69 20 2500 https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/7a06686632e0bb8e76029c21300c713a.pdf dc9d99636d806d36dc10472d27862b18 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Page 1: The general membership meeting of the Council on Religion and the Homosexual was called to order at 7:55 p.m. by Don Lucas, acting chairman, on January 5, 1965 at Glide Fellowship Hall. Acceptance of the by-laws presented by the attorneys and Board of Trustees was moved by Canon Robert Cromey and seconded by Rev. Cecil Williams. Rev. John Moore moved to make provision for monthly meetings, since the by-laws provided only for an annual membership meeting. Correction to be made to Section IV, No. 3, "There will be made monthly meetings of the membership." It was pointed out that the idea was that an active member must be on a Committee and that monthly meetings would be needed for committee reports. It was further pointed out that the purpose of the Council is to keep the dialogue flowing and that this will entail many small meetings. There must be an open-endedness for meetings - a structure not too rigid. Rev. More pointed out that the success of the organizations depends on a police of participation to keep everyone interested. Rev. Williams said everyone should go through an orientation group and that the dialogue must be consistent in groups on significant issues. A new motion was suggested that there should be at least six meetings of the entire membership per year. Rev. Laird Sutton asked how this would come about - if there is enough interest the Board may be petitioned to hold a meeting. Members will be notified of meetings by mail. Rev. Moore and Miss Leon agreed to the amendment to the motion. All but one voted aye. Rev. Lew Durham moved that the fourth line of Section 13 on page 3 of the by-laws should read "shall be given to all members of the corporation" rather than "board". This was carried unanimously. Rev. Sutton asked if Board meetings would be open to the membership. They will be closed unless otherwise stated at the discretion of the Board. Bill Plath moved, and Rev. Cromey seconded, to change "secretary" to "treasurer" on page 3, 4th line of the second paragraph. Carried unanimously. Rev. Chuck Lewis moved that Section II, paragraph 3, be changed to read "terms shall expire at the first meeting of each calendar year". Carried unanimously. Rev. Lewis moved, Bill Plath seconded, the same change in the last sentence of Paragraph 3, Section II. Hal Call moved an enabling motion to let a committee of the Board change the by-laws where necessary to conform to the previous change. Rev. Neale Secor and Rev. Williams seconded. Carried unanimously. Question was called to vote on by-laws as amended. Carried unanimously. Mr. Lucas said that members owuld receive a copy of the amended by-laws. Rev. Moore announced a series of sermons he plans on the ethics of sex and everyone was asked to attend to show our support. Many from Rev. Moore's congregation may not come, but he added they may come out of curiosity. Rev. Dick Whitman said there is a need to look at the proble in light of theological expression. He was asked to submit his ideas in writing to the Board. Page 2: Canon Cromey announced he and Don Lucas will be on Dick Stewart's show, KGO-TV, January 8, at 1:30 p.m. with a follow-up program on January 11. Guy Strait will appear on KCBS radio on the Spectrum 74 show on January 6. The ACLU will also be on radio and a program will be taped for BBC. Don Lucas thanked the participating organizations and people for their help with the Ball - Gene Swartz, SIR, decorations; Darryl Glied and Bill Plath, Tavern Guild beverages and orchestras; DOB, hat check stand and selling tickets; Strait & Associates, taking pictures; the Coits, food. Mark Forrester made a plea for further activity to follow up the Ball, outline for which he distributed in mimeograph form. He said the Council should send a delegation to see Mayor Shelley, promote a letter campaign to the newspapers and the mayor, and sponsor another dance the last week of February. He also suggested reinstating the idea of a War Chest to solicit funds for legal defense. Mr. Lucas said he had discussed the idea of another ball the clergy and lawyers and they had voiced no objections. Ball May read some copies of sample letters being sent to may or Shelley. Rev. Williams stated that we must take steps relevant to the situation, protesting the police harassment of participants of the ball (whether public or private). It is timely that we engage in such activity. What we have gained in publicity will dissipate if we don't capture what is happening now. We have not yet had a strategy meeting to structure this. The church people don't know what to think or say. We must constantly plug at educative devices. Many people are simply not interested and write us off - homosexuals and ministers alike. People are afraid. These are the underlying forces. We should be sensitive to the mayor's statement. We have got to start anticipating, sense what the mood is. At the request of Bill Billings, Don Lucas gave a financial report on the ball. 529 people presented tickets and over 600 people attended altogether (including about 50 policemen). Close to 100 tickets were sold to persons who did not attend. There were 5 refunds to minors, since ID's were checked at the door. All the money is not in, but there was approximately $3000 in income and $1650 in expenses leaving a net income for the Council of $1350. Rev. Neale Secor Pointed out, during the ensuing debate of the pros and cons of a dance or a concert as possible means for raising funds for the Council, that the particular civil rights issue involved at the moment was whether or not the ball was a public or private affair. He reminded the membership that our attorneys had asked us to strike the word ticket from our vocabulary and substitute invitation. He suggested that other constitutional issues will not be pursued and that if we hold another dance the police will come and on a more magnified and intense scale. Bob Ross pointed out that 7 bar licenses were coming up right now, that there was fear by bar owners of police reprisals - many had been ordered to take down the signs advertising the ball and they had complied. Many bar owners feared putting up signs for the coming auctions sponsored by the Tavern Page 3: Guild. He doubted very much if the bars would support another ball - there really hadn't been the support expected for the last one. Rev. Lewis Durham pointed out that the ministers' wives were hopping mad, that this was their first experience with this sort of police intimidation. Other church people, however, were concerned that the Methodists were sponsoring a bar. Mr. Lucas summarized the discussion. Suggestions for raising funds were to hold a concert or a dance. Several other purposes would be involved: drawing together the homophile and the overall community at a concert or baiting the police department by having another ball. It was suggested that the concert should come first - to gather more people to the Council on all sides and gain community support for other tactics in the civil rights area. Mr. Forrester insisted we would be stepping down if we don't hold another ball right away, that we would be giving in to fear and intimidation, that we must confront police authority. Bill Beardemphl said he believed the gay bar owners need to make a commitment. SIR is planning to have a raffle to raise funds for the Council. If we renege, we will lose self respect. Canon Cromey moved that the matter be referred to the Board of Trustees and a report made to the next general membership meeting. Mr. McIlvenna asked for a show of hands of those in favor of another dance - overwhelming majority. The objectors pointed out it was too soon, a concert should come first and all legal channels exhausted first. SIR reported that a letter writing campaign had already begun - letters being sent to the mayor, chief of police, and the newspapers. They pointed out that people should also be calling radio stations that have telephone audience participation shows. They felt letters should also be sent to the big national magazines - Life, Look, and New Week. They also suggested the use of economic boycotts. We must take advantage of the present excitement. Canon Cromey revised his motion to read that the matter be referred to the Board of Trustees to form committees to handle immediate action projects and to work out the problems of having another ball. Mr. Forrester seconded. Motion passed unanimously. The next membership meeting was scheduled for January 19. Wayne pointed out that raffle donation receipts would be ready on Monday. While the raffle will be sponsored by SIR, the money is for the Council. Prizes will be color TV, polaroid camera, case of imported champagne. SIR will need to sell 1100 tickets to break even. The raffle will be on a three months basis. No receipts are to be sent through the mails. Rev. McIlvenna said he appreciated the support and the taking of chances of the community. A lot of attitudes in our society need to be changed, and it will take discretion and courage to accomplish it. The meeting was adjourned at 9:45 p.m. Del Martin Acting Secretary Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Minutes of CRH Membership Meeting on January 5, 1965 Description An account of the resource Phyllis Lyon & Del Martin Papers. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Repository: <a href="http://www.glbthistory.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GLBT Historical Society</a> https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/1fe6559beadb566165156213898d2b46.pdf 28c1b6c88fe4dc5462f858e51b4d4cf4 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Page 1: The general membership meeting of the Council on Religion and the Homosexual was called to order at 7:50 p.m. on June 15, 1965 by President Ted McIlvenna in the Glide Fellowship Hall. The minutes were read and corrected. The treasurer reported that the previous balance had been $1744.43 Income 295.05 Disbursed 744.08 Balance 1265.40 TV Rev. McIlvenna said that "CBS" Reports" will be coming out with a special on homosexuality this fall and that three hours of tape had been made on CRH. He also reported that he had met with the Chief of Chaplains and that it was expected that the problem of homosexuality and its treatment in the armed forces will be put on the agenda of the Chaplains meeting in Washington, D. C. this fall. Rev. McIlvenna indicated that the Air Force seemed to be more willing to deal with the problem that the Navy. Pres. McIlvenna also reported that CRH's request to the President's Committee on Equal Job Opportunity to participate in their June meeting had been refused on the grounds that this particular meeting was specifically on racial and ethnic problems. Rev. Cecil Williams said we should try to get in touch with members of the committee in an effort to get a dialogue started now. Larry Littlejohn reported that he did attend the meeting as a conferee and had brought up the subject in two work shops. He said he passed out 350 copies of a pamphlet (including one to Gov. Brown) and that there had been an item in the S.F. Chronicle. Rev. Colwell reported on the June l meeting in Los Angeles with ministers he thought would be responsive to our kinds of concern. The day long meeting included L.A. homophile representatives. Those there agreed to meet again to explore the idea of a Council further. Phyllis Leon said she had written to the three clergymen who had done the program on homosexuality on KRON's "Problems Please." Dean Bartlett asked to be kept advised of future CRH activities. Rabbi Fine referred CRH to the Board Rabbis. Monsignor Hurley did not reply. Rev. McIlvenna reported on the success of his appearance on "Might Call", a national telephone-in radio program. He said others on the CRH Board will probably appear on future programs. It was also reported that the Brief of Injustices was ready for printing. While the Board had wanted to hold the Brief for a timely release, it had been decided to go ahead and release it as soon as it is ready. Bob Walker said that $200 had been appropriated by the CRH Board as part of the New Years Ball legal defenses expense. George Hall reported that the Social Action Committee was engaging in a voter registration drive. Rev. Cecil Williams indicated the need for more dialogue with politicians, that they are more apt to listen the more they become aware of a homosexual voting bloc. Rev. Ted McIlvenna and Attorney Evander Smith cited a problem of police brutality recently brought to their attention. They outlined a program for dealing with such violations. Get badge number of police officer, get in touch with a clergyman immediately and have photos taken, get a doctor's certificate. Persons aware of police brutality cases were asked by Bob Walker to pass along whatever information they might have to the CRH Board so that it could be documented and proper action taken with municipal authorities. Rev. Paul Keppel said the Page 2: Legal Committee should handle .this project. Phyllis Leon pointed out that the CRH Board had already directed this committee to draw up a leaflet of instructions to be widely distributed amid the homophile community and to investigate the possibility of a 24-hour answering service which would have a list of doctors, photographers and legal resources. A proposal of a CRH picnic this summer met with lukewarm approval. Bob Koch moved, Paul. Keppel seconded that a letter be sent out to all cooperative organizations and that plans for a picnic be subject to their general reaction. Motion passed. Bill Woodson reported that the statement committee was busy writing and editing, that something had been written on three of the five sections of the pamphlet. He also suggested that the Legal Committtee might attempt to familiarize CRH members with proposed bills in the State legislature, that might require a letter writing campaign. Del Martin moved, Dorr Jones seconded that the Council join ACLU and Friends Committee on Legislation. Passed unanimously. The Theology Committee reported a change in name to Committee for Dialogue on Theology and the Homosexual. A conference in October with the faculty of the S.F. Theological Seminary has been planned. Phyllis Leon reported on public relations. Ramparts Magazine will devote a whole issue to homosexuality this fall. The Palo Alto Lutherans are planning field trips this summer to San Francisco to acquaint themselves with the homophile community. McGraw Hill Publishers have requested a book on the Church and Homosexuality. Rev. McIlvenna and/ or Rev. Don Kuhn will undertake the project. Look Magazine is also preparing a feature on homosexuality for early release. Bob Koch cited the need for volunteer typists to send out about 300 invitations to various S.F. churches to join CRH. Rev. Ted McIlvenna expressed the need for cantion in respect to researchers. He said we should require credentials and determine if a survey is valid or not. Above all, do not sign anything. Rev. McIlvenna said that "confidential" surveys being done in Los Angeles were open to question. The meeting was adjourned at 9:20 p.m. Del Martin Secretary Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Minutes of CRH Membership Meeting on June 15, 1965 Description An account of the resource Phyllis Lyon & Del Martin Papers. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Repository: <a href="http://www.glbthistory.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GLBT Historical Society</a> https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/6adcb7b0fa81c3857e51dc048e79eeeb.pdf 2a61ba292128aa62e84effca41690e9c Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Page 1: The general membership meeting of the Council on Religion and the Homosexual held May 4, 1965 in the Glide Memorial Church was called to order by Pres. Ted McIlvenna at 7:55 p.m. The minutes were read and approved. The treasurer reported a total income of $2294.21 and $550.18 in disbursements leaving a balance of $1744.43. Pres. McIlvenna reported that he still had not received a reply from the attorney general's office and he would send another letter. Evander Smith regretted to report the outcome of the New Year's Ball trial for the two boys arrested inside the ball room. He cited the concluding remark of Assistant District Attorney O'Brien placing the homophile community on trial as a determining factor in the guilty verdict. O'Brien said in effect that the jury by its verdict would determine the standard of conduct permitted of this type of persons in San Francisco. Asked why an appeal had not been filed, Mr. Smith pointed out that Judge Lazarus, while he denied two defense motions, did lean over backwards on admission of evidence so that there was no room for error and therefore nothing to appeal on. You can't appeal just because you disagree with the jury's verdict, he added. Don Lucas took over the meeting to receive committee reports. He asked all committee chairmen to keep Phyllis Leon at Glide Foundation informed of when and where their meetings are scheduled. Miss Leon announced that she was also coordinating a speakers bureau, that many engagements had already been filled and that after the CRH brochure comes off the press a letter of introduction will be sent to the various churches in the city informing them of Council activities and announcing that speakers are available. Ted McIlvenna reported on his travels. He met with air force officials in Alaska. The chief of chaplains was there and will take up the problem of the homosexual in the armed services at the next chaplains' meeting in Washington, D. C. Rev. McIlvenna also met with church men in New York, Nashville, etc. He found everywhere he went a great deal of interest in the Council and its activities. Rev. Ed Setchko reported that he had been successful in getting the clergy and members of the homophile community together in the "scared atmosphere" of Honolulu. A meeting has been set up for May 22nd with eight or nine clergymen and about 20 or 30 from the homophile community. Rev. Setchko also met with members of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Mattachine Society in Philadelphia to help them in their attempts to form a Council there. Pres. McIlvenna said he had received a letter asking for a cooperative program with the National Council of Churches. Rev. Canon Bob Cromey reported he had spoken before the mental health class at San Jose State College and to various women's groups in San Leandro, San Bruno and the YWCA. He said there was a committee working on Episcopal denominational backing of the Council and pointed out that even if there should be a nay vote, the mere consideration of the proposition is significant. Representatives of "CBS Reports" have spoken with Canon Cromey about CRH, and it is expected that another program will be released this fall on homosexuality. Canon Cromey also suggested members of CRH keep a watch on POW, a new Sunday KPIX program - he and Del Martin have taped a 10-minute interview for this program. Rev. Ted McIlvenna said he would be on "Night Call", a radio interview program with national hook-up on Thursday, May 6, 1965. Don Lucas reported on a meeting with Dr. Isadore Rubin, editor of Sexology magazine, Page 2: who has asked for an article on the Council from Rev. Clay Colwell and a possible editorial from CRH. He also reported that he and Rev. Fred Bird had represented the Council at a Jr. Chamber of Commerce committee meeting. Bob Koch said that the packet committee had made up materials for distribution during Rev. Cromey's San Jose State talk. He suggested that other speakers avail themselves of the services of his committee. Rev. Dick Wickman asked that the theology committee meet directly after the meeting to make future plans. Del Martin reported that the statement committee had completed an outline for the booklet and were now busy with the actual writing of it. Don Lucas reported on orientations committee sessions at U. C. in Berkeley. He said he had three good teams working and would be developing others. Rev. Neale Secor spoke in behalf of a San Francisco State College student who was seeking volunteers to fill out questionnaires for a survey on sexual labeling. Twenty questionnaires had already been distributed to heterosexual men and women, and there was need for homosexual volunteers. Rev. Cecil Williams asked that the Social Action committee meet directly after the meeting to set a date for a committee meeting. Del Martin reported that Vice President Hubert Humphrey had announced that a conference was to be held in San Francisco on June 10 at the Fairmont Hotel in conjunction with the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. Mrs. Martin suggested that a letter be written requesting that CRH be allowed to participate in the program. Rev. Paul Keppel asked what was the place in the church for the homosexual minister. Rev. Cromey said that the Episcopal committee will be dealing with this subject, that it is on the agenda. Rev. Williams said that the Church won't deal with it and that the Council will have to force the issue. A motion was made by Rodney Smith that a CRH newsletter be issued apprising members of a calendar of events including scheduled radio, TV programs, etc. Second by Stanley Wise. After much discussion of duplication of effort and usurping the prerogatives of the homophile organizations as well as mailing costs, the motion was withdrawn. Guy Strait moved and Bob Cromey seconded that the Council send a letter of commendation to KRON for the presentation on homosexuality on "Problems Please." Motion passed unanimously. Mr. Strait then moved the Council place classified ads in the S.F. Chronicle at the discretion of the Board of Trustees. Motion passed. The next meeting was set for June 15 in the Glide Fellowship Hall. The meeting was adjourned at 9:40 p.m. Del Martin Secretary Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Minutes of CRH Membership Meeting on May 4, 1965 Description An account of the resource Phyllis Lyon & Del Martin Papers. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Repository: <a href="http://www.glbthistory.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GLBT Historical Society</a> https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/e23a1b06b378c54a1034a0d5bf2d9b78.pdf 5d66740097d3eda21646257d3075f2da Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Meeting July 7, 1964 Council on Religion and the Homosexual Next Meeting: July 22nd. (details below) Discussion was held on the choice of name for this group. It was felt that the group should have a permanent name other than the Continuing Committee For The Consultation On The Church and The Homosexual. The name which was finally chosen, after many various suggestions, was "Council on Religion and the Homosexual." Since there were only two or three new Clergymen attending, it was felt that there would be no need to go into any type of orientation at this meeting. It was hoped that more of the Clergy would be able to attend the next meeting, at which time some orientation could be presented. It was also felt that rather than have such a large group (23 were in attendance) work on developing the goals for the Council, that a committee should be appointed to develop suggested aims and goals and bring them before the entire group at the next and future meetings. Committee on Goals & Purposes: Phyllis Lyon (chairman), Lewis Durham, Bill Plath, Herb Donaldson, Bill Billings. It was also suggested that a committee be set up to study and make recommendations on an orientation program for the Clergy. This committee was appointed as follows: Rev. Bill Anderson (chairman), Rev. Bill Black, Guy Strait, Del Martin, (Rev. Elmer Laursen) The problem of finances was discussed. However, it was felt that this matter should be discussed at length after the Council has established its goals, and has determined a budget that will be necessary to carry out these goals and projects. The only immediate need for finances being in preparing and mailing of notices of meetings, etc. This could be taken care of with small donations by those present. A collection of $8.74 was taken up. However, it was determined that since the Glide Foundation already has an account established for the Consultation (June 1 & 2), that this account could be used as a repository for donations for the Council. It was also felt that solicitation of funds for the Council should be made whenever feasible and possible. Following are the instructions to be given to anyone desiring to make a contribution to this project. Make check, M.O., etc. payable to "Glide Foundation." Be sure to note either on check or in cover letter that the contribution is for "The Council on Religion and the Homosexual." Address all such mail to: Rev. Mr. Lewis Durham, Glide Foundation, 330 Ellis Street, S.F., Calif., 94102 The next meeting of the Council will be held on Wednesday evening July 22nd, at the home of Mr. Bill Plath, 814 Grove Street, S.F. at 8:00pm. We hope to see as many of you present as can make it. Donald S. Lucas (co-chairman) DO 2-3799 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Minutes of Organizing Meeting on July 7, 1964 Description An account of the resource Donald S. Lucas Papers. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Repository: <a href="http://www.glbthistory.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GLBT Historical Society</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Shower of Stoles Description An account of the resource Items (stoles) for the Shower of Stoles exhibit Stole A stole in the Shower of Stoles exhibit Honoree The person honored by the creation of thestole. Miranda Keefe Stole Text MIRANDA KEEFE St. James Presbyterian Church Bellingham, Washington Miranda Meagan Keefe, a Transsexual woman, was born in 1954 as a male named Randy Keefe. Sunday School, choir, VBS and youth group at St. James Presbyterian in Bellingham, WA shaped her deepening faith in Christ until she felt called to ministry. She attended Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, served as Associate Pastor for youth at First Presbyterian in Prosser, WA, and then as Pastor at Naches Presbyterian Church in Naches, WA. In 1987 she surrendered her PCUSA ordination to pastor Christ Community Church, an ecumenical congregation in Bellingham. She transitioned to her current female gender in 1995, left the pastorate, and returned to St. James. She frequently teaches classes at St. James, preaches once or twice a year, and has served as Deacon. Miranda was married when she was in the male gender and had three sons. In 1991 she became a single parent raising her children with the help of her parents. In 2005 she finished studies at Western Washington University to earn a Masters in Psychology – Mental Health Counseling. She hopes to resume her PCUSA ordination in a validated ministry doing counseling. Denomination Presbyterian Church (USA) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1068 Title A name given to the resource Miranda Keefe Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Bellingham, Washington (USA) Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource St. James Presbyterian Church Keefe, Miranda Meagan Ordination Presbyterian Presbyterian Church (USA) Washington https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/c55238c37bdfc74ea4e221a0b682b4a8.jpg 695c5e7a6e6ca810efffd93134453909 Person An individual. Text Any textual data included in the document Miss Major Griffin-Gracy is a formerly incarcerated Black transgender elder and activist who has been fighting for the rights of trans women of color for over 40 years. Miss Major is a veteran of the Stonewall Rebellion and a survivor of Attica State Prison, a former sex worker, an elder, and a community leader and human rights activist. She is simply “Mama” to many in her community. Her personal story and activism for transgender civil rights intersects LGBT struggles for justice and equality from the 1960s to today. At the center of her activism is her fierce advocacy for her girls, trans women of color who have survived police brutality and incarceration in men’s jails and prisons. Miss Major is formerly the long-time executive director of the San Francisco-based Transgender Gender-Variant Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP), which advocates for trans women of color in and outside of prison. She is also the subject of a new documentary feature film currently showing around the country, MAJOR! (This biographical statement provided by Miss Major’s agent, Toshio Meronek.) Biographical Text Miss Major Griffin-Gracy is a formerly incarcerated Black transgender elder and activist who has been fighting for the rights of trans women of color for over 40 years. Miss Major is a veteran of the Stonewall Rebellion and a survivor of Attica State Prison, a former sex worker, an elder, and a community leader and human rights activist. She is simply “Mama” to many in her community. Her personal story and activism for transgender civil rights intersects LGBT struggles for justice and equality from the 1960s to today. At the center of her activism is her fierce advocacy for her girls, trans women of color who have survived police brutality and incarceration in men’s jails and prisons. Miss Major is formerly the long-time executive director of the San Francisco-based Transgender Gender-Variant Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP), which advocates for trans women of color in and outside of prison. She is also the subject of a new documentary feature film currently showing around the country, MAJOR! (This biographical statement provided by Miss Major’s agent, Toshio Meronek.) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Miss Major Griffin-Gracy Miss Major Griffin-Gracy https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/6b730cd7be3b444df55e0fb04ada9d15.jpg 0d490514b1a04c4baecc9f5dd1f8a67e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Upstairs Lounge Fire Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Text Any textual data included in the document <h4>New Orleans Mission Is Now a Church.</h4> Great News! New Orleans is now a church! The Board of Elders of the Fellowship has granted them a charter and they are the first new church of the new year. There were 16 chartered members present and they are now called The Metropolitan Community Church of Greater New Orleans. Rev. David Solomon is their pastor and we all expect great and exciting things to happen down there in New Orleans. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mission Chartered as Congregation Description An account of the resource The March 1972 issue of MCC's In Unity announces that the New Orleans mission has now been chartered as a congregation. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived In Unity, March 1972, p. 23 https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/db09cd25b9dfc7db38bb6ac6f3779839.jpg 95d5e95dae584dcb283a4c2f37504a45 https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/329eeb3497826d8d66224b547a467aee.jpg 99bc705de986a3e47613bfb50bd8e2fb Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Friends Journal March 2013 From a Quaker View of Sex Mitchell Santine Gould Quick! Name the most influential document published by British Quakers in the twentieth century. It's probably a 1963 pamphlet entitled Towards a Quaker View of Sex (VOS for short). A year after its publication, LIFE magazine included it in its groundbreaking expose on gay (male) America: A group of Quakers in Britain challenged the view that homosexuality is immoral [and] suggested that society "should no more deplore homosexuality than left-handedness...Homosexual affection can be as selfless as heterosexual affection and therefore we cannot see that in some way it is morally worse." That same year, a landmark meeting between Methodist ministers and gay activists organized as the Council on Religion and the Homosexual and requested that the National Council of Churches "make a statement along the lines of that which was made by the Quakers in England." Recall that in 1964, the mere mention of the term "homosexual" could cause all conversation to stop in a shock wave of embarrassment and dread. The rationalist, clinical tone of VOS offered a way to calm the prevailing climate of sex panic. Even without exploring its historical impact further, we can already see VOS as a twentieth-century example of what Alan Tully called "civil Quakerism": the propagation of Friends testimonies on justice into secular culture. Written from the viewpoints of the sexologist/social worker, the attorney/sociologist, and the theologian/person of faith, VOS appears to have been intended to serve as a compact, but full-service, handbook on "homosexuality." It consists of a substantive introduction, a presentation on "normal" versus "homosexual" development, an appeal for a "new morality," a pragmatic guide for counselors, several heavy-duty appendices, and quirky glossary. It is a queer duck among the annals of Quaker testimonies: part self-help guide, part high-school science project, and part liberal manifesto. It was unabashedly written by committee, and reads like it. I am struck by the historical complementarity between VOS and the fiery spiritual testimonies to be found in the words of Edward Carpenter in England and his American mentor, Walt Whitman. These authors functioned as founder spirits brooding over the creation of the gay rights movement. The grand clarion calls of simplicity, peace, integrity, community, and equality articulated in Leaves of Grass provided encouragement for gay men, and some lesbians, in an era of almost unimaginable oppression. Jack Nichols, a 1960s gay rights activist and key participant in the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, later wrote: Though Edward Carpenter had beat me to is, I was the first gay liberationist in my generation to herald Whitman as the indispensable spiritual font needed by America's gay liberation movement. Today I regard my having done this as something on a par with or perhaps surpassing all other pioneering acts I've initiated. Although complete unacknowledged by VOS, Whitman and Carpenter offered persecuted gays a manifesto of affirmation bombastic enough to shine a ray of hope into their "dark confinement." VOS's combination of compassionate advocacy with rationalistic sexology spoke far better to the condition of sympathetic but nervous straight allies, offering gentler and more pragmatic defensive strategies in an ancient culture war. Neither approach was strictly better; rather, both were necessary. VOS came out attired in button-down, grey-flannel language, but openly addressed the great scandal of love between men and love between women. The front cover of VOS was stamped with an abstract puddle shape that paid homage to hipster abstractions of that era's modern-art craze. Stylistically, perhaps its most ambitious passage is a pretentious quotation on love as existential risk, from that darling of 1960s pan-Protestant theology, Paul Johannes Tillich. Despite its shortcomings, an open-minded reader may come to appreciate the wisdom and clearheadedness in VOS. Quakerism, claimed VOS, cultivates "an attitude to authority that enables it always to say, in the words of John Robinson's farewell to pilgrims setting off for the New World, 'The Lord has yet more light and truth to show forth.'" The fundamental premise of VOS states: Insofar as we love the good and know the mind of God we do not need rules and moral codes to guide our conduct. This offers, however, a freedom of action and judgment that we might grasp at too easily, assuming that we know our own minds and the mind of God. In facts it demands a disciplined search. This is a perfect expression of what Friends believe, and VOS is a disciplined search in booklet form. Unfortunately the authors did not explicitly identify that sentiment as the result of Quakerism's Inner Light tradition. At another perfectly classic Quaker juncture, VOS cannot resist criticizing the needless grief arising from the stern legalism of the Judeo-Christian tradition, by strongly rejecting "almost completely the traditional approach of the organised Christian church to morality, with its supposition that is knows precisely what is right and what is wrong, that this distinction can be made in terms of an external pattern of behaviour, and that the greatest good will come only through universal adherence to that pattern." The eleven authors add, "Many other groups have already recognised that the kind of morality that includes a vehement and categorical condemnation of the homosexual is not Christian, for it lacks compassion for the individual person and it lacks understanding of the human problem." At the same time, the authors admit that it was difficult for them to come to definite conclusions "as to what people ought or ought not to do" instead of toeing the Levitical party line. They could not "produce a ready-made external morality to replace the conventional code." This language, and this principled decision to insist on a living search for guidance rather than a dead mandate of "thou shalt nots" is congruent with the deepest core of the Quaker way. The real world significance of VOS largely hinged on its ability to offer positive help--a guided, disciplined (as opposed to an aimless) search. It sets forth three design standards for a new sexual morality: Sexual morality "cannot be left wholly to private judgment...We must never behave as though society--which includes our other friends--did not exist." Sexual morality must "preserve marriage and family life [and] the freedom conferred by an unreserved commitment to each other." Sexual morality must disallow "those actions that involve exploitation of the other person." Towards a Quaker View of Sex concludes: This search is a move forward into the unknown; it implies a high standard of responsibility, thinking and awareness--something much harder than simple obedience to a moral code. Further, the responsibility that it implies cannot be accepted alone; it must be responsibility within a group whose members are equally committed to the search for God's will. One of VOS's key attractions is its wisdom on love: "Too much attention has been given to love as an ideal, good or bad, noble or sentimental; too little to it as a form of action, a continuing and developing experience." In compellingly contrarian theological terms, it asks, "Can we not say that God can enter any relationship in which there is a measure of selfless love?" VOS's greatest value, therefore, came from its radical ability to reimagine--and to model for the rest of the world--Christian morality as a disciplined search rather than a draconian discipline. It declared that love is to be found in action more than in sentiment: it is a manifestation of the Spirit behind all Creation, found in the character of homosexual and heterosexual alike. The eleven authors of Towards a Quaker View of Sex not only achieve their aims, but probably accomplish a good deal more than they hoped for. Doesn't their pamphlet deserve far more appreciation than Quaker historians have so far given it? It is not a perfect analysis and has become largely outdated, but the authors anticipated this: The questions are sweeping and time has not been unlimited; consequently our answers are tentative and incomplete. With the help and encouragement of Friends and others it is our hope that further study of the moral and scientific questions will become possible. In my view, there are several ways to truly honor VOS, by building upon its foundations: Firstly, we could cite contemporary gay activists as thinkers, theologians and authorities in their own right. But just as critically, we could identify VOS's freedom of conscience message with our Inner-Light tradition. This would justify its view of sex as a valid restatement of centuries of Quaker theology; it might even directly engage evangelicals who believe in Satan (nineteenth-century Quaker minister Elias Hicks had challenged them). We can now completely disavow Freudianism, and place more emphasis on the healing, inspiring and ennobling potential of love, instead of exclusively focusing on its many obligations. Finally, we can acknowledge that the culture wars are actively fostered by an opportunities ruling class (in which sex is turned into quite a potent wedge issue, not to mention a weapon to harass political rivals--the trigger for the 1957 Wolfenden Report). We should now be fifty years closer to realizing a coherent Quaker view of sex. Are we, indeed? What is the best way to commemorate VOS? With speeches and retrospectives, or by listening more attentively for the call of Spirit? Are we listening? Does the Lord have yet more light and truth to show forth? ______________ Mitchell Santine Gould enables financial advisors to collect client data for use in emergencies. Curator of LeavesofGrass.org, he is the leading authority on Walt Whitman's rise among "sailors, lovers, and Quakers." Together with the LGBT Religious Archives Network, he documents the historical intersections between Quakers and gay people. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mitchell Gould in FJ 2013 Description An account of the resource On the 50th anniversary of TQVOS, Mitchell Gould wrote a probing analysis on its legacy and how we can build on it today. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Reproduced by permission of the Friends Journal, March 2013, pp. 17-18. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Shower of Stoles Description An account of the resource Items (stoles) for the Shower of Stoles exhibit Stole A stole in the Shower of Stoles exhibit Honoree The person honored by the creation of thestole. MK O'Haver Stole Text MK O’Haver United Methodist Church/United Church of Christ Charleston, VW MK received her call to ministry from God in 1993 and began her service to the Church in 1994 in Youth Ministry and Christian Education. In 2001 she began the candidacy process for ordination in the United Methodist Church and enrolled in seminary at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio in 2003. In 2005, we began dating, and by 2007 we were engaged, graduated, and MK had been removed from the candidacy process for being a “self-avowed, practicing homosexual.” She now lives in an in-between place – a United Methodist living in a United Church of Christ world. Together we are planning a new church in Charleston, WV – Bridges of Grace UCC – where I am clergy and MK is laity. MK chose this stole for donation to the shower of Stoles after an LGBT Pride event where we were drenched by rain. Removing from my shoulders my stole, with its bleeding colors, she said, “This is my story. God is still weeping for those who have been called, but kept out. The UCC would welcome me and ordain me, but I don’t think that is how she meant to fulfill the motto That They May All Be One.” – Rev. Kay A. Albright, MK’s wife and partner in life and ministry Denomination United Methodist Church United Church of Christ Contribution Date 2011 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1135 Title A name given to the resource MK O'Haver Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Charleston, West Virginia (USA) Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Rev. Kay A. Albright Albright, Kay A. O'Haver, M.K. Ordination United Church of Christ United Methodist Church West Virginia Women and Religion https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/6d3c0be5d7c383e35574288ed1e8a190.jpg 6379beaad4e165d0628bc74606642eef Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Historical Development of BIPOC Trans-spiritual Leadership YouTube Video A video hosted on YouTube. YouTube ID Eleven-character ID assigned by YouTube 7bpTcvYiyCs Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource MMIWG2S FINAL Subject The topic of the resource Cisgender and trans native women stand up for their missing and murdered. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bpTcvYiyCs Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jaylyn Gough Native Women's Wilderness https://www.nativewomenswilderness.org/mmiw/ https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/cbd238f96adb4f4371a4b152f8301a42.jpg b4ac8088db657871937fc9b171c36590 https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/141f633a19e3901275818884328e4a4e.jpg 4402badcb11fb69a3dad40c9495f8e8b https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/78e670069243f4f7261cdb0d5f35f0d3.jpg 33db27c2a58d858c57a7974072029f1d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Shower of Stoles Description An account of the resource Items (stoles) for the Shower of Stoles exhibit Stole A stole in the Shower of Stoles exhibit Honoree The person honored by the creation of thestole. Molly Mead Stole Text Molly Mead Denomination Presbyterian Church (USA) United Church of Christ Contribution Date 2001 Contribution Story This is one of 52 stoles donated to the Shower of Stoles collection by members and staff of Church of the Covenant. Although each of the stoles is unique, all of them are tied together by the inclusion of a piece cloth from a common bolt of blue and ivory material somewhere in the stole. Covenant is both a More Light and Open and Affirming Congregation. Their strong and public advocacy on behalf of LGBT persons in the life and leadership of the church has drawn many LBGT persons to become a part of the Covenant church family. Their 52 stoles represent the largest subset of stoles given to the collection by any one congregation. Church of the Covenant, a federated United Church of Christ and Presbyterian Church, is steeped in history. Located just off the Boston Commons, the Gothic revival building erected in the mid-1800's was one of the first churches built in the Back Bay area. In the 1890's the sanctuary was completely redecorated by Tiffany Glass and Decorating Co., including the creation of an extraordinary set of Tiffany stained-glass windows and a chandelier that is said to be the first electrified light installed in a public building by Thomas Edison. Covenant's history of social justice and human rights work is equally rich. When I visited Covenant, I was intrigued to learn that the church was a designated stop along the "Boston Women's Heritage Trail." One of Covenant's members, Abbie Child, was the head of the Women's Board of Missions of the Congregational Church in the late 1800's. Another member, Dr. Elsa Meder, was one of the first women ordained as an elder in the Presbyterian Church. Elizabeth Rice and Alice Hageman, ordained in 1974 and 1975 respectively, were the first women to serve as pastors at a Back Bay church. When they were joined by Donna Day Lower, the church became the only one in the United States with three women clergy. Since opening the "Women's Lunch Place" in 1982, the church has served as a haven for poor women and their children. It is fitting, then, that one of the Tiffany windows is "Four Women of the Bible," including Miriam, Deborah, Mary of Bethany, and Dorcas. Covenant remains on the forefront of work for equality and justice, and is active in the LGBT Welcoming movement in the Boston area and beyond. Martha Juillerat Founder, Shower of Stoles Project 2006 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 752 Title A name given to the resource Molly Mead Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Boston, Massachusetts (USA) Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Church of the Covenant Boston Clergy Activist Feminism Massachusetts Mead, Molly More Light Presbyterians for LGBT Concerns Open and Affirming in the UCC (ONA) Ordination Presbyterian Presbyterian Church (USA) Theology United Church of Christ Women and Religion https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/c2cfb6a2b3c21a38d84a4438d1adbc05.jpg 30e7aac36306b5a0dd1b4f4ee3b5e7fd Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Why I'm on the side of the Quakers by Monica Furlong In the past few days a group of Quakers, with all the courage for which the Friends are so famous, has created controversy by taking a look at personal relationships in our society and faithfully reporting what it saw. Which is that, whether we like it or not, the citizens of this country do not, for the most part, live by the traditional Christian ethic of absolute virginity before marriage and absolute fidelity afterwards. But, whereas at this point most Christian bodies in this country go off into pious tutting instead of serious thinking, the Quakers have taken the opportunity not only to ask whether the moral breakdown may mean t hat our morals are unrealistic, but also to ask what our morality is for. Is it merely there to keep up a comfortable and respectable facade, or is it (and this is the point where it touches Christianity) to give men lives more abundantly full of happiness and love? Is there not a frightful danger of making morals ends in themselves when we should be realising that they are merely guiding lines, lines to remind us of the degrees of love we owe to our married partners, our children, our fellow men and women, and our neighbours? The Quakers are, of course, going to be accused of naivety as well as of far worse things, so this is the time to recognise the true value of what they have been saying. They are asking us to reject traditional Christian morality not because it sets us too high a standard but because its standard is not high enough. The fear Looking around them, the writers see homosexuals obliged to lead furtive and frightened lives: they see married couples who relationship has become a bitter, sterile thing. They see young people who, when they obey conventional Christian morals, do so more from fear--fear of pregnancy, disease or of sex itself--than out of love for their fellows. The Quakers are not suggesting we should sweep traditions away in order to indulge in orgy and promiscuity. On the contrary, they are demanding a standard infinitely higher than the orthodox view demands. They are begging us to forget about what is "done," and instead to train ourselves and our children to behave with love and responsibility in every sort of personal relationship. Such an attitude might mean that young people sometimes had affairs, but it would discourage the flippant and callous kind of promiscuity which is the real enemy of joyful living. It might mean that husbands and wives sometimes admitted to one another that they were "in love" with someone outside the marriage, but it would also mean that they made much more resolute attempts to resolve their marital problems. It would certainly be an end of the kind of squalid intrigue or the heartless "going off with someone else" which is he real enemy of marriage. These recommendations might mean that homosexuals began to live as openly together as heterosexuals do. The courage It would be a merciful release from the pitiful half-life of the public lavatory, the court, and the prison which is one of the ugliest indictments of our community. Those who complain, as many are already doing, that the Quakers are wanting to do away with all "restraints" can know nothing of the true nature of love. Where a legalistic morality asks us to one mile, a genuine love or those around us makes us go two. It takes real courage and energy for a marriage couple to resolve their difficulties as they go along instead of sinking into apathetic indifference. It takes real restraint for young men and women to behave lovingly towards one another when, as always, there is a strong bias towards selfishness and lust. But then it is this kind of courage and love that Christianity is about. If we deny that it is possible for men and women to live good, happy lives when controlled by love rather than by fear and regulations, then we are denying Christianity itself. When questioned on television about their report, two of the Quakers were asked whether they did not make the mistake of assuming that everyone come from a good, loving home where responsible relationships are taken for granted. Their reply cut to the heart of the matter. The need They pointed out that me and women who have not been brought up in a loving atmosphere fall below moral standards in any case. Having been so badly damaged in childhood, they can make little sense of conventional morals, and will spread pain and lovelessness around. The people who do make sense of morals are precisely those who have been brought up with love: and it is these people anyway who keep the moral laws not from a blind sense of legality or respectability but because good morals are for them the proper expression of love. It would seem, therefore, that what we must emphasise if we want people to live with goodness is not their need for morals but their need for love. Or, as Professor Carstairs would say, not chastity but charity. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Monica Furlong in Daily Mail Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived clipping in Personal Papers of Anna Bidder, Lucy Cavendish College Archive Description An account of the resource A few days after mentioning the report in the 18 February Daily Mail (above), religious columnist Monica Furlong used TQVOS as a basis for a stirring challenge to social and Christian morals (date unknown). https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/1e94e78331ab5a2121802a135c33a3e2.jpg 656e6e707a91e174bcf19da0afd49263 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Daily Mail 18 February 1963 A lesson in love on Sex Sunday by Monica Furlong Yesterday seemed to be Sex Sunday, what with the Archbishop of Canterbury writing in the subject in a Sunday newspaper. and the Quakers discussing their new report on sexual morality with Paul Ferris in Meeting Point. This seems a good moment to say how vastly improved Meeting Point has recently become--yet another feather in the B.B.C. cap--discussing people's relationships to one another with great sensitivity and intelligence; not always coming down on the side of orthodox Christianity, but always coming down on the side of love. Last night was no exception. Kenneth Barnes and Dr. Anna Bidder had all the courage and transparent goodness we have learned to expect from the Society of Friends. No doubt they will be attacked for undermining traditional standards of morality. My guess is, however, that the charity and wisdom with which they discussed human triangles and marital fidelity, pre-marital affairs and the situation of the homosexual, must have been a lesson in love to many who would neither understand or obey the conventional Christian ethic. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Monica Furlong in Daily Mail 18 Feb 1963 Description An account of the resource Prominent religious journalist Monica Furlong wrote a positive view of Bidder & Barnes' appearance on Meeting Point in the Daily Mail, 18 February 1963. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived clipping in the Personal Papers of Anna Bidder, Lucy Cavendish College Archive https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/a5c225b9c14412c8152b18ed82151bf1.jpg f476a778c096756c388fa2bb5bc4a749 Person An individual. Text Any textual data included in the document Monique Moultrie (Ph.D., Vanderbilt University) is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Georgie State University. Dr. Moultrie’s scholarly pursuits include projects in sexual ethics, African American religious traditions, and gender and sexuality studies. She just returned from an academic leave spent at Harvard University as a Ford Foundation postdoctoral fellow. She was also selected to receive the Dean’s Early Career Award, and was recently a participant in a Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Religion workshop. Outside of the university, Dr. Moultrie is a consultant for the National Institutes of Health and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender-Religious Archives Network. Her forthcoming research project is a book manuscript focused on African American religious media and women’s sexual agency that will be published by Duke University Press. Other recent projects include a co-edited volume A Guide for Women in Religion: Making Your Way from A to Z, 2nd edition (Palgrave Macmillan 2014); a chapter “Critical Race Theory,” in Religion: Embodied Religion edited by Kent Brintnall (Palgrave Macmillan 2016): 341-358; and an article “After the Thrill is Gone: Married to the Holy Spirit but Still Sleeping Alone,” in Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 33 (2011): 237-253. Her next project is a book length study of black lesbian religious leadership and faith activism, and she has in press “Interrogating the Passionate and Pious: Televangelism and Black Women’s Sexuality,” in The Sexual Politics of Black Churches (Columbia University Press). Within the larger American Academy of Religion guild, Dr. Moultrie is the Status of Women in the Profession Chair and a former co-chair of the Religion and Sexuality unit. http://religiousstudies.gsu.edu/profile/monique-moultrie Biographical Text Monique Moultrie (Ph.D., Vanderbilt University) is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Georgie State University. Dr. Moultrie’s scholarly pursuits include projects in sexual ethics, African American religious traditions, and gender and sexuality studies. She just returned from an academic leave spent at Harvard University as a Ford Foundation postdoctoral fellow. She was also selected to receive the Dean’s Early Career Award, and was recently a participant in a Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Religion workshop. Outside of the university, Dr. Moultrie is a consultant for the National Institutes of Health and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender-Religious Archives Network. Her forthcoming research project is a book manuscript focused on African American religious media and women’s sexual agency that will be published by Duke University Press. Other recent projects include a co-edited volume A Guide for Women in Religion: Making Your Way from A to Z, 2nd edition (Palgrave Macmillan 2014); a chapter “Critical Race Theory,” in Religion: Embodied Religion edited by Kent Brintnall (Palgrave Macmillan 2016): 341-358; and an article “After the Thrill is Gone: Married to the Holy Spirit but Still Sleeping Alone,” in Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 33 (2011): 237-253. Her next project is a book length study of black lesbian religious leadership and faith activism, and she has in press “Interrogating the Passionate and Pious: Televangelism and Black Women’s Sexuality,” in The Sexual Politics of Black Churches (Columbia University Press). Within the larger American Academy of Religion guild, Dr. Moultrie is the Status of Women in the Profession Chair and a former co-chair of the Religion and Sexuality unit. http://religiousstudies.gsu.edu/profile/monique-moultrie Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Monique Moultrie Monique Moutrie RTSA Scholarly Advisory Team https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/8d9262dc7f027df55d342314dbfc79f5.pdf 14c6a4cba983b5bf5ed758c6fdd1cf1b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Sampler of Early Documents Description An account of the resource Artifacts for the A Sampler of Early Documents exhibit Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource More Light News newsletter Description An account of the resource Vol. 1, No. 1 (1980). Presbyterians for Lesbian/Gay Concerns. This issue includes coverage of PLGC activities at Presbyterian General Assembly in 1980. https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/feed4550743e5e667eca2927334247e4.png b6d6a19de26f049396e40dedae1b528f Person An individual. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource More Light Presbyterians (MLP): Participating Organization Profile Description An account of the resource Following the risen Christ, and seeking to make the Church a true community of hospitality, the mission of <a href="https://mlp.org/">More Light Presbyterians</a> is to work for the full participation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) people in the life, ministry and witness of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and in society. MLP More Light Presbyterians for LGBT Concerns https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/f16ff36ce711abd48fbb83252bd51736.jpg b0eaf0656f7b9025d6e5a31834b0c980 https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/5611d97f7aa21ae87745c0665f887ba7.jpg a128f3ff453eee9b3003a4164700e08a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Upstairs Lounge Fire Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Text Any textual data included in the document N.O. Lounge Fire Kills 29 Persons The 29 charred bodies of victims killed in a cocktail lounge fire were stacked in the city morgue today, and officials said identification was difficult because most of the bodies were burned beyond recognition. The brief, intense fire, which swept through a Sunday night beer bust at the Up Stairs Lounge in the French Quarter, trapped most of the victims behind burglar bars. A police official, calling the lounge a homosexual bar, said identification was made even more difficult because some of the men could have been carrying false identification. Fifteen men, some of whom got to the fire escape and leaped to the sidewalk one story below, were injured, and six remained in serious condition today. Hospital officials said they feared some would die. Because of the almost unbelievable speed of the blaze, officials said they were checking out the possibility of arson. “There are hints of a fire bombing,” said Chief of Detectives Henry M. Morris, “but no evidence has turned up to support it. Every story we get conflicts with every other story.” He said no arrests were anticipated immediately. One survivor said he believed somebody dashed an inflammable liquid on the stairway to the lounge and lit it. When the fire broke out, the bar, known locally as a hangout for homosexuals was packed. Sunday was its biggest day, featuring a 5 to 7 cocktail hour with all you could eat and drink for $2, followed by partying until the wee hours. Coroner’s assistants said they would have to check dental records to get identification for some of the charred bodies. Some small persons managed to escape by squeezing through the burglar bars on the lounge’s front windows and then leaping to the street. Others left the building by smashing a side window and climbed onto a fire escape. A few made their way to another fire escape in the rear. The bodies of those who did not make it lay jammed like logs against the front windows, with four huddled under a charred grand piano. Some of the injured apparently were hurt in jumping to the street. Authorities said there was only one woman among the dead. Fire headquarters is but three blocks away. Units were on the scene in two minutes, said Supt. William McCressen. The fire was out 16 minutes later. Adolph Medina, 32, of San Antonio, Tex., said flames engulfed the bar in a short, panicridden moment after the fire broke out on the front stairway. He said, “I was panicked about jumping but two guys urged me to jump and I was small enough…some big guy on the ground caught me, and…kept looking back but my friend never got out.” Linn Quinton, 25, of Houston, Tex., said, “The place just went up. Everyone panicked and started running for the windows. I jumped to the window in the left corner, opened it, swung out, grabbed a pipe and slid down.” “I turned around and broke a couple of other people’s falls, but there were one or two who just wouldn’t jump.” Quinton said, “The bigger people just couldn’t get out.” “Bill Larsen, a pastor at the Metropolitan Community Church, got caught in the window, and I just watched him burn. He had one arm out, and I heard him scream, ‘O God! No!’” “In the next window beside him, three people burned to death while I could only watch.” The bar was at the corner of Chartres and Iberville, one block off Canal Street, and across the street from the back entrance to the Marriott Hotel. Marriott security guard Kenneth Meynard said, “It went up real quick. Second floor, flames were already at (Continued on Page A-4, Col. 7) N.O. Lounge (Continued From Page One) the windows when people started jumping.” Police said the floor above the fire-gutted bar included three single-room apartments that were empty at the time. A bar downstairs and one next door were damaged but there apparently were no injuries in them, police said. Hundreds of persons swarmed from the busy Quarter area to watch firemen remove the bodies, lowering them one at a time with snorkel truck. A bartender set up a bar on the sidewalk across the street and did a brisk business with the spectators. French Quarter Fire Is Probed Quick Searing Blast The suspicious speed of a fire that killed 29 people at a Sunday night “beer bust” in a French Quarter bar was under close investigation today. For the 29 that death found trapped in Up Stairs Lounge, located on the second floor of a three-story building, the end was alike a quick, searing blast from a blow torch. Firemen said the fire lasted about 16 minutes. It consumed the interior of the bar but apparently did little serious structural damage to the old stone and brick building. Courtney Craighead, a survivor, said he believes somebody dashed an inflammable liquid on the stairway and lit it. “The fire came up the stairs fast,” he said. “There was an immense smoke in the room immediately.” Fire Supt. William McCrossen said homicide investigators and the state fire marshal would take a careful look at reports that “some people smelled gasoline just before the fire.” However, he cautioned, such reports were unconfirmed. Craighead, a deacon of the Metropolitan Community church, said he got out by a rear exit, following a bartender who led about 20 men to safety. Most others in the bar were trapped. Those who lived had to leap for their lives. “There’s nothing like seeing human fireballs break through a window and jump –and never a word from them, not a scream, not a groan, nothing,” said a shaken young man who lives in a second-floor apartment directly across the narrow street. The young man, who declined to identify himself, said he was looking out his window because of the insistent honking of a white auto which had paused in the street by the Up Stairs stairway entrance. He said two men dashed down the stairs and into the car. Moments later, he said, fire erupted in the lounge and he watched horrified as several men, hair and clothing already aflame, smashed window with their shoes and scrambled out onto the fire escape landing. From there they had to jump; the old fire escape on that side of the building had no ladder to the street. “It was the quickest fire I ever heard of,” said Louis Uhlich, a retired soldier who was in a bar next door to the stairway of the Up Stairs when it started. “I was on my first beer when this woman ran in and yelled, ‘Come see! Come see!’” Uhlich added. “I ran out and two or three of the steps were on fire.” “I popped back into the bar and told the barmaid, call the Fire Department. By the time I got back outside it sounded like firecrackers going off in there. That stairway was gone.” Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource More Next-Day Coverage Description An account of the resource This edition of the The State-Times (Advocate) from Baton Rouge mixes even more homophobic subtext into its reporting. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The State-Times (Advocate), Monday afternoon, June 25, 1973. https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/2f8898464e73a08883b1a59a98a6e4d1.jpg 7e9e927604aa1b64f604ae294f325332 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Historical Development of BIPOC Trans-spiritual Leadership Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Morisco Subject The topic of the resource Two images Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived New World Encyclopedia https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Morisco https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/822010d291958a3e0a4c00a7e0fca9b9.jpg 900fcf025b7687c1c4d6bdc3380e04ac Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Morning services included a Torah service, circa 1970s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived CBST Archives https://exhibits.lgbtran.org/files/original/0d8a14868da689aafce6c30dbd08e1d9.jpg 6b413da139e59c5801b22784735288cc Person An individual. Text Any textual data included in the document Morris Floyd, an early leader of LGBT movements in The United Methodist Church, was born in 1946 in Austin, Texas.  His father Morris Sr. was studying for an MBA degree at the University of Texas.  The family moved to Arizona when Morris was two, living first in Tucson and then in Glendale while his father worked for J.C. Penney.  His brother Steve was born before his father’s 1952 death, from an illness contracted while a prisoner of war in Germany. Morris’s mom Buena, almost always shortened to “Boots,” remarried in 1957.  Ray was serving in the U.S. Air Force and his assignment took the family, now including Ray’s children from his first marriage and their daughter to Ramstein Air Base in Germany in 1961. Morris attended school at Kaiserslautern High School where he was a member of the Latin Club, the National Honor Society and studied Russian. He was active in the Protestant youth group at the chapel on the base and often led the group in its Sunday evening worship. He also worked as director of the Youth Employment Services on the base during his last two years of high school.  There he helped match other teenagers with domestic jobs, such as babysitting and household chores.   Morris had a sense of his sexual orientation during high school but little opportunity to explore that then.  Years later he reconnected with Joe, one of his best high school friends, who was also gay. They had traveled together around Europe together during the last couple of years of high school and became close again before Joe died of AIDS in 1987.  Overall Morris thrived during his high school years and graduated in 1964.     Morris intended to study premed in college and was accepted at the University of Minnesota.  However, one of his teachers was a graduate of George Washington University (GWU) in D.C. and encouraged Morris to apply there.  So Morris began college at GWU in the fall of 1964.  He enjoyed his time in this diverse, urban setting.  However, right away he struggled in the classroom with organic chemistry and decided to drop premed studies.  When his family moved from Germany to California, Morris transferred to the University of Texas to be closer to them.  He was active at the Wesley Foundation on campus and at University U.M. Church.  It was during these college years that Morris started to identify himself as a gay man albeit largely in private. He took some summer classes which allowed him to graduate in January 1968 with a double major in philosophy and political science with a minor in anthropology.  Morris’ college years coincided with peak years of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S.   In the winter of 1965 he traveled to Lincoln, Nebraska to participate in a Methodist Student Movement Conference. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was scheduled to be the keynote speaker. On Morris’ connecting flight departing Chicago, Dr. King spotted him reading a book recommended for the conference and struck up a brief conversation.  That encounter and his experience at the conference nurtured a commitment to social justice activism.      As he completed college, he considered options.  Although he was accepted for training as a Peace Corps volunteer, Morris perceived that church ministry would provide an opportunity to use his skills to address what was needed in the country and world.  He was accepted to enter Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. in the fall of 1968.   In the interim, he drew on his mother’s past associations with Congressman J.J. Pickle (elected to Lyndon Johnson’s House of Representatives seat when LBJ became a Senator) to get a position working odd jobs in the House of Representatives that spring and summer.   Morris’ seminary years were again marked by prominent socio-political movements in the U.S. with the anti-Vietnam War protests, the Poor Peoples’ Campaign and the Stonewall Riots.  Wesley students and faculty were certainly tuned into these tumultuous events.  Morris did student pastoring as a youth minister at a Glen Burnie, Maryland congregation and was then assistant pastor at Marvin Memorial U.M. Church in Silver Spring.  He had a good working relationship with the senior pastor Edward Carroll (later elected a bishop) and enjoying numerous opportunities to preach. At Wesley he preached a highly-praised antiwar sermon in chapel, drawing on Simon & Garfunkel’s “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream.”  He was also active in student government at Wesley.  Morris stayed in seminary a fourth year to work with a cohort of 15 or so top Wesley students who sought to create a more experiential learning experience. They designed a program called “Interact” in which they created their own coursework that would integrate studies with field work.  Wesley Dean L. Harold DeWolf supported the venture and educator-activist Parker Palmer was enlisted to lead the group.   It was in this group that Morris began to talk with others about being gay.  Morris worked with other Wesley students to organize a conference that year, “Politics of Hope,” that brought seminarians and students to D.C. for an intensive urban experience. Dan Rather was the keynote speaker for the conference.     Morris’ last seminary year coincided with the 1972 United Methodist General Conference.  Prior to the General Conference, Morris and leaders of other United Methodist seminary student governments decided to try have voices of seminarians heard at the General Conference.  They organized and traveled to the conference in Atlanta with a proposal that they be seated with voice but not vote.  Following an affirmative vote by the conference, Morris was able to sit in with other conference delegates.  He did get to speak in the historic debate on a Social Principles statement on Homosexuality, which resulted in the “incompatible with Christian teaching” clause being adopted.  He was aware of gay activists who were circulating around the edges of the conference—among them Gene Leggett, Ernie Reagh, and Don McGaw.  He also met Michael Collins there, beginning a deep friendship built on common commitments as gay men of faith and advocacy for LGBT folk in the church.  They worked together closely until Michael’s death in 1984. Morris recalls traveling with Michael one summer to the meeting of the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference, where Michael’s ministerial relationship was in jeopardy because he was openly gay.  On the road trip from Southern California, they spent some time in Gold Beach, OR, where an innkeeper insisted on giving them a room with two beds even though their reservation had only asked for one.  After a couple of times of back and forth with the innkeeper Michael – exasperated – finally said, “You can give us two beds if you must, but we’re still only going to use one!”  Walking up the beach for dinner a little later, the two worried half-seriously if they should be on the lookout for bashers. Following seminary graduation, Morris enlisted in the US-2 program, a domestic mission venture for young United Methodist adults.  He was assigned to be chaplain at the Robinson School in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  The school needed coaching football, so Morris (who was not an athlete) decided to draw on his experience observing touch football on the seminary campus to coach the junior varsity team.  He quietly glowed when the team finished with a 4-3 record, as the varsity team had a losing season.  Learning that sports provided a great opportunity to connect with students, he became the athletic director at the school.   Morris developed a close mentoring relationship with a number of students and stays in contact with them decades later. During his time in Puerto Rico, Morris was commissioned as a Home Missionary. Morris pursued membership and ordination in what was then known as the Southern California-Arizona Annual conference of the United Methodist Church.  He remembers a member of the Board of Ordained Ministry asking him when he was planning to get married, to which he had no answer.  In those days it didn’t raise quite the red flags it would raise today, and his application was successful.  Later, the pastor who asked him that question became a strong supporter of LGBT folk in the church. In 1975, Morris returned to Southern California to complete a year of pastoring required to fulfill probationary status.  He served that year working with youth at First U.M. Church of El Cajon with a conservative senior pastor.  Persons spotted books about homosexuality on his bookshelves and were concerned about this, but he was not overtly challenged. After that year Morris moved to Farmington, New Mexico to become principal at Navajo United Methodist Mission School. The students boarded there during the week and went home on weekends. The objective of Morris’ leadership was to change the school from being an old-style mission school—where, for example, students were not allowed to speak Navajo—to become more of a Navajo School.  A Navajo pastor was hired as chaplain.  A graduate of the school came back to serve as the guidance counselor.  The school superintendent and Morris were building a board of directors that was primarily Navajo.  After his second year, another school graduate became principal and Morris became associate superintendent.  He spent his last year there largely traveling to raise money for the school.  During one of those trips, he connected by coincidence with the young Affirmation group, LGBT United Methodists and allies, at its national meeting at Broadway U.M. Church in Chicago.  This was the first opportunity for Morris to have significant interaction with other LGBT United Methodists.  The group was considering how to respond to the decision of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary to forbid the graduation of two gay students. Working with Lyle Loder and other friends in the Southern California annual conference, Morris helped to organize a presence for Affirmation in the region.             In February 1980, Morris moved to New York City to work for the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) helping to resource missions in the U.S.  He helped lead training for a new class of US-2 volunteers in the summer 1980 in Boston and the following year in Washington, D.C. He went to the 1980 General Conference in Indianapolis—not as an agency staff but to assist Affirmation in advocating for LGBT concerns.  Although ordained, Morris was also commissioned as a Home Missionary and active in the work of Deaconesses and Missionaries, which is a lay office in the UMC.  In the period not long after the firing of Deaconess Joan Clark, Morris advocated strongly for an approach inclusive of LGBT folk in the office.  This did not make him popular with the woman who provided administrative leadership for Deaconesses and Home Missionaries, but he felt it was especially urgent to do so.  During the decades when women could not be ordained and thereafter, the role of Deaconess has been a path by which many lesbians entered the UMC’s ministry of lay service as leaders, advocates for the disadvantaged and staff for church and community ministry and community centers, among other options. He was a member of the board of Diaconal Ministry in his home annual conference and participated in three international conferences. He also advocated strongly for LGBT concerns in that role, including several "energetic" with the then-head of the office at the GBGM.    Morris had told his boss that he was gay and could see that there were a number of other gay and lesbian persons on the staff.  But there was unease around the agency in the aftermath of the 1979 firing of Joan Clark for being a lesbian. Although Morris had no reason to think he would be challenged, he also realized that in the case of a major expose, the support he would get would be limited.  So in August 1981, he moved to Minneapolis to become executive director of Gay Community Services (later Lesbian & Gay Community Services – LGCS), a mental health center funded largely by the county and by United Way.  During his 20 years in Minneapolis, Morris provided leadership in the LGBT community and beyond by, among other things, being one of the founders of the Minnesota AIDS Project and serving on the state’s AIDS Task Force, as well as the board of directors of the Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus. This move freed Morris up to become more actively and publicly involved in Affirmation.  He was selected for the Coordinating Committee and helped design plans for advocacy and witness at the 1984 General Conference and to launch a new “welcoming church” program, the Reconciling Congregation Program.      Morris went to the 1984 General Conference in Baltimore as one of Affirmation’s national co-spokespersons, alongside Mary Gaddis.  His years of work in United Methodist missions and as a national agency staff positioned him to get an audience with some denominational leaders there. He was invited to dinner by Bishop Finis Crutchfield from Houston (who was outed after his death from AIDS a few years later) in the dining room of the hotel that housed the bishops.  Crutchfield made a point of walking Morris around and introducing him to other bishops.  He wanted to impress Morris in this way and by relating what he had done for the gay community, previously in New Orleans and now in Houston.   Morris also recalls a hallway discussion with a prominent pastor who was seen as an ally but vehemently opposed the strategy of having an openly gay person to speak to the General Conference.  This taught him to be skeptical about how far “progressive” leaders would go to advocate for LGBT persons.  Affirmation sponsored a dinner for allies and friends at a Baltimore congregation where they honored “saints” who had supported LGBT concerns.  Following the dinner, a leading African-American pastor took Morris to task for not being recognized for the risks he had taken to lead his congregation to provide space for a largely-gay Metropolitan Community Church.  This brought Morris face-to-face again with how covert racism could thwart the intentions and vision of Affirmation that believed it was espousing social justice. Meanwhile, Morris had also sought an appointment by Bishop Jack Tuell to his position at LGCS.  This led to several years of discussion with the Conference leadership about Morris’ status, and initially Morris was placed on an involuntary leave of absence, an action that required a supermajority vote of Annual Conference clergy. At the clergy executive session of the Annual Conference where this occurred, Bishop Tuell made a ruling of church law affirming that such a leave may be initiated and imposed involuntarily. Such decisions are automatically referred to the Judicial Council, the denomination’s Supreme Court.  Morris argued in opposition to the Bishop’s action that the decision was contrary to the Constitution of The United Methodist Church and to key due-process rights provided in the United Methodist Discipline to protect clergy from arbitrary removal of their right to an appointment.  In <a href="http://www.umc.org/decisions/41417/eyJyZXN1bHRfcGFnZSI6IlwvZGVjaXNpb25zXC9zZWFyY2gtcmVzdWx0cyIsInNlYXJjaDpkZWNpc2lvbl9udW1iZXIiOiIxMjA4In0)">Decision 524 </a>the Judicial Council overruled Morris’s appeal. The documents related to the appeal are available below as an additional resource. The second time the question came up, the involuntary leave was sustained by the clergy session, though by a narrow margin.  Thereafter the Bishop agreed to appoint Morris to any position reasonably compatible with the special appointment rules, but not to a local church.  Thereafter Morris worked for many years as an executive for a Twin Cities health care corporation.  He took the retired relationship to the Annual Conference in 1992, feeling that the Annual Conference relationship was hollow under the Bishop’s terms. In 1983, Bishop Tuell had worked with other bishops and an executive of the UM Board of Higher Education and Ministry to devise the language later approved at the 1984 General Conference that required “fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness” of the clergy, effectively preventing the ordination or appointment of gay and lesbian clergy. In May of 2003, Tuell preached a sermon (<a href="https://www.rmnetwork.org/newrmn/bishop-tuell-how-i-changed-my-mind/)">https://www.rmnetwork.org/newrmn/bishop-tuell-how-i-changed-my-mind/)</a> describing how he had changed his mind and confessing that he and the others that day were “unconsciously guided” by the need for “institutional protection” over the controversial matter, rather than the Wesleyan “tests of truth” (as the Bishop referred to them in a 2000 sermon called “Doing a New Thing”): “Scripture, Tradition, Experience and Reason.” Despite their profound disagreement at the time his appointment was in question, Morris remembers his relationship with Bishop Tuell as productive, mutually respectful and friendly. Morris served as a spokesperson for Affirmation through the 1992 General Conference.  In subsequent years he became a member of the Reconciling Congregation Program board of directors.  Among other contributions, he helped the group to create its initial effort to raise funds through major gifts from “Angels.”  In a sermon to the 25thAnniversary celebration of Affirmation, in 2000, Morris reminded attendees that their status as beloved children of God is not dependent on the approval on the United Methodist church, or any other religious body, and called on them find dignity and worth internally rather than allowing themselves to become victims by continually seeking validation from an institution. By the turn of the 21stCentury, Morris was distancing himself increasingly from the church, though he says to this day he is an “fascinated observer and commentator” on what he views as the denomination’s gyrations to find a position regarding homosexuality that will be faithful to the Gospel and to Wesleyan standards while also satisfactory to those who insist on a literal reading of Biblical proscriptions.  He believes that the struggle is about matters even more profound than human sexuality – the very nature of God, humankind, the rest of creation and the relationship among them, as well as the role of the Bible.  He does not think it likely that some sort of political accommodation between deeply opposed factions is likely to produce a resolution satisfactory to anyone.  Prior to the General Conference of 2016 he encouraged (<a href="http://www.chicagonow.com/observant-queer/2016/05/umc/">http://www.chicagonow.com/observant-queer/2016/05/umc/</a>) progressive United Methodists to forgo allegiance to the denomination and find a home for themselves and their Wesleyan heritage in other denominations.  He believes doing could dramatically strengthen the witness and work of groups such as the United Church of Christ without creating the overhead associated with a new Methodist denomination. Morris now considers himself a “recovering Christian.”  He says that he can identify with many elements of that faith community’s story, but he has recognized that he cannot honestly make the theological affirmations associated with Christian faith. Morris and his partner of 28 years, Alex Herrera, moved from Minneapolis to Chicago in the fall of 2001, where he served for 2 ½ years as the executive leader for development of the Center on Halsted, an LGBT community center.  Thereafter he worked with clients of DST Health Solutions as an account executive, consulting on the implementing the clients’ business strategy through improvements in their technology strategy and infrastructure.  After a diagnosis of stage 4 cancer, Morris retired to get well and spend his time in other ways.  He considers himself a fortunate survivor, now cancer-free 8 years later. Alex and Morris, fearing that Illinois would not promptly approve legislation supporting marriage equality, were married in 2012 in Toronto in a small ceremony with Alex’s mother, sister and her family as witnesses.  They presently live with their pug Niko in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood and have a second home in Cuernavaca, Mexico.  While Alex works as a senior development executive for Northwestern University, Morris enjoys volunteering at the National Runaway Safeline, being active in his condominium association and occasional blogging as the "Observant Queer" (<a href="http://www.chicagonow.com/observant-queer">www.chicagonow.com/observant-queer</a>). (This biographical profile was drafted by Mark Bowman from an interview with Morris Floyd and edited by Floyd.) Biographical Text Morris Floyd, an early leader of LGBT movements in The United Methodist Church, was born in 1946 in Austin, Texas.  His father Morris Sr. was studying for an MBA degree at the University of Texas.  The family moved to Arizona when Morris was two, living first in Tucson and then in Glendale while his father worked for J.C. Penney.  His brother Steve was born before his father’s 1952 death, from an illness contracted while a prisoner of war in Germany. Morris’s mom Buena, almost always shortened to “Boots,” remarried in 1957.  Ray was serving in the U.S. Air Force and his assignment took the family, now including Ray’s children from his first marriage and their daughter to Ramstein Air Base in Germany in 1961. Morris attended school at Kaiserslautern High School where he was a member of the Latin Club, the National Honor Society and studied Russian. He was active in the Protestant youth group at the chapel on the base and often led the group in its Sunday evening worship. He also worked as director of the Youth Employment Services on the base during his last two years of high school.  There he helped match other teenagers with domestic jobs, such as babysitting and household chores.   Morris had a sense of his sexual orientation during high school but little opportunity to explore that then.  Years later he reconnected with Joe, one of his best high school friends, who was also gay. They had traveled together around Europe together during the last couple of years of high school and became close again before Joe died of AIDS in 1987.  Overall Morris thrived during his high school years and graduated in 1964.     Morris intended to study premed in college and was accepted at the University of Minnesota.  However, one of his teachers was a graduate of George Washington University (GWU) in D.C. and encouraged Morris to apply there.  So Morris began college at GWU in the fall of 1964.  He enjoyed his time in this diverse, urban setting.  However, right away he struggled in the classroom with organic chemistry and decided to drop premed studies.  When his family moved from Germany to California, Morris transferred to the University of Texas to be closer to them.  He was active at the Wesley Foundation on campus and at University U.M. Church.  It was during these college years that Morris started to identify himself as a gay man albeit largely in private. He took some summer classes which allowed him to graduate in January 1968 with a double major in philosophy and political science with a minor in anthropology.  Morris’ college years coincided with peak years of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S.   In the winter of 1965 he traveled to Lincoln, Nebraska to participate in a Methodist Student Movement Conference. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was scheduled to be the keynote speaker. On Morris’ connecting flight departing Chicago, Dr. King spotted him reading a book recommended for the conference and struck up a brief conversation.  That encounter and his experience at the conference nurtured a commitment to social justice activism.      As he completed college, he considered options.  Although he was accepted for training as a Peace Corps volunteer, Morris perceived that church ministry would provide an opportunity to use his skills to address what was needed in the country and world.  He was accepted to enter Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. in the fall of 1968.   In the interim, he drew on his mother’s past associations with Congressman J.J. Pickle (elected to Lyndon Johnson’s House of Representatives seat when LBJ became a Senator) to get a position working odd jobs in the House of Representatives that spring and summer.   Morris’ seminary years were again marked by prominent socio-political movements in the U.S. with the anti-Vietnam War protests, the Poor Peoples’ Campaign and the Stonewall Riots.  Wesley students and faculty were certainly tuned into these tumultuous events.  Morris did student pastoring as a youth minister at a Glen Burnie, Maryland congregation and was then assistant pastor at Marvin Memorial U.M. Church in Silver Spring.  He had a good working relationship with the senior pastor Edward Carroll (later elected a bishop) and enjoying numerous opportunities to preach. At Wesley he preached a highly-praised antiwar sermon in chapel, drawing on Simon & Garfunkel’s “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream.”  He was also active in student government at Wesley.  Morris stayed in seminary a fourth year to work with a cohort of 15 or so top Wesley students who sought to create a more experiential learning experience. They designed a program called “Interact” in which they created their own coursework that would integrate studies with field work.  Wesley Dean L. Harold DeWolf supported the venture and educator-activist Parker Palmer was enlisted to lead the group.   It was in this group that Morris began to talk with others about being gay.  Morris worked with other Wesley students to organize a conference that year, “Politics of Hope,” that brought seminarians and students to D.C. for an intensive urban experience. Dan Rather was the keynote speaker for the conference.     Morris’ last seminary year coincided with the 1972 United Methodist General Conference.  Prior to the General Conference, Morris and leaders of other United Methodist seminary student governments decided to try have voices of seminarians heard at the General Conference.  They organized and traveled to the conference in Atlanta with a proposal that they be seated with voice but not vote.  Following an affirmative vote by the conference, Morris was able to sit in with other conference delegates.  He did get to speak in the historic debate on a Social Principles statement on Homosexuality, which resulted in the “incompatible with Christian teaching” clause being adopted.  He was aware of gay activists who were circulating around the edges of the conference—among them Gene Leggett, Ernie Reagh, and Don McGaw.  He also met Michael Collins there, beginning a deep friendship built on common commitments as gay men of faith and advocacy for LGBT folk in the church.  They worked together closely until Michael’s death in 1984. Morris recalls traveling with Michael one summer to the meeting of the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference, where Michael’s ministerial relationship was in jeopardy because he was openly gay.  On the road trip from Southern California, they spent some time in Gold Beach, OR, where an innkeeper insisted on giving them a room with two beds even though their reservation had only asked for one.  After a couple of times of back and forth with the innkeeper Michael – exasperated – finally said, “You can give us two beds if you must, but we’re still only going to use one!”  Walking up the beach for dinner a little later, the two worried half-seriously if they should be on the lookout for bashers. Following seminary graduation, Morris enlisted in the US-2 program, a domestic mission venture for young United Methodist adults.  He was assigned to be chaplain at the Robinson School in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  The school needed coaching football, so Morris (who was not an athlete) decided to draw on his experience observing touch football on the seminary campus to coach the junior varsity team.  He quietly glowed when the team finished with a 4-3 record, as the varsity team had a losing season.  Learning that sports provided a great opportunity to connect with students, he became the athletic director at the school.   Morris developed a close mentoring relationship with a number of students and stays in contact with them decades later. During his time in Puerto Rico, Morris was commissioned as a Home Missionary. Morris pursued membership and ordination in what was then known as the Southern California-Arizona Annual conference of the United Methodist Church.  He remembers a member of the Board of Ordained Ministry asking him when he was planning to get married, to which he had no answer.  In those days it didn’t raise quite the red flags it would raise today, and his application was successful.  Later, the pastor who asked him that question became a strong supporter of LGBT folk in the church. In 1975, Morris returned to Southern California to complete a year of pastoring required to fulfill probationary status.  He served that year working with youth at First U.M. Church of El Cajon with a conservative senior pastor.  Persons spotted books about homosexuality on his bookshelves and were concerned about this, but he was not overtly challenged. After that year Morris moved to Farmington, New Mexico to become principal at Navajo United Methodist Mission School. The students boarded there during the week and went home on weekends. The objective of Morris’ leadership was to change the school from being an old-style mission school—where, for example, students were not allowed to speak Navajo—to become more of a Navajo School.  A Navajo pastor was hired as chaplain.  A graduate of the school came back to serve as the guidance counselor.  The school superintendent and Morris were building a board of directors that was primarily Navajo.  After his second year, another school graduate became principal and Morris became associate superintendent.  He spent his last year there largely traveling to raise money for the school.  During one of those trips, he connected by coincidence with the young Affirmation group, LGBT United Methodists and allies, at its national meeting at Broadway U.M. Church in Chicago.  This was the first opportunity for Morris to have significant interaction with other LGBT United Methodists.  The group was considering how to respond to the decision of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary to forbid the graduation of two gay students. Working with Lyle Loder and other friends in the Southern California annual conference, Morris helped to organize a presence for Affirmation in the region.             In February 1980, Morris moved to New York City to work for the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) helping to resource missions in the U.S.  He helped lead training for a new class of US-2 volunteers in the summer 1980 in Boston and the following year in Washington, D.C. He went to the 1980 General Conference in Indianapolis—not as an agency staff but to assist Affirmation in advocating for LGBT concerns.  Although ordained, Morris was also commissioned as a Home Missionary and active in the work of Deaconesses and Missionaries, which is a lay office in the UMC.  In the period not long after the firing of Deaconess Joan Clark, Morris advocated strongly for an approach inclusive of LGBT folk in the office.  This did not make him popular with the woman who provided administrative leadership for Deaconesses and Home Missionaries, but he felt it was especially urgent to do so.  During the decades when women could not be ordained and thereafter, the role of Deaconess has been a path by which many lesbians entered the UMC’s ministry of lay service as leaders, advocates for the disadvantaged and staff for church and community ministry and community centers, among other options. He was a member of the board of Diaconal Ministry in his home annual conference and participated in three international conferences. He also advocated strongly for LGBT concerns in that role, including several "energetic" with the then-head of the office at the GBGM.    Morris had told his boss that he was gay and could see that there were a number of other gay and lesbian persons on the staff.  But there was unease around the agency in the aftermath of the 1979 firing of Joan Clark for being a lesbian. Although Morris had no reason to think he would be challenged, he also realized that in the case of a major expose, the support he would get would be limited.  So in August 1981, he moved to Minneapolis to become executive director of Gay Community Services (later Lesbian & Gay Community Services – LGCS), a mental health center funded largely by the county and by United Way.  During his 20 years in Minneapolis, Morris provided leadership in the LGBT community and beyond by, among other things, being one of the founders of the Minnesota AIDS Project and serving on the state’s AIDS Task Force, as well as the board of directors of the Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus. This move freed Morris up to become more actively and publicly involved in Affirmation.  He was selected for the Coordinating Committee and helped design plans for advocacy and witness at the 1984 General Conference and to launch a new “welcoming church” program, the Reconciling Congregation Program.      Morris went to the 1984 General Conference in Baltimore as one of Affirmation’s national co-spokespersons, alongside Mary Gaddis.  His years of work in United Methodist missions and as a national agency staff positioned him to get an audience with some denominational leaders there. He was invited to dinner by Bishop Finis Crutchfield from Houston (who was outed after his death from AIDS a few years later) in the dining room of the hotel that housed the bishops.  Crutchfield made a point of walking Morris around and introducing him to other bishops.  He wanted to impress Morris in this way and by relating what he had done for the gay community, previously in New Orleans and now in Houston.   Morris also recalls a hallway discussion with a prominent pastor who was seen as an ally but vehemently opposed the strategy of having an openly gay person to speak to the General Conference.  This taught him to be skeptical about how far “progressive” leaders would go to advocate for LGBT persons.  Affirmation sponsored a dinner for allies and friends at a Baltimore congregation where they honored “saints” who had supported LGBT concerns.  Following the dinner, a leading African-American pastor took Morris to task for not being recognized for the risks he had taken to lead his congregation to provide space for a largely-gay Metropolitan Community Church.  This brought Morris face-to-face again with how covert racism could thwart the intentions and vision of Affirmation that believed it was espousing social justice. Meanwhile, Morris had also sought an appointment by Bishop Jack Tuell to his position at LGCS.  This led to several years of discussion with the Conference leadership about Morris’ status, and initially Morris was placed on an involuntary leave of absence, an action that required a supermajority vote of Annual Conference clergy. At the clergy executive session of the Annual Conference where this occurred, Bishop Tuell made a ruling of church law affirming that such a leave may be initiated and imposed involuntarily. Such decisions are automatically referred to the Judicial Council, the denomination’s Supreme Court.  Morris argued in opposition to the Bishop’s action that the decision was contrary to the Constitution of The United Methodist Church and to key due-process rights provided in the United Methodist Discipline to protect clergy from arbitrary removal of their right to an appointment.  In <a href="http://www.umc.org/decisions/41417/eyJyZXN1bHRfcGFnZSI6IlwvZGVjaXNpb25zXC9zZWFyY2gtcmVzdWx0cyIsInNlYXJjaDpkZWNpc2lvbl9udW1iZXIiOiIxMjA4In0)">Decision 524 </a>the Judicial Council overruled Morris’s appeal. The documents related to the appeal are available below as an additional resource. The second time the question came up, the involuntary leave was sustained by the clergy session, though by a narrow margin.  Thereafter the Bishop agreed to appoint Morris to any position reasonably compatible with the special appointment rules, but not to a local church.  Thereafter Morris worked for many years as an executive for a Twin Cities health care corporation.  He took the retired relationship to the Annual Conference in 1992, feeling that the Annual Conference relationship was hollow under the Bishop’s terms. In 1983, Bishop Tuell had worked with other bishops and an executive of the UM Board of Higher Education and Ministry to devise the language later approved at the 1984 General Conference that required “fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness” of the clergy, effectively preventing the ordination or appointment of gay and lesbian clergy. In May of 2003, Tuell preached a sermon (<a href="https://www.rmnetwork.org/newrmn/bishop-tuell-how-i-changed-my-mind/)">https://www.rmnetwork.org/newrmn/bishop-tuell-how-i-changed-my-mind/)</a> describing how he had changed his mind and confessing that he and the others that day were “unconsciously guided” by the need for “institutional protection” over the controversial matter, rather than the Wesleyan “tests of truth” (as the Bishop referred to them in a 2000 sermon called “Doing a New Thing”): “Scripture, Tradition, Experience and Reason.” Despite their profound disagreement at the time his appointment was in question, Morris remembers his relationship with Bishop Tuell as productive, mutually respectful and friendly. Morris served as a spokesperson for Affirmation through the 1992 General Conference.  In subsequent years he became a member of the Reconciling Congregation Program board of directors.  Among other contributions, he helped the group to create its initial effort to raise funds through major gifts from “Angels.”  In a sermon to the 25thAnniversary celebration of Affirmation, in 2000, Morris reminded attendees that their status as beloved children of God is not dependent on the approval on the United Methodist church, or any other religious body, and called on them find dignity and worth internally rather than allowing themselves to become victims by continually seeking validation from an institution. By the turn of the 21stCentury, Morris was distancing himself increasingly from the church, though he says to this day he is an “fascinated observer and commentator” on what he views as the denomination’s gyrations to find a position regarding homosexuality that will be faithful to the Gospel and to Wesleyan standards while also satisfactory to those who insist on a literal reading of Biblical proscriptions.  He believes that the struggle is about matters even more profound than human sexuality – the very nature of God, humankind, the rest of creation and the relationship among them, as well as the role of the Bible.  He does not think it likely that some sort of political accommodation between deeply opposed factions is likely to produce a resolution satisfactory to anyone.  Prior to the General Conference of 2016 he encouraged (<a href="http://www.chicagonow.com/observant-queer/2016/05/umc/">http://www.chicagonow.com/observant-queer/2016/05/umc/</a>) progressive United Methodists to forgo allegiance to the denomination and find a home for themselves and their Wesleyan heritage in other denominations.  He believes doing could dramatically strengthen the witness and work of groups such as the United Church of Christ without creating the overhead associated with a new Methodist denomination. Morris now considers himself a “recovering Christian.”  He says that he can identify with many elements of that faith community’s story, but he has recognized that he cannot honestly make the theological affirmations associated with Christian faith. Morris and his partner of 28 years, Alex Herrera, moved from Minneapolis to Chicago in the fall of 2001, where he served for 2 ½ years as the executive leader for development of the Center on Halsted, an LGBT community center.  Thereafter he worked with clients of DST Health Solutions as an account executive, consulting on the implementing the clients’ business strategy through improvements in their technology strategy and infrastructure.  After a diagnosis of stage 4 cancer, Morris retired to get well and spend his time in other ways.  He considers himself a fortunate survivor, now cancer-free 8 years later. Alex and Morris, fearing that Illinois would not promptly approve legislation supporting marriage equality, were married in 2012 in Toronto in a small ceremony with Alex’s mother, sister and her family as witnesses.  They presently live with their pug Niko in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood and have a second home in Cuernavaca, Mexico.  While Alex works as a senior development executive for Northwestern University, Morris enjoys volunteering at the National Runaway Safeline, being active in his condominium association and occasional blogging as the "Observant Queer" (<a href="http://www.chicagonow.com/observant-queer">www.chicagonow.com/observant-queer</a>). (This biographical profile was drafted by Mark Bowman from an interview with Morris Floyd and edited by Floyd.) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Morris Floyd Affirmation LGBT United Methodists Methodist Morris Floyd United Methodist Church