the Red Cross and the Upper Midwest and was offended and traumatized by the way in which the Red Cross was handling its notification of people who came— were diagnosed and basically they had no understanding of the impact that that diagnosis was going to have on people. So they would send letters or they would make phone calls and just leave a voicemail saying by the way you know you have been diagnosed with HIV not realizing that you know in many cases people were living at home with families or they with people that didn't want to know this. So we started an AIDS Oversight Committee to try and work throughout the Red Cross to try and help them understand the impact that this was going to have. That was the beginning of my involvement. When I came out I have had the honor of being on the board of number of organizations including Serving with Duane and Minneapolis Nuclear Housing, doing work with the Aliveness Project, and I do a lot of work around aging issues. And I've been struck by the fact that one of the major tragedies is the fact that there are— people don't understand the fact that there are many people who have— who are now living with AIDS and living as old people. There's nothing wrong with the word old. Anybody from Moloch would tell you that. I was struck by an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about a person saying I'm the unluckiest lucky person in the world because I'm living with AIDS, but I didn't expect to and it's a challenge for them because they've lost support systems, they've lost financials, their financial resources. They just didn't expect to be old. And so that's a current focus of the work that I’m trying to do. Rev. Karen Ziegler: I'm Karen Ziegler, she/hers. I was pastor of MCC New York most of the 80s and what I feel that we witnessed during that time was really genocide because people started to die and die at accelerating rates and nothing was being done and we were just watching with horror. You know Michael Collins was also a friend of mine and we couldn't believe it. We couldn't believe it. A few years before I had lived in Philadelphia during the Legionnaires disease when a few white businessmen died and it was on the front page every single day. And that contrast did not escape me as hundreds and then thousands of men died and walked through Greenwich Village with their Hickman catheter. But the story that I want to tell is not one of the many many many stories of being in dingy Chelsea apartments with friends with uncontrollable diarrhea or the funerals or the suffering or the anger. What I want to tell about was one time when I was with a young man, David DeLuca, who was a cabaret singer. Gorgeous man, bright blue eyes, curly dark hair, and he was covered, his face and his entire body covered with Kaposi’s. And what I saw in him was— what I saw many many many times and it's really my dominant memory of AIDS, which was a luminous quality of his face. He just shone and my experience was that those young men who weren't afraid of going to hell— and there were a lot of young men afraid of going to hell whose parents had sent them tracks that said you are going to hell and you deserve this, but the young men who got through that we're not afraid. They were not afraid on the whole. They were amazing people who taught me such profound lessons of what it really means to be a human being. And on that day he looked at me and he said you know, I think I volunteered for this. He said, “I have the sense that this epidemic and our suffering and our death is going to change human beings and will create compassion.” And for that moment I just believed him because he spoke with such conviction. And just one other little story about him was he called me up and he was in the hospital and I knew he was very close to death and I said how are you and he said I'm excited. And I thought I misunderstood him because he was really close to death and I said what, but he said I'm excited I'm going to see him. And in that moment of that conversation on the phone the veil completely lifted for me because it had completely lifted for him. And it was as though we were peering together. And for me I think the reason why... why I don't cry very much it's because I think, I think that what was happening in those years that he showed me, and that other young men showed me, and then I learned about what death is and what human life really is became the dominant memory for me. And I just want to say one thing about trauma and I'm so glad that this young woman mentioned trauma because I've been thinking a lot about intergenerational trauma and about how young gay people are traumatized by us in the same way as children of Holocaust survivors who are traumatized by their parents experiences. And there are people writing about this now and I've been thinking a lot about post traumatic slave trauma and the trauma of people of color, and especially Black people in this country, in relation to that. And what I realize is that Black people in this country did survive so much trauma, but also lived because of that same luminous survivor spiritual strength. And that is our legacy to our young people as well as the violence and the genocide and the death and the suffering. Audience member: I’m still thinking. I’m feeling [inaudible] Rev. Karen Ziegler: So I also really want to say that we are revisiting a time of genocide. It is completely clear to me that— and William Barber says you know the reason why they want to cut off people's life insurance— I mean health insurance is because the people who will die as a result of this are not Republican voters. And that is not a cynical statement. That is a statement of historical fact. This is what happened to health plans for people who had been slaves and they were discontinued when those people started voting and when people lose their health insurance they die. So I feel like that spirit of activism that was in ACT UP and that many of us participated in. Audience member: We don’t want people to hear what we were saying. Audience member: Were we being too loud? Rev. Karen Ziegler: The spirit of activism— I’m sorry. [...] Rev. Karen Ziegler: But that spirit of activism the people with AIDS, the people in ACT UP, the people fighting for their lives we have to fight for the people's lives who, look now there's a huge train called genocide heading down and you know we're on the tracks but so we're a whole lot of other people. Rev. Jim Mitulski: So my name is Jim Mitulski, and I was the pastor out of the MCC Church in San Francisco in the 80s and 90s for 15 years. So principally eight years I've done other AIDS things, but that probably has shaped my life more than anything. [begins to cry] Sorry. It started back then [points to another speaker] and it’s just been [gestures by moving arm in a wave-like fashion]. I hate this. So I cry all the time. I know, but I do I cry all the time. Three times a day at least. I haven’t yet today. So it was this morning’s now. And I didn't before AIDS so maybe I should’ve. So an AIDS story, I have to say it’s also shaped not only my life, but my spiritual life. This is not what I had to say, but I do think it has shaped my spiritual life being with so many people on a journey of living from the time I was in my 20s. Probably when maybe we were too young or who knows if you’re too young or too old, but certainly just affecting— I think twisted me in some ways, but I was not prepared in my 20s to accompany so many people, to do hundreds of funerals, which I literally did do. Saturday was funeral day. Sunday was Church day right. And the people that I was doing funerals for in the 80s were my age you know. Where does that— and also it kicked up a need in me for constant prayer. You know I went to a very liberal seminary, as they say a silver spoon of religion, and what characterized us as MCC students was we were— that we were churchgoers unlike our fellow students. That we went to church. How weird was that, you know, in the 80s that was weird you know. And I still— I go to Mass every day. How weird is that, you know, I'm not a Catholic anymore, but maybe once a Catholic, always a Catholic. Yeah because— I go and I sit in the back. I don’t take communion. I cry. I sit there and I cry because it's like it's high peace and I order my day and I feel close to my— to my Saints and I don't mean like the alabaster ones. And I know that comes from my AIDS experience. It's like this is the only way I find peace in it, when I pray the rosary. You know down at the hour of our death, that little phrase that you learn as a child, it was like a seed planted that came back to comfort me being at the death of so many people, you know, and not lose your mind right. Okay so there's one AIDS story. It’s a funeral story I told before, but you know you do all these funerals and what I love about MCC is we did not have a prayer book. We had the freedom to show Al Parker clips at Al Parker’s funeral. I did Al Parker’s funeral and darned if we didn’t show Al Parker clips at it, you know because he wanted to be remembered in his vigor, you know. And I did not learn how to do that funeral at PSR, I’ll tell you that. The funeral I remember— I did this couple’s wedding because we did a lot of deathbed weddings right, before they were legal. And it wasn't quite deathbed, but one— the first guy lived about three weeks and at his funeral, the first guy’s funeral, everyone got an orchid and because you want people to have something lovely when they left, something beautiful because it was not pretty. And at the door his lover, as he agreed to hold the door afterwards, his lover said, “Orchids, just like him, high maintenance,” and I just burst out laughing you know. And I remember Jerry, it was affectionate, but it was funny I mean it's pretty funny. Hey, your lover’s funeral, you know. And I remember the importance of laughter even in the midst of very deep sadness. And a couple months later, we had his funeral, and he had provided for this, and he swore me to secrecy, his lifelong collection of Fiestaware in the sanctuary. And you know only gay men have the cult of Fiestaware. They don't just like it okay, they worship it. It was all there and you know at gay funerals we did— we had stuff, you know like a leather jacket on a chair, you know the memorabilia. All kinds of them were doing it. So the queens came in and were like maybe I'll get some afterwards because that was what they thought. Of course they missed their friend, but it's nice to get a little bonus at the memorial. And at the end—he had instructed me to do this—I picked up a piece, so this is— you don't know much he loved this, and I broke it. The gasp. The Fiestaware. Then I broke another piece and I said let's all do this because—Jerry Robinson was his name—he said he wanted us to get angry. He wanted us to feel our anger, nothing pretty. Like we did— I can’t remember [inaudible] at his lover’s funeral, you know but he wanted us to get angry and feel our anger. And so there we were breaking dishes at the funeral in the sanctuary. And that anger— also I felt it again this morning when Chuck Lewis talked about smashing the light bulbs. Oh I just felt so alive. Did you feel it for a second? So unassuming should the anger and I thought oh this is why we did this panel, so that we can see that and feel it. And that's kind of when you asked Dwane about, you know, how do you do this. Anger is an important part of it. Find your anger. I know that's probably dysfunctional, but I swear to god that is how I got through it— that and you know [inaudible] but I think my anger has kept me alive as much as medical science you know. Brian McKnight: I was trained as a buddy. I think probably a lot of us in this room were trained as hospice workers, as best could be done. And one of the men that I took under wing and brought to my home and spent time with, without me knowing it, asked his parents about if I would be the one who led his funeral, you know. So there are— and it was not unusual for people who were not clergy to be asked to be the person who spoke for them. And for those of you who don't know the time, what happened at the time his parents said to me that please do not say that he was gay or how he died. My first buddy that we buried, we had the same instructions: do not say that he was gay and do not say how he died. And one can get self-righteous in those situations and defy the will of the parents or you can figure out a way to do what needs to be done without anybody getting upset. So the second guy that I spoke for was a florist and his gay friends were back of the room and his great-aunts were in front of the room. And I talked about his uniqueness as a flower and how in bouquets you know we all come in different shapes and colors and sizes and the gay men were nodding their heads in the back of the room, the aunts we're thinking that this was quite colorful, how sweet. But it wasn't a time in which— in San Francisco was different than Boston, New York was different than Boston, and Boston was different than Cleveland, and you did what you could do and needed to do where you were with the needs of the people that you said you were there to help. So I didn't get angry. It's not my style, it's just never been. I do go underwater and scream. That's my scream room: water. But going to the question the man in the back asked about how do you handle the situation. We didn't have ACT UP in Boston because we kept the community informed from day one. I wrote a weekly column. I started a column to the gay community of Boston telling them what was— we knew— what we knew you know. What was the name, why was it called this, you know, what did— what do we think is going on, so that people didn't live in a vacuum of no information. And so the dynamics of a community, I think, create how you respond. But it's important to know that at that time, you just didn't talk about it without knowing or feeling that the needs of the parents and the needs of the family had to be taken into consideration. [Our sincere apologies due to technical difficulties the remainder of this session was not recorded.] Executive Producer: Mark Bowman Director & Editor: AhSa-Ti Tyehimba-Form Videographer: John Peckham Copyright 2017 LGBT Religious Archives Network at Pacific School of Religion. All rights reserved. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Session 4B: Our Lives Were Forever Changed by AIDS Barbara Satin Bill Johnson Jim Mitulski Karen Ziegler Our Lives Were Forever Changed by AIDS Rick Mixon RTSA Session 4B William R. Johnson Zachary Jones https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/3f93e93eff9eb1d6cae152f13430c7fe.png 06a04a28d354a66a08601e878a0ff2ec YouTube Video A video hosted on YouTube. Embed Code The html embed codes for this object. <iframe width="600" height="337" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iD9ePPee0d8" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br /><em>with <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1398">Rev. Allen V. Harris</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1434">Leo Treadway</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1400">Ann Thomson Cook</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1388">Obie Holmen</a>, <a href="http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/rolling-the-stone-away/item/1451">Peggy Campolo</a>, Casey Lopata, rev. rosi Olmsted</em> <br /><br />Starting in the 1970’s, advocates started to challenge denominations to declare explicitly that they welcomed LGBT folks. In 1980’s, advocates worked with churches to be open to LGBT folks. This session examines how churches were nurtured by Welcoming Program leaders, parents and other allies emerged, grew and became a vital movement. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Session 4A: Welcoming Congregations: The Journey to Safer Spaces Allen V. Harris Ann Thomson-Cook Casey Lopata Leo Treadway Obie Holmen Peggy Campolo rosi Olmsted RTSA Session 4A Welcoming Congregations: The Journey to Safer Spaces https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/d97899b79b4a6016ece4596a8b7820cc.png 1e1a42cd8d7bcc6a54b6708d3341ce72 YouTube Video A video hosted on YouTube. Embed Code The html embed codes for this object. <iframe width="600" height="337" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fo_6RRMsad8" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Some of the earliest activists in the LGBTQIA Christian movement discuss what it was like to organize LGBT spiritual community even before Stonewall. Much of it originated in California in the 1960s and two strategies soon emerged: establishing separate communities or trying to change existing denominations from within. Historian Dr. Heather White and Rev. Jim Mitulski interviews leaders from the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, Dignity for Lesbian and Gay Catholics, the Metropolitan Community Churches and the United Church of Christ about their experiences, starting separate churches, engaging both sympathetic and hostile religious and political leaders inside and outside the movement, why they chose the strategies they chose, the tensions between women and men, what sustained them, how their visions have changed over the years, and their hopes for the future. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Session 3: Before Stonewall ... 1960s and 1970s Before Stonewall RTSA Session 3 https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/4417008c9ebd7729df8cb573d303a588.png 9ad092ec05ba49dafae127272f9bb36f YouTube Video A video hosted on YouTube. Embed Code The html embed codes for this object. <iframe width="600" height="337" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/j0wOBmDclfo" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Session 2: Ritual of Remembrance Jimmy Creech Ritual of Remembrance RTSA Session 2 https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/d93d275c5280dffd79e39f2c76f906e8.png f4148d35a0d531b0a8ba97ee7f463997 YouTube Video A video hosted on YouTube. Embed Code The html embed codes for this object. <iframe width="600" height="337" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LiuHh8Gocwo" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Session 1: Welcome Justin Tanis Pamela Lightsey RTSA Session 1 RTSA Welcome https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/b628c4f07a528c688d58ad8d5c4aa6d1.png d9baf6d326ace8bfd046af3a9032e0aa YouTube Video A video hosted on YouTube. Embed Code The html embed codes for this object. <iframe width="600" height="337" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lFZZluaYH0o" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Disciples LGBTQ+ Alliance Worship Disciples LGBTQ Alliance https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/f37c7a4b670125d0889cd8ab678bd249.png d44bea8b17704c5eb9d01824f14a1295 YouTube Video A video hosted on YouTube. Embed Code The html embed codes for this object. <iframe width="600" height="337" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wAfhH4ZzO_A" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Queer Feminist Ritual with Diann Neu Diann Neu Queer Feminist Ritual with Dianne Neu https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/915c8bb577f14d84b97c9b53db372267.png a4ef32d85ce9c32998f193188121bcbe YouTube Video A video hosted on YouTube. Embed Code The html embed codes for this object. <iframe width="600" height="337" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FUGD6QKFuxc" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Witnesses from St. Louis: Advocates for Racial Justice Witnesses from St. Louis: Advocates for Racial Justice https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/a65ed1db4dc8559a593fcbdc7474fa4e.jpg a79efa89c04e50240b01df9e202fa4fe Person An individual. Text Any textual data included in the document The Rev. Judith Hoch Wray, Ph.D., is a biblical scholar, teacher, homiletician, writer and editor, and carpenter. Coming out as lesbian in 1969, she has remained committed to integrating her own sexuality and spirituality, standing visibly in the church as one committed to justice for all. Judith developed an AIDS education program in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1984 that began by enlisting and training grandmothers in the African American community. She was a founding member and first moderator of the Coordinating Committee that established the Gay, Lesbian and Affirming Disciples Alliance (GLAD) of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)—now, Disciples LGBTQ Alliance. Judith was a founding member of CLOUT (Christian Lesbians OUT Together), and the first moderator of the Buchanan Group at New Brunswick Theological Seminary which initiated the Holy Relationships movement through a major national Conference on Theology and Sexuality in 2005. Dr. Wray's writings include scholarly books and articles as well as numerous columns and articles for The Living Pulpit. Her lay-friendly Bible study entitled Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Christians in the Church: Reflections for Disciples of Christ Who Seek to Discern God’s Will served as a template for the development of the Bible study components of Listening to the Spirit: a Handbook for Discernment (ed. William Paulsell, Chalice, 2001), written by a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) nationally-appointed task force on which she served. She was a member of the Out in Scripture Editorial Advisory Board of the Human Rights Campaign. A powerful preacher and speaker, Dr. Wray is a preaching coach and leads workshops and retreats around the country. Judith continues to provide leadership to several national organizations that support LGBTQI persons and allies who seek justice and integration of sexuality and spirituality. Judith lives in Indianapolis, IN, with her long-time partner/wife, the Rev. Donna M. Prince. She has taught part-time at several theological seminaries and, in retirement, Judith is active in Central Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Indianapolis, continuing to teach, write, and model prophetic loving and living. (This biographical statement provided by Judith Hoch Wray.) Biographical Text The Rev. Judith Hoch Wray, Ph.D., is a biblical scholar, teacher, homiletician, writer and editor, and carpenter. Coming out as lesbian in 1969, she has remained committed to integrating her own sexuality and spirituality, standing visibly in the church as one committed to justice for all. Judith developed an AIDS education program in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1984 that began by enlisting and training grandmothers in the African American community. She was a founding member and first moderator of the Coordinating Committee that established the Gay, Lesbian and Affirming Disciples Alliance (GLAD) of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)—now, Disciples LGBTQ Alliance. Judith was a founding member of CLOUT (Christian Lesbians OUT Together), and the first moderator of the Buchanan Group at New Brunswick Theological Seminary which initiated the Holy Relationships movement through a major national Conference on Theology and Sexuality in 2005.<br /><br />Dr. Wray's writings include scholarly books and articles as well as numerous columns and articles for The Living Pulpit. Her lay-friendly Bible study entitled <em>Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Christians in the Church: Reflections for Disciples of Christ Who Seek to Discern God’s Will</em> served as a template for the development of the Bible study components of <em>Listening to the Spirit: a Handbook for Discernment</em> (ed. William Paulsell, Chalice, 2001), written by a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) nationally-appointed task force on which she served. She was a member of the Out in Scripture Editorial Advisory Board of the Human Rights Campaign. A powerful preacher and speaker, Dr. Wray is a preaching coach and leads workshops and retreats around the country.<br /><br />Judith continues to provide leadership to several national organizations that support LGBTQI persons and allies who seek justice and integration of sexuality and spirituality. Judith lives in Indianapolis, IN, with her long-time partner/wife, the Rev. Donna M. Prince. She has taught part-time at several theological seminaries and, in retirement, Judith is active in Central Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Indianapolis, continuing to teach, write, and model prophetic loving and living.<br /><br />(This biographical statement provided by Judith Hoch Wray.) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Judith Hoch Wray Buchanan Group Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) CLOUT CLOUT (Christian Lesbians OUT Together) Disciples LGBTQ Alliance Gay GLAD Holy Relationships Judith Hoch Wray Lesbian and Affirming Disciples Alliance (GLAD) RTSA Ecumenical Planning Team https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/1764ef2cd6f961c1d35d4aab75071829.jpg 3eb7fa2de7dd944d6695d89aaf0cb306 Person An individual. Text Any textual data included in the document Marnie Warner, one of four co-authors of the Open and Affirming Resolution in the United Church of Christ, was a key strategist in the passage of Open and Affirming in the Massachusetts Conference and at the 1985 General Synod. Marnie (Margaret) was born in Bethel, Connecticut, in 1950 and baptized in First Congregational Church of Bethel that later joined the UCC. She faithfully attended Sunday School, went to summer camp at Silver Lake Conference Center in Sharon, Conn., and was part of Pilgrim Fellowship. Marnie was the fifth generation to attend this church. She remembers her great-aunt Minnie Carter who was sent from the church as a missionary to Inanda School for Girls in South Africa for forty years. Marnie visited there in 1995. Marnie studied at Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin, and moved to Boston, Massachusetts, to get her Masters degree in Library Science at Simmons College in Boston. While attending Simmons, Marnie became involved at Church of the Covenant (COTC) and became Clerk of Council in 1977. In the early 1980’s, Marnie served on the Metropolitan Boston Association’s Committee on Ministry. She was chosen as a delegate from the Massachusetts Conference to the 1983 and 1985 General Synods which is where the Opening and Affirming story unfolds (and is told in this interview). Following that time, Marnie continued to give her time to Conference activities including chairing a search committee for two associate conference ministers and chairing the annual conference program committee. During the 1990’s, Marnie developed a workshop on Making Meetings Work that she taught and trained others to teach at churches throughout the Massachusetts Conference. At COTC, Marnie was on the Board of Deacons, Membership Development Committee and Covenant News. Being a Deacon during the 1980s was challenging as COTC shepherded many gay men through their journey with AIDS. From 1989-1992, Marnie was part of the Committee to Renew the Covenant that successfully raised $1.3 million from church members, foundations and corporations to renovate the church and create space for non-profits. Marnie met rose ann olmstead at COTC and they grew to know each other through a COTC project, Casa Myrna Vazquez, one of the first shelters for women experiencing domestic violence. In 1981, rosi became a minister at COTC and served the congregation for twenty-two years. In 1991, rosi and Marnie took time to travel cross country by bicycle. They both pedaled all 5,250 miles with Cycle America. After over two decades as partners, Marnie and rosi were legally married in Massachusetts at Church of the Covenant in May 2004. Throughout Marnie’s career as a law librarian, she worked to make the law accessible to anyone needing legal information. She held jobs in a law firm and at the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners setting up law libraries in prisons. Since 1980 she has worked for the Trial Court overseeing and developing the services of 17 public law libraries that serve the Court, the legal community and the public. Recently she has been involved in Access to Justice. If you asked Marnie what was most exciting about her life, she would answer that “I had the opportunity to experience many firsts in my life–in all of my professional jobs, I was the first person to hold the position; I was a catalyst in Opening and Affirming and had a front row seat to an amazing journey; and was able to legally marry my partner.” (This biographical statement written by Mark Bowman from information provided by Marnie Warner.) Biographical Text Marnie Warner, one of four co-authors of the Open and Affirming Resolution in the United Church of Christ, was a key strategist in the passage of Open and Affirming in the Massachusetts Conference and at the 1985 General Synod. Marnie (Margaret) was born in Bethel, Connecticut, in 1950 and baptized in First Congregational Church of Bethel that later joined the UCC. She faithfully attended Sunday School, went to summer camp at Silver Lake Conference Center in Sharon, Conn., and was part of Pilgrim Fellowship. Marnie was the fifth generation to attend this church. She remembers her great-aunt Minnie Carter who was sent from the church as a missionary to Inanda School for Girls in South Africa for forty years. Marnie visited there in 1995. Marnie studied at Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin, and moved to Boston, Massachusetts, to get her Masters degree in Library Science at Simmons College in Boston.<br /><br />While attending Simmons, Marnie became involved at Church of the Covenant (COTC) and became Clerk of Council in 1977. In the early 1980’s, Marnie served on the Metropolitan Boston Association’s Committee on Ministry. She was chosen as a delegate from the Massachusetts Conference to the 1983 and 1985 General Synods which is where the Opening and Affirming story unfolds (and is told in this interview). Following that time, Marnie continued to give her time to Conference activities including chairing a search committee for two associate conference ministers and chairing the annual conference program committee. During the 1990’s, Marnie developed a workshop on Making Meetings Work that she taught and trained others to teach at churches throughout the Massachusetts Conference.<br /><br />At COTC, Marnie was on the Board of Deacons, Membership Development Committee and Covenant News. Being a Deacon during the 1980s was challenging as COTC shepherded many gay men through their journey with AIDS. From 1989-1992, Marnie was part of the Committee to Renew the Covenant that successfully raised $1.3 million from church members, foundations and corporations to renovate the church and create space for non-profits.<br /><br />Marnie met rose ann olmstead at COTC and they grew to know each other through a COTC project, Casa Myrna Vazquez, one of the first shelters for women experiencing domestic violence. In 1981, rosi became a minister at COTC and served the congregation for twenty-two years. In 1991, rosi and Marnie took time to travel cross country by bicycle. They both pedaled all 5,250 miles with Cycle America. After over two decades as partners, Marnie and rosi were legally married in Massachusetts at Church of the Covenant in May 2004.<br /><br />Throughout Marnie’s career as a law librarian, she worked to make the law accessible to anyone needing legal information. She held jobs in a law firm and at the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners setting up law libraries in prisons. Since 1980 she has worked for the Trial Court overseeing and developing the services of 17 public law libraries that serve the Court, the legal community and the public. Recently she has been involved in Access to Justice.<br /><br />If you asked Marnie what was most exciting about her life, she would answer that “I had the opportunity to experience many firsts in my life–in all of my professional jobs, I was the first person to hold the position; I was a catalyst in Opening and Affirming and had a front row seat to an amazing journey; and was able to legally marry my partner.”<br /><br />(This biographical statement written by Mark Bowman from information provided by Marnie Warner.) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Marnie Warner Church of the Covenant Marnie Warner ONA Open and Affirming in the UCC RTSA Ecumenical Planning Team UCC United Church of Christ United Church of Christ (UCC) https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/c6c68d0d24486dbba3b2a64b69ab8945.jpg 3494bb169fb9e7a23603b6081ed71762 Person An individual. Text Any textual data included in the document Justin Tanis is a theologian and activist for LGBT rights. His work focuses on the intersections of sexuality, gender, theology, and the arts. Raised in the Presbyterian Church (USA), he spent his childhood in New England, Pennsylvania, and in the Netherlands, where his father completed his Th.D. and did sabbatical studies. Interested in interdisciplinarity from an early age, he majored in International Relations at Mount Holyoke College with a focus on religion. He continued his education at Harvard Divinity School, earning a Master’s of Divinity in 1990. During seminary, he participated in actions with ACT-UP and Queer Nation; his Master’s thesis described contemporary religious responses to the AIDS epidemic. While in school, he interned at a state organization providing services to victims of crimes and later worked as the coordinator of a program for children who had experienced domestic violence. Immediately after graduation, he began work first as the interim pastor of Metropolitan Community Church of Boston, and then as the Pastor of Ke Anuenue O Ke Aloha (Rainbow of Love) MCC in Honolulu. While there, he also served as a spokesperson and media coordinator for the Hawai’i Equal Rights Marriage Project. Next, he moved to California to serve as the Associate Pastor of MCC San Francisco before taking a position as Director of Leadership Development for Metropolitan Community Churches. His job included coordinating educational programs and leadership training for current and future MCC leaders in 22 countries. In 2002, Justin completed his Doctor of Ministry from San Francisco Theological Seminary. His dissertation was published in 2003 by Pilgrim Press as Transgendered: Ministry, Theology, and Communities of Faith and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award that year and the first in a series published with the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at Pacific School of Religion. The book examines Biblical and theological references to gender identity and makes the case for gender as a calling, much like a vocation. He also has chapters in the Queer Bible Commentary and Take Back the Word: A Queer Reading of the Bible. Justin has worked as an advocate for LGBT rights in national non-profit organizations. He was the Community Education and Outreach Manager at the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) in Washington, DC. While there, he co-authored a number of works with Lisa Mottet, then of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, including Opening the Door to Transgender Inclusion: Nine Keys to Make Your Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Organization Fully Transgender-Inclusive. He is also the co-author, with Mottet, Jaime Grant, Mara Keisling, Jody L. Herman, and Jack Harrison, of Injustice at Every Turn: The Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, the largest study conducted to date about discrimination based on gender identity. In addition, while at NCTE he worked on policy initiatives and legislation focusing on hate crimes and employment rights. He went on to work as the Director of Communication for Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, based in San Francisco, which advocates for equal employment rights for LGBT people. An artist and photographer, he has had a lifelong passion for the arts. Justin’s scholarly interests include the theology expressed by LGBT visual artists, which is the focus of his PhD studies at the Graduate Theological Union. In 2012, he presented a paper at the American Academy of Religion on “David Wojnarowicz: Outsider Theologian,” on the late gay artist’s spiritual themes. He is now an Adjunct Faculty member at Pacific School of Religion, teaching courses on sexuality and spirituality, and is also on the faculty of the GTU’s Center for Art, Religion, and Education (CARE). He is a member of the Unitarian Universalist church. (This biographical statement provided by Justin Tanis.) Biographical Text Justin Tanis is a theologian and activist for LGBT rights. His work focuses on the intersections of sexuality, gender, theology, and the arts. Raised in the Presbyterian Church (USA), he spent his childhood in New England, Pennsylvania, and in the Netherlands, where his father completed his Th.D. and did sabbatical studies.<br /><br />Interested in interdisciplinarity from an early age, he majored in International Relations at Mount Holyoke College with a focus on religion. He continued his education at Harvard Divinity School, earning a Master’s of Divinity in 1990. During seminary, he participated in actions with ACT-UP and Queer Nation; his Master’s thesis described contemporary religious responses to the AIDS epidemic. While in school, he interned at a state organization providing services to victims of crimes and later worked as the coordinator of a program for children who had experienced domestic violence.<br /><br />Immediately after graduation, he began work first as the interim pastor of Metropolitan Community Church of Boston, and then as the Pastor of Ke Anuenue O Ke Aloha (Rainbow of Love) MCC in Honolulu. While there, he also served as a spokesperson and media coordinator for the Hawai’i Equal Rights Marriage Project. Next, he moved to California to serve as the Associate Pastor of MCC San Francisco before taking a position as Director of Leadership Development for Metropolitan Community Churches. His job included coordinating educational programs and leadership training for current and future MCC leaders in 22 countries.<br /><br />In 2002, Justin completed his Doctor of Ministry from San Francisco Theological Seminary. His dissertation was published in 2003 by Pilgrim Press as <em>Transgendered: Ministry, Theology, and Communities of Faith</em> and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award that year and the first in a series published with the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at Pacific School of Religion. The book examines Biblical and theological references to gender identity and makes the case for gender as a calling, much like a vocation. He also has chapters in the Queer Bible Commentary and Take Back the Word: A Queer Reading of the Bible.<br /><br />Justin has worked as an advocate for LGBT rights in national non-profit organizations. He was the Community Education and Outreach Manager at the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) in Washington, DC. While there, he co-authored a number of works with Lisa Mottet, then of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, including Opening the Door to Transgender Inclusion: Nine Keys to Make Your Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Organization Fully Transgender-Inclusive. He is also the co-author, with Mottet, Jaime Grant, Mara Keisling, Jody L. Herman, and Jack Harrison, of Injustice at Every Turn: The Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, the largest study conducted to date about discrimination based on gender identity. In addition, while at NCTE he worked on policy initiatives and legislation focusing on hate crimes and employment rights. He went on to work as the Director of Communication for Out &amp; Equal Workplace Advocates, based in San Francisco, which advocates for equal employment rights for LGBT people.<br /><br />An artist and photographer, he has had a lifelong passion for the arts. Justin’s scholarly interests include the theology expressed by LGBT visual artists, which is the focus of his PhD studies at the Graduate Theological Union. In 2012, he presented a paper at the American Academy of Religion on “David Wojnarowicz: Outsider Theologian,” on the late gay artist’s spiritual themes. He is now an Adjunct Faculty member at Pacific School of Religion, teaching courses on sexuality and spirituality, and is also on the faculty of the GTU’s Center for Art, Religion, and Education (CARE). He is a member of the Unitarian Universalist church.<br /><br />(This biographical statement provided by Justin Tanis.) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Justin Tanis ACT UP Equal Workplace Advocates Justin Tanis National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) Out Pacific School of Religion Presbyterian Presbyterian Church (USA) PSR Queer Nation RTSA Ecumenical Planning Team Unitarian Unitarian Universalist https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/65d577d23311d201946b95093c18693f.jpg 9a74eb587f895684ae8e1fb4ec2515cc Person An individual. Text Any textual data included in the document Mel Soriano first came to this country as a child in 1969. Raised in a traditional Filipino Roman Catholic home, he was raised in the Chicago area before his family settled in Los Angeles. He is the product of parochial, public and--at the University of Southern California and Oxford University--private education He studied Psychobiology and Business Administration for his two stints at USC and read British History in the UK. In those days, Mel worked at the college yearbook, helped out at the One Institute Archives, did some LGBT young person support sessions in West Hollywood, did research with those who were suffering Alzheimer's and held hands with others dealing with the trauma AIDS. He started working in 1996 with a software firm that specialized in databases and web tools, which now also develops mobile apps. He converted to the Episcopal Church in 2000. He has served in All Saints Episcopal Church of Pasadena, which has the largest congregation west of the Mississippi. He sings for the church's Canterbury and Coventry Choirs, leads the weekly Taize worship services, advises as a Lay Counselor and serves as a Lay Eucharistic Minister and a Lay Visitation Minister. He has served on the Vestry (the parish's governing body), chaired the Pastoral Care and Congregational Development Committees and served on the Growth Committee. He has served as a New Member class leader, Greeter, Coffee host, Congregational Dinner host, and has given several adult education talks. Mel has been elected twice to the Board of Directors of Integrity USA, the LGBTQ group affiliated with the Episcopal Church. There he volunteers as the Communications Director and as Secretary, and helps manage the content on the web and social media. Mel has walked the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain several times. In spring 2016, he walked the 600 miles from Lourdes to Santiago de Compostela, sharing the Lourdes waters with those on the journey seeking healing. In fall 2017, he led a church group on the Camino. If you ever have questions about pilgrimages to Taize, the Camino, or Iona, he'll be glad to share with you his reflections from his blog LetAllWhoAreThirstyCome.com He married his best friend Stephen Mulder, a second grade teacher, in 2014 at All Saints Pasadena. They enjoy world travel, eating, cooking, and both volunteer extensively at Union Station Homeless Services, the largest homeless agency in eastern Los Angeles County. (This biographical statement provided by Mel Soriano.) Biographical Text Mel Soriano first came to this country as a child in 1969. Raised in a traditional Filipino Roman Catholic home, he was raised in the Chicago area before his family settled in Los Angeles. He is the product of parochial, public and--at the University of Southern California and Oxford University--private education He studied Psychobiology and Business Administration for his two stints at USC and read British History in the UK.<br /><br />In those days, Mel worked at the college yearbook, helped out at the One Institute Archives, did some LGBT young person support sessions in West Hollywood, did research with those who were suffering Alzheimer's and held hands with others dealing with the trauma AIDS. He started working in 1996 with a software firm that specialized in databases and web tools, which now also develops mobile apps. <br /><br />He converted to the Episcopal Church in 2000. He has served in All Saints Episcopal Church of Pasadena, which has the largest congregation west of the Mississippi. He sings for the church's Canterbury and Coventry Choirs, leads the weekly Taize worship services, advises as a Lay Counselor and serves as a Lay Eucharistic Minister and a Lay Visitation Minister. He has served on the Vestry (the parish's governing body), chaired the Pastoral Care and Congregational Development Committees and served on the Growth Committee. He has served as a New Member class leader, Greeter, Coffee host, Congregational Dinner host, and has given several adult education talks.<br /><br />Mel has been elected twice to the Board of Directors of Integrity USA, the LGBTQ group affiliated with the Episcopal Church. There he volunteers as the Communications Director and as Secretary, and helps manage the content on the web and social media.<br /><br />Mel has walked the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain several times. In spring 2016, he walked the 600 miles from Lourdes to Santiago de Compostela, sharing the Lourdes waters with those on the journey seeking healing. In fall 2017, he led a church group on the Camino. If you ever have questions about pilgrimages to Taize, the Camino, or Iona, he'll be glad to share with you his reflections from his blog LetAllWhoAreThirstyCome.com<br /><br />He married his best friend Stephen Mulder, a second grade teacher, in 2014 at All Saints Pasadena. They enjoy world travel, eating, cooking, and both volunteer extensively at Union Station Homeless Services, the largest homeless agency in eastern Los Angeles County.<br /><br />(This biographical statement provided by Mel Soriano.) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mel Soriano All Saints Episcopal Church of Pasadena Episcopal Episcopal Church Integrity USA Mel Soriano Roman Catholic RTSA Ecumenical Planning Team Union Station Homeless Services https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/9f71890287ed9521506cbf9760c55bb2.jpg a5b8bd1e64097e33308d989b0054a9d9 Person An individual. Text Any textual data included in the document Rev. Megan M. Rohrer is a transgender and gay pastor, activist, and passionate leader in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Megan was born April 3, 1980 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Megan’s family was Lutheran and the most important church services for them were in their grandmother’s home. The church Megan’s family attended, St. Paul Lutheran, had a female pastor that the congregation assumed was a lesbian (although she did not openly identify as lesbian publicly). As a young adult in high school, Megan was involved in the church youth group and was strongly encouraged to pursue ministry. Another individual in the church outed Megan as gay to the youth director and the church kicked Megan out of the congregation. In 1998 Megan graduated from high school and enrolled in Augustana College, a private Evangelical Lutheran school in South Dakota, to study religion. In 1999, while serving as president of the Gay-Straight Alliance at Augustana, Megan held a screening of the movie, “Call To Witness,” a documentary that serves to educate the ELCA on the struggles and experiences of LGBT members and leaders. Megan organized a forum along with the screening that was attended by several people from the documentary, including Pam Walton and Jeff Johnson. In reaction to the screening other students became violent and aggressive towards Megan and the guests of the forum. They said they would hang gay people from the goal posts on the athletic field, and would bang on Megan’s door at night threatening to rape them straight. When Megan went to class other students would sing hymns or throw holy water on Megan to, “heal”, them. Megan moved off of campus and graduated in 2001. The campus pastor at Augustana encouraged Megan to pursue the candidacy process in the ELCA. The local Synod office offered for Megan to meet several celibate gay and lesbian pastors to discern whether Megan could be celibate and pursue ordination. Megan did not want to lie in order to pursue candidacy and did not like being coached to navigate questions around sexuality in the candidacy interview. Megan decided to pause the ordination process and worked for a year in social work at a children’s shelter. One child in the shelter who was six years old and had attempted suicide twelve times told Megan that he was trying to kill himself before he became so bad that he would go to hell. In this moment Megan realized that they wanted to become a pastor in the Lutheran church so that kids could hear a different message from the pulpit. In 2002, Megan began seminary at the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, California. Megan also took a position as director of a ministry to homeless persons, Welcome Ministry housed in Old First Presbyterian Church, San Francisco. She continues to serve that ministry. While at PLTS Megan was one of a few openly gay seminarians and witnessed many people being closeted as a result of church policy, social stigma, or intersecting issues such as document and visa status. Megan decided to transfer to the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California in 2004. At this time 70% of PSR’s student body identified as LGBTQIA which felt like a stronger community for Megan to be studying within. Megan was one of the pastors to participate in the extraordinary candidacy process in the ECLA. Megan was ordained in 2006 and was the first person to openly identify as transgender in this candidacy process. During this time the ECLA expelled and censured several congregations in San Francisco for participating in the extraordinary candidacy process to ordain, affirm, or call LGBTQ pastors. In 2009, Megan attended the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis and slept on the streets to raise awareness of experiences of homelessness. Megan spoke to the Assembly about how many homeless youth had come to San Francisco to escape religious persecution in their towns of origin. Erma Wolf, the founder of Word Alone (an anti-gay organization), approached Megan at the Assembly. Erma told Megan that if the church focused on ministries such as Megan’s, it would be going in the right direction. She asked to pray together and Megan agreed, even though they were both aware that they would be praying for conflicting outcomes on the Assembly’s vote on LGBT issues. Megan recalls that day with because right after the assembly voted to change policy to include LGBTQ pastors by a vote of 66.6 percent, the building was also hit by a tornado. After the Assembly Megan and Erma were invited to collaborate on a blog together and reflect and respond to the changes in the church. The wider church felt that their collaboration would be a prime example of how to relate and stay united through difference and disagreement. In 2010, the Council of U.S Bishops created a Rite of Reconciliation to address the situation of pastors who had been barred prior to the change in policy. This rite served to receive and reinstall pastors to the ECLA roster. On July 25, 2010 Megan and six others were officially received and reinstated to the ELCA roster at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco—150 clergy presided, 900 people attended with 700 more on live-stream. Ironically, St. Mark’s had been the site of the 1990 trial that had expelled and censured congregations who had called openly and non-celibate LGBT pastors. From 2010 onward, Megan has helped lead several different ministries and social justice projects. This includes the Urban Share Community Gardening Project, the Free Farm to produce local vegetables to residents in S.F, the Growing Home Community Garden, and the Community of Travelers (a spiritual theological group at St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church, SF). She co-edited the book Letters for My Brothers: Transitional Wisdom in Retrospect (2011) with Zander Keig. Megan has also helped write and coordinate several services that incorporate contemporary music including Masses centered on the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Lady Gaga, and 80’s music. In 2014, Megan was installed as pastor at Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church of San Francisco. Megan describes this congregation as a wonderful place to heal and one of the most welcoming communities they have ever been a part of. Megan intends to continue working with this congregation, as well as begin several projects that address the experiences and needs of transgender seminarians in the ECLA. (This biographical statement written by Sonny Duncan from an interview with Rev. Megan Roher.) Biographical Text Rev. Megan M. Rohrer is a transgender and gay pastor, activist, and passionate leader in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Megan was born April 3, 1980 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Megan’s family was Lutheran and the most important church services for them were in their grandmother’s home. The church Megan’s family attended, St. Paul Lutheran, had a female pastor that the congregation assumed was a lesbian (although she did not openly identify as lesbian publicly).<br /><br />As a young adult in high school, Megan was involved in the church youth group and was strongly encouraged to pursue ministry. Another individual in the church outed Megan as gay to the youth director and the church kicked Megan out of the congregation.<br /><br />In 1998 Megan graduated from high school and enrolled in Augustana College, a private Evangelical Lutheran school in South Dakota, to study religion. In 1999, while serving as president of the Gay-Straight Alliance at Augustana, Megan held a screening of the movie, “Call To Witness,” a documentary that serves to educate the ELCA on the struggles and experiences of LGBT members and leaders. Megan organized a forum along with the screening that was attended by several people from the documentary, including Pam Walton and Jeff Johnson. In reaction to the screening other students became violent and aggressive towards Megan and the guests of the forum. They said they would hang gay people from the goal posts on the athletic field, and would bang on Megan’s door at night threatening to rape them straight. When Megan went to class other students would sing hymns or throw holy water on Megan to, “heal”, them. Megan moved off of campus and graduated in 2001.<br /><br />The campus pastor at Augustana encouraged Megan to pursue the candidacy process in the ELCA. The local Synod office offered for Megan to meet several celibate gay and lesbian pastors to discern whether Megan could be celibate and pursue ordination. Megan did not want to lie in order to pursue candidacy and did not like being coached to navigate questions around sexuality in the candidacy interview.<br /><br />Megan decided to pause the ordination process and worked for a year in social work at a children’s shelter. One child in the shelter who was six years old and had attempted suicide twelve times told Megan that he was trying to kill himself before he became so bad that he would go to hell. In this moment Megan realized that they wanted to become a pastor in the Lutheran church so that kids could hear a different message from the pulpit.<br /><br />In 2002, Megan began seminary at the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, California. Megan also took a position as director of a ministry to homeless persons, Welcome Ministry housed in Old First Presbyterian Church, San Francisco. She continues to serve that ministry.<br /><br />While at PLTS Megan was one of a few openly gay seminarians and witnessed many people being closeted as a result of church policy, social stigma, or intersecting issues such as document and visa status. Megan decided to transfer to the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California in 2004. At this time 70% of PSR’s student body identified as LGBTQIA which felt like a stronger community for Megan to be studying within.<br /><br />Megan was one of the pastors to participate in the extraordinary candidacy process in the ECLA. Megan was ordained in 2006 and was the first person to openly identify as transgender in this candidacy process. During this time the ECLA expelled and censured several congregations in San Francisco for participating in the extraordinary candidacy process to ordain, affirm, or call LGBTQ pastors.<br /><br />In 2009, Megan attended the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis and slept on the streets to raise awareness of experiences of homelessness. Megan spoke to the Assembly about how many homeless youth had come to San Francisco to escape religious persecution in their towns of origin. Erma Wolf, the founder of Word Alone (an anti-gay organization), approached Megan at the Assembly. Erma told Megan that if the church focused on ministries such as Megan’s, it would be going in the right direction. She asked to pray together and Megan agreed, even though they were both aware that they would be praying for conflicting outcomes on the Assembly’s vote on LGBT issues.<br /><br />Megan recalls that day with because right after the assembly voted to change policy to include LGBTQ pastors by a vote of 66.6 percent, the building was also hit by a tornado.<br /><br />After the Assembly Megan and Erma were invited to collaborate on a blog together and reflect and respond to the changes in the church. The wider church felt that their collaboration would be a prime example of how to relate and stay united through difference and disagreement.<br /><br />In 2010, the Council of U.S Bishops created a Rite of Reconciliation to address the situation of pastors who had been barred prior to the change in policy. This rite served to receive and reinstall pastors to the ECLA roster. On July 25, 2010 Megan and six others were officially received and reinstated to the ELCA roster at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco—150 clergy presided, 900 people attended with 700 more on live-stream. Ironically, St. Mark’s had been the site of the 1990 trial that had expelled and censured congregations who had called openly and non-celibate LGBT pastors.<br /><br />From 2010 onward, Megan has helped lead several different ministries and social justice projects. This includes the Urban Share Community Gardening Project, the Free Farm to produce local vegetables to residents in S.F, the Growing Home Community Garden, and the Community of Travelers (a spiritual theological group at St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church, SF). She co-edited the book Letters for My Brothers: Transitional Wisdom in Retrospect (2011) with Zander Keig. Megan has also helped write and coordinate several services that incorporate contemporary music including Masses centered on the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Lady Gaga, and 80’s music.<br /><br />In 2014, Megan was installed as pastor at Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church of San Francisco. Megan describes this congregation as a wonderful place to heal and one of the most welcoming communities they have ever been a part of. Megan intends to continue working with this congregation, as well as begin several projects that address the experiences and needs of transgender seminarians in the ECLA.<br /><br />(This biographical statement written by Sonny Duncan from an interview with Rev. Megan Roher.) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Megan Rhorer ELCA Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church of San Francisco. Lutheran Megan Rhorer RTSA Ecumenical Planning Team https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/2a3845aa1e85c6894b359453d9267f89.jpg e5ab9e5e2a5e1f61c208ddd8f3466769 Person An individual. Text Any textual data included in the document Sylvia Rhue is a writer, activist, filmmaker, and producer. She is a native of southern California where she was raised as a 4th generation Seventh Day Adventist. She was reared in a middle-class environment with a family and religious community that put a high value on education. Equal to the commitment to education was their commitment to religious activism, and Sylvia was an active youth in her Seventh Day Adventist church. This dual commitment of faith and education led her to attend Oakwood College, a Seventh Day Adventist affiliated church in Alabama, where she majored in Psychology/Sociology. After completing this degree, Sylvia moved back to California in 1969 to attend UCLA and obtain a Masters Degree in Social Work, where she focused on developmental disabilities. Upon completion of this degree in 1971, she began working for the Regional Center for the Developmentally Disabled and transitioned to a position as a psychiatric social worker for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Hospital in South Central Los Angeles, CA. As part of her job, she was trained to be a sex therapist and eventually worked at a sex therapy clinic specifically working within the African American community. She later went on to receive a Doctorate in Human Sexuality from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco, CA. She was the first African American to receive this degree. As a part of her dissertation, she was able to create a documentary on black lesbians, which re-kindled her childhood interest in making movies. This passion culminated in her co-producing with Dr. Dee Mosbacher and Frances Reid, the acclaimed documentary “All God’s Children,” a film that dealt with African American values, gays and lesbians in the civil rights movements, and African American responses to homophobia. Sylvia joined the Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum at its inception, and was not the end of her organizing on the behalf of the LGBT community. Sylvia worked with the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center as the Assistant Director of Counseling, and later as a Policy and Public Affairs Advocate. After these positions, she became the Manager for the California Freedom to Marry Coalition and worked state-wide to secure same-sex marriage rights for lesbian and gay couples. Because of her vast work for social and sexual justice, when Keith Boykin organized the National Black Justice Coalition in 2003 he asked her to serve as a board member and eventually in 2005, she accepted the position as Director of Religious Affairs, later becoming the Director of Research and Academic Initiatives. After working on the documentary “All God’s Children,” Sylvia immersed herself in Religious Studies and is an expert on the “ex-gay” movement, which she calls the “cult of the annihilation of the authentic self.” She credits joining and being an active participant in Yvette Flunder’s City of Refuge Church with increasing her faith perspective. Over the years she had lots of experience merging her understanding of faith and political activism as she has also worked for the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights and served as a former Director of Equal Partners in Faith. As a lifelong learner, Sylvia continues her pursuit of knowledge through the task of researching and writing. She finds joy in rescuing and taking care of animals, her filmmaking, and putting together words that really connect. Her goal is to use every ounce of talent in doing “things, activities, writing, producing films, whatever, to help people feel more connected to being a human being.” Currently, she is working on a one-woman comedy show called “CAKE: You Ain’t Getting None,” which will be filmed and performed in Santa Monica. (This biographical statement provided by Sylvia Rhue.) Biographical Text <p>Sylvia Rhue is a writer, activist, filmmaker, and producer. She is a native of southern California where she was raised as a 4th generation Seventh Day Adventist. She was reared in a middle-class environment with a family and religious community that put a high value on education. Equal to the commitment to education was their commitment to religious activism, and Sylvia was an active youth in her Seventh Day Adventist church. This dual commitment of faith and education led her to attend Oakwood College, a Seventh Day Adventist affiliated church in Alabama, where she majored in Psychology/Sociology. After completing this degree, Sylvia moved back to California in 1969 to attend UCLA and obtain a Masters Degree in Social Work, where she focused on developmental disabilities.</p> <p>Upon completion of this degree in 1971, she began working for the Regional Center for the Developmentally Disabled and transitioned to a position as a psychiatric social worker for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Hospital in South Central Los Angeles, CA. As part of her job, she was trained to be a sex therapist and eventually worked at a sex therapy clinic specifically working within the African American community. She later went on to receive a Doctorate in Human Sexuality from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco, CA. She was the first African American to receive this degree. As a part of her dissertation, she was able to create a documentary on black lesbians, which re-kindled her childhood interest in making movies. This passion culminated in her co-producing with Dr. Dee Mosbacher and Frances Reid, the acclaimed documentary “All God’s Children,” a film that dealt with African American values, gays and lesbians in the civil rights movements, and African American responses to homophobia.</p> <p>Sylvia joined the Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum at its inception, and was not the end of her organizing on the behalf of the LGBT community. Sylvia worked with the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center as the Assistant Director of Counseling, and later as a Policy and Public Affairs Advocate. After these positions, she became the Manager for the California Freedom to Marry Coalition and worked state-wide to secure same-sex marriage rights for lesbian and gay couples. Because of her vast work for social and sexual justice, when Keith Boykin organized the National Black Justice Coalition in 2003 he asked her to serve as a board member and eventually in 2005, she accepted the position as Director of Religious Affairs, later becoming the Director of Research and Academic Initiatives.</p> <p>After working on the documentary “All God’s Children,” Sylvia immersed herself in Religious Studies and is an expert on the “ex-gay” movement, which she calls the “cult of the annihilation of the authentic self.” She credits joining and being an active participant in Yvette Flunder’s City of Refuge Church with increasing her faith perspective. Over the years she had lots of experience merging her understanding of faith and political activism as she has also worked for the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights and served as a former Director of Equal Partners in Faith.</p> <p>As a lifelong learner, Sylvia continues her pursuit of knowledge through the task of researching and writing. She finds joy in rescuing and taking care of animals, her filmmaking, and putting together words that really connect. Her goal is to use every ounce of talent in doing “things, activities, writing, producing films, whatever, to help people feel more connected to being a human being.” Currently, she is working on a one-woman comedy show called “CAKE: You Ain’t Getting None,” which will be filmed and performed in Santa Monica.</p> <p>(This biographical statement provided by Sylvia Rhue.)</p> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sylvia Rhue adventist All God's Children Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum ex-gay movement Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights RTSA Ecumenical Planning Team Seventh Day Adventist Sylvia Rhue Yvette Flunder’s City of Refuge Church