Open Hands Vol 3 No 1 - A Community Emerging

Open Hands Vol 3 No 1 - A Community Emerging

3

1

1987

Summer

~~.,.
...syour heart tme to my heart as mine is to yours? .. Ifit
Journal ofthe Reconciling Congregation Program
A
ommunity
Emerging
And Some ofUs Are Remembering
By Mary 10 Osterman ..... ..... . . .. .. .. . ... Page 3
Daring to Be Visible
By Morris Floyd .......... .. .. ......... ... . Page 6
Creating New Worlds through Language
By Dee McGraw .............. . .. . . .. . . .. .. Page 9
V
ol. j • No. I-Summer 1987
Open Hands is published by Affirmation: United Methodists for lesbian/Gay Concerns, Inc., as a resource for the Reconciling Congregation Program. It addresses concerns of lesbians and gay men as they relate to the ministry of the church.
The Reconciling Congregation Program is a network of United Methodist local churches who publicly affirm their ministry with the whole family of God and who welcome lesbians and gay men into their community. In this network, Reconciling Congregations find strength and support as they strive to overcome the divisions caused by prejudice and homophobia in our church and in our society. Together these congregations offer hope that the church can be a reconciled community.
To enable local churches to engage in these ministries, the program provides resource materials, including Open Hands. Resource persons are available locally to assist a congregation that is seeking to become a Reconciling Congregation.
Information about the program can be obtained by writing: Reconciling Congregation Program ~
P.O. Box 24213
Nashville, TN 37202
Reconciling Congregation Program
Coordinators
Mark Bowman Beth Richardson
Open Hands Co-Editors
M. Burrill Bradley Rymph
This Issue's Coordinators
Lloyd Lewis Viki Matson
Graphic Artist
Brenda Roth
Contributors to This Issues
Morris Floyd, Pat Floyd, Ron Gebhardtsbauer, Roger Kruse, Judy Matthews-Taylor, Dee McGraw, Nashville Affirmation, Mary Jo Osterman, Steve Webster
Open Hands (formerly Manna for the Journey) is published four times a year. Subscription is $1 2 for four isues ($16 outside the U5A) Single copies are available for $4 each; quantities of 10 or more are $3 each. Permission to reprint is granted upon request. Reprints of certain articles are available as indicated in the issue. Subscriptions and correspondence should be sent to:
Open Hands
P.O. Box 23636
Washington, DC 20026
Copyright 1987 by Affirmation:
United Methodists for Lesbian/Gay Concerns, Inc.
ISSN 0888-8833
Contents
The different liberation movements in U.S. society in the mid20th century have put to rest the notion of America as a "melting pot." Increasingly we realize that our society is an intricate web of interrelated, but distinct communities, each having some different values, heritages, and patterns of behavior, etc. As our contemporary church seeks to be truly reconciling and inclusive, we recognize and celebrate these diverse communities which comprise our family of God. The last issue of Open Hands provided a foundation for understanding and celebrating the ethnic minority lesbian/gay experience. This issue paints the larger picture of the lesbian/gay community which is emerging in our society. Although the visible emergence of the lesbian/gay community is often marked from the Stonewall riots of 1969, Mary Jo Osterman traces earlier roots in "And Some of Us Are Remembering" (p. 3). Osterman also looks at the relationship between the lesbian/gay "culture" and our dominant culture. As any emerging community develops its own social forms and institutions, Morris Floyd reviews different aspects of social organization in the lesbian/gay community since 1969 in "Daring to Be Visible" (p. 6). From a more personal perspective, "Reflections of a Community 'on the Way' " (p. 12) relates excerpts from a conversation with the men and women of Nashville Affirmation on their experience within this emerging community. Communication plays a key role in the development of a community and in the way that we relate to it. Dee McGraw reminds us that we are "Creating New Worlds through Language" (p. 9) as we live in our society and seek to be reconcilers in the church. Finally, in "Keeping the Circle Unbroken" (p. 16), Lloyd Lewis and Viki Matson present concrete steps local churches can take to make gay/lesbian culture and heritage an important, ongoing part of their congregational life. RESOURCES (p. 20) reviews four of the many books on the market portraying various aspects of the lesbian/gay community. In SUSTAININ G THE SPIRIT (p. 18), Pat Floyd offers a "Dialogue with Psalmists" about the despair, anger, and joy that gay men and lesbians often feel. Floyd is a member of Edgehill UMC, a Reconciling Congregation in Nashville, Tennessee. Included in this issue's RCP REPORT (p. 22) is an interdenominational listing of more than 100 congregations that have declared their openness to lesbians and gay men.
NEXT ISSUE'S THEME: Sexual Violence
We have previously announced an increase in the subscription price for Open Hands which takes effect with this issue. The annual subscription rate is now $12.00 for four issues within the U.S. Because of greater postage for overseas mailing, subscriptions outside the U.S. will now be $16.00 per year. Single issues may be purchased at $4.00 each. Orders of quantities of 10 or more will be $3.00 each.
We regret to have taken this step, but it will help ensure the long-tenn financial viability of our journal. As in the past, inability to pay the subscription price is not a block to receiving Open Hands.
2 Open Hands
J~7 hat gives any group
" ofpeople distinction and diginity is its culture. This includes a remembrance ofthe past and a setting ofitselfin a world context whereby the group can see who it is relative to everyone else.
I have always been bothered by the definition ofhomosexuality as a behavior. Scratching is a behavior. Homosexuality is a way of being, one that can completely influence a person 's life and shape its meaning and direction.
-Judy Grahn,
Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words. Gay Worlds
Boston: Beacon Press, 1984, pp. xiii-xiv.
And Some of Us Are Remembering
By Mary Jo Osterman
o homosexual people have a culture or just a "lifestyle"? Or are gay men and lesbians a subculture of whatever dominant culture they happen to
be born into? In the midst of the extremely personal and often painful struggle of individuals to claim identity and to find ways to survive well in spite of hostilities and condemnation, this more theoretical dialogue has emerged within the gay and lesbian literature. Much of the dominant culture would yet have us all believe that gay men and lesbians are simply a deviant part of the human race to be condemned, cured, ostracized, or kept deep in a closet away from "normal" people. Much of the liberal liberation movement, seeking to accept us, would have us believe we are no different from any of them.
and many ofus are not different. . . and some ofus are!
Culture is what makes a people unique among peoples. History is the tracing of that people's stories, the interpretation they give to their past life and interactions. Black people have a culture and a history. The Chinese have a culture and a history. Russians have a culture and a history. Native Americans have a culture and a history. The aborigines of Australia have a culture and a history. We can read about these cultures/histories in our libraries and study them in most of our universities. Depending on how long a people has been able to claim openly their culture and history and how much has been lost or suppressed, we may have to search diligently for it. Many blank places may be found. And we may not find it in the "regular" places, but segregated into Black studies, Native American studies, women's studies.
But what ofthe culture and history ofthose ofus who are gay or lesbian? Some say we don't have a culture. Others say we do. And what difference does it make?
In 1978 in Lavender Culture, in a an essay entitled "A Question of Culture: Mirror without Image," Rose Jordon explored lesbian and gay life in the United States prior to the Stonewall riots of 1969 (see article by Morris Floyd, p. 6) and the rise of the lesbian/gay liberation movement. Jordon examined the dress and language codes, the body of rules, the underground network, the environment of lesbian/gay life, all developed to protect the true identities of gay men and lesbians. She especially examined the gay institution of the times, the gay bar. She found that the codes, the rules, the network, the bar, allowed lesbians and gay men to survive in the midst of a hostile world by living double lives.
Jordon used a definition of culture by Robert A. LeVine in Culture, Behavior and Personality (1973). Culture is
an organized body of rules concerning ways in which individuals in
a population should communicate with one another, think about
themselves and their environments, and behave toward one another
and toward objects in their environments.1
(continued) Open Hands 3
" '.
L.Jesbians and gay men are the only group ofpeople that I know who are born into an alien world. They do not grow up in their own culture, among their own people .. .. Once lesbians and gay men are old enough to distinguish themselves from the rest of the world, they come to know many derogatory things that the world teaches about themselves. And they learn to claim themselves anyway with as much pride as they can. "
By this definition, Jordon concluded that gay/lesbian people in the pre-Stonewall days had convinced themselves that they had a different lifestyle and a culture that was uniquely lesbian or gay. Yet she noted that that life was still organized around basic patriarchal principles and a philosophy of life learned from the dominant culture (families, schools, religious groups). She also noted that lesbian/gay life still embraced the stereotypes of feminine and masculine roles, that it accepted and developed with lesbian/gay life a class and race structure based on prejudices paralleling the dominant culture. In short, lesbian/gay life "absorbed all the myths, values, and goals of our basic culture and transported them intact into our other world." She concluded that gay men and lesbians had "created a subculture which had at its core only one difference from the rest of society-that was our emotional! sexual orientation toward members of our own gender."2 From Jordon's analysis we must conclude that pre-Stonewall lesbian/gay "culture" was really only lesbian/gay "lifestyle" that society tolerated because it kept gay men and lesbians separated and subjugated. Lesbians and gay men had simply duplicated the dominant culture within their hidden world, substituting only the gender of their sexual partners.
Jordon went on to examine post-Stonewall gay/lesbian life and concluded that by and large it still lacked a distinct culture, though some did seek to examine race, gender, and class assumptions. Yet, as Jordon noted in 1978 (and I believe is still true almost ten years later), much of the gay/lesbian world incorporates much of the dominant society's attitudes about class, race, power, money, status, pornography, and violence. Accepting those rules, many lesbians and gay men are still "out to get a bigger piece of the pie, when in fact the whole pie is rotten.") Jordon concluded that, even though the rise of the gay/lesbian liberation movement had brought us some victories, gay/lesbian life was in fact even more entrenched in the dominant culture because now lesbians and gay men were actively seeking acceptance into that culture. She observed that change cannot usually take place once a group is included, because none of the basic rules have changed. Therefore, she concluded,
Until we can honestly realize that we must dispense with the
unrewarding values ofa particular culture and not join it to reinforce
its status quo-only then will we be able to transcend that society
and create a new culture based upon the values we claim will make it
a uniquely "gay" culture.4
Are lesbians and gay men simply duplicating the dominant culture with one minor change? Do those of us who are lesbian or gay have to create our own culture in reaction to the one into which we were born? Or do we, as Judy Grahn suggests, have a culture, suppressed but uniquely ours and handed down through the ages?
Grahn, in Another Mother Tongue, traces pieces of gay/lesbian culture backwards from some ofthe current derogatory language and stereotypes. In her journey back in time she uncovered older meanings of such words as dyke, faggot, pansy, purp le, lavender, queer, fairy, bulldyke, drag queen, and many more. In recovering the meanings of the words, she rediscovered the stories, the traditions, the older tribal memories so long protected from a hostile world. She discovered a history rich in ceremony, prestige, respect. Does this mean that gay men and lesbians today do have a culture?
and many of us don 't . .. and some of us do!
If we compare lesbians and gay men with other identifiable groups within our society, we note an important feature. Lesbians and gay men are the only group of people that I know who are born into an alien world. They do not grow up in their own culture, among their own people. Most are born into the patriarchal, heterosexist, racist, classist, and otherwise extremely prejudicial world ofthe dominant culture. In spite of the prejudices that deny lesbians and gay men their identity, somehow they come to know themselves. And they come to find each other. Once lesbians and gay men are old enough to distinguish themselves from the rest of the world, they come to know many derogatory things that the world teaches about themselves. And they learn to claim themselves anyway with as much pride as they can. And some lesbians and gay men know other things ... things they were never taught ... perhaps tribal memories faintly recalled?
Last spring, during the national Affirmation meeting in Nashville, a group oflesbians were gathering for breakfast before going to church. We began to talk about dress, how we dressed alike and differently. Some of us began to tell each other how we had always dressed "differently" even as young girls, before we knew who we were. We recalled how we thought the way we dressed was perfectly natural and normal, but how others commented on its queerness. And I remembered then the General
4 Open Hands
Commission on the Status and Role of Women homophobia seminar in Chicago, where one gay man shared his desire to cross-dress and how proud he felt when he looked into the mirror and saw his feminine side. How did we know to dress like that? And why?
and many no longer know why . . . and some ofus are remembering!
Grahn describes the dyke who dresses differently, copying her brothers, her father. Or later, noting that all lesbians are beginning to look like her brothers, the dyke develops yet another way of dressing. And we learn that "dike" means the balance, the path. We learn that Dike (the goddess granddaughter of old Gaia) was the keeper of the balance of the forces in the Old Religions. We learn that one of the social/ceremonial functions of dykes is to provide another way of being a woman. And another. And yet another.
And Grahn tells us of the long traditions of cross-dressing among gay men in many of the old cultures (e.g., in numerous Native American tribes and in the religious festivals ofthe Middle Ages).5 She tells us of the days when men and women who cross-dressed were held in high esteem as the priests, the shamans, the medicine women, the healers, the namers.
Grahn determines that a major function of homosexual people "is to cross over between" different worlds in order to reveal them to each other.° She also concludes that, though most people ofa distinct group will become assimilated to the dominant culture, always a few will remain at the heart and keep the old ways. For lesbians and gay men, these are the "blatantly Gay, the drag queens and bulldykes," those who maintain the most extreme, the most nearly ceremonial Gay ways.7 Within this group, says Grahn, lie the clues to gay culture and ancient gay traditions.
They are carriers of past gay/lesbian culture. Those of us in the church-both lesbian/gay and heterosexual-often view blatantly lesbian/gay people as distasteful. However, if we don't come to know the blatant ones, if we try to quash them, if we refuse to hear them-we destroy the possibility of a continuous heritage of lesbian/ gay culture.
Do gay men and lesbians have a culture? Yes and no. Rose Jordon's portrayal of the lesbian/gay world is true to my experience: much of it is a world ofpeople living a slightly different lifestyle, with the only difference being the gender ofpersons' sexual partners. In most other ways, the world of lesbians and gay men parallels the dominant patriarchal world. Most lesbian/gay persons seek to be accepted into that world as it is; they are not trying to change it in any fundamental way. Most simply want to move up the economic, social ladder of success; they want to secure a better place for themselves. Lesbians and gay men are not trying to create a new culture with a new set of rules by which everyone might live more humanely. They just want a bigger piece of a rotten pie.
and many ofus have forgotten who we were meant to be
And Grahn is right also. Lesbians and gay men do have a history. She, has uncovered bits and fragments of lost cultures where lesbians and gay men were accepted and held in high ceremonial religious esteem. And some of us who are lesbian or gay remember and carry on the traditions. Each historical fragment retrieved and each ceremonial lesbian or gay man who carries on the high function of crossing-over gives all lesbian/gay people more dignity and helps to break down the rigid gender roles created by the patriarchy.
Grahn has brought to light for us lesbians' and gay men's ancient position as classic outsider, as the alien, the exile, the shaker and mover, the sacred clown, critic, mirror, goat, shaman/priest, developer of another way. Lesbians and gay men are the transformers in society, the ones who think in "both/and" terms, rather than "either/ or." Lesbians and gay men see inner and outer, strong and tender, male and female, Black and White ... and all the wondrous things between the poles. They are transformers with double vision, says Grahn, standing at the crossroads intent on pointing out possibilities.s
and some have always known . .. and some are remembering
Fragments of gay and lesbian cultures have been handed down to us. A few lesbians and gay men keep the old ways; some know why and many don't. Most seek simply to be accepted. Yet, those of us who are lesbian or gay avidly learn the old stories and linger over the sacred names as ways to deepen our sense of identity and to strengthen our bonds with each other and with all those who have gone before us. And we watch constantly for those ceremonial few who are always among us! 0
"'7"
.J.. hose ofus in the church-both lesbian/gay and heterosexual-often view blatantly lesbian/gay people as distasteful. However, ifwe don't come to know the blatant ones, if we try to quash them, ifwe refuse to hear them-we destroy the possibility ofa continuous heritage oflesbian/gay culture. "
REFERENCES
I Rose Jordon. "A Question of Culture: Mirror without Image"; in Karla Jay and Allen Young. cds, Lavender Culture (New York: Jove Publications, 1978). p. 445.
2Ibid, pp. 446, 447.
3Sonia Johnson. speech given at Women's Center Conference, Washington, D.C., fall 1983.) 4Jordon, "A Question of Culture,~
p. 4.
5 Judy Grahn, Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words. Gay Worlds
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), pp.
55-57.95-96. 6Ibid, p. 47-48. 7Ibid, p. 86. 8Ibid, pp. 273-78.
Mary Jo Osterman is co-director of Kin h eart. Jnc.. in Evanston. Illinois,
where she is responsible for Kinheart:5 Program on Sex:uality and Homophobia. She is the author of
Homophobia Is a Social Disease and co-author ofThe Lesbian Relationship Handbook. She is a member of Wheadon UMC, a Reconciling Congregation in Evanston.
Open Hands 5
-
-IIr • __ _ ___ _ __ .J r _ I • ./W . ./.. r • I •• J, •••• ,. 'I •••. .1 . I-----~ TBy Morris Floyd he titles of two pieces by the Twin Cities [Gay] Men's Chorus aptly capture the paradoxical ... --~ ~• , . .. .Ir.__ , -~_ 11 _ , . .. ,. ,.. 11 JJ I.. . ~ ~ . , .... ..." • I • Bilitis, founded in 1955-primarily devoted themselves to finding ways for gay men and lesbians to "fit in" to the •I, I l
state of the lesbian/gay experience today: "Singing to the World" and "Eulogy." Lesbian/gay communities are in a peak period ofopenness, even celebration; they are also in a period of deep mourning for lovers, friends, and family members who have died of AIDS. New opportunities for openly gay/lesbian people seem to appear almost daily; new challenges find their way into lesbian/gay consciousness at the same time: living with the twin realities of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and an equally deadly backlash of antigay attitudes and violence spawned by fear of AIDS and nurtured by those who would manipulate that fear. That is the context for a review of changes among gay men and lesbians over the last two decades.
To attempt such a review is a task I approach with some wariness. I have grown from young to middle adulthood over that time span, guaranteeing sUbjectivity
to my reflections. Particularities other than my being gay
also establish their own limits: gender, race, socioeconomic status, geography.
The beginning of the modern movement for lesbian/ gay liberation is often dated from the Stonewall riots in the summer of 1969. Those riots occurred when a group of men who patronized a gay bar in Greenwich Village in New York City decided that they had put up with enough police harassment. The Mattachine Midwest Newsletter of July 1970 described the events:
When the New York Police entered and
closed the Stonewall Club during the
early morning hours of June 28 a year
ago, it must have at first seemed like a
rerun of a segment of that old, worn-out
Official Harassment Story. But this time
things were different; the evicted patrons
didn't follow the usual script. Instead,
throwing rocks and bottles and chanting
"Gay Power," they reacted against years
of harassment with an explosion of pentup
angry frustration. I
The riot and subsequent demonstrations were a marked change from the style of gay/lesbian interaction with the society at large up until that time. Until Stonewall, most gay men and lesbians in New York and elsewhere had silently accepted police harassment-worried that resistance would mean public exposure and, very likely, the loss ofjob, family, housing, etc. What few gay/lesbian activists there were-notably, the gay male Mattachine Society, formed in 1951, and the lesbian Daughters of
6 Open Hands
larger culture. As Henry Hay, a founder ofthe Mattachine Society put it, they operated from 1953 to 1959 from the perspective that gay men and lesbians are "exactly the same as everybody else, except in bed.,,2*
In the almost 20 years since Stonewall, increasing visibility is perhaps the single most important factor in describing the difference in lesbian/gay lives. This visibility now makes it impossible for institutions such as the church to ignore the presence of those of us who are lesbian or gay. In turn, each time those institutions acknowledge our presence, even when that recognition is hostile, we are given yet another opportunity to speak up, ifonly to protest injustice. Each time a lesbian or gay man appears in a public way, it puts another dent in the stereotypes that shore up homophobic attitudes.
But the impact of this increased visibility has been at least as great on lesbian/gay communities as It has been on the institutions that react to a lesbian/gay presence. Since Stonewall, lesbians and gay men have, in many ways, been building a culture. Though the lesbian/ gay community may not meet the strict academic definition of a culture, lesbians and gay men have been creating separate communities ofsupport with some ofthe trademarks of a separate culture. Denied by default or design the ability to be themselves and to be respected in most institutions of the society at large, lesbians and gay men have been building their own institutions. Told that their love "dare not speak its name," lesbians and gay men have been creating places where that love and their relationships are valued and affirmed.
One important mechanism of that visibility has become the lesbian/gay pride events that have sprung up around the country. In major cities such as New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, these events regularly draw hundreds of thousands ofpeople, who come not only for a parade but also for festivals, concerts, and a variety of other activities. The spirit is not all that different from the county fairs of another era. Even more important is the
*Not all gay/lesbian activism was so assimilation-centered. Prior to Stonewall, Franklin Kameny, a Washington. D.C., gay activist. had begun to articulate the then-radical notion that the establishment needed to be pushed to see lesbians and gay men as they are, to acknowledge the wholeness of their identity and to disavow the notion that homosexuality is a pathological condition. Kameny held that gay men and lesbians were themselves the experts on their lives and that they ought to speak for themselves about their experiences as often as possible.
I
fact that lesbian/gay pride events can be found in dozens ofmedium-sized cities all over the United States, as well as in large urban centers.
The Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC) is a premier example of another institution that lesbians and gay men have been creating. Though frequently described as a "gay church," MCC is a denomination with a worldwide, urban and rural outreach that welcomes all persons. In many places, the MCC congregation is virtually the only place gay men and lesbians can gather in openness with one another.
Many gay men and lesbians, however, prefer to retain their connection to the tradition in which they were raised or to another "mainline" denomination, however problematic that denomination's attitudes toward homosexuality may be. Within most ofthese denominations can be found a special place in which lesbians, gay men, their families and friends have found haven and from which they provide a ministry of presence and challenge to their own churches. The names of several of these groups speak eloquently oftheir role among gay/lesbian people of faith: Acceptance (Southern Baptist); Affirmation (both United Methodist and Mormon groups); Dignity (Roman Catholic); Fidelity ( a nondenominational fundamentalist group); Identity (Christian Science); Integrity (Episcopal); Kinship (Seventh-Day Adventist). Some groups, such as the United Church Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Concerns and the Unitarian Universalist Lesbian/Gay Caucus, have more or less official standing as a specialinterest group within their denomination, but most exist on the margins of their church with little or no access to power and with varying levels of influence.
Even a casual look at a guidebook to gay/lesbianrelated services and businesses reveals that religious groups are far from the only or the most numerous evidence ofgay/lesbian institutions. Many cities have gay/ lesbian community services centers, organizations, or hotlines that provide information and access to the myriad of available opportunities for social and service involvement. In some places, these centers provide a full range of social services from counseling to job placement to screening and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. Senior Action in a Gay Environment (SAGE) has pioneered in efforts to serve and empower lesbian/gay senior citizens. More than 500 self-help programs (such as Alcoholics Anonymous), counseling centers, youth programs, and chemical-dependency treatment programs provide a specialized outreach to persons whose gay/ lesbian expression might make it impossible for them to be effectively served otherwise. Gay/lesbian support groups can be found on the campuses of many universities and professional schools. Groups for lesbian/gay business and professional people abound. Teams of gay/ lesbian athletes can be found at softball and football fields, swimming pools, bowling alleys, marathon courses, and the Olympic-style Gay Games.
Nor are the performing arts excluded from the institutionalization of lesbian/gay culture. Theatrical groups such as Theater Rhinoceros in San Francisco and
O. Wilde Productions in Minneapolis provide arenas for the gay/lesbian community to look at itself and reflect on its experiences. Gay/lesbian marching bands exist in a dozen or more cities, and more than two dozen choral groups perform in the premier concert facilities of their cities. These many expressions of the gay/lesbian community have an influence far beyond the people they touch directly because of the ways that they provide visibility and therefore a reassurance of self-worth to all lesbians and gay men who know about them.
Increased visibility has also had its impact on bars, perhaps the oldest institutions in gay/lesbian culture. Since at least the 19th century, gay men and lesbians have used the bars as much more than places for liquid refreshment. In fact, bars have played much the same role in gay/lesbian culture that churches have played for much of their history in this country: Gay and lesbian bars have been the centers at which people gather to meet one another, to discuss the important issues of the day and mark major events of their personal lives. In previous generations, many bars were located in rather seamy locations and could best be described as dark dives. More recently, bars have literally been opening up. Where formerly there would have been a wall of smoked glass, clear glass may now look out on the street. Perhaps more important, lesbian and gay bars are increasingly owned by members ofthose communities themselves. These owners, along with a growing number of heterosexuual owners of gay/lesbian bars, often express a sense of obligation to put back into the community some of the profits gained from the people who spend their money there. Rather than functioning as exploiters of a largely hidden and oppressed group, they contribute money, energy, time, and use of their facilities to enable the healthy growth of their community.
As these institutions have emerged, an unfortunate fact
is that lesbians and gay men have exhibited much of
the same exclusivist behavior as the rest of society. Many,
if not most, lesbian/gay bars, religious groups, clubs, and (continued)
Open Hands
7
social networks remain segregated along racial, gender, and economic lines. Many middle-class, professional, White gay males, for example, have trouble being sensitive to the special concerns of women, persons of color, or those with less money or education than themselves. Partly as a result, and partly out of the necessity to serve their own needs, lesbians, Blacks, and others have created institutions of their own-for example, women's coffee houses in many cities, the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gay Men, and the Asian American Lesbian and Gay Men's Network.
Though most lesbian/gay institutions are primarily in urban areas, it should not be concluded that lesbians and gay men are primarily city-dwellers. In fact, many are moving out of cities to smaller communities. With their identity and self-image now solidly formed, some are looking for the calmer pace of "exurbia." The gay or lesbian resident of a small town can read about all that is going on in the distant medium-or large-sized cities in the more than 500 gay/lesbian publications. Many of these people make a point to travel to locations like San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Key West, or Provincetown, where they can experience a concentration of gay/lesbian culture and social activities. They give generously to support a dozen or more national lobbying, legal advocacy, and political action organizations such as the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Lesbian Rights Project, and the Human Rights Campaign Fund.
Since 1981, the AIDS epidemic has been a major element ofincreased visibility for gay men at least. From a global perspective, of course, AIDS primarily affects heterosexual persons. But, due to happenstance, the disease gained its North American and European entry in the gay and bisexual male population, where it was first recognized. By 1984, when the disease began to be taken seriously in North America by people outside the gay community, its connection with that community was indelibly marked in the general public's mind.
Gay men have been forced by the presence of a deadly sexually transmitted disease in their midst to look carefully at issues they might otherwise have ignored, including re-examining many of their values. This reexamination is especially evident with respect to sexuality and sexual behavior. Social stigma has long been responsible for a situation in which there have been very few ways to express one's identity as a gay man. For some gay men, that expression has taken the form of frequent, often anonymous, sexual activity with different partners. AIDS has made reconsideration of this kind of sexual activity mandatory, since persons who have large numbers of anonymous partners are especially likely to become infected. Because so many gay men are already infected by the AIDS virus, however, limiting the number of one's sexual partners is not adequate to prevent transmission of infection. Risk reduction also has required major changes in the specific sexual activities in which gay men engage.
Any losses gay men may feel over the necessity of revising sexual behavior, however, are dwarfed by the other losses they face because of AIDS: threats to their civil and human rights as persons perceived to be at risk for the disease; the roller coaster ride of hope alternating with despair inherent in conflicting research reports; the 8 Open Hands loss of attractiveness, strength, independence, and dignity felt or feared by those living with infection by the AIDS virus; the deaths of thousands of lovers, family members, and friends, and the probability that hundreds of thousands more will die over the next five or ten years; the incalculable pain in the loss of a long-sought relationship with that "special someone."
But AIDS has also been the occasion for unprecedented demonstrations of individual and community concern, showing strength and resilience previously unacknowledged either within or outside the gay/ lesbian community. Long before public health or other officials understood the seriousness of AIDS, gay men and lesbians in many communities had begun developing mechanisms to provide care for those who were ill and to educate their friends about how to avoid acquiring or transmitting an infection. Though this contribution is still largely unacknowledged outside the gay/lesbian community, it is appropriately a source of tremendous pride. Nor has the gay/lesbian community effort diminished as other portions of the society have begun to respond. We can all hope that pride will counter many of the negative messages and at least some of the loss.
AIDS is not a phenomenon that could have been predicted or controlled. Nevetheless, it does remind us all of the basic fact that the greatest changes in the gay/ lesbian community have resulted from decisions to actthe decision almost 20 years ago of a handful of gay men in the Stonewall Club not to put up any longer with police harassment; the decision of first dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of gay and bisexual men in this decade not to surrender to the threat of a deadly disease. These decisions are paradigms for choices individual lesbians and gay men make every day as they decide whether and how to come out to family, friends, co-workers; what kinds of relationships they will form; what objectives they will set for educational and professional endeavors; how they will spend whatever time remains in their lives.
Clearly lesbians and gay men have made important substantial gains since Stonewall-in establishing their own communities, their own institutions, their own identities. There is much still to be accomplished, of course. As noted above, racism, sexism, and economic elitism remain powerful forces in much of the lesbian/gay community. Many lesbians and gay men retain realistic or unrealistic fears of being too visible. Many heterosexual (and even some homosexual) persons continue to agree with the 1950s perception that all that makes gay men and lesbians different is what they do in bed.
Nevertheless, the message should be clear: Those of us who are lesbian or gay are, as a group, not going to be invisible ever again. We now dare to speak our name, and we will continue to speak it proudly. 0
REFERENCES
IQuoted in James W. Cheseboro, ed .. Gayspeak (New York: Pilgrim Press,
1981), p. 238.
2Quoted in Jonathan Katz, Gay American History (New York: Avon
Books, 1978), p. 627.
Morris Floyd is a member ofthe California-Pacific Annual Conference ofthe United Methodist Church. He lives in Minneapolis and is one of the official spokespersons for Affinnation: United Methodists for Lesbian/Gay Concerns.
Words do not exist in a vacuum. They are spoken and written by human beings who want to communicate with one another. When any of us, as human beings, exchange conversation, our words and sentences transmit meaning, conveying the thoughts, impressions, and feelings of one of us to one or more others. Sometimes, the response is a delighted, "Oh, I see what you mean!" and sometimes a dismayed, "No, that's not what I meant at all." In either case, however, the dynamic is the same: one of us is attempting to put meaning into words and to communicate that meaning to others.
By Dee McGraw
As Christians who are committed to reconciling ministries within our local churches, our denominations, and Christianity and society in general, we must always bear in mind this basic truth about communication. An important key to bridging gaps and building understanding between lesbian/gay and heterosexual personsor between any frequently separated groups of people-is using language that reconciles, rather than consciously or subconsciously alienates.
For communication to happen, words cannot rest passively within a dictionary but must play in the spaces between people. As the philosopher Paul Ricoeur has explained, an "event" happens."!
Standing behind this event are some key assumptions. Most obviously, those of us who are trying to communicate must speak the same language. Not only must our sounds and phonetic combinations translate into given words, but those words must be understood in the same way by all persons involved. I remember with a bit of embarrassment the bewildered looks on the faces of a group of Oriental students in a Freshman English class I once taught when I instructed the class to "brainstorm" an assignment. They had dutifully looked up brain and storm in their dictionaries but finally had to come
(continued)
Open Hands 9
ask me what my bizarre metereological
instructions might mean.
Similarly, I suspect, many of our "lovers' quarrels" and hurt feelings arise because we assume we have a shared interpretation or value when that is not, in fact, the case. I know that I often have to look a friend in the eye and say, ''I'm sorry. I jumped to conclusions; I misunderstood what you meant."
But communication does not stop here. Language does not just reflect understanding; it creates new understanding. When we exchange ideas, we often come to new insights and shape new decisions. By our mutual understanding, we create a new reality. In a White church, for example, a shared common reality may be prejudice and racial exclusion, but after a Bible study series and a pulpit exchange with a neighborhood Black congregation, new understanding and inclusion may be created. In a powerful way, it is the communication of these two congregations that serves as the vehicle for new insights and, ultimately, the new world they create for worship and community.
This new creation is possible because, when we communicate, we are each able to express our individual experiences to the others, enabling all involved to become aware of experiences of reality besides our own. Though one of us cannot experience the life of another, no matter how intimate the two ofus are, we can each tell what our individual lives mean to us. Each of our worlds is then expanded.
In this way, words are "performatives," to use Ricoeur's terminology They do something by their being spoken or written. A familiar example is the pledge "I promise"; by vocalizing or writing the words, the communicator commits the promise. The same is true for blessings, warnings, and commands. Indeed, Ricoeur claims, all discourse is performative: an event happens in which a new reality is created. Language creates a world.
According to Ricoeur, this phenomenon is especially powerful through written texts, in which a message becomes fixated for a potentially universal audience. No longer is an event limited to an exchange between individuals at a given place at a given time. Instead, it is available to any person of any time who picks up the publication. (Of course, if un10 Open Hands
derstanding is to occur, the author and the reader must share a common language and a common perception of the reality underlying the text.)
A reader can respond to a text in one of two ways: by merely comprehending the information that has been read, or by appropriating it, making it his or her own. Ifthe latter is chosen, the reader is inevitably changed. The world of the text-along with the values, assumptions, and judgments-is accepted as the reader's own.
Words, then-whether written or spoken-are not mere words, because they represent our worlds and our ways of being. Advertisers have known this for years, so when they name a car a Monte Carlo or a perfume Obsession, they are using those words to hook us into a world in which we want to live and to make us believe that using that product can place us there.
Behind any language stands shared cultural mythologies that define us, telling us who we are. Consider the epithets "Uncle Tom" and "Commie." These insults would be meaningless without the assumptions about reality and the histories that stand between them. Consider, too, the implications behind an axiom like "ladies first." This seemingly benign rule ofconduct assumes certain truths about males and females and how they are to relate to each other. So, when we teach our children manners, we are giving them their world view.
Usually, the world that stands behind our language-our rules, nicknames, stereotypes, idioms, and labelsis unconscious and unexamined. But it is nevertheless powerful. In a very real way, it creates us as a community. We share stories, legends, myths, and slang. We have a common memory and a projected future; that is, we share a world. Furthermore, we pass that world along to each generation.
As the philosopher Eric Heller has written, "Be careful how you interpret the world; it is like that.,,2 This chilling thought impels us to look more closely at our language. What is the world we are projecting for ourselves and future generations? The world in which we live may have been created out of half truths, lies, misunderstandings, and errors, but nevertheless, it is our reality now. And each time we use words like faggot and bulldyke, we perpetuate a world in which certain persons have standing and power while others are to be ridiculed and despised.
For us, who together form the church, this realization is crucial. The prophetic function of the church is to create a new way ofbeing, the new age that Jesus inaugurated. The only way this can happen is for our reality to be changed. The foundation of this change is within our hearts as we allow ourselves to be conformed to the spirit of the Christ. Then, and only then, can we begin to give ourselves to the task of transforming the world.
Since language is both a vehicle and a shaper of culture, we must change our language if we want lasting change in our world. This begins with intentional awareness of the language we now use.
We must ask, "Is our language reconciling?" The word reconciliation is from a Latin word meaning "to meet." It implies that what has been apart meets. To be a reconciling congregation or a reconciling individual means that we somehow take two opposing worlds and bring them together. We take our contemporary understanding of reality and bring it closer to the reality preached by Jesus the Christ. At the same time, we heal the breach between opposing viewpoints and views of the world.
As I have explained, we must be able to communicate with each other if such healing is to happen. This is a difficult task, especially if we use language that is nonreconciling-that fixes us in our old world rather than moves us toward a new age. Such language does not offer a challenge for growth or a cutting edge. It refers to a reality that is cruel and damaging.
Use of sexist terminology, for example, acts to keep us in a world in which female identity is subsumed within the male, a world in which chairs of committees, congressional representatives, firefighters, and police officers are all male. We may claim with all sincerity that we mean everyone when we use a word like mankind, but the world out of which that language emerged and the subliminal world it creates is a world where "men are men" and where we "put the little lady on a pedestal." It is a world in which leaders and public officials are indeed male.
Nonreconciling language can be separated into at least four categories. These differentiations can be easily seen by examining language that is often used in relationship to homosexuality. One category of nonreconciling language is abusive language. Words like queer label and judge. This kind of talk sets up two opposing worlds and forbids "them" from entering "our" world. It creates a world of exclusion and violence. It implies hierarchies of worth and acceptability. And abusive language is not limited to biased heterosexuals; gay men and lesbians are often guilty ofcritical language against the heterosexual world. Such talk may be understandable, but it is not reconciling.
Another category of nonreconciling language is insider language. Oppressed groups usually create their own vocabularies and their own interpretations of the outside world's vocabularies. Thus, it is that dyke is a common insult when used ofa lesbian by a heterosexual, but it is a label of pride to a homosexual woman who accepts and enjoys her identity. This is because this word refers to a different reality for a lesbian than for a homophobic man or woman.
Judy Grahn, in Another Mother Tongue, says, "I have explored words such as faggot, fairy, bulldike, and so on. These words have a far different meaning for Gay people than they have for straight people in general . . . This is because heterosexual people have a different mindset from Gay people ....,,3 Once again, insider language is understandable, much more so than abusive language. Oppressed groups must create and maintain a safe place, and it is necesary for them to retreat to this place for nurturing, empowerment, and re-creation. Nevertheless, this language is nonreconciling. It deliberately shuts "them" out of "our" world, creating a defensive,
separatist world.
A third category of nonreconciling
language is authority language. This
type of language is frequently found
in condemning theological talk, pseudopsychological
jargon, and abusive
legal decisions-for example, in statements
about gay men and lesbians
being saved from the sin of homosexuality
or in legislation forbidding
homosexuals from teaching school or
seeking apartments in certain parts of
town. This language presumes that
"we" have the truth about "them." It circumscribes "our" world as correct, pre-ordained, and God-given and creates a world of arrogance and judgment. Itjustifies harassment, loss of civil rights, and condemnation, all in the name of authority.
The fourth and final category of nonreconciling language is at the same time the least obvious and consequently the most insidious and damaging. It is silence. Much of the time, homosexuality is discreetly overlooked and not named. It is left out of most sex education classes and is referred to with euphemisms by polite society. Most of us grew up with unmarried aunts or uncles, neighbors, or teachers who lived with a "friend" and were protected by a veil of wellmeaning silence. For generations, homosexuality has been referred to as "the love that dare not speak its name."
Silence allows violence and discrimination to go unchallenged. It perpetuates myths and stereotypes. Worse still, it leaves gay men and lesbians without community or affirmation and confused about their identity. Itcreates shame and shuts off the possibility of healthy development and positive self-image for young homosexuals struggling with sexual identity. A recent Open Hands article detailed one lesbian's pain of being constantly told, "Just be invisible."
What would truly reconciling language be, and how can we create it? We must begin by examining our cultural mythologies and assumptions. We all carry unconscious racism, sexism, and prejudice, and so the awareness process is painful, but we must look honestly at ourselves, our worship services, and our conversation. Do they perpetuate a distorted world view? Is the world that they project true? Is it a place in which we want to live? Most important, what new reality does it call into being?
Language is a potent force in our culture. It carries our heritage, and, moreover, it brings new worlds into being. According to one of our treasured stories, the God of creation spoke and transformed a watery chaos, first into light and then into life. As reconciling people, may we say of the worlds we have spoken into being, "That is very good." 0
REFERENCES
1Paul Ricoeur. Interpretation Theory (Ft. Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1976),
2Quoted in Sallie McFague, Models of God (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), p. 28.
3Judy Grahn, Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words, Gay Worlds (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984),
p. xiii.
Dee McGraw is a third-year divinity student at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville. In her discussion ofPaul Ricoeur's language theory, she relies on classroom lectures. discussion, and readingfrom a Vanderbilt Divinity School course, "Homiletics and Hermeneutics," taught by Professor David Greehaw.
Open Hands 11
O
n a gray, damp Sunday in February, several members of Nashville Affinnation met in a cozy suburban condominium to talk about our lives together. We had a list ofquestions to get the group thinking and talking about what it means to be a part ofa community. The questions generally could be grouped into three categories: What do we gain f rom being in a community? How does being a part ofa community help us live in the world? and How does community help us grow? We talked for three hours while a tape recorder whirred away. Many persons' thoughts are reflected in this compilation of these comments that were made. The longer we talked, the more we realized that we are not alone. We are a community with both a common unity and a wildly happy diversity. Our community is not done. We are "on the way "; we are still in the process ofbecoming. Other communities' experiences will be differentf rom ours. However, we offer our memories, insights, hopes, andf ears as a gift-an important part of our celebration ofgay/lesbian history and culture. We want to thank especially one member of our community, Tom Burgess, who spent innumerable hours transcribing the tape, sometimes barely audible, other times garbled by the enthusiasm and emotions of the speakers. We are not alone, and we do not want any ofyou-lesbian/gay or heterosexual-to be alone either.
12 Open Hands
YOU ARE MY PEOPLE:
How we become who we are.
M any people in our group talked about times in their lives that were "turning points" for them. Those turning points were times when they, often for the first time, ~ere able to identify with other lesblan/ gay people. Over and over again, persons talked about and resonated with the powerful phrase, "You are my people." Because of being able to identify with a particular community, being gay or lesbian b~came an entirely different expenence than it would have been ifthey
had
been
gay
or
lesbian
alone.
Here
are
illustrative
comments
from
two
persons
in
Nashville
Affirmation:
We must form a community for ourselves. A community tells us who we are and who
we can become.
The last time National Affirmation met in Nashville [March 1981} was just after I had a relationship end. I really was not certain ifrelationships were for me or what was to happen next. I had for the first time a really strong sense at the meeting of those people being my people. I continue offa.nd on of having the experience of that being the turning point in my life as a lesbian.
A man in the group also shared one of his experiences at that national meeting several years ago, an "aha experience" that for the first time for him emphasized that "we're in this together."
The Saturday night ofthe meeting the men and women met separately at Scarritt Graduate School [then Scarritt College}. The night watchman came to the door of where the men were meeting. He told us that the switchboard had received a call from the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan would be waiting for us when we left the meeting to show us that no 'faggots' were going to gather in Nash ville. I remember that there was a little guy sitting next to me. In our culture he would have been called a 'queen. ' I knew that ifanyone would be a targetfor the Klan it would be him. For the first time in my life, I felt that ifsomething violent were to happen, I would protect
him with all the resources I had. This was the first time that I felt, 'Hey! These men really are my people, and nobody is going to hurt them.'
The experience of finding a people does not lead to the "you and me against the world" attitude or style of being in the world. Rather, as we talked, we were overwhelmed by the remarkable awareness: "Because of you, it is easier for me to be in the world. We're in this thing together."
Several persons talked about self-acceptance and pride that comes from being a part of an affirming community:
Bef ore becoming a part of Affirmation, I began to believe all the stereotypes and crap heterosexuals and the dominant culture were saying about gay men and lesbians. I started accepting and acting out those stereotypes. Being gay was really a 'sick' thing to be. Then I met you all. Now, I know that gay people aren't strange, just wonderfully different. I believe that Affirmation brought on that change. "
Affirmation, as an affirming, accepting, proud community of persons, can provide an essential alternative to what lesbians and gay men too often hear from the "straight" world. We need each other's support and strength to resist being what the nongay/lesbian world expects us to be and to form a positive identity as gay/lesbian persons. We cannot go it alone.
As persons continued to share insights and fears and hopes, several in the group returned to how the world tells us what is acceptable and not acceptable. As lesbians and gay men, we often internalize those definitions and standards about how to be who we are.
They [the heterosexual world} already know that being gay is not acceptable, but, if you are gay, there are certain ways to do it.
One woman said:
You're acceptable ifyou are very attractive and dress in skirts and smile nicely. However, ifyou wear your cigarettes rolled up under the sleeve of your T-shirt and clump around in a pair of heavy boots, then you have a 'bulldyke' image. And that's NOT acceptable.
It was time to change tapes, but people did not want to stop talking. We realized that being a community "on tape" meant using our common sense to sort out all the messages we get about how to be who we are. And these conflicting, negative presumptuous messages not only come from the heterosexual world but also from gay/lesbian culture. These comments from two women and a man vividly illustrate the "identity crisis" often caused by the messages about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable that are received for the lesbian/gay community:
I remember a point of having a real identity crisis. 'OK, this is what I'm supposed to be and that's how I'm supposed to look. And I don't. ' I'm not the type to wear nailclippers on belt loops.
(con tinued)
Open Hands 13
Some of this stuff can get oppressive from our direction, too. I know there are lesbians who think it is not politically co"ect to wear make-up, that it binds us to the heterosexual society. That may be true for some lesbians, but not for me. I can be a good lesbian wearing make-up.
I often feel that if I don't have the 'right' name on my jeans, the co"ect color shirt, the appropriate shoes, the authorized car, and the good address that I'd better not walk into that gay bar. And God forbid that your washboard stomach doesn't ripple sensuously.
The challenge to the gay/lesbian community to be inclusive of all folks, no matter how we look, dress, speak, and so forth, is the challenge not to mirror the prejudices and biases of the heterosexual world. We must help each other feel positive about who we are, without imposing strict categories, rules, or expectations about how to live out our identities as lesbians and gay men.
In our conversations, we found that being a part of a community also helped us identify ourselves as an oppressed people without selfpity. This can be strengthening and empowering. It also can sensitize us to the plights, problems, and possibilities of other oppressed peoples. When we recognize that we share an identity with other oppressed people and that all oppression is linked together, our sense of justice can be sharpened. Because we are part of a community,
we can give ourselves, our talents, and our time to the world, to the communities, to the church, and so forth as seekers after justice. But it is our being a part of a community "on the way" that makes that possible.
DIVINE DIVERSITY:
Difference really is beautiful.
Homogeneity is not the norm for life in community. Genuine community celebrates rich diversity. In Nashville Affirmation we have -an elderly man who is experiencing the transition from living alone to living in a nursing home, -a woman who, having just completed her schooling, is moving across the country to launch her career, -a woman in the midst of a midlife career change from a successful professional situation to a divinity school student, -a lesbian couple in the process of adopting a child, -a man and a woman who each have a child growing into adolescence and are struggling with issues of parenting and family.
A part of the diversity that community must celebrate is gender difference. One man shared his feelings this way:
Something I appreciate about Affirmation that isn't true about a lot of other groups I'm a part ofis that this is a group in which I can relate to women in a fairly intimate way. A lot of the women in Affirmation have become close to me, and I've more readily shared some ofthe problems going on in my life with a couple of the women rather than the men.
Nashville Affirmation had provided opportunities for the building of significant friendships with persons of the other gender. These friendships are free of role expectations and sexual agendas. They allow us opportunities to experience and appreciate and value the differences and similarities between women and men. Out of the rich tapestries of our life experiences and wisdom do we strengthen and nurture each other.
LOVE AND SEX·
We can talk about that, too.
W e were somewhat surprised that we freely could talk about love and sex with each other. One of the women in the group who had been silent for awhile spoke pointedly about what the gay men in Affirmation had helped her learn:
From gay men, lesbians can learn something about the joy of sex and the gift of positive and healthy feelings about sexuality. Sensuality, awareness, and appreciation of the body-gay men have taught me much about being sensual toward all oflife and creation.
Almost at the same time, one of the men shared how lesbians had taught him about the importance of emotional bonding and the significance of being a friend to one's lover.
I think one of the things that makes friendship among men, especially gay men, so difficult is that we are socialized to think that having sex with someone is the acceptable way ofbeing intimate . ... And that takes the place of another kind of intimacy, the emotional intimacy that I've
14 Open Hands
heard lesbians talk about-the bonding that goes on. Men need this, too, but we're not very good at doing it because we usually end up in bed with each other before we find it.
As we talked, we realized that our community provided us a setting in which honest and personal communication about sex can happen. One of the problems we have had is that some of the women are offended by the men's use ofsexual language, banter, and innuendo. But we have begun talking with each other about the words we use and how they help us define who we are. We feel that it is uncommon for men and women to talk about sex and love openly. We do. As a result, we have learned how rare and wonderful intimacy is and how urgent it is for us to model intimacy for each other by supporting and encouraging each other's intimate relationships.
AIDSAND US:
We really are not alone.
The question about AIDS, of course, was raised. There was silence. Then, as one, we thanked God that we have not experienced the death from AIDS of anyone in Nashville Affirmation. We also voiced the fear and the knowledge that we cannot forever be untouched. Many of us have experienced the death of gay friends who have been a part of other Affirmation groups and friends from the larger gay community. We knew that it was necessary and appropriate when talking about being a community becoming that we ask how AIDS affected our intimate relationships, our community, our politics, our ethics, and so forth. Here are some of the responses:
Yes, it's changing for men who recognize what a threat AIDS really is. Unfortunately, many gay men still feel sex is like Russian roulette: you drop your quarter in the dirty movie box and take your chance. But I think more and more gay men are learning what 'safe sex' really is all about. And that there is the unavoidable need to practice safe sex .... There's still a lot of erotic behavior without bonding but, at least, men are learning to be more responsible.
I can't put myfinger exactly on how AIDS has impacted the lesbian com un ity. I had never given blood until recently, and somehow that is my symbolic way of reaching out to people with AIDS.
(During Nashville's Gay Pride Week in 1986, one of the women from Affirmation headed a blood drive by lesbians that targeted the lesbian community as donors to show solidarity with gay men. Donors became "blood sisters" to gay men.)
It's heightened my awareness of the gay community. It used to be that gay men were 'them, 'and lesbians were 'us. 'Now it's more of a 'we' and how 'we' are going to beat this. As a nurse, I am learning how to respond to the fear, anger, and resentment many of the persons in my profession feel toward persons with AIDS.
How has AIDS changed us as a community? Perhaps we no longer take each other for granted. Perhaps we are more gentle and tender with each other. Perhaps we are more willing to hold each other accountable for our actions. Perhaps we know dramatically how fragile community is and how precious each of our lives really is.
GIFTS BORN OF GIFTS:
What do we give back?
As we neared the end of our conversation, we, knowing how blessed we were, needed to decide what we could and would give back for the richness we had been given. To the church we want to continue to be a "thorn in the flesh." We want to call the church to greater and more inclusive faithfulness:
I think the church needs Affirmation a great deal. Theologically and biblically, we might be like the remnant the faithful Israelites were. We need to speak the unpopular word in the land. I think Affirmation can address the church by keeping gay and lesbian issues alive and prodding the church to be honest.
We want to keep persons and institutions sensitive to oppression. We want our intimate relationships to mature so that we can model mutuality and intentionality and responsible sexuality for other persons.
Nashville Affirmation is a community "on the way." Being in a community is not always easy. In fact, sometimes it is a relentless pain. We do not always like each other, but we intend to endure and persevere with each other over time. Maybe that's love. We turned off the tape recorder knowing and rejoicing that we are not alone and that we have much to do to help other persons celebrate community as lesbians and gay men with a history, culture, and life-experiences that are valid and valued. 0
Open Hands 15
Tt By Viki Matson and
Lloyd Lewis
he country gospel hymn, "Will the Circle Be
Unbroken?" asks the question about the continuity of life beyond death. On the surface, this hymn celebrates "a better home a-waitin' in the sky." The same question, however, can also be asked about the ongoingness of human relationships on earth and their ever-present influence on how persons live all aspects of their lives-how they love, act, get angry, become gentle, live, and die.
As our cultural heritages accumulate and constantly expand, we human beings keep a circle unbrokenthrough our children, our art and literature, our hymns and symphonies, and our memories and visions. Gay men and lesbians share in this continuity, even though this fact has largely been hidden through much of history. With increasing vigor, however, gay men and lesbians are now reclaiming their heritage, a heritage that provides them with their unique identities and reminds them dramatically and profoundly that lesbian foremothers and gay forefathers also exist who must be remembered and celebrated.
All Christians-not just gay men and lesbians who claim the Christian church as part of their historiesneed to acknowledge and face the challenge to keep alive the special gifts of gay/lesbian history. We all must recognize that the oppression (including the denial by silence) of anyone group is, in truth, the oppression of all groups. We all must work to make a reality the vision of the Body of Christ, the community of faith, as a diverse, ethnically varied, economically pluralistic, nongender-specific community that is the embodiment of inclusiveness. Part of this inclusiveness must be a refusal to make a heterosexual orientation the norm for mutual human relationships. Same-sex orientation and preference must be celebrated by all of God's people if the circle of life is to be kept unbroken. Notjust accepted. Notjust tolerated. But celebrated in its wholeness and brokenness.
To do otherwise is to fail to keep the clear mandate, throughout the Bible, to welcome all of humanity, with love and enthusiasm, into the family of God.
16 Open Hands
Celebrating Otherness
The ordinary church usually pays tribute to cultural diversity on designated or approved Sundays, often only mentioning the "concern" for the day. For the extraordinary church, however, this is not enough. The extraordinary church celebrates cultural diversity by integrating its commitment to the inclusion of the "other" into the total life of the congregation. It frequently sings spirituals that were born out of the pain and hope of Black American slaves; its remembrances of the stories of American Blacks is not limited to some set-aside "race relations day." It incorporates Native
American spirituality into its worship, committee meetings, and social action ministries, especially the central emphasis on the sacredness of the earth and of all creation; the physical world is hallowed in every thing the church does. The extraordinary church faithfully and joyfully uses the rich resources in the liturgies, poetry, music, and festivals of Hispanics and Native Americans, of Arabic and other Middle Eastern persons, as well as of Africans and Europeans.
And the truly extraordinary church goes one step further, a step that requries greater intentionality in research and use because resources are not as readily available. It takes the step of integrating gay/lesbian culture and history into the total life of the congregation. The truly extraordinary church knows that gay/lesbian culture and history, though filled with pain and persecution, also brims with joy and affection.
Remembering Gay Men and Lesbians
Churches that want to be truly extraordinary can act in a wide variety of ways to remember and celebrate the culture and history of gay men and lesbians. They can:
• Use music that includes lyrics that are inclusive of lesbians and gay men. Just as churches are learning to change the words of hymns to include women as well as men, they need to consider how lyrics can perpetuate heterosexual cultural norms and thereby deny the existence, value, and contributions of gay men and lesbians in church and society. Moreover, churches need to intentionally and openly use music composed by gay men and lesbians; this should include music that
celebrates the joy of same-sex relationships as part of Christian family.
•
Preach sermons and create liturgies that reflect awareness of and sensitivity to the culture and history of lesbians and gay men. As clergy search for sermon illustrations, they should include the contributions of gay men and lesbians as models of effective and visionary ministry.
•
Design banners, vestments, and paraments that include, as an important liturgical symbol, the pink triangle-the mark that gay men were forced to wear in Hitler's death camps for identification and that has since been adopted by gay men and lesbians as an international symbol for their heritage, oppression, and pride.
•
Organize study and conversation groups that include lesbians and gay men in their leadership as well as membership and that pinpoint social justice issues including gay/lesbian concerns.
•
Invite lesbians and gay men from Affirmation, neighboring Reconciling Congregations, local Metropolitan
Community Churches, and other lesbian/gay religious groups such as Dignity (Catholic) and Integrity (Episcopalian) to participate in study, social, and worship events in your church. They should always, of course, be invited as equals, not oddities.
•
Provide opportunities for lesbians and gay men to tell their stories so that congregations come to know the human joy and pain experienced by lesbians and gay men.
•
Include correct information about homosexuality at all age levels in your church. Urge "family ministries" to include families with gay and lesbian children and lesbian and gay parents and to recognize that children who may be growing up with a feeling of "being different" need to know that being attracted to persons of the same sex is natural and OK Similarly, recognize lesbian and gay couples as equal to heterosexual couples in all aspects of the church's life.
•
Buy for the church library books that are positive statements about and by gay men and lesbians, review the books in the church newsletter, and encourage United Methodist Women, United Methodist Men, youth groups, et aI., to use the books for study.
•
Highlight in church newsletters and calendars, on bulletin boards, and in announcements during worship services events in the gay/lesbian community: Gay and Lesbian Pride Weeks, concerts by gay and lesbian choruses and bands, AIDS awareness events, etc.
•
Speak out against the use of derogatory language about gay men and lesbians, just as you would about racial epithets, gender put-downs, and ethnic jokes.
•
Remember the Holocaust and the thousands of gay men who were slaughtered by Hitler's forces alongside of Jews, gypsies, and persons with handicapping conditions.
Living It Out
As Christians, we recognize that keeping silence denies us all the possibility of expressing our thoughts and feelings, whatever they may be. When the concerns of lesbians and gay men are not "said out loud" in the church, when the words gay, lesbian, and homosexual are not used in positive ways in a congregation, the life and ministry of a church is distorted and fragmented. Every church needs to expand its understanding and definition of inclusiveness. The AIDS crisis poignantly and profoundly highlights how the church, the gay/lesbian community, and non-gay/lesbian persons need each other.
Even when a church has made the decision to become a Reconciling Congregation, the work continues. Only through living out the decision to include gay men and lesbians in all areas of church life will the never-ending, concentric circle of inclusive life together be unbroken. 0
Viki Matson is a member ofEdgehill UMC, a Reconciling Congregation in Nashville. Tennessee. and is a chaplain in a Nashville hospital.
Lloyd Lewis is affiliated with West Nashville UMC in Nashville. a member ofthe Wisconsin Annual Conference. and director ofschool relations at
Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville.
Open Hands 17
SUSTAINING THE SPIRIT
A
Dialog e with Psalmists
By Pat Floyd
No despair is so deep, no anger so burning, no joy so
ecstatic, but that one ofthe psalmists has lifted just such an
emotion in a cry to God.
o God, are we alone? Does anyone care?
The psalmist testifies:
o God, you have examined me and you know me. You know everything I do: from far away you understand all my thoughts. You see me, whether I am working or resting; you know all my actions. Even before I speak, you already know what I will say. You are all around me on every side; you protect me with your power. Your knowledge of me is too deep;
it is beyond my understanding. Psalm 139:1-6
But some places I have been, God, some places I may yet find myself; will you be in the hospital, in the jail, in the ghetto?
The psalmist asks rather:
Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, "Let only darkness cover me, and the light about me be night," even the darkness is not dark to you,
the night is bright as the day;
for darkness is as light with you.
18 Open Hands
I -S USTAINI N G THE SPIRIT
The psalmist affirms:
How precious to me are your thoughts, 0 God! How vast is the sum of them!
If I would count them, they are more than the sand. When I awake, I am still with you. (Or, were I to come to the end, I would still be with you.)
Psalm 139:7-12, 17-18
o God, how shall I survive in a hostile world?
The psalmist petitions:
Deliver me, 0 God, from evil ones; preserve me from violent people who plan evil things in their heart and stir up wars continually They make their tongue sharp as a serpent's, and under their lips is the poison of vipers. Let not the slanderer be established in the land; let evil hunt down the violent ones speedily!
The psalmist affirms:
I know that God maintains the cause of the afflicted and executes justice for the needy. Surely the righteous shall give thanks to your name: the upright shall dwell in your presence. Psalm 140: 1-3, 11-13
Open Hands 19
RESOURCES
Coming Out Stories. Edited by Penelope Stanley and
Susan 1. Wolfe; foreword by Adrienne Rich. Watertown,
Mass.: Persephone Press, 1980.
Reviewed by Judy Matthews-Taylor
This book is a richly woven tapestry of the "coming out" stories of lesbian women. The stories are each individual and unique, yet the commmon strand that runs throughout is the same: the progress toward self-acceptance in spite of culture, like a giant billboard, that says you are sick, you are dirty, you are evil.
The collection is important to lesbian/gay culture for several reasons. As Adrienne Rich states in the Foreword, one very important reason is that these stories, throughout most of history, have been ignored, destroyed, told as isolated accounts, or not told at all.
The stories describe well the many different ways of "coming out" and remind readers of an important truth: coming out is a never-ending process for a lesbian (or a gay man) in our society. New situations always develop, new people are present, and always the pervasive larger culture is at work either assuming a person is heterosexual or labelling one with such terms as dyke and leaving the rest of the person out of the assessment. Coming out gets easier with practice, with age, with greater self-acceptance, and with a loving community. But it isn't something that is done once, with everything settled from that point on.
This book reminds us all that acceptance of one's sexuality is central to spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being. Over and over, the stories communicate the pain of the years of denial, the repeated attempts of a woman to relate to men sexually or to see oneself as bisexual. Then, it communicates the joy, the sense of having a great burden lifted, when a woman can acknowlege, "I am a lesbian.~
The great importance of community is a theme throughout the book. Many of the stories contain, often as a closing point, the overwhelming sense of joy in finding "home~ for the first time in women's community-in working with, growing beside, loving other women in a way that includes sexual bonding but is something larger as well. Coming Out Ston'es is a good reminder of how much people need each other, not only as partners, lovers, and spouses, but as friends and community members as well.
All is not glowing accounts of having come out, finding home, and living happily ever after. Other truths are told as well: reminders that lesbians have used and hurt men along the way, that role-playing still goes on despite intellectual awareness and greater freedoms, that relationships are not magically good but require patience, commitment, and hard work to last-and that they often end, sometimes very painfully.
As Adrienne Rich says in the foreword, these stories "are incomplete; some of the truths we need are not here. The telling must go on." What of the stories of lesbians who find "home" in communities that include men and the freedom that can be found there when compulsory heterosexuality is removed and women and men and are freed to relate as friends and equals? What of stories of those who stay in, or have come back to, the institutional church to love it and do battle with it? The telling must go on, and the ways of telling must evolve. But, thankfully, this wonderfully vibrant, life-filled guidebook is here to lead the way. 0
Judy Matthews-Taylor is a member of Edgehill UMC, a Reconciling Congregation in Nashville, Tennessee.
20 Open Hands
The Homosexualization of America, the Americanization of the Homosexual. By Dennis Altman. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982.
Reviewed by Steve Webster
One begins to feel old when the histories of the times one has lived through seem outdated. Dennis Altman's book, The Homosexualization of America, copyrighted in 1982, was written before Altman was conscious of AIDS and its eventual impact on the lesbian/gay movement. Still, much of the fun of reading Altman's book is to join the author in reflecting on where gay men and lesbians have come from and where they are going. Though AIDS continues to exact a horrible toll, I came away from Altman's book sensing that the movement has continued to grow and mature since this book was published.
Though Altman repeatedly demonstrates an impressive familiarity with the long (indeed ancient!) history of lesbians and gay men, his main focus is on the dozen years from the Stonewall riots of 1969 to the early 1980s. Altman, who frequently reminds the reader of his interest in Marxism and Freudianism, is particularly nostalgic for the early '70s and the more idealistic and politically radical roots of the lesbian/gay movement. The revolution Altman had hoped for in the early '70s was not the revolution that had come in the early '80s!
The meaning of Altman's lengthy title is that America has become "homosexualized," while homosexuals have been "Americanized." America (by which Altman means the United States) has been profoundly influenced by the lesbian/gay movement. Lesbians and gay men have contributed to language, art, style, and social organization. On the other hand, American culture has shaped the lesbian/gay movement not only in the United States but worldwide, as the Australian and worldtraveling Altman is well qualified to observe. This "Americanization" has resulted in the extreme commercialization of the homosexual (especially gay male) community. Between 1970 and 1980, the gay male market was discovered by all sorts of businesses. In fact, the most significant meeting places in the gay community have been commercial establishments-gay bars and bathhouses. The more positive aspect of the Americanization of the lesbian/gay movement is its eventual rooting in the Western liberal democratic tradition of respect for individual privacy, individual differences, and the rights of minorities to protection from tyranny and bigotry.
In one chapter entitled "Sexual Freedom and the End of Romance," Altman takes up the issue of promiscuity. With no reference to AIDS, this is the most dated chapter in the book. Thought Altman does not celebrate gay male promiscuity as have some writers in the past, he does treat promiscuity as another social trend invented by gay men. In doing so, Altman neglects the rise of Hugh Hefner's "Playboy philosophy" in the 1950s and the "sexual revolution" of the '60s which predated the rise of the gay/ lesbian movement in the early '70s.
While Altman notes the importance in 1982 of bars and bathhouses as social institutions in the gay community, he also observes that "the closest there is to a grassroots national organization is the network provided by the religious groups" in the lesbian/gay community. In the five years since the appearance of Altman's book, this has become even more true. 0
Steve Webster is a member ofUniversity UMC, a Reconciling Congregation in Madison, Wisconsin.
RESOU R CES
Coming Out Right: A Handbook for the Gay Male.
By Wes Muchmore and William Hanson. Boston: Alyson Publications, 1982.
Reviewed by Ron Gebhardtsbauer
W ritten in the 1980s, this book purports to help gay men come out and learn about the institutions ofgay life. However, it has two major problems: (1) it is already quite out-of-date due to AIDS, and (2) it is very negative about gay life.
Chapter I is entitled "Coming Out." The authors reminded me of my fears when they wrote that many gay men coming out worry that they will change radically, closing a door on all the possibilities that they once had. This is laid to rest when the authors rightfully say, "You [a gay man] won't start talking in a lisp, hating females, losing your morality, go wild over lavender, or lust for boys." I now find it very humorous that I had these fears, but they were very real to me at the time.
The writers go on to say that coming out is an "extremely difficult time and not pleasant." I strongly disagreed with those assertions, as my year ofcoming out was one of the best in my life. I was saddened by the possibility that the book might scare readers back into the closet or into suicidal thoughts. This negative attitude continued as the book counseled against coming out to family, mentioning tired old rules such as "Don't tell a parent with a heart condition."
The book talks about the gay bar, "the dominant social institution for homosexual men," and tells readers to "wear snugly fitting pants" and what signals to use to pick up a man in front of his lover. I found the seeming encouragement of dishonesty and absence of morality distasteful.
The chapter entitled "The Gay Baths" tells one what to expect and how to act there. In the midst of much I felt was negative, I found it refreshing when the authors encouraged readers to feel good about themselves and to say no when they find themselves in something they'd rather not participate in.
The book goes on to talk about "First Experience" and "First Love," mentioning all the things the authors felt a gay male should worry about. Their suggestions contrasted sharply with my own experiences, which were some of the best moments in my life. The authors did have an interesting point when they said that one's earliest erotic experiences have an imprinting effect, creating the desire to repeat the first experience again and again. That's why it is good to start out healthy.
The ensuing chapters deal with 'The Older Gay Man" and 'The Gay Minorities" (in this case, meaning those into sadism and masochism, transvestism, effeminate men, and boy lovers) in a fairly negative way. When covering such other topics as employment, medical problems, recreational drug use, police, friends, roommates, lovers, looking ahead, gay men and professionals, and gay life good and bad, a more positive outlook is taken.
The final chapter considers some of the positive aspects of being a gay man. Gay men, for example, are liberated to be who they really are and commonly are not frightened about sex as are many nongay men. In addition, if gay men come out, they will probably have better, supportive friends that will help out in times of need. They need not be alone.
In summary, this book did not go far enough in emphasizing the positive, life-giving dimensions of being a gay man in the
R on Gebhardtsbauer is a member ofChrist UMC, a Reconciling Congregation in Washington, D.C.
world today. Coming out has helped me to see society's injustices more clearly and to understand the effects of discrimination and thus identify with other oppressed groups. It has helped me to realize the importance and power of love, strengthened my faith, and brought me closer to God. In coming out, I understand myself better, and have purpose and renewed strength in my life to fight for what I believe in-human rights and equality. D
Sex and Germs: The Politics ofAIDS
By Cindy Patton. Boston: South End Press, 1985.
Reviewed by Roger Kruse
The emergence of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) as the planet's greatest health crisis since the Plague swept the western world has been an important, albeit unwelcome, catalyst among the gay!lesbian community to revisit the many elements of its culture. Among those elements that Cindy Patton explores in Sex and Genns: The Politics ofAIDS are the divisions that have prohibited a unified response to the disease. Those divisions, Patton asserts, "rest on unresolved political questions, not the least ofwhich are the relationships between sex and sexual liberation, between sexual liberation and other areas of liberation.~
What the AIDS crisis has provided for the gay/lesbian community is the opportunity to assert its culture by, as Patton relates, "fusing traditional civil rights and legal activism with the anarchic contradictory style of agit prop designed to subvert social restrictions." Patton explains how lessons that have been learned from other organizing experiences can be translated into effective mobilization to address AIDS and its related challenges.
Patton recognizes the popular homophobic responses to AIDS and the related attempts to explain and understand AIDS from a scientific perspective. But she quickly moves beyond the mass media pulp and addresses the other mentalities that have resulted in a less-than-enthusiastic national response to AIDS.
Addressing the germophobia that accompanies AIDS, Patton reminds readers that "a peculiar and scientifically incorrect cultural concept has emerged: the world is divided into us and germs." Not so. But Patton's analysis makes the reader confront the reality that has permitted government and health officials to evade the real issues surrounding AIDS.
Based in large part on her own experiences as an AIDS organizer, Sex and Genns provides readers with an in-depth exploration of the many cultural aspects within the gay/lesbian community that have been affected and that will be forever perceived in a different light as a result of AIDS.
AIDS has, in fact, both challenged and threatened the gay/ lesbian community. How gay men and lesbians can respond to those challenges and threats causes Patton well-founded concern. AIDS organizing, Patton writes, "brings the best of gay and lesbian organizing together with some of the movement's obstacles; the quality and direction of AIDS organizing promises to exert a major influence on the lesbian and gay community for years."
Sex and Genns: The Politics of AIDS draws together key segments of gay/lesbian culture, discusses how those segments have been challenged, and then provides a clear-cut analysis of elements of the gay!lesbian community that have been most directly threatened by AIDS and the character ofthe community's response to that cultural challenge. D
Roger Kruse lives in Mesa, Arizona and is a member ofthe Coordinating Committee ofAffirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian/Gay Concerns.
Open Hands 21
~t-~_ R_CP R_EPOR_T___
New Reconciling Congregations
We celebrate the decisions of three more UM churches to become Reconciling Congregations, bringing the total number to 25. Here's a brief introduction to the new Reconciling Congregations:
Trinity UMC (San Francisco)
Trinity UMC celebrated its 100th birthday in 1986. Five years ago, the church building burned. Since that time, Trinity has been using the facilities of St. Francis Lutheran Church. The congregation is currently working towards a new building.
Trinity has a membership of about 200. The membership is about one-third gay/lesbian and includes a wide variety of ethnic and cultural groups, though there are few children. Eight years ago, Trinity first declared its acceptance of lesbians and gay men.
The church has two worship services and a mid-week potluck and discussion. The congregation is community-oriented and is currently working with other congregations in the areas of AIDS ministries (direct services and a meals program for AIDS patients), ministry to the homeless, and drug counseling.
Albany UMC (Albany, California)
Albany UMC may seem to be a community unlikely to become a Reconciling Congregation. Although located next to Berkeley, Albany is a more conservative town with small, older homes built in the early 1900s for blue collar-workers.
The oldest church in town, dating from 1908, Albany UMC presently has about 150 members, primarily older persons. Since another nearby congregation has a large program for families, Albany focuses on ministries for single persons.
The congregation is moving forward from a "survival mentality." It has an active peace and justice commission and is establishing ties with the Evangelical Methodist Church
22 Open Hands
of Bolivia. The church building is used continuously by many community groups and is also home to a Korean Christian Reformed congregation.
The process ofbecoming a Reconciling Congregation was precipitated by the pastor talking openly about her gay son and by welcoming a gay male couple into the congregation.
St. Paul's UMC (Vacaville, California)
St. Paul's UMC (located midway between Sacramento and San Francisco) is a local church with a strong commitment to social issues. The church was formed in 1959 and has a total of 125 members.
The membership includes both young and old with a small number of ethnic members. The congregation is committed to feminist ministry and racial inclusiveness.
A weekly Bible study is a crucial basis for the justice witness of the congregation. Ministries include peace advocacy (the church is located near Travis Air Force base), work with the county National Organization for Women chapter, and the nuclear freeze. The church has a strong lay leadership which is involved in the shaping of the worship liturgy.
Several gay men and lesbians are active in the congregation. The process of becoming a Reconciling Congregation was a loving one. The congregation decided that joining the program was the only natural, honest, Bnd loving thing to do.
Two New Reconciling
Conferences
T wo annual conferences of the UMC voted early this summer to become Reconciling Conferences. Troy (eastern New York state) and California-Nevada annual conferences affirmed the full participation of lesbians and gay men in the life oftheir annual conferences. Northern Illinois, which was the first Reconciling Conference, defeated efforts to rescind its "reconciling" decision made a year ago.
The New York Annual Conference recommended the Reconciling Congregation Program to all its local churches.
Related to the UM General Conference (to be held in St. Louis in May 1988), a few annual conferences proposed changes in UM church law which would be more affirming of lesbians and gay men. However, at least 18 annual conferences asked that the negative language about homosexuality in the Book of Discipline be maintained.
Related to AIDS ministries, many annual conferences called on the church, nationally and locally, to be more active in service and ministry to persons with AIDS.
The above information was reported in the UM publication, Newscope. The text of some of these resolutions and more analysis of annual conference actions will be included in our next issue.
Affirmation Invites Membership
Ifyou are not yet a member ofAffirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian/Gay Concerns, you are invited to join this community. Affirmation is a churchwide, inclusive community of lesbians and gay men, bisexual and heterosexual persons who affirm the presence of all persons, regardless of affectionallsexual orientation, in the United Methodist Church.
In addition to national gatherings held each spring and fall, Affirmation is active in many local or regional areas. The programs of local Affirmation groups vary but often include worship, education, social activities, or advocacy.
You can join Affirmation nationally and receive the organization's newsletter by one of four means: 1) Send $20 ($10 for students/persons
on fixed incomes) annual membership. 2) Register for and attend one of the
___R_CPR_EPOR_T-J~~ig
semiannual national meetings. 3) Participate in Affirmation activities in your local community. 4) Request to be a member unable to
make a financial commitment at
this time.
Your request to join Affirmation or to find out more about Affirmation activities in your area should be sent to:
Affirmation
P.O. Box 1021
Evanston, IL 60204
The next national meeting of Affirmation will be September 18-20 in St. Louis. The program will be "Talking about Sex-Meaning and Heali ng."
RCP Video Shown in 12 Cities
A new videotape, roughly edited from film shot at the Reconciling Congregation Program (RCP) convocation in March, has been previewed in 12 cities this spring and early summer. The video portrays personal stories from members of three different Reconciling Congregations and a montage of images and statements from the convocation.
Response to this initial fil m product has been very positive. About 250 persons viewed the video in these 12 cities. Pledges and contributions of over $6,000.00 were given to support the video project and other work of the RCP.
Viewers-clergy and lay, United Methodist and other denominations, gay/lesbian and straight-were moved by the dramatic and emotional impact of the stories portrayed. The film presents how the struggle to affirm the church's ministry with lesbians and gay men has deeply affected individual and congregational lives.
With the funds raised and feedback received in these screenings, the video will be further edited for availability in September. We recommend the video as a vehicle to invite friends and colleagues to become part of the reconciling movement and to support the RCP with their financial and other resources.
If you would be interested in arranging a viewing of the video in your community this fall or winter, write to the RCP, P.O. Box 24213, Nashville, TN 37202.
National March for
Lesbian/Gay Rights
M omentum is building across the nation for the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights on Sunday, October 11, 1987. Sponsored by a large coalition of lesbian/gay and other social justice organizations, the march will bring thousands of supporters of lesbian/ gay rights to Washington, D.C. that weekend.
In addition to the march, many other activities are being planned during the weekend: a national lobbying effort with members of Congress, a concert by lesbian/gay bands from across the country, unveiling of a large quilt with the name of persons who have died from AIDS, and "The Wedding," a nonsectarian union ceremony celebrating the relationships of hundreds or thousands of same-sex couples.
For more information on the march or to find out plans for your community's participation in the march, contact:
National March on Washington
P.O. Box 7781
Washington, DC 20044
202/783-1828
Mid-Atlantic Affirmation and Reconciling Congregations in the
D.C. area will offer limited housing for Affirmation or Reconciling Congregations members who are coming to the march. For more information on such housing contact: March Committee, Mid-Atlantic Affirmation, P.O. Box 23636, Washington, DC 20026 or call Bradley Rymph at 202/554-9507. Mid-Atlantic Affirmation will be hosting a special worship service and dinner following the march and rally that Sunday.
Back Issues of Open Hands
O pen Hands is an excellent resource for individual or group study on lesbian/gay concerns within the church. Back issues can be ordered for $4.00 each ($3.00 for orders of 10 or more) from Open Hands, P.O. Box 23636, Washington, DC 20026.
Themes of previous issues are: -Be Ye Reconciled (Summer 1985) -Living & Dying with AIDS (Fall
1985)-no longer available
-A Matter of Justice (Winter 1986) -Our Families (Spring 1986) -Our Churches' Policies (Summer
1986) -Images of Healing (Fall 1986) -Homophobia and the Church
(Winter 1987) -Minorities within a Minority (Spring 1987)
Our Interdenominational
Movement
The Reconciling Congregation Program is only one part of a larger, interdenominational movement of local churches who publicly welcome the full participation of lesbians and gay men. Over 100 congregations in the United Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and United Church of Christ denominations are part of this movement.
As a resource to congregations and individuals in ministry with lesbians and gay men, we offer a list of all the More Light (Presbyterian), Reconciled in Christ (Lutheran), Open and Affirming (United Church of Christ), and Reconciling Congregations. We also list the contact person for each denominational program for anyone who would like to get more information on a particular program.
More Light Churches (Presbyterian)
NATIONAL COORDINATOR:
Shirley Hinkamp 376 Baltic Street Brooklyn, NY 11201
Church of the Covenant Christ Church Presbyterian
67 Newbury Street Red Stone Campus Boston, MA 02116 Burlington, VT 05401
(continued)
Open Hands 23
Rep REPORT
More Light Churches (continued)
First Presbyterian
& Trinity Church 111 Irvington Avenue South Orange, NJ 07079
Prospect Steet
Presbyterian Church
2 Prospect Street
Trenton, NJ 08618
Good Shepherd-Faith
Presbyterian Church
152 W. 66th Street
New York, NY 10023
West-Park Presbyterian
Church
165 W. 86th Street
New York, NY 10024
lafayette Avenue
Presbyterian Church
85 S. Oxford Street
Brooklyn, NY 1121 7
South Presbyterian
Church
343 Broadway
Dobbs Ferry, NY 10522
Old South Haven Presbyterian Church
South Country Road,
P.O. Box 203 Brookhaven, NY 11 719
Westminster Presbyterian Church
724 Delaware Avenue
Buffalo, NY 14222
North Presbyterian
Church
90 Lewis Street
Geneva, NY 14456
John Calvin Presbyterian Church
50 Ward Hill Road
Henrietta, NY 14467
Third Presbyterian Church
4 M eigs Street
Rochester, NY 14607
Downtown Presbyterian Church
121 N. Fitzhugh Street Rochester, NY 14614
Calvary St. Andrews Parish
68 Ashland Street Rochester, NY 14620
Westminster Presbyterian Church
400 I Street, SW Washington, DC 20024
Rockville Presbyterian Church
215 W . Montgomery Avenue Rockville, MD 20850
First & Franklin Presbyterian Church
210 Madison St. Baltimore, M D 21201
Waverly Presbyterian
Church
Old York Road at 34th
Street
Baltimore, MD 21218
Central Presbyterian
Church
318 W. Kentucky Street
Louisville, KY 40203
Northside Presbyterian
Church
1679 Broadway
Ann Arbor, MI 48105
Lincoln Park Presbyterian Church
600 W. Fullerton Parkway
Chicago, IL 60614
McKinley Memorial
Presbyterian Church
809 S. 5th Street
Champaign, IL 61820
Bethany Presbyterian
Church
4523 Cedar Springs
Dallas, TX 75219
United University
Presbyterian Church
817 W. 34th Street
Los An geles, CA 90007
West Hollywood Presbyterian Church
7350 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90046
Noe Valley Ministry
1021 Sanchez Street
San Francisco, CA 94114
Seventh Avenue Presbyterian Church
1329 7th Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94122
First Presbyterian Church
1140 Cowper Street
Palo Alto, CA 94301
Covenant Presbyterian Church
670 E. Meadow Drive
Palo Alto, CA 94306
Westminster Presbyterian Church
240 Tiburon Blvd.
Tiburon, CA 94920
First Presbyterian Church
P.O. Box 236 Sausalito, CA 94965
St. Andrews Presbyterian Church
Drake & Donahue Avenues Marin City, CA 94965
Terrace View Presbyterian Church
4700 228th Street, SW Mountlake Terrace, WA 98043
Reconciled in Christ (Lutheran)
NATIONAL COORDINATOR:
Rose Smith
12602 Park Street
Cerritos, CA 90701
Mt. Olivet Lutheran Community of Christ Church Lutheran Church
Prospect at Spring Street 1812 Monroe Street, NW Shrewsbury, MA 01545 Washington, DC 20010
24 Open Hands
St. Mark's Lutheran
Church
1900 St. Paul Street
Baltimore, MD 21218
St. Timothy Lutheran
Church
P.O. Box 17552 Tampa, FL 33682
Village Church
130 E. Juneau Avenue
Milwaukee, WI 53202
St. Paul-Reformation
Lutheran Church
100 N. Oxford Street
St. Paul, MN 55104
Holy Trinity Lutheran
Church
2730 E. 31 st Street
Minneapolis, MN 55406
Our Savior's Lutheran Church
2639 Thomas Avenue North Minneapolis, MN 55411
Grace University Lutheran Church
Harvard & Delaware Streets, SE Minneapolis, MN 55414
Lutheran Campus
Ministry/Minneapolis
31 7 17th Avenue, SE Minneapo lis, MN 55414
Edina Community Lutheran Church
41 13 W . 54th Street
Edina, MN 55424
The Community of st. Martin
2001 Riverside Avenue Minneapolis, MN 55454
Lutheran Campus Ministry
St. Cloud State University 201 4th Street S. St. Cloud, MN 56301
Christ the Mediator Lutheran Church
3100 S. Calumet Chicago, IL 60615
Maywood House Church
2219 N. Spaulding Chicago, IL 60647
Resurrection Lutheran Church
3301 N. Seminary Street Chicago, IL 60657
St. Thomas University
lutheran Chapel
805 S. Shields
Fort Collins, CO 80521
Lutheran Church of the
Redeemer
13330 Riverside Drive
Sherman Oaks, CA 91423
St. Matthew's lutheran
Church
11031 Camarillo Street
N. Ho llywood, CA 91602
St. John's lutheran Church
584 E. Fremont
Sunnyvale, CA 94087
St. Paulus Lutheran Church
888 Turk Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
St. Mark's lutheran
Church
1101 O 'Farrell Street
San Francisco, CA 94109
St. Francis Lutheran
Church
152 Church Street
San Francisco, CA 94114
Christ Church Lutheran
1090 Quintara Street
San Francisco, CA 94116
First United Lutheran
Church
6555 Geary Blvd.
San Francisco, CA 94121
University Lutheran Church
1611 Stanford Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94036
St. Paul's Lutheran Church
1658 Excelsior Avenue
Oakland, CA 94602
Lutheran Peace Fellowship
4100 Mountain Blvd.
Oakland, CA 94619
University Lutheran Chapel
2425 College Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704
Christ the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
1550 M eridian Road San Jose, CA 95125
Fullness of God Lutheran Church
Holden Village Chelan, WA 98816
Open and Affirming
(United Church of Christ)
NATIONAL COORDINATOR:
Ann Day
P.O. Box 403
Holden, MA 01520
First Congregation Riverside Salem Church
Church, UCC Box 207 165 Main Street Grand Island, NY 14072 Amherst, MA 01002
Church of the Covenant Amherst Community
67 Newbury Street
Church
Boston, MA 02116 77 Washington Highway
Church of the United
Snyder, NY 14226
Community
116 Roxbury Street Roxbury, MA 02119
First Congregational Riverside Church Church
490 Riverside Drive 945 G Street, NW New York, NY 10027 Washington, DC 20001
Grace United Church of Christ
3285 Cleveland-Massillon Road Norton, OH 44203
First Congregational Church of MN
500 8th Avenue, SE Minneapolis, MN 55414
Wellington Avenue UCC
615 Wellington Avenue Chi cago, IL 60657
Altadena Congregational Church
943 East Altadena Drive Altadena, CA 91001
La Mesa Community Church
230 Lighthouse Road Santa Barbara, CA 93109
First Congregational Church
Alameda, CA 94501
Peace United Church of Christ
777 Oakland Avenue Oakland, CA 94611
College Avenue Congregational Church
1341 College Avenue Modesto, CA 95350
Reconciling Congregations
Washington Square UMC
c/o Don Himpel
135 W . 4th Street
New York, NY 10012
Park Slope UMC
c/o Beth Bentley
6th Avenue & 8th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11 215
Calvary UMC
c/o Chip Coffman
815 S. 48th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19143
Dumbarton UMC
c/o Ann Thompson Cook 3133 Dumbarton Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20007
Christ UMC
c/o John Hannay
4th and I Streets, SW
Washington, DC 20024
St. John's UMC
c/o Howard Nash
2705 St. Paul Street
Baltimore, MD 21218
Grant Park-Aldersgate UMC
c/o Sally Daniel
575 Boulevard, SE Atlanta, GA 30312
Edgehill UMC
c/o Hoyt Hickman
1502 Edgehill Avenue
Nashville, TN 37212
Central UMC
c/o Chuck Larson 701 W. Central at Scottwood Toledo, OH 43610
University UMC
1127 University Avenue c/o Steve Webster Madison, WI 53715
Wesley UMC
c/o Tim Tennant-Jayne Marquette at Grant Streets Minneapolis, MN 55403
Wheadon UMC
c/o Carol Larson
2212 Rid ge Avenue Evanston, I L 60201
Albany Park UMC
c/o Ted Luis, Sr. 31 00 W . Wilson Avenue Chicago, IL 60625
Irving Park UMC
c/o David Foster 3801 N. Keeler Avenue Chicago, IL 60641
Kairos UMC
c/o Richard Vogel 6015 M cGee Kansas City, M O 641 13
St. Paul's UMC
c/o George Christie 1615 Ogden Street Denver, CO 80218
Wesley UMC
c/o Patty Orlando 1343 E. Barstow Avenue Fresno, CA 93710
Bethany UMC
c/o Kim Smith 1268 Sanchez Street San Francisco, CA 94114
Trinity UMC
c/o Arron Auger 152 Church Street San Francisco, CA 94122
Albany UMC
c/o Jim Scurlock 980 Stannage Albany, CA 94706
Trinity UMC
c/o Elli Norris 23 20 Dana Street Berkeley, CA 94704
Sunnyhills UMC
c/o Cliveden Chew Haas 335 Dixon Road Milpitas, CA 95035
St. Paul's UMC
c/o Dianne L. Grimard 101 West Street Vacaville, CA 95688
Wallingford UMC
c/o Chuck Richards 2115 N. 42nd Street Seattle, WA 98103
Capitol Hill UMC
c/o Mary Dougherty 128 Sixteenth Street East Seattle, WA 98112
Reconciling Conferences
California-Nevada Troy (eastern New York Northern Illinois
state)