Bert Marro

BERT MARRO
Park Slope UMC
Brooklyn, NY

I am amazed at how much of a nonissue one's sexual orientation can sometimes be at PSUMC.  The congregation seems so much like a family that very often issues of health, parents, jobs, and current events displace talk of sexuality.  But if I ask for prayers for my life partner, Herb, people know him and join me in praying for him.

We have openly gay and lesbian members in the choir, on family retreats, and teaching Sunday School.  I am presently the chair of the Church Council, a member of the Finance committee, in the Choir, the Men's Support Group, and on the Reconciling Committee.  We have straight members on the Reconciling Committee, marching in Gay Pride parades, joining us at dances, and sharing the pain we all feel at the position the UMC takes on inclusiveness.

I am most amazed by our children:  Chris and John's son asking friends to leave his house because they were denigrating lesbians; Judy and Michael's son standing up for a classmate who was being teased for appearing gay, defending him with a wisdom beyond his age, saying "It's not being gay that's wrong, it's homophobia that's wrong."

I feel the presence of the Spirit in our congregation, and I hear it in the voices of our children.  If only all the members of our denomination could be like these children!

This is one of thirty one stoles from Park Slope United Methodist Church included in a display of UM stoles at the 2000 General Conference of the UMC in Cleveland.  All are made from identically sized pieces in turquoise, lavender and purple cotton batik,  With only 200 members, Park Slope has donated the largest number of stoles to the collection from a single United Methodist congregation. 

A diverse community, Park Slope's creed is: Hand in hand, we the people of the Park Slope United Methodist Church -- black and white, straight and gay, old and young, rich and poor -- unite as a loving community, in covenant with God and the Creation. Summoned by our faith in Jesus Christ, we commit ourselves to the humanization of urban life and to physical and spiritual growth.  A scrappy congregation utterly committed to putting their faith into action, Park Slope has been unrelenting in its pursuit of justice for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the UMC.

Bert's description of Park Slope is, in a sense, an image of what LGBT folk pray the whole church will be like some day -- a place where one's sexual orientation and gender identity are no longer an issue, where all families are welcome, and everyone works side by side in service to God.  May that day come soon!

In 1999, the Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN) inquired about the possibility of having a display of the Shower of Stoles at the General Conference the following April.  At the time, there were only around twenty United Methodist stoles in the collection.  We decided to introduce the Shower of Stoles to the Reconciling community by bringing the twenty UM stoles and about a hundred others to RMN’s Convocation in Denton, TX over the Labor Day weekend.  Stoles started to trickle in during the fall, and by February they began coming in droves.  In all, we received 220 United Methodist stoles – the vast majority of them arriving within eight weeks of the Conference.  Thanks to a monumental effort by a number of volunteers who pitched in to help record, inventory, sew labels and make last-minute repairs, all of the new stoles were present in Cleveland.  Twenty more people brought stoles directly to Cleveland, bringing the total number on display to 240.

 Towards the end of the General Conference, twenty eight lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender United Methodists and allies stood on the Conference floor in silent protest over the Conference’s failure to overturn the ban on LGBT ordination – a profound witness and act of defiance for which they were later arrested.  As these twenty eight moved to the front of the room, another 200 supporters stood up around the balcony railing, each wearing one of the new United Methodist stoles.  Hundreds more stood in solidarity as well, in the balcony and on the plenary floor, wearing symbolic “stoles” made from colorful bands of cloth.  A group of young people from Minneapolis, members of a Communicant’s Class, had purchased bolts of cloth the preceding evening and stayed up all night cutting out close to a thousand of these “stoles”.  In less than eight months, a handful of stoles had grown to become a powerful, visible witness to the steadfast faith of LGBT United Methodists nationwide.

 Martha Juillerat

Founder, Shower of Stoles Project

2006