INTEGRITY FORUM

FOR GAY EPISCOPALIANS AND THEIR FRIENDS

c Integrity, Inc. 1979   ISSN: 0095-2184

Volume 5  Number 2   January-February 1979

 

INTEGRITY FORUM

Managing Editor:  David R. Williams. 

Editorial Board:  David S. Blix, Rev'd Grant M. Gallup, Rev'd T. Dewey Schwartzenburg and James Wickliff. 

Contributing Editors:  Rev'd Ellen M. Barrett, Rev'd Malcolm Boyd, Jim Cotter, Louie Crew, William A. Doubleday, Rev'd Carter Heyward, Rev'd Canon Clinton R. Jones, Rev'd John McNeill, S.J., Rev'd James B. Nelson, Rev'd W. Norman Pittenger. 

 

Circulation:  Jerry Vogt and Integrity/Chicago. 

Integrity Officers:  John C. Lawrence, President; Kevin Scahill, Vice-President; Donn Mitchell, Secretary; George W. Casper, Treasurer; and the 8 Regional Representatives as listed on the back page. 

INTEGRITY FORUM:  FOR GAY EPISCOPALIANS AND THEIR FRIENDS is the official publication of Integrity, Inc.  Publication of the name, photograph or likeness of any person or organization is not to be construed as any indication of the sexual orientation of such person or organization.  Editorial correspondence should be sent to Integrity, P.O. Box 891, Oak Park IL 60303 or telephone 312/386-1470.  Copyright by Integrity, Inc.  6 issues per year.  Memberships are $10 per year; subscriptions without memberships  are $12 per year.  Add $3 for mailing in a plain envelope.  Make checks payable to Integrity, Inc. and remit to George W. Casper, 530 Massachusetts Av., Boston, MA 02118. 

 

HOW TO CONVERT A CHRISTIAN

by Donna Martin

 

Many difficulties face anyone attempting to get the Church to reverse its nearly universal condemnation of homosexuality as a heinous sin.  A num­ber of tacks have been tried by gay apologists, but, in my opinion, most share a serious drawback.

 

A familiar tack has been to cite the many prohibitions and admonitions of Mosaic law which today Christians and even most Jews no longer adhere to.  The argument goes that if the Church no longer deems their observance necessary for holiness, the other Biblical rules of conduct should likewise be suspect, in this case especially the alleged injunctions against homosexuality.  But as directed to Christians, this argument does not carry much weight; for them the code of behavior detailed in Leviticus and Deuteronomy repre­sents the Law __ the necessity for which was negated with the coming of Christ.  Nonetheless, they argue, other scriptural moral judgments remain as nomism to the present day, including, of course, those against homosexuality.

 

Another popular approach has invoked scholarly research to defuse the ap­parent unequivocal anti-homosexual judgments in certain stories and passages.  Basic to this is linguistic work which ferrets out etymologies (original mean­ings) of key words and, importantly, their social and religious contexts.

 

Thus, while the traditional interpretation given to the sin of the men of Sodom has been homosexuality, scholars point out that the pertinent words in Hebrew do not bear out this glossing of the story.  Similarly, linguistic digging points to the fact that key Greek words in the relevant Pauline passages do not refer to homosexuals as we think of them today, but rather to people engaged in pagan sexual rites or simply playing/experimenting with this sexual variation.

 

Another argument drawing on scholarship is that which fills in the social realities out of which homosexual prohibitions arose. Thus, it is pointed out that both in Old and New Testament times, homosexuality was to be found as part of the total fabric of religion among the pagan peoples who surrounded the Jews in Palestine.  Quite understandably then is the reaction of Jews and early Christians against an act associated by them with pagan religions __ that is, with the ungodly of this world.  But, gay apologists point out, this ancient association no longer holds, and thus, this "culture-conditioned" reaction against homosexuality must now be seriously reconsidered.

 

The basic problem with all these arguments is that while they may be mean­ingful to religious scholars and variously persuasive to them, they simply do not touch average professing Christians.  Like most people, they are simply not given to the use of logic-based reasoning, though they employ its simpler cousin, common-sense in practical and technical matters.  Need one do more than note the type of television fare that regularly grabs the vast masses of the viewing audience to realize the indisputable truth of this sad state of affairs?  The overwhelming majority of Christians in fact experience their religion emotionally having uncritically absorbed it with their mother's milk, or later in life, embraced it primarily from needs for certainty and security.

 

Let me therefore suggest another stratagem.  It is one which I feel has more potential for persuasion than the earlier ones cited because of its centrality in the Christian ethos and, not insignificantly, also because of its simplicity.  I propose presenting the issue of homosexuality to ordinary Christians in its relation to the very concept which they so readily use against it__namely sin.

 

Now in the Christian tradition sin is seen as being of two types. The first is "original sin" __ that which we are all born into, for it is the evil inheritance that comes to us, inexorably, from our first parents: against God's express prohibition, Adam and Eve chose to eat of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil.  We are victims of their ancient act, completely powerless to extricate ourselves from its consequences: though not individually responsible for it, its sequelae __ pain, unhappiness death __ are inevitable parts of the human condition.

 

The other type of sin is that which each person commits daily, throughout his lifetime in the form of specific acts.  These encompass both thoughts and deeds, and include not just outright offenses against both God and our fellow humans (sins of commission), but also failures to act lovingly (sins of omission). Given such broad jurisdiction, "everyday" sin would also seem to be something that no one, not even the most saintly, can escape.

 

But its inescapableness should not therefore blind us to its difference from original sin in one extremely important way.  We are in fact individually responsible for these sins: they are acts which, unlike original sin, we are free to choose or not to choose.  And so, since people do choose differently, there are different degrees of sinfulness.  (Everyone, even the most debased, recognizes the difference between Adolph Hitler and Albert Schweitzer, and Christians believe this difference will make a difference on Judgment Day.)  The crucial point is that this type of sin is a matter over which each individual has control.

 

What then of the typical Christian equation of homosexuality and sin?  Until recently, this formula was perhaps understandable, for there has been pre­cious little thought and study devoted to matters sexual for most of man's history.  Within the past century, however, beginning most notably with Freud, speculation about and study of human sexuality, including its varia­tions, have increased prodigiously.  And while the causative complex favoring the expression of homosexuality remains uncertain (as also, not so incidentally, does that of heterosexuality) what is certain is that homosexuality is not a choice.  It has causative antecedents, whether genetic or social or some mix of the two: but they are factors over which the homosexual has no more control than does the heterosexual over his formative milieu.

 

No longer is Judeo-Christianity justified in categorically branding homo­sexuality as sin.  It just won't work anymore.  For sins (of the "everyday" sort) by definition imply choices freely entered into.  And it is now nearly universally agreed upon by psychiatrists, psychologists, and other students of the sub­ject that homosexuality "happens" to people, rather than being freely chosen by them.

 

It is true that homosexuals have choice in one vital area.  They can elect to act out their sexual nature, or they can decide instead to suppress it.  Some church bodies have gone on record to make what they no doubt feel is a significant concession:  to accept the homosexual while condemning his/her homosexuality.  Alas, one must resoundingly reject this devious stand on two counts.

 

First, it is quite simply __ illogical, a ploy these churchmen would reject im­mediately in any other area of life.  I would like to posit as an axiom that people and things cannot be known and thus responded to apart from their actions/functions __ that is, the expression of their nature.  It is meaningful, for example, to say we approve of idle nuclear power plants, but disapprove of them as functioning, potentially lethal entities?  Or that we should embrace neighbor Harry as a friend __ if it weren't for the fact that he gets tanked up most every weekend and brutalizes his family?  Clearly then, to try to make such an operative distinction between a homosexual human-being and his/her expression of that important part of his being is to use specious reasoning in the service of a species of hypocritical concern.

 

Secondly, this position is both unfair and unloving.  Sexuality, so goes the current credo, is now frankly recognized and applauded by the Church as a gift of God, intended both for procreation and pleasure.  In contrast to centuries of suspicion about and frank condemnation of sexuality, it now carries the Church's seal of approval.  But only for heterosexuals!  Enjoy­ment of this God-given potential has been denied homosexuals by the majority in the Church making the rules.  Thus, as a homosexual one cannot qualify as a credentialed Christian unless one resigns oneself to celibacy.

 

St. Paul, as we all know, was pretty down on sex, but even he conceded that "it is better to marry than to burn."  Out of a secular sense of justice, then, Christians cannot deny to others (equally considered children of God) privi­leges and pleasures which they appropriate for themselves.  Moreover, their Christ-inspired sense of compassion and love for their fellow humans must extend itself to include acceptance of sexual expression among homo __ as well as heterosexuals.  For life without sex is for most people arid and filled with much struggle and inevitable yieldings to temptation.  Is it not clear, in fact, that a rigid anti-sex position for Christian homosexuals is bound to be the occasion for sin as the Church defines it?  Sin, guilt, and remorse for the already beleaguered Christian who just happens (incidentally) to be homo­sexual?  Surely the Church does not intend this, but it is being self-righteously naive if it doesn't take into account these inevitable consequences.

 

When used by Christians, arguments intended to defend their theological systems and proselytize non-believers are known as apologetics.  It is import­ant that those of us interested in attempting to storm the citadel of religious conservatism become thoroughly familiar with the Bible and proficient in theological thinking in the interests of developing our own "apologia."  For if the reasoned approach to softening the Church's entrenched position on homosexuality is to have an efficacy (and that is a big "if'), it will happen only if religious gay activists become so skilled in the use of the theological "tools of the trade" that they gain the respect of the religious establishment.  It is ironic but true that only by using these traditional techniques can gay activists hope to demonstrate the inconsistencies and illogic of the Church regarding homosexuality.  Then maybe there's a chance that once the shep­herds cease to be so rigid, their flocks will slowly also become both more humane and more Christian __ and perhaps more open to simple, rational discourse.

 

Reprinted with permission from the February 1979 issue of GPU News, P.O. Box 92203, Milwaukee, WI 53202.

 

GAY AT EASTER

by Malcolm Boyd

 

Go visit a museum of old consciousness and see the accouterments of niggerland:  slaveships, whips, degradation, hatred, torture, self-hate, low self-esteem, self-destruction, nigger, nigger, nigger.

 

Faggotland is a mere variation on the old theme:  queers, closets, degradation, reaction after reaction after reaction in an endless hallway of faded mirrors, self-hate, low self-esteem, self-destruction, ghetto, faggot, faggot, faggot.

 

Niggerland gave way to black consciousness, black pride, black achieve­ment, the dream and the mountain of Martin Luther King, the liberation vision and pragmatism of Malcolm X, the courage and determination of sit-­ins and freedom rides, a tired and gallant Rosa Parks seated on a Birmingham bus, Marian Anderson singing "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Thurgood Marshall seated on the U.S. Supreme Court and Andrew Young in the U.N.

 

If one tries to explore faggotland, there is difficulty because faggots are hidden and not identifiable in most cases.  Although some faggots who elect to be cloned often resemble those haunted-looking creatures in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, it is usually impossible to label a faggot on the street.  Inside faggotland, faggots hate gays.  Faggots abhor those homo­sexuals who achieve legitimization and honor in the public arena.

 

Faggots work within (and against) the gay movement for self-aggrandizement.  Faggots foment endless chaos and trouble, stir up anxiety and confusion.  The mark of the faggot is humorless zeal (viz., The Zeal of Thy House); naziesque regimentation and utter rejection of honest human diversity: the role of puritanism-cum-purge; a deep need of rigid choreography and a sharp mistrust of spontaneity (this tends to eliminate the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Ghost); and the mask of respectability (especially the religion of respectability) __ due to a gnawing sense of personal failure and hatred.

 

Faggots feel guilty, dirty and hopeless.  Faggots, like traditional house-niggers, betray their brothers and sisters in an obsessive fawning subservience to established authority for the sake of an acceptance that is ever limited ever provisional.

 

After the dark midnight of the soul of faggotland, thank God there comes Easter.  Easter is gay, celebratory, joyful, fulfilling.  Easter is an occasion for thanksgiving.  Easter is the Light after the crucifixion of Good Friday.  Easter is Resurrection.

 

Earlier, in the dark midnight of the soul, one had cried "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"  Everything had seemed so bad, futile, frustrat­ing, lost.  All the news was heavy.  One could scarcely stand or laugh or run.

 

Now, deliverance is here.  The news is good tidings.  This is God's Time of release, openness, being cleansed, eating the bread of heaven and drinking from the cup of salvation, finding and being found.  We are overwhelmed by gratitude and joy that we are who we are.  Thanks be to God.

 

MARTHA WINSLOW, CO-DEAN OF MINNEAPOLIS CONVENTION, RESIGNS FROM CHURCH

 

About two months after the convention of Integrity in Minneapolis, at which she served as co-dean, Martha Winslow resigned from Integrity, from the Episcopal Women's Caucus, and from the Episcopal Church.  She was also Midwest Regional representative for Integrity.  In a letter to John Lawrence, president of Integrity, and to convenors of midwest chapters, Ms. Winslow wrote:

 

      I am leaving for two reasons.  One, because it is too dangerous for me to stay any longer.  Women as a class and gays as a class are survivors (and I am both), but I can trust myself no longer to test that to further limits.  I am in danger of being pushed off the edge and I must escape with at least my life.  Two, I have left because my faith in the Church has been finally destroyed.  I have tried hard to work within the Church, to create change for me and for my sisters and brothers.  I see now that the church is content with its egotism and bigotry, content to fall short of its calling to be the community of the faithful.  Since that is so, there is no reason for me to struggle any longer.

 

In further explanation of her departure, Ms. Winslow wrote to the Right Reverend Robert Anderson, Bishop of Minnesota:

 

      The recent diocesan convention held in Duluth almost killed me.  At that convention the Commission on Sexuality held one of the series of open hearings that they are using in their work.  Earlier in the day the Reverend James Diamond had asked the more conservative members of this diocese to speak out as they had not been "fairly " represented at earlier hearings.  I knew then that the major focus of the evening would be around the issue of homosexuality.  And as expected a whole host of folks stood and voiced their opinions.  The hate I felt from members of the Episcopal Church simply because I am a lesbian was enormous.  That hate almost pushed me off the edge of sanity.  As I looked around Saturday night on my friends who had been at that hearing I saw the total devastation that those few short hours had wreaked.  The fact that that could happen within the Church is incredible to me.  I waited while the Church debated whether my femaleness was a good creation of God or whether women were some aberration which could never represent God-on-earth for others.  That I should be asked to sit still while others rant about the sinfulness of genuine love between two persons of the same sex is too much to ask.  This Episcopal Church is not a democracy, rather it is supposed to be a community called into being by God.  The Episcopal Church falls far short of this calling.  The pain of this is overwhelming and the danger too great for me to stay ....  The price of staying inside is too great and I can still hope that outside will be healthier for me and others who have had to leave what has become for us a deathtrap.

 

The letters were dated November 27, 1978.

 

GRNL PROMOTES GAY RIGHTS

 

The Gay Rights National Lobby, Inc., is a national civil rights organization incorporated as a non-profit corporation and headquartered in Washington, D.C.  GRNL is organized for the purpose of lobbying at the federal government level for legislation pertaining to gay people.

 

The lobbying group has taken over the task of lobbying Congress from the National Gay Task Force, centered in New York City.  Stephen Endean, for­merly the Coordinator for the Minnesota Committee for Gay Rights, has been appointed Executive Director of the organization.  When asked about his priori­ties for the GRNL, he said, "Our top priorities must be to build a strong lobby­ing presence on Capitol Hill and to provide far greater membership service and organizational maintenance."  He added, "While passage of (gay rights) legis­lation is certainly not likely in the next year or two, passage of controversial legislation never comes quickly.  The building of an effective lobbying effort now will allow us to move swiftly for passage when the political climate once again improves."

 

Persons wishing to join the GRNL are asked to write for more information to GRNL, Suite 210, 110 Maryland Ave. N.E., Washington, DC 20002.

 

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In this we have the proof of God's love-

He has sacrificed His life for us

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LAWRENCE APPOINTS TWO REPS

 

John Lawrence, President, has announced the appointment of two Regional Representatives of Integrity.  Carol L. Hodges will take over as Midwestern Regional Representative and David Blalock will take over as Gulf Coast Regional Representative.

 

Carol is Co-Convenor of Integrity/Central Indiana.  She is a former public school teacher and is currently working on her Doctorate in Psychology.  She was born into a Southern Baptist family but was confirmed in the Episcopal church several years ago.  She comes to Integrity with a fine background, having organized several lesbian feminist organizations.

 

David is a member of Episcopal Integrity/Houston and a former Convenor of that group.

 

WOMEN AND INTEGRITY

 

A pattern which we see time and time again in many mixed gay organizations is that of women participants gradually leaving because, in one way or another, their needs are not being met, so that in the end the group becomes 100% male in its membership.  We must carefully guard against this pattern in Integrity, or it too will follow suit and become an all male fellowship.

 

First, I do not believe that women members can rely entirely on male members to fight this problem.  Many women have had negative experiences with men, and there will be a good deal of skepticism toward any statements made by men concerning the inclusion of women in Integrity.  Thus, female leaders of Integrity must be heard in feminist circles as often as possible.  Within Integrity, women must point out instances of sexism each time one comes up.  I believe many of the male members wish to unlearn the sexist notions they have absorbed through the culture, but are not always sure how to.  Sometimes efforts to put women in positions of leadership are thwarted by a lack of women willing to take these positions, and by a lack of enough female members from which we can draw.

 

I urge women members to do the following things:

 

1.    Step forward and run for leadership positions;

2.    Bring your friends to meetings, especially your female friends Let them see you in an equal position;

3.    See to it that your chapters advertise in women's magazines;

4.    See to it that one male and female participate in any speeches or projects outside the chapter;

5.    In a teaching spirit, help the men in your chapter to recognize and under­stand when they have done something sexist.  Many times it is inadvertent or habitual.  Just as we sometimes need encouragement being assertive, they may need help overcoming their conditioning;

6.    Encourage your chapter to form a woman's caucus, insist upon not-­sexist liturgies and female Celebrants.

 

Neither will the problem be solved by women alone.  There are many things male members can do to help Integrity keep female members.

 

1.    Examine your own attitudes.  As a chapter, find several feminists: have them hold a panel discussion or other kind of program on sexism.  You may find that you need help in recognizing some old, established patterns;

2.    Actively recruit women members.  Work with your women members to do, this;

3.    Recognize and fight sexism in the Church.  It is your enemy too, and much of the hatred toward gay men is based on sexist fears and attitudes;

4.    If your male friends display sexism, point it out.  Ask your friends to monitor your attitudes as well;

5.    Elect women officers, or establish co-officer teams of one male and one female;

6.    Express your concern about women in Integrity, and see how your women members think you can best support an ongoing effort to meet women's needs.

 

These are just some ideas, and there must be many other constructive actions which could be taken.  It is crucial that all gays __ male and female __ be included in Integrity's efforts to reach its goals.  Our organization has the potential to be an example of what could happen if everyone worked together.  Because it is more sensitive and thoughtful than many organizations, it is the best ground gays have for growing non-sexist, caring cooperation.  It is our best chance of truly working together.  Let's not pass up this opportunity.

 

            Margaret L Putnam, Reg Rep.__New England

 

NOT TO SEND PEACE

by Louie Crew

 

INTEGRITY is still a fledgling, only four years old in November 1978.  Hence it seems much too early to measure INTEGRITY's success.  Certainly INTEGRITY has been a means for many thousands of lesbian and gay male Christians to be used in Christ's witness; and certainly many more thousands of nongay Christians have through INTEGRITY been confronted with some of the truths of our lives.  Furthermore, INTEGRITY shows fairly good vital signs, with strong leadership in most places.

 

What troubles me is the immense recalcitrance of the ignorance and the homophobia which we are called to exorcise.  I very much doubt that we have found the most effective strategies for our prophetic missions to non­gays and gays alike.

 

As does any spiritual community, INTEGRITY constantly risks diminution through trivialization, whether by becoming merely a private club with in­cense and pretty music, by becoming a mere forum for the vaunting of celebrated egos, or by becoming merely an efficient mechanism for accom­modating the evil that deserves a more radical removal.

 

Given the comfortable socio-economic status of most INTEGRITY members relative to that of members of most other lesbian and gay male organizations, INTEGRITY threatens to become a substantial drain of energy and power from the movement generally unless INTEGRITY vigilantly resists all trivialization.  Blasphemy has hardly ever been so possible through the imaginative swearings of street persons as through the elegant but vain use of God's name by those from whom much more is required.

 

When I took the first flimsy issue of Forum to the printer, I assumed that social injustice could be rectified simply by telling the oppressors the truth.  I assumed that no one wants to be an oppressor, and that the person who steps on my toe can be dissuaded if properly informed of my pain.  I knew that some who step on toes might have to be prompted several times before breaking their bad habits, especially since many were trained not to hear the promptings of lesbians and gay males as cries of human beings; and I knew that it would take time to persuade others to take on the nuisance job of speaking out when stepped upon, so accustomed have we grown to living with such annoyances. But basically I felt that the job was clear-cut and fairly simple in conception, if demanding in execution.

 

I was very naive.  I failed to reckon with the fact that some people have a vested interest in our oppression.  Perhaps a majority of the leaders of our church feel that they have an obligation to silence "undesirables," particularly those defined as undesirable by the heterosexual majority, whose contribu­tions to the church coffers all too often are investments in respectability for this life rather than investments in the treasures of heaven.  For such seekers of respectability, open and honest lesbians and gay males are obviously the moths and rust that corrupt, the thieves who break in and steal.

 

Even a sizeable majority of lesbians and gay males view honesty and open­ness in precisely the same way.  In every Episcopal cathedral and in thousands of parish churches there is a group of lesbians and gay males who really cannot imagine why we would possibly want to go to church at all if not for the couple of hours of precious respectability which they have carefully tried to secure there.

 

Our oppressors have grown much more sophisticated since we first started speaking out.  INTEGRITY's growth seems feeble by comparison.  The op­pressors are not stepping just on toes these days.  The last two sessions of the House of Bishops have produced the most anti-homosexual ecclesiastical statements since Leviticus and Romans 1.  In 1976 we caught them off guard and persuaded a conservative commission chaired by a Southern bishop to push through General Convention a very loving statement about us as "children of God."  However, when Bishop Moore dared to take that docu­ment seriously by ordaining Ellen Barrett as such a Child of God, the respectability folks completely gutted the Minneapolis resolution.  There is a very real possibility that the 1979 General Convention in Denver will for the first time in the history of the Anglican Communion pass legislation specific­ally prohibiting our ordination.  As in the children's game, we have taken one itsy-bitsy step forward only to have to take a giant step backward.  Further­more, we are not even represented in the membership of the new commission charged to report our issues to General Convention, though our celeb­rated adversary Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse is the most outspoken member of that commission.  Clearly the commission's report can have no more credi­bility than would the report on blacks by a commission with no black representation but with Lester Maddox as a vocal commission member.

 

Our Lord's ministry was volatilely nonviolent As Christ turned over the tables of the money-changers, so we must begin more serious instruction of those who have turned God's house of prayer into a heterosexual club with gay closets.  The Church has shown very limited good faith in responding to our less dramatic presentations:  we need to find more forceful measures.

 

For example, some closets need fumigating.  Using a hetero cover to pre­serve an opportunity for ministry is one thing; but the use of that cover to take pot shots at the rest of us is decidedly another matter.  When known gay and lesbian laity, priests, and bishops speak out against homosexuals to throw the suspicion off themselves, their position is as untenable as that of the high-yellow riding in the front of the bus and throwing rotten eggs at the black sisters and brothers in the back.  If such folks can't be persuaded to desist in their abuses of us, they need to be exposed.

 

Again, the public needs to be alerted more dramatically to the priests and Levites who pass us by on the other side, ignoring the very pain which they have aggravated.  E.g., twice in the last month INTEGRITY persons have been turned down by bishops and other clergy in two separate dioceses when asked to perform a simple Eucharist for groups of needy lesbians and gay males, once for a group of Episcopalian English teachers at their national meeting.  There is nothing sacred about ecclesiastical hatred!

 

Very soon INTEGRITY members may have to face jail sentences for volatile, nonviolent acts at such altars, for performing the services our Lord performed for the temple exchequers.  Recently our DIGNITY sisters and brothers in NYC interrupted a service at St Patrick's Cathedral with the chant, "Cardinal Cook Take a Look!"  Certainly the Episcopal rector of nearby St. Bartholomew's took a look and used the episode positively in a sermon preached to the national gathering of the heads of Episcopal diocesan liturgy committees, perhaps as gay a group as any in our church.  We simply can no longer rule out the rasher measures of Christian witness.  Often Dr. King was heard most clearly when H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael were in the wings.  For sure, we will never do much educating if we allow our oppressors to dictate either the content, the style, or the timing of our reactions.

 

The real test will be whether we can resist in love.  If we cannot, we should not even begin, for lovelessness is no victory at all.

 

I am persuaded that we have not yet even begun adequately to assess the real needs of our own community, and each day thousands of lesbian and gay male young people learn to perpetuate their own self-oppression.  God's concern for us can be communicated only as we make ourselves available to communicate that concern.

 

FR. BARCUS "COMES OUT" TO HIS PARISH

 

An Episcopal priest announced to his congregation that he himself was gay during the course of an anti-Proposition 6 sermon on October 23 in San Francisco.

 

The Rev. William H. Barcus III said to his parishioners at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, "I believe I am called by God himself not only to stand up for them, but this time, now more honestly, to stand as one of them.  I am of course talking about gay people.  I am gay."

 

One parishioner reacted by saying, "I think Fr. Barcus has great courage.  One feels his great love."  In general, the parish reaction was favorable and supportive.

 

Fr. Barcus, a graduate of the Episcopal Divinity School, has also served parishes in Chicago.

 

TULSA CHURCH ENDORSES "GAY LIFESTYLE"

 

The Universal Church of Jesus Christ has recently voted to endorse the "gay lifestyle" as a legitimate Christian way of life.  The Church, with international offices in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was formed to apply the example of Jesus Christ to modern situations.

 

The Church's statement rejected what it regarded as an erroneous idea in Christianity going back to St. Paul, namely, that sex is justified only for the generation of children.  Noting that in recent times, all churches have relaxed their sexual ethics, the statement asserted that "the time has come to reevaluate 'gay unions.'"

 

The statement noted that "many people are not exclusively either heterosexual or homosexual, but rather are bisexual," and added that sexual orientation is not chosen, but is established by the age of five.

 

"Since there does not seem to be a free choice in a person's sexual orientation the church can not hold people responsible for their particular orientation.  As heterosexual couples who cannot have or chose not to have children are not expected to remain celibate or non-sexual, the church feels that homosexual people likewise should not be expected to remain celibate or non-sexual."

 

Arguing that the traditional ethic has forced homosexuals to be hypocrites if they wish to belong to the Christian church, the statement noted that since Jesus himself said nothing about homosexuality, but did condemn the hypo­crites, we feel that the Christian approach to a solution is endorsing the gay lifestyle and ending the hypocrisy."  The Church announced that it will marry gay couples.

 

The Universal Church of Jesus Christ, whose president is Dr. Charles Johnson, is a small and recently formed denomination.  Unlike the Metropolitan Com­munity Church, it denies being primarily a gay church, and membership does not require the cancellation of former denominational membership.  Its address is, The Universal Church of Jesus Christ, 5 West 22nd Street, Tulsa, OK 74114 .

 

BOOKS IN BRIEF

 

Embodiment:  An Approach to Sexuality and Christian Theology. James B. Nelson. Minneapolis:  Augsburg, 1978. 303 p. $8.95.

 

James B. Nelson, Professor of Christian Ethics at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul), has given us a major theological work.  The scope of his concern is detected in the book's subtitle, for it is the prism of "sexual theology" that focuses the perspective of his approach to human sexuality.  In "sexual theology" Nelson comprehends a two-way street that which theology has to say about the body-self and that which the human sexual experience has to affirm about our relation to God.  To this task the author brings a wide-ranging acquaintance with the contemporary contributions not only of Christian ethical thought, but also of the disciples of psychology, anthropology, and sociology.  In fact, one of the book's main contributions may be the summarizing of the research to date of these fields upon the lively topic of human sexuality. Merely to absorb the reading represented by the footnotes is to become familiar with a basic working bibliography.

 

Halfway through, 'though, I begin to wonder whether the initial promise of the opening chapters was not beginning to be submerged under the sum­marizing.  After a stunning definition of sexuality, which includes the insights that "sexuality is our self-understanding and way of being in the world as male and female ....  Sexuality is a sign, a symbol, and a means of our call to communication and communion." (pp. 17-18) and after an exploration of basic concepts, drawing heavily upon "symbolic interactionalism," Nelson describes convincingly the contemporary crisis of sexual alienation, tracing it to two pervasive strands, spiritualistic dualism or body-spirit dichotomy and sexist dualism or man-woman dichotomy.  Nelson is fair in his tracing of the development of these factors from pre-Christian origins down through the history of Christian theology.  The continuing legacy of these forces in body alienation and sexist oppression is dealt with in detail, and the principle of love as the central norm for Christian sexual ethics carefully delineated.

 

Four central chapters deal with the application of the theological and ethical principles of the first four chapters to specific human situations.  It was in the chapters on marriage and on sexual variations that I began to feel a bit uneasy.  It seemed that the probing insights of a "sexual theology" were being overwhelmed by the weight of the research into the accumulated results of interdisciplinary treatment of these problem areas.  I do not mean to suggest, however, that the scope of these concerns is not comprehensive or suggestive, but rather to record my impression that the promise of light was dimming somewhat.  To have drawn to a close in my reactions at this point would have been premature, however, for in the next two chapters, on homosexuality and the sexually disenfranchised, Nelson redeems his earlier pledge.  The chapter entitled "Gayness and Homosexuality: Issues for the Church" is quite simply one of the most incisive approaches chal­lenging the Christian community to date.

 

Even more moving is his consideration of the sexual lives of the physically disabled, the seriously ill, the aging and the mentally retarded.  These very human aspects of contemporary life, so easily overlooked, receive a power­fully humane Christian apologia.  Nelson then returns in his final chapter on "The Church as Sexual Community" to his stated goal of presenting a "sexual theology." The ways in which the sexual nature and experience of persons can be an affirmation of the knowledge and love of God receive the initiation of a systematic examination of how this recognition can result in the revitalization of the Church's faith, worship, and life.  Particularly stimulat­ing are Nelson's insights into the relationships of a truly Christian sexual theology to such perennial concerns as rape, discrimination against sexual minorities, ecological irresponsibility, social violence, women's rights, over­population, and racism.  An epilogue leaves us with an optimistic insight through a quotation from Auden's For the Time Being.

 

As a summary of the contributions of many human endeavors into a crucial dimension in the human perception of the love of God, of self, of fellow persons, and of the created world, Embodiment is as fine a presentation as is currently available.  Its value would be impressive at this level alone.  Its opening up of new possibilities in the exploration of the way in which we experience and reflect upon the gift of sexuality as an avenue to the reality of God in our lives is even more exciting as a challenge to further development, not only by professional theologians but also by all Christians.  Nelson is a committed Christian and his approach does not ignore the serous factor that sin is in our lives as body-selves.  He has made a good beginning and that which he has done shall not be taken from him.  In his spotlighting of future directions may lie his most important service.

 

In addition to the footnotes which, as indicated above, furnish a full biblio­graphy, indices of subjects, of names, and of biblical references add to the scholarly character of the author's research.  And, in a day and age in which the products of even prestigious university presses reach the reading public replete with typographical errors, this book is notable for "cleanness." This reviewer encountered only two "typos:"  the omission of the first footnote number in chapter 8, an omission easily corrected, and the more serous error of joining the two words "in" and "appropriate," on p. 225 into an "inappropriate" reading for the skimmer, but not for the careful reader.

 

                           Robert A. Smith

 

BISHOP VISITS INTEGRITY

 

On Tuesday evening, December 17, Bishop John B. Coburn of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts attended a meeting of Integrity/Boston.  While Bishop Coburn's acceptance of the invitation to preside at the Eucharist and to participate in a question and answer session was seen by Integrity members as a positive step, the overwhelming reaction of those present was anger and frustration at the bishop's remarks.  The bishop began the question period by stating that he did not really think that the Episcopal Church had an official position on homo­sexuality, and that he did not like ideological positions and statements.  How­ever, in the course of the question period the bishop came down rigidly on the conservative side:  gay people are poor role models and therefore should be barred from ordination; homosexual love is "incomplete" and gay relationships lack "wholeness,"  therefore there can be no blessing of gay couples; "practicing homosexuality" is not an acceptable expression of sexuality for any Christian.  At one point the Bishop seemed to put even heterosexual single adults into a second class position:  only in marriage and progeny is wholeness attained, said the bishop.

 

Comments from those present at the meeting ranged from "arrogance" and "insensitive" to  "depressing."  One of the planners of the evening said:  "l had expected him to waffle, to avoid taking any quotable positions, so at least we should be glad he was frank and honest in the expression of his position."

 

                            Allan Stifflear

 

C OF E SAYS NO TO WOMEN PRIESTS

 

The Church of England General Synod, comparable to the Episcopal Church's General Convention, voted down a proposal to allow women to become deacons, priests, and bishops.  The proposal, which would have authorized the prepara­tion of legislation necessary to remove the present barriers to women's ordina­tion, failed in the clerical house, although it passed both the Bishops and the Laity.

 

The bishops voted in favor by 32 to 17, while the laity were affirmative by a narrower margin, 120 to 106.  But the clergy turned down the measure by a strong 149 to 94.  It was generally agreed by both sides in the debate that the result meant that women would probably not be eligible for ordination for at least another ten years.

 

The leader of the opponents, Bishop Graham Leonard of Truro, drew loud applause when he wondered why "the Church of England appeared to accept the criteria of secular thought so readily and failed to emphasize the eternal truths which give true stability and challenge the assumptions of the world."  He added, "I want women to be women!"  Along the same lines, a layman wrote to the London Times and commented on the decision.  "Priests are men; women are women."

 

Another speaker at the synod was greeted by boos and jeers when she suggested that the opposition to the ordination of women actually stemmed from a fear of "feminine sexuality" on the part of those who had not adequately dealt with their own sexuality.  The violent antagonism she engendered suggested to many that her remarks had hit too close to home for the comfort of many of the clergy and laity.  Some years ago a bishop of the Church engendered a similar uproar when he remarked publicly that a great many of the priests of the Church of England were homosexual.  An openly gay cleric commented at the time, "Methinks the ladies do protest too much."

 

The Bishop of Birmingham, the Rt. Rev. Hugh Montefiore, told the synod, "To insist on an all-male priesthood in a society which has abandoned male leadership tn other areas of life is to distort the meaning of Christian priesthood.  It leads to serious distortion in doctrine."

 

The synod also put off for two years a rule change which would have permitted the remarriage of divorced persons in the Church. And in a close vote, a proposed prayer for use after abortions was turned down.  It read in part, "Into your hands we commit in trust the developing life that we have cut short."  ­Apparently the prayer failed primarily because it was perceived as a semi­official endorsement of abortions.

 

FIGHTING BROADCAST BIGOTRY

 

The National Gay Task Force has reported that the Federal Communications Commission ruled that its "fairness doctrine" applies to religious broadcasters just as to other licensees.  In response to a complaint filed by the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, the FCC said that the views on a "controversial issue of public importance" are not exempt from that doctrine merely because they are "couched in religious terms," and that "gay rights" is just such an issue.  As a result, radio and TV licensees must present opposing viewpoints on it.

 

A flood of anti-gay material is being produced by evangelical and fundament­alist groups and broadcast around the country on church-owned and other "religious" stations.  Gay organizations can take advantage of this FCC ruling (file no. 7808) by filing complaints with the stations demanding response time to counter their bigoted presentations.  Such complaints should be espe­cially effective if initiated by a local gay church, synagogue, or religious caucus such as Integrity and Dignity, but it is also valuable to include in the response statements of support from non-gay clergy and religious organiza­tions, local, if possible.  National statements can be obtained from the National Gay Task Force's Gay Rights Support Packet.  Copies of complaints to broadcasters should always bc sent to the FCC's Complaint Division, 1919 M Street, Washington, DC 20554.

 

The NGTF has noted that it is "gay rights," not homosexuality as such, which the FCC ruled is a "controversial issue."  This is actually to the benefit of the gay community, since if homosexuality as such were defined as a controversial issue, gays would be open to attack from the other side every time a lesbian or gay man (or lesbian or gay fictional character) appeared on the air or even whenever news favorable to gay liberation was reported.  It should not, after all, be the health, wholeness, and dignity of gay people that is "controversial," but only, at most, the particular means of achieving first-class citizenship and securing equal treatment under the law.

 

This ruling by the FCC means that local Integrity chapters now have an op­portunity to make a major impact in their areas by monitoring religious broad­casting for bigotry and filing complaints and demands for equal time.

 

EX-EX-GAY?

 

In the first issue of the new magazine for evangelical Christians, Inspiration, Jim Kaspar, the co-founder of EXIT (the infamous "ex-gay" program), re­plied to the question, "Are you heterosexual, Jim?" by saying, "No, I'm ex-gay."

 

He went on to say in the published interview, "The opposite of homosexuality is not heterosexuality."  He admitted that even though he sees himself as an "ex-gay," he still masturbates with "memories of the past and fond wishes."

 

He was not invited back for a second scheduled debate for Inspiration, even though he expressed his willingness to return. He has since left the EXIT program.

 

CARTER'S MOM ATTACKS ANITA; ADMIRES GAY MEN

 

According to an interview published in the Washington Post, Lillian Carter, mother of the President, has joined the ranks of Anita Bryant's large army of ex-admirers.

 

"You remember Anita Bryant," Miss Lillian is quoted as saying, "I  was crazy about her __ the sweetest little singer __ and thought she should have won Miss America that year that she didn't."

 

"But now I feel absolute disgust for her" because of her position against homosexuals, the Post article said.  She went on to add, "I was in New York at Studio 54 __ that's that disco that's all the rage -- and I met so many of the nicest looking men.  I was told later they were a]l gay."

 

The Post then suggested to Miss Lillian that if she thought Bryant was wrong in her anti-gay stance, she should tell Miss Bryant to shut up and mind her own business.

 

"Oh, I did," the President's mom replied.

 

DIRTY LINEN AND CLOSET FRESHENERS

 

United Methodist minister Ted Mclivenna, a chaplain of sorts to Larry Flynt's Hustler magazine, is interviewed in the April issue Of that publication.  "I perceive God at the place where people are being set free," he says.  "That's why I perceive God in Hustler."  Of Anita Bryant he says:  "She is an obscene act in herself.  Theologically she's an idiot."

 

Dallas TV Channel 8 (WFAA) has permanently canceled South­ern Baptist evangelist James Robinson's weekly broadcast be­cause of his repeated attacks on gay religious and community groups.  Following a recent broadcast the Dallas Gay Caucus demanded equal time to respond to the evangelist's comments.  Station Manager Dave Lane said that an attorney for the station had read the transcript and concluded that "the homosexual community had been attacked and should be given free time to respond."  The evangelist said that he has spent $100,000 at the station for the program which is aired in 70 cities.

 

Former New Hampshire Governor Meldrin Thomson, Jr., will serve as national chairman of a new reactionary organization, The Council to Insure National Character and Honor (CINCH).  The group's declaration of purpose states that "we are particu­larly concerned" with "pornography, homosexual demands, moral deterioration in our armed forces, hedonistic sex education, all forms of prostitution, abortion, radical feminism, 'unisex,' confused sex identity, crime in the streets, unlimited drug abuse, perversion of the Constitution and the law by the courts," and so on and on.  Messages of support for the group were received from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Anita Bryant Ministries, Wheaton College, and the Mormon Church, among many others.

 

The President of the Southern Baptist religion, Jimmy R. Allen, was in San Francisco recently to speak at the Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, and took the occasion to defend the "anti-permissive" stand of Florida fruit squeezer Anita Bryant from earlier charges by the Bishop of California, C. Kilmer Myers, who claimed that Bible-thumpers like her and John Briggs are "the greatest deterrents to human rights and freedom."  Myers had warned at the diocesan convention last year that funda­mentalists are a dangerous force, operating under the cloak of a distorted Christianity which could lead to an American fascism.  He said "The Bible is our book.  We must not let the fundament­alists steal our book."

 

Virginia Mollenkott, co-author with Letha Scanzoni of "Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?  Another Christian View" and an English professor at William Paterson College (New Jersey), was recently asked by Yvonne S. Waite of the Bible for Today Newsreport if she were herself a Lesbian.  She refused to identify herself as either heterosexual or homosexual, saying that it would impair her effectiveness with one or the other group.  Waite wrote for her BFT paper: "My conclusion is that this Plymouth Brethren 'drop-out' who believes that a homosexual person, minus the gift of celibacy, should be encouraged towards a 'faithful covenant relationship' is 'chicken' when it comes to declaring her sexual orientation.'"

 

Cheery Chalkboard is the name of the newsletter of the Gay Teachers of Los Angeles, founded in June 1976 to present a responsible gay perspective concerning educational issues and to promote the civil rights of gay teachers and gay students.  Address:  GTLA, P.O. Box 10024, Glendale, CA 91209.

 

The Institute for the Study of Human Resources (ISHR), an affiliate of One, Incorporated, has announced appointments to its National Advisory Board of Trustees:  Gore Vidal, Edmund White, Dr. Evelyn Hooker, Wayne Dynes, Lou Crompton, Deryck Calderwood, Louie Crew, and Salvatore Licata, all of whom have accepted.  Foundation President is Reed Erickson; vice-president is Christopher Isherwood.

 

San Francisco's Integrity Chapter is holding a Gay Raj sale late in April to raise money for the Integrity presence at the General Convention in Denver.

 

"Let's go to Batt for Pat!" is the slogan of the Patrick Batt Legal Defense Committee, P.O. Box 87336, Chicago, Illinois 60680. Batt's attorneys have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a recent Seventh Circuit Court decision which upheld his dismissal from a Milwaukee nursing home staff for being gay.  The Catholic nursing home, Marion Heights, claims that it is not subject to constitutional limitations and legal protections for em­ployees.  Batt is former president of Milwaukee GPU and is now managing a bar in Chicago.  Playboy foundation and the Wisconsin Civil Liberties Union are supporting Batt.

 

"With Deep Sorrow," an encyclical letter from one Walter B. Conway, Bishop of Houston of the Holy Orthodox Church, American Jurisdiction, was read With High Glee.  The 17-page diatribe attacks Bishop Pike, the General Convention Special Program, the Black Panthers, women's ordination, Bishop Moore, "the ordained lesbian priestess," homosexuals of various sorts, and then invites all Episcopalians discontent with their Church to join him in his, founded in 1977.

 

From Fran Lebowitz's Metropolitan Life:  She has no children, but has many godchildren.  "Always a God-Mother, never a God."

 

The new editor of the VIRGINIA CHURCHMAN, Mr. David Virtue, has revealed his point of view in a recent editorial, entitled "Gay Is Not Okay."  "The Church cannot accept into the priesthood a person whose declared and avowed sexual practice is that of a homosexual or lesbian," he writes.  A resolution in support of Integrity was overwhelmingly rejected at the Diocesan Council, and the Virginia Churchman now refuses to carry the Integrity advertisement which the previous editor permitted.  Virtue says he deplores homophobia.  (As we go to press, we hear that Mr. Virtue has been fired.)

 

A quotation from Sydney J. Harris, columnist:  "A narrow minded person can be ignored or endured; the intolerable breed is the bigot who imagines himself to be broad-minded."

 

The English-language media in Quebec left untranslated the epithet La tapette, which the Front de la Liberation du Quebec applied to Pierre Trudeau in a manifesto read over French language TV in Canada.  It is a vulgar term for homosexual.  Trudeau's decriminalization of homosexuality in Canada may be drawing flak.

 

The new "Amy Vanderbilt Complete Book of Etiquette Revised and Expanded by Letitia Baldridge" states "An openly professed homosexual couple should be considered a social entity and be invited to social functions on one invitation.  Their names would be listed alphabetically on separate lines." (p. 510)

 

From an article on Key West in the New York Times Magazine:

 

"Key West seems always to have had a homosexual minority that blends and coexists with other minorities on the island.  There are no homosexual ghettos, just as there are no black or Cuban ones in the exclusive sense, and there are only two bars that are often frequented by homosexuals, Delmonico's, which once housed a bordello, and The Monster, which serves a mixed clientele and has a blaring discotheque and one of Key West's better restaurants."

 

EXEC COMMITTEE NOMINATIONS SOUGHT

 

Nominations for the office of President, Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer are now being accepted by Mark Beck, Chairperson of the Nominating Com­mittee.  All of the current officers are eligible to run again, however Donn Mitchell, Secretary, has indicated that he will be unable to serve for another year as secretary.  Nominations should be send directly to Mark Beck, 844 W. Beach Av. #7, Inglewood, CA 90302.  All nominees  will be voted on at the Integrity Convention which will be held in Denver September 6-8.

 

WHAT ARE WE ASKING OF THE CHURCH?

Excerpts from an Address by John Lawrence, President, to the 1978 Integrity Fourth Annual Convention, Minneapolis, MN

 

To be perfectly frank, money is one major problem we face, a crucial one, and I feel bound to address the issue.  Sacrificial giving has not been one of the noteworthy characteristics of most Episcopalians, and the fault has in­fected our membership as well. The question of commitment is key to our existence, because it reflects how really important we believe Integrity and its work to be.  We dare not dabble at our very liberation, at our freedom and at what one day may be our very survival.

 

What then is commitment?  A true situation from my own life and experience describes it.  I have a relative in Pennsylvania who is a Baptist fundamentalist (as I once was, raised for ten years in that most conservative of traditions).  That relative of mine makes a modest salary, somewhere around $14,000 a year.  She gives 10% of her gross income, before taxes, to her little Baptist Church, and she would starve before thinking of doing otherwise.  She is also a strong anti-abortionist, and last year gave about $800 to the local church-operated anti-abortion counseling service.  She is also a nurse, and volunteers one night per week at a little clinic.  And I am quite sure (despite the fact that she knows I am gay) that she would send Anita Bryant a hand­some sum if the opportunity presented itself.  She believes in something and believes in it so strongly that nothing will deter her from any and every avenue of support for what she believes.  She is my mother.  I have to say that I admire her, though I don't admire what she supports.

 

I can assure you that for those who believe that homosexuality is immoral and is undermining our society, and that we will "corrupt their children," no amount of money, time or energy spent is regarded as too great to expend on an issue about which they are unswervingly convinced.  Then I hear many who regard $10 as too much to pay for a membership in Integrity, and any donation above that is regarded as "generous."  It is difficult to seek outside funds, when one cannot be assured of internal support.  Out of some 2000 persons affiliated with Integrity, fewer than 600 have been members of the organization.  I believe that we cannot talk about doing the things that need to be done or about the substantial impact until this organization is properly funded by its membership.

 

I have for a long time believed that we need to address the issue of a gay ethic and of a gay morality, which I am pleased to see is the subject of one of the convention workshops.  It has always seemed to me that there must be something unique about being a Christian, some sacrifices involved, and some acceptance of a certain discipline, otherwise it makes little sense to me to describe oneself as a gay Christian.  I suppose the issue first struck me last year when Bibles were burned at the Gay Pride Rally in Boston, and not long ago, when Bill Doubleday told me that when he spoke recently at a gay rally in Western New Jersey he was booed down after his identification as a gay Christian and NGTF staffer.  Minneapolis-St Paul gay activists Jack Baker and Michael McConnell were interviewed early this year by Larry Lee of Detroit's Metro Gay News.  One of their statements was that "To talk about a gay Christian is like talking about a spent virgin.  There's simply no such thing.  All the Christian leaders, starting with Billy Graham and the Archbishops, the Popes and the Methodists and Lutherans, they all say the same thing and that is that homosexuality, and by that I mean orgasm by two people of the same sex, is incompatible with Christianity. It's just silly to be talking about a gay Christian."

 

They were asked about Dignity and Integrity __ Are they being used?  Their answer "Exactly, I think these are the insecure people who are looking for a celestial sugar Daddy, and that's what they get out of Christianity.  That's all they're looking for."  What about MCC?  "Troy Perry made one fatal mis­take and that is that he failed to take into account the ramifications of what he was doing.  The fact of the matter is that Christians have taken, for very specific reasons, a death symbol as their symbol, namely the cross.  A cross as a death symbol is no different from a picture of Anita Bryant, from the swastika, from a picture of Hitler.  These are all death symbols and to get people to adore a death symbol is to fuck with their minds.  No matter what kind of sugar coating you put on a death symbol you're still adoring a death symbol and with all the violence that goes with it.  That does violence to the subliminal mind.  It's full of guilt.  Christianity, no matter what you say or what anybody says is a history of murders; is a history of bigotry."

 

Obviously I believe in Christianity, or I would not be here.  But the point is that I really do believe it.  The statement I just read makes me angry, primar­ily because it devalues you and me.  It does not just attack the Church; it also attacks gay Christians.  It says we must abandon what we believe or be regarded as non-persons, unwelcome in at least certain quarters of the gay movement in which so many of us have struggled, at least equally with people like Baker and McConnell.  I am here to tell you today that one of the reasons I can remain a committed Christian is that I do not believe that we worship an institutional Church with all its fallibilities nor that we worship a symbol of death.  We worship a living, loving Christ who created us as we are, as a part of God's great plan, who loves us as we are, and who embraces us much as he embraced all those outcasts and misfits of the society in which he lived at the time he walked this earth.  Christ did not sit with the Pharisees, Scribes or High Priests, but travelled with the likes of poor fishermen, with Mary Magdalene, and with lepers __ and loved them.  And I believe as gay Christians we must take a second critical look at gay community and culture.  It is fashionable to have blanket cheers and "RAH! RAH!" everything in the gay community.  Yet, there is much that just may not be so good and so healthy in our community.  The fact that much of this may be laid to the fact of our oppression does not relieve us of the responsibility of looking at it and of doing something about it.  In fact ignoring it, we contribute to our own oppression.  We have gay bars, baths, bushes and blocks that for some may be great fun, but they also produce alcoholics and sexual compulsives.  There are those among us who have anonymous sex because they are unable to deal with intimacy and close relationships, born out of a self-hate and a sense of worthlessness.  We have had arrests in the bathrooms of the public library in Boston, and while we decry the entrapment involved, there may just be places in the world which are inappropriate for sexual encount­ers, especially when they infringe on the space of others.

 

We spend our money making bar-owners and bath owners wealthy, while gay organizations constructively dealing with issues or struggling to intro­duce alternative and more personal social outlets falter and fail and ultimate­ly fold.  It serves as an indictment of our values and our priorities; it is a case of behavior clearly contradicting the rhetoric.  There is no reason for us to feel guilty about being gay, but there may well be plenty of reasons to feel guilty about the impersonal and dehumanizing manner in which we relate to each other at times.  We must begin to define more clearly what it is we are asking of the Church, and if we are to profess Christianity, then we must examine what that means relative to our gayness.  We cannot be ashamed or apologetic for the values or discipline that we adopt in embracing Christian­ity, which I believe should not be based on the dictums and dogmatisms of the Church, but on the life and gospel of Christ.  Clearly, I believe, we should have a different perspective than that demonstrated by a secularist society and by the secular aspects of the gay movement.

 

I don't expect that everyone will necessarily agree with my views and re­views of all these issues and, in fact, I am not clear on them all myself.  I hope what I have said will produce debate and discussion, and some self-exam­ination of ourselves as individuals and as a community, as Christians who are gay and as members of a secular society.  We must embrace that which is good among us and work to realize the enormous potential that we have.  We have an obligation to work to make the gay community and the larger society a better, more human environment for all.

 

CHAPTER NOTES

 

Not actually chapter news, but closely related:  President John Lawrence has appointed two Regional Representatives, Lee Baldwin for the Mountain States Region and David Blalock for the Gulf Coast Region.  Martha Winslow has resigned as Midwest Regional Representative (see the special story about that in this issue) ··· All the chapter newsletters are full of season's greetings and announcements of the special Eucharists, Christmas parties, carol singing, and the like.  While this issue reaches you after Christmas is officially over, still it's nice to know we were all celebrating the Master's birth in the same kind of ways, and that we had each other in heart, mind, and prayers even more than usual.  Busy as we kept with the season's activities, however, none of us neglected our other commitments ··· Because they were denied space at their Diocesan Convention, Integrity/Den­ver assembled a packet of educational materials and handed them to each of the delegates as they entered St. John's Cathe­dral for the Festival Eucharist at the opening of the Convention. ··· Bruce H. will be filling the office of President until Integrity/ Hartford holds a regular election next May.  In Bruce's first message as president of the chapter, he talks about having hesitated to join Integrity at first.  Once he took the "plunge," he says, "I found not only that my fears were unwarranted, but that mem­bership in Integrity has really helped me clarify my thinking about myself as a gay person." ··· National Vice President Kevin Scahill visited Integrity/Central Indiana recently.  In their newsletter, Phaedrus, he replied eloquently to an earlier report on the '78 Integrity Convention.  Some of his remarks bear repeating here, even out of context:  "Our most valuable asset is a sense of humor ... without it, it's too easy to become cynical, bitter, and self-oppressing."  "To limit our concept of God to male imagery is not only ludicrous but heretical."  "Unless we understand the diversity within our community, we will be guilty of the same oppression that we face from a ... society that doesn't under­stand us."  "Our struggle is not to gain a niche in the oppressive status quo ... our task is to restructure society and church to systems that affirm individuals and their diversity, and operate from directives of love, understanding and justice instead of power, profit, and oppression." ··· Welcome to the newest chapter, Integrity/Montreal.  Our best wishes go to them and their convenor, G. Eric Hill, as they begin the exciting __ and hectic __ job of this new ministry.  Grow in your witness and your chapter life, you sisters and brothers in Montreal.  Wouldn't it be great to hold our convention in that beautiful city one of these years? ··· Integrity/New Haven went to see the venerable Quentin Crisp, author of The Naked Civil Servant, when he was in town recently.  From all reports both Crisp and the chapter theater party were successful __ so much that more such events are being planned.  The chapter sponsored a retreat in early December, and January will hold one of those nationally popular events, a joint Dignity/Integ­rity party. ··· Integrity/New Orleans has a new convenor, Don Osborn.  Their chapter enters the new year with some 300% growth and comparable increase of outreach.  Part of the new outreach is support of the local Gay Crisis Line, which they support both by providing volunteer operators and financial assis­tance.  One of their members, the Rev'd Will Cain, was asked to speak at the Police Academy to new police recruits, sensitizing them to gay people.  His talk grew out of a meeting at which the New Orleans Chief of Police had spoken to chapter members. ··· Integrity/New York was witness to one of those brutal homo­phobic demonstrations that, despite their frequency, never seem to attract the attention of press, church, or even some gay people (the ones who continue to insist we're not as oppressed as we claim).  This time the victims were two lesbian sisters who were beaten and kicked by a homophobic neighbor because they, along with other of his neighbors, had reported him as a chronic child abuser.  Not the least infuriating part of the gruesome story was this pro-family pillar's remark to the judge:  "They have no rights __ they're queer."  On that score he was as correct as he was hateful. ··· Dignity-Integrity/Rochester has resumed pub­lication of their chapter newsletter and begun their fourth year of ministry.  They sponsor a peer counseling program, along with a phone tape message and referral service.  Among a number of things on their busy calendar is a book party honoring the Rev'd Clinton Jones' new book, Understanding Gay Relatives and Friends.  Canon Jones will be there in person to talk to members and guests, and to autograph copies of his book.  Book parties make splendid programs __ they bring people together, acquaint them with the featured book and its ideas, often provide an opportunity to meet and discuss those ideas with the author, and sometimes create a little green energy for the treasury. ··· Integ­rity/St. Louis' still unnamed newsletter carried a charming piece about commercialism, Christmas, birthdays, little babies, poten­tialities, Love:  "It is Easter, not Christmas, that we Christians really celebrate the best.  But Christmas is a better object les­son ..."  It's an issue worth writing them for. ··· So is the Christ­mas issue of Dignity-Integrity/Twin Cities, as much an elaborate Christmas Card as a newsletter this time, with fine art work, articles, cartoons (them cartoons is sumpn' else!).  One of the most moving Christmas stories I've ever heard was in that issue.  'The Legend Of Befina."  Befina was an old woman, grown iras­cible and selfish from a life of deprivation.  There isn't space to tell it here as beautifully as the Twin Cities' newsletter told it, but Befina refused to believe, at first, the wise men, the star, or the angel who told her of the birth of the savior.  Later she did believe, and made Him some beautiful gifts, but by then the star had disappeared and she couldn't find His manger.  So on her way home she stopped at each house along the way and left one of the gifts, thinking that in case He was there, He would get it.  The next year, and every year since, she spends making gifts for Him, going out to find Him, then returning home again, leaving a gift at each of the houses she passes on the way.  The angel had told her, "You have something very wonderful to give, something that is yours and yours alone," but Befina has no idea that that is her heart.  Still, by giving her gifts to other people, she is giving them to Him (as you do to the least, you do to me).  It's a much richer legend than Santa Claus and the reward-punishment impli­cations, and it's not sexist.  Maybe we could do something to popularize it?

 

COOKING WITH INTEGRITY

 

Do you remember Chef Lou Rand Hogan's The Gay Cookbook, which stayed on the remainders lists for years?  It was originally published by the Sherbourne Press, in Los Angeles, and is now out in paperback.  It was nelly and high and low camp, and mostly not haute cuisine at all, but had recipes for "what to do with crabs" and "chicken queens" and "potatoes and weight lifters."  Then there was the Myra Breckenridge Cookbook, where Alice B. Toklas's recipe for marijuana brownies, and "pot pie" appeared.  Lately, Anita Bryant's cook­book, Bless This Food, has been a hit in some circles with its recipes for "Entertaining the Deacons" (Cheesecake Divine) and "Bitter Balls."  There's a section called "Someone's in the Kitchen with Mom" which has the directions for "Fruit Surprise," and in the section for Young Cooks:  "Easy Fruit Pie."  For the visit of the tooth fairy, she suggests "Victory Favorites."  She even has a recipe for preserving a husband:  "Give your entire thought to preparation for domestic use ... even poor varieties may be made sweet, tender, and good by garnishing them with patience, well sweetened by smiles, and flavored with kisses."

 

Now, Jerry Vogt, Convenor of Integrity/Chicago, has in mind a cookbook project for fund-raising.  He asks that you send your favorite original recipe or adaptation to him for consideration. (All recipes become the property of Integrity if accepted, and none can be returned.)  Send as many as you like, and tell a short story with the receipt, if you care to, on how it developed, or what fun you have had with it.  Tell us what you serve the tooth fairy and how you entertain the deacons (and other clergy!) or send us your favorite table grace, like:

 

      GOD OF GOODNESS. BLESS THIS FOOD

      GIVE US A GAY AND PLEASANT MOOD

      BLESS THE COOK, AND ALL WHO SERVE US,

      AND FROM INDIGESTION, LORD PRESERVE US!

 

Send your contributions to Jerry Vogt, 2021 W. Jarvis, Chicago. Illinois 60605.

                       From the Integer/Chicago

 

1976_79 CHAPTER CONTRIBUTIONS TO INTEGRITY, INC.

 

Chicago                             $561.25

Boston                               600.00

Rochester                      150.00

Honolulu                             105.00

Tidewater                      100.00

Hartford                              75.00

Richmond                              75.00

Philadelphia                         170.29

St Louis                              50.00

Los Angeles                   100.00

Toronto                               20.00

Western Mass.                         20.00

Cincinnati                      70.00

Albuquerque                   302.00

San Francisco                       300.00

Sewanee School of Theology    100.00

 

TOTAL                      $2,798.54

 

The above contributions are those which have been posted through February 28, 1979.

 

FORUM

 

Enclosed is my subscription renewal __ all of us have every reason to be proud of Integrity and its Forum.

 

Diocese of Maryland (I teach in Balto), its committee on Human sexuality is discussing the place of Gays, among other matters.  The review of the Barnhouse book by Bell will be of great use to us.  I have been asked to draw up notes as basis for discussion of ordination of Gays.  I have kept them quiet and positive __ noise is what we don't need, since science and the Faith are on our side.

 

Sincerely yours,

W. L. Kinter

 

I'm currently working over a few notes on androgyny and healing: 'The Woman, the Tree and the Serpent' (I've been a student of the Sibylline tradition for many years; did my dissertation at Columbia on it) __ maybe next Integrity convention might like to hear about this.  They liked my 'Gothic Dimensions and the Gay Mystique' last year in Phila.  Gaysweek is going to print the latter.

 

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[_] The above is a name/address change/correction.

Return to:

Integrity, 530 Massachusetts Av., Boston, MA 02118.

 

LOCAL CHAPTERS

 

      New England Region

 

Margaret Putnam, Regional Rep., 129 Spruce Hill Av., Florence, MA 01060.

 

INTEGRITY/BOSTON, P.O. Box 2582, Boston, MA 02208.  Convenor Robert Moore, Phone 617/547-4676.

INTEGRITY/HARTFORD, P.O. Box 3681, Central Station, Hartford, CT 06103.

* INTEGRITY/MAINE, Box 283, RFD, Damariscotta, ME 04543.  Convenor Doug Wright.

* INTEGRITY/NEW HAVEN, P.O. Box 1777, New Haven, CT 06507. Convenor Jon P. Rollins.

* INTEGRITY/BURLINGTON, P.O. Box 11, Winooski, VT 05404.  Convenor Bruce M. Howden, Phone 802/879-6811

* INTEGRITY/WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS, 129 Spruce Hill Av., Florence, MA 01060.  Convenor Margaret L. Putnam.

 

      Mid-Atlantic Region

 

Mason Martens, Regional Rep., 175 W. 72nd St., New York, NY 10023.

 

* INTEGRITY/GERMANY, Convenor Toby Erdman.  Write to Regional Representative.

INTEGRITY/NEW YORK CITY, G.P.O. 1549, New York, NY 10001.  

INTEGRITY/PHILADELPHIA, 4315 Osage Av., Philadelphia, PA 19104.Convenor Samuel B. Johnson.  215/382-1774 or St. Mary's 215/386-3916.

INTEGRITY/WASHINGTON, D.C., Convenor Wayne Fortunate-Schwandt, 2112 32nd St. S.E., Washington D.C. 20020.  202/583-2158.

 

      Southeast Region

 

Leslie Mullins, Regional Rep., 520 W. Franklin, Box 274, Richmond, VA 23220

 

* INTEGRITY/ATLANTA, Roger Conant, Convenor. 

INTEGRITY-DIGNITY/CHAPEL HILL, P.O. Box 1184, Chapel Hill, NC 27514.  Convenor Hogan Gaskins.  Phone 919/929-3730.

INTEGRITY/MIAMI-SOUTH FLORIDA, 123 N.E. 36th St., Miami, FL 33137.  305/444-0316 or 305/576-4216.

INTEGRITY-DIGNITY/RICHMOND, Convenor Rev'd Edward Meeks Gregory, 1907 N. 23rd St., Richmond, VA 23223.

* INTEGRITY-DIGNITY/ROANOKE.  Write to Regional Representative.

* INTEGRITY-DIGNITY/TIDEWATER, P.O. Box 6363, Norfolk, VA 23508.  Bob Halcums, Secretary.

 

      Gulf Coast Region

 

David Blalock, Regional Rep., c/o Episcopal Integrity/Houston, P.O. Box 66008, Houston, TX 77006.

 

* INTEGRITY/AUSTIN, Convenor Charles Arthur, 9904B Randall, Austin, TX 78753.

* INTEGRITY/DALLAS-FT. WORTH, P.O. Box 554, Bedford, TX 76021.  817/283-4317.

EPISCOPAL INTEGRITY/HOUSTON, P.O. Box 66008, Houston, TX 77006.  Phone 713/526-0555 or 713/777-7215.

* INTEGRITY/JACKSON, MS.  Write to Regional Representative.

INTEGRITY/NEW ORLEANS, 722 N. Hagan, New Orleans, LA 70119.    Convenor Don Osborn.

 

      Great Lakes Region

 

Write to Integrity, Inc. for regional information.

 

 

INTEGRITY-DIGNITY/ROCHESTER, 42 Tyler House, 17 S. Fitzhugh St., Rochester, NY 14614.  Co-Convenors Jack Lowe and Horace Lethbridge.  716/232-6521.

INTEGRITY/CLEVELAND.  793 Bloomfield Av, Akron, OH 44302.  Convenor David Gellatly.

INTEGRITY/TORONTO, P.O. Box 873, Station F, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4Y 2N9.  Convenor A. Wilson-Hyde.

* INTEGRITY/MONTREAL, 305 Willibrord Av., Verdun, Quebec, Canada H4G 2T7.  Convenor G. Eric Hill.  Phone 514/766-9623.

 

      Midwest Region

 

Carol Hodges, Regional Rep., P.O. Box 68290, Indianapolis, IN 46268.

INTEGRITY/CENTRAL INDIANA, P.O. Box 68290, Indianapolis, IN 46268.  Co-Convenors Carol Hodges 317/637-8368 and Orlando S. Gustilo 317/293-9044.

INTEGRITY/CHICAGO, P.O. Box 2516, Chicago, IL 60690.  Phone 312/743-7489.

INTEGRITY/CINCINNATI, P.O. Box 1611, Cincinnati, OH 45201.  Convenor Joshua Moore.  513/241-7539.

INTEGRITY/MADISON, P.O. Box 5641, Madison, WI 53705.  Convenor Larry Bandfield.  Phone 608/831-8448.

INTEGRITY/ST. LOUIS, P.O. Box 7213, St. Louis, MO 63177.  Convenor Jerry Martin.  Phone 314/652-9373.

INTEGRITY/TWIN CITIES, P.O. Box 3565, Upper Nicollet Station, Minneapolis, MN 55403.  Convenor Marc Messerich.

 

      Mountain States Region

 

Lelia H. (Lee) Baldwin, Regional Rep., 1073 S. 800 E., Salt Lake City, UT 84105.

 

INTEGRITY/ALBUQUERQUE, P.O. Box 4996, Albuquerque, NM 87106.   Convenor David Maulsby.  Phone 505/268-8156.

INTEGRITY/DENVER, Convenor Rev'd Tom Dobbs, 1734 Washington Street, Denver, CO 80203.

INTEGRITY/SALT LAKE CITY, P.O. Box 11241, Salt Lake City, UT 84147.  Co-Convenors Lelia (Lee) Baldwin 801/521-6967 and Hal Carter 801/322-4396.

 

      Pacific Region

 

Rev'd Richard Younge, Regional Rep., P.O. Box 644, San Jose, CA 95120.

 

INTEGRITY/HONOLULU, 1186 Fort Street Mall, Rm. 211,, Honolulu, HI 96813.  Convenor Bill Potter 808/537-9478.

INTEGRITY/LOS ANGELES, Convenor Bob Harrison, 7985 Santa Monica Blvd., #212, West Hollywood, CA 90046.  Phone 213/656-0258.

INTEGRITY/PUGET SOUND, P.O. Box 855, Seattle, WA 98111.

Convenor Tim Fowler.  Phone 206/525-5817.

* INTEGRITY/SAN DIEGO, c/o Episcopal Community Services, 601 Market St., San Diego, CA 92101.  Convenor Cal South.

INTEGRITY/SAN FRANCISCO, P.O. Box 3339, San Francisco, CA 94119.  Convenor Robert Fuller.

 

* Indicates that a new chapter is in formation.

 

If you are interested in starting an Integrity chapter in your area, write to: Integrity, P.O. Box 891, Oak Park, IL 60303, or telephone 312/386-1470.