This is an electronic reproduction of The Voice of Integrity, the quarterly publication of Integrity, Inc., the lesbian and gay justice ministry of the Episcopal Church.  All materials except those reproduced from other sources are copyrighted by Integrity, Inc.  You may reproduce all original material herein if you state "Reproduced from the Spring, 1991 issue of The Voice of Integrity, the quarterly publication of Integrity, Inc., the lesbian and gay justice ministry of the Episcopal Church."

Material may not appear exactly as published since some changes were made after the document was transferred to desk top publishing format.

We encourage you to join Integrity.  We encourage non-Episcopalians and non-lesgay persons to join.  If you are a lesbian or gay Episcopalian and don't belong to Integrity, you're benefitting from all our work and we hope you'll strongly consider helping us by joining.  Individual annual membership $25, Couple's annual membership $40, Low income/student/sr. citizen $10.  Please mail check or money order to Integrity, Inc., P.O. Box 19561, Washington, DC 20036-0561.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

From The Editor

Miscellaneous News & Notes

Why a Straight Priest Belongs to Integrity

Why Integrity?

God, Sex and Justice

A Pessimistic View of the Future

Homosexuality and the Bible

A Snowball's Chance in Palm Springs:  Los Angeles Votes on

  Blessing Same-Sex Couples

Martin Luther King, Jr.:  A White Southerner's Perspective

Bishops Should 'Come Out' for Gays

A Tribute to Jim Toy

Evangelizing Lesgays this Decade

Some Progress from Diocesan Dialogue:  Report from Western

  Massachusetts

Gays in School:  Fear and Isolation Leaves Kids in Hiding

A Friend of Mine Died of AIDS

Gay in Nicaragua

Queen's Chaplain Comes Out

One in 7 Anglican Clergy Gay

Correspondence with the New Archbishop of Canterbury

A Modern Exodus

Seattle Dean Calls for Blessing Gay and Lesbian Relationships

Claudia's Column

Heyward Joins Protest

Dallas Destroys Dialogue

Do We Really Want to Claim St. Paul?  Spong's New Book ignites

  Controversy

British Bishop Backs Us, Sort of

ANGAYS Gives Up

Mid Tennessee Chapter in Formation Makes News

Long Island Bishop Visits New York Chapter

President's Page

How Parishes Can Help PWAs

Remembering "News & Notes"

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Spring 1991

*The Voice of Integrity*

Volume 1, Number 1

Published by Integrity, Inc.

P.O. Box 19561

Washington, D.C. 20036-0561

Telephone 718-720-3054

Bruce Garner, President

R. Scott Helsel, Editor

Edgar Kim Byham, Publisher

Contributing Editors:

Claudia Windal, Louie Crew

Blair McFadden, Layout

Dorothy Gunn, Production

Editorial Office:  201-868-2485

PO Box 5202; NYC, NY 10185

Member Episcopal Communicators and Gay Lesbian Press Association

Copyright 1991

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*FROM THE EDITOR*

GREETINGS TO GENERAL CONVENTION DEPUTIES

This issue of "The Voice of Integrity" is being sent to all deputies.  This will probably be the only mailing you'll get from Integrity.  We can't afford to match EURRR's frequent mailings.  Our funds are so limited we even have to make our regular quarterly newsletter serve double duty, rather than preparing something specifically for you.

Ironically, EURRR, ESA, and PBS are raising hundreds of thousands of dollars "to match Integrity."  Our goal, however, was only $40,000 and it is now obvious we won't even come close to that.  Our collections to date are less than 25% of those in 1988, and no wonder.  Lesbians and gays in the Episcopal Church are beginning to despair of things ever changing.  Our 50 local chapters understandably often feel that their dollars are better spent serving the lesbians and gays in their communities rather than trying to educate the Episcopal Church.

Those of you who know Integrity only as a "political" group like EURRR, etc., have seen only the top of the iceberg.  Throughout the country we are the Episcopal Church in the lesbian/gay community.  As such we provide counseling, the sacraments, food and shelter, and the Gospel to a segment of the population not welcome in most parishes.  Integrity has brought thousands of lesbians and gay men into the Episcopal Church.  Your votes at General Convention will help determine if they stay.

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*MISCELLANEOUS*

*NEW & NOTES*

NORTHEAST REGIONAL MEETING

The next Northeast Regional Convention will be held in New York City during Lesbian/Gay Pride Weekend:  June 28-30, 1991.  Call 718-720-3054 for details.

NEW CHAPTERS IN FORMATION

In the last issue, we reported that there was a group meeting in Baltimore.  Only three months later we can report a full-fledged chapter in formation, which sought certification at the March 15-17 Board meeting.  They also asked to become a part of the Northeast Region.  (All of Maryland was previously in the Southern Region.  This change will transfer all but the four Maryland counties in the Diocese of Washington.)  Their address is c/o Emmanuel Church, 88 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD 21201.  They meet third Fridays at 7:30 p.m. at Emmanuel in downtown Baltimore.

Also in formation is Dignity-Integrity/Charlottesville.  Their address is P.O. Box 4682, Charlottesville,  VA 22905.  Word has been received that chapters in formation are meeting in Lawrence, Mass (Dignity-Integrity/Merrimac Valley), Augusta, Maine (Integrity/Kennebeck Valley) and in Erie, PA (Integrity/Northwest Pennsylvania), but no addresses have been provided to National.

Integrity/Brooklyn has begun meeting.  Their address is:  c/o St. Ann's Church, 122 Pierrepont St., Brooklyn, NY 11201.

Integrity/Denver has changed its name to Integrity/Colorado.

LESGAY SEMINARIANS MEET

"Just Say Yes!  A Call to Thrive," an Inter-Seminary Conference sponsored by InCarnation:  Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Seminarians, was held February 15-17 at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA.  Keynote speakers were Carter Heyward and Chris Glaser.  Unfortunately, Integrity received no prior notice of the conference.

BOARD MEETING

The National Board of Integrity held its spring meeting at St. Marguerite's Retreat House in Mendham, NJ the weekend of March 15-17, 1991.  On March 18, the Board was scheduled to meet with the Presiding Bishop at the Episcopal Church Center.  This will mark the first time in its 16-year history that Integrity's Board will have met with the Primate.

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WHY A STRAIGHT PRIEST BELONGS TO INTEGRITY

By the Rev. J. Gollan Root

Integrity is for gay and lesbian Episcopalians *and their* friends. (writer's emphasis)  I am a proud member of Integrity

and a friend to gay and lesbian Episcopalians.  I'm also straight, married and the father of two.

Why do I, a straight priest in the Episcopal Church, belong to Integrity?  Mine is a long story of growth, but it has brought me to the conviction that all concerned Episcopalians should belong to Integrity.  I believe that the onus of proof should be put on those *not* members.  "Why are you not a member of Integrity?" should be the question.

But why am I a member?

Of the many stories of courage that excited me as a youth, none was more exciting or formative than that of King Christian of Denmark who proclaimed in 1944 that Denmark would have nothing to do with the Nazi anti-semitic program.  He even threatened to wear the badge of shame, a yellow star of David, if it were imposed upon Danish Jews.  He was true to his promise and ended up wearing one!  I thought, How wonderful that a king would make

himself as the least powerful citizen in his kingdom.

Later, when I understood the Incarnation more deeply, I

realized that this is what Christ did - he made himself as the least powerful in God's kingdom.  In further situations of Christian formation, especially growing up at St. Stephen's, Pittsfield, Mass., and attending YMCA Camp Becket-in-the-Berkshires, I learned that one who would follow Christ identifies with the outcast, the powerless, the oppressed, the one on the fringes of society.  It meant that I had to speak up against the bully towel whipping the 99 pound weakling.  It meant that I had to force my college fraternity to use the electric paddle no more.  It meant I had to work for Rotary to include women.

So, I guess it is no surprise that I, a white man, belong to the NAACP.  It is one of the best ways I know to work against racism.  No surprise either, that I, a straight man, belong to Integrity. It's one of the best ways I know to work against heterosexism.

I won't go into all the struggles I have had to wrestle with, including my own homophobia.  I won't mention the various kinds of negativity I have received from others, including a few fellow priests.  (Thank God for a loving bishop who has supported me even if we do not 100% agree.)  But what I can affirm is that

Christ really is most clearly present with those who know first

hand the kind of suffering he experienced, those who know first

hand the kind of rejection he knew, those who know first hand that in spite of all of this, they are still called by Christ to be hospitality givers, to be loving, giving and forgiving servants.  I have seen and known my Christ in my fellow members of Integrity, and I thank them all.

Of course I look forward to the day when our Church does not need an Integrity.  Of course I look forward to the day when our society no longer needs an NAACP.  Meanwhile, I belong to both.

I commit myself to working for the day when in Christ there is no east or west, male or female, Jew or gentile, slave or free.

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Fr. Root is Rector of St. Paul's Church, Holyoke and Chaplain of Integrity/Western Massachusetts

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WHY INTEGRITY?

by Tawn J. Stokes

Integrity is different.  The one thing we are, perhaps because there are few of us, is glad to see each other.  Each of us brings a strand of the Holy Spirit.  That's mystical but I know that the Body of Christ is a mystery.  I crave a family and have none, or none anywhere near me; time and death and chance have done their business.  In Integrity I am not alone.  Integrity is full of people who know about losses, and know about laughing anyway.  We are survivors.  I need that.

And I have this curious feeling that God is with us.  Our poverty, our fewness, our conflicts, our permanence and lack of permanence, strike me as holy.  The night we watched "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" was for me a major familial and spiritual experience.  Watching that movie alone would have left me despairing.

I know you are there, even when I do not see you.  Even when I don't show up on Saturday night, I am still a part of you.  If we do that for me, for how many others?  Maybe what I think we need to do is ask that: are we like a religious house that has only a few who live here, but all those who come to the door go away with something?  And the knowledge that we are here, year in and year out, is important to others who cannot even tell us.  The Monks of Tibet dance for peace; we dance for peace.  We dance for the rainbow, the love and acceptance of all.  When I die I am sure that someone will come to my funeral, be they only the last living members of Integrity.

We need to reach out our hands to those who are alone, and they come in a full range of ages and circumstances.  When I was accepted at the age of 22 into the Episcopal Church, the Bishop said to me, "You may leave the church, but the church will never leave you.  And the church will always be here when you come back."

There are not many things that have been said to me in all my life that have meant more than that.

So I have always thought that this is the mission of Integrity, both as part of the church and a special ministry; to be here, never to leave you, and to be here when you come back.  God knows it ain't easy to do that, but we have to.  It is not a glamorous mission but it is our mission.  It's not somebody's got to do it: it's us that's got to.  For those who come, and those who come back.

We have to be here.

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This article is excerpted from one that appeared in the Integrity/Philadelphia newsletter.

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GOD, SEX, AND JUSTICE

A sermon preached by Dr. George F. Regas, November 11, 1990

at All Saints Church, Pasadena, California

"God, Sex, and Justice" is the title of this sermon.  God and justice--we certainly know they belong together.  But God and sex-- and in church?  It may be a puzzle to some because we have been the lifelong recipients of double messages.  "Sex is good and beautiful, but let's not talk about it in church."  Or, "Sex is dirty.  Save it for someone you love!"  I never have understood how that works!

Years ago the psychologist Carl Jung observed that religion and sexuality were closely intertwined.  When people brought to him religious questions, they turned out to be sexual issues.  And when they came with sexual questions, they turned out to be religious ones.

At conscious and unconscious levels our spirituality and our sexuality are very much intertwined.

By spirituality, I mean all of the external, ritualistic forms that help to connect us to God, the creator.  I mean also the informal ways we forge a union between our own spirit and the divine spirit, And live in God, the lover.  It is a journey into God who is the ultimate power and meaning in our lives.  It is the recognition that it is God in whom we live and move and have our existence.  In part, that is what spirituality means.

By sexuality I do mean erotic arousal and genital expressions of love.  But I mean much more.  Sexuality is a basic dimension of human existence.  It affects all of our thoughts and feelings and actions.  Sexuality is our way of being in the world as female and male persons, and living as bodied persons with the capacity of sensuousness and touch and communion.  It is our way of being in the world with certain sexual and affectional orientations.  In short, sexuality is our way of being in the world by God's design and creation--created in such a marvelous way that we can be drawn into intimacy and touch and communion.  Our sexuality is all of that.

During the 1960s we experienced a sexual revolution.  During the last quarter of a century we have witnessed great changes in the cultural and religious understanding of sex roles, sexual behavior outside of marriage, single parent families, homosexuality, and the explicit ways in which sexual matters are discussed.  There was enormous resistance to these changes, but it happened.

In 1984 "Time" magazine did a cover story announcing that the sexual revolution was over.  Veterans of the revolution, "Time" said, were bored and wounded.  The one night stand had lost its sheen.  Helped along by herpes and AIDS, commitment and intimacy were "in" again, and celibacy was once more a respectable option. There was some evidence that the "me generation" was giving way to the "we generation."

There is no question that much of that is true.  However, in a deeper sense, the sexual revolution is far from over.  Many scholars are saying that never before in the history of the Church has there been so much ferment as there is now on human sexuality. The outpouring of resolutions by national church bodies, the pronouncements by national religious figures trying to reaffirm the traditional values on sexual practice, has been unprecedented.

It is a tremendous privilege to be the rector of a church that is willing to live with conflict in its life.  One of the things I treasure most about All Saints Church is the fact that we have not shied away from trying to deal with the tough, controversial questions of the contemporary world.  It has been hard work, but we've tried to face these issues openly, gracefully and honestly. I love that about you.

This morning I want to engage you on a difficult issue.  Among many ethicists whom I respect there is the growing conviction that human sexuality is the test case for communities of faith in our time. These complex issues of sexuality are placed forcefully on the Church's agenda: full equality and justice for women, abortion rights, sexual love outside of marriage, and the most controversial of them all, homosexuality.  William S. Coffin, formerly the senior minister of Riverside Church in New York City and a leading prophetic voice in American churches, says the issue of homosexuality is probably the most divisive issue since slavery split the Church.

The mandate of Amos and the prophets, and the imperative of Jesus and the Church to seek social justice will not allow us to forget the fact that discrimination and oppression continue against millions of gay and lesbian people in the structures of society, as well as within the Church.  We must address that injustice.

My case has four dimensions to it.

I

We of the Jewish Christian heritage are a people of the Book.  So what does the Bible say about homosexuality?

Many of the people who condemn and reject gay men and lesbians and want to deal with them punitively read the Bible with a selective literalism.  I just read a recent article by the Chaplain of the United States Senate where he called homosexual practice an aberration and abomination--and quoted scripture to show how sinful and perverse such behavior is.

It is true that there is a passage in the book of Leviticus in the Jewish Bible that does call a man lying down with another man an abomination.  But I want to point out that the Leviticus law also used the word abomination in reference to other behaviors as well: eating pork, misuse of incense, sexual intercourse during the menstrual period, and wearing clothing of mixed fabric.  Selective literalism always gets us in trouble !

The television evangelists are always talking about the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, and how homosexuality destroyed the city.  I can't imagine any respectable Biblical scholar attributing the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah to homosexuality.  Yet the words sodomy and sodomite have come to mean the perversity of homosexuality.

I heard a great story about Sodom and Gomorrah.  A political scientist, who was also a good lay theologian, opened a speech he was giving in Washington, D.C. in this manner: "Washington is full of sodomites.  The Congress of the United States is half full of sodomites.  And the President of this country is probably a sodomite."  Then he said, "Let me tell you what sodomy means.  I will read from the Book of Ezekiel, the sixteenth chapter, the forty-ninth verse: 'This was the sin of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had the pride that goes with food in plenty, comfort, and ease, and yet she never helped the poor in their need.'"

He said, the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was the sin of inhospitality, the sin of hardness of heart in the presence of human need, the sin of injustice, the sin of neglecting the poor. That is the abomination to God.  Those are the sodomites.  I'm sure he got their attention!

The world in which the Bible was written did not know about the loyal, faithful, tender, non-exploitive loving acts of same-sex couples for whom mutual attraction is part of their given natures.

When the Bible condemns homosexuality, it is speaking about rape, incest, prostitution and cruelty which is also sinful for the heterosexual.  And there is not a single word from the lips of Jesus about homosexuality.

II

The really serious problem for the people of the Book is not how to square homosexuality with certain Biblical passages that appear to condemn it, but rather how to reconcile rejection, prejudice, hostility, and punishment of homosexuality with the unconditional love of Christ.

Homosexuality in the vast majority of cases is a condition that is given and not chosen.  From my own reading and personal experience with gay and lesbian persons, I am convinced that at least ninety per cent of homosexuals do not have anything remotely close to a choice in their sexual orientation.

I recognize that a few say they do.  Some believe they have freely chosen to be homosexuals and live out that sexual orientation.  I respect that position -- and honor those people.

What do we know about the causes of homosexuality?  The exact causes are unknown--but it is increasingly clear that the more we know about heterosexuality the more we will understand homosexuality.  It is a continuum.  I don't believe a person is absolutely straight or absolutely gay.

I have been guided very substantially in my understanding of homosexuality by the many books of James B. Nelson.  He is a brilliant theologian who teaches at the United Theological Seminary in Minneapolis.  He is recognized as the country's leading ethicist on human sexuality.

According to Dr. Nelson, we cannot say with any precision what causes homosexuality.  It is likely to be an interaction of several factors, including genetic, hormonal and environmental.  But psychological and social influences alone probably cannot cause homosexuality.  He writes that the genetic, hormonal, neurological predisposition toward homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual orientation is present at birth for all people.  But it takes the blending of various factors--and no one seems to be quite sure how--in the earliest years of a child's life to produce a lasting sexual orientation in that person.  Once that is relatively fixed--and the research now says this is between two and five years of age--this sexual orientation cannot be changed permanently by therapy.  Many gay and lesbian people tell us horror stories of how parents, upon hearing that their child was homosexual, sent them off to a psychiatrist "to be fixed."  The dehumanization of that process is overwhelming.

To deny or repress or hide one's sexuality is bad theology and bad psychology.  The only healthy thing to do is accept oneself and affirm one's sexuality.

Without self acceptance one cannot possibly live responsibly.  But for gay and lesbian people that is a gigantic struggle.  They have frequently been told by their families that they don't belong to them, by the Church that they are perverse and desperate sinners because of their sexual orientation, by the medical profession that they are sick and abnormal, and by the Supreme Court of the land that they are criminals.

How have gay and lesbian people withstood such an onslaught? am amazed to see such health and stability in the homosexual community.

At the core of the Christian faith is the simple and profound assertion: God loves you just as you are.  In the Gospel the first and last word is grace.  Grace means you don't have to become something before you are loved by God.  It is offered free.  You can't buy it or earn it or deserve it.  All you can do is receive it.  That unconditional love and generous acceptance are not marginal to our religion.  They are central to our belief.

This radical acceptance is of the total person--body, mind and spirit.  James Nelson says that once we allow this radical grace to penetrate and we accept the body as loved by God--we begin to reclaim the lost sexual dimensions of ourselves.

Grace is total acceptance.  Our body's feelings, our body's erogenous dimensions, our fantasies, our masculinity and femininity, our heterosexuality, our homosexuality, our sexual irresponsibilities as well as our yearnings for sexual integrity--all of this is graciously accepted by divine love.

That is the wonder and glory of the Christian faith.  When we know God loves us just as we are and we put our arms around ourselves in acceptance and self love, there is released in us enormous spiritual power - -power to grow into wholeness, into that beautiful person God has created us to be.

III

I want to move on and share with you my belief that genital expressions of homosexual love can be holy and good.

The National Episcopal Church, along with other mainline denominations, as well as the Roman Catholic Church, have said that gay and lesbian persons are welcome.  Their presence and service in the Church are valued.  But they must remain celibate.

The Episcopal bishops recently by a very narrow vote disassociated themselves from an ordination to the priesthood of a man who is a practicing homosexual.  By a vote of 78 to 74, Bishop John Spong of Newark was censured by his colleagues for this ordination.  And a couple of years ago the Episcopal House of Bishops reiterated the Church's belief in the traditional values that say genital expressions of love are permitted only for heterosexual couples within the bonds of marriage.

I strongly reject these positions of my Church.

Yes, celibacy is an option to be honored when voluntarily chosen for positive reasons.  Often celibacy is chosen not because genital love is intrinsically wrong but rather because celibacy is for this person the best way to express a vocational commitment or the best path into sexual integrity.  I know many people who have chosen celibacy in whom this commitment is a beautiful quality.  It should be supported.

But celibacy is not the only valid homosexual lifestyle for Christians.  Every human being has a God-given right to sexual love and intimacy--a right to be lived out in a way that is compatible with the spirit of Christ.

John J. McNeill was a Jesuit for nearly forty years before being expelled from the Society of Jesus in 1987 for his views on gay and lesbian sexuality.  His books have helped illumine my journey.

Father McNeill writes that only a sadistic God would create millions of human beings who are homosexuals and then deny them the right to sexual intimacy.  He says before he believed in such a sadistic God he would choose to believe the Roman Catholic Church is wrong about homosexual activity.  And they kicked him out!

After much study, reflection and struggle, I have come to believe that the ethical standards for sexual practice are the same for homosexuals as for heterosexuals.  The core issue for sexual ethics is not the assessment of certain types of physical acts as right or wrong, normal or abnormal.  The core issue is not whether genital love is within or outside of heterosexual marriage.  The pivotal issue is the integrity of the relationship.  This is true for us all.

Gay men and lesbians desire and need deep, lasting relationships just as much as I do.  And they should not be denied genital expressions of that loving communion.

We must boldly proclaim that it is not the legality of marriage that determines the morality of sexual love.  Is sex ln marriage right and good?  It all depends.  We know there is lots of sexual abuse in marriage, so much bargaining within the bedroom scene, lots of impersonal sex, much deception and deep sexual alienation that produces violence.  You can't tell the goodness of a sexual act just by looking at the external appearance.  You must know the inner meaning and deep quality that act is expressing.

So the ethic is authentic love for all of us.  What is a good sexual act? It is honest and real--clearly conveying what the relationship really means, what its deepest meaning is.  It is other-enriching, respecting the other person, never exploiting.  It is faithful--tonight's pleasures are not tomorrow's pain.  It reveals a commitment, a trust, a tenderness for the other person. It is willing to take responsibility for sexual love's consequences--personal and social.  Good sex connects us to the building of a good society.  It is liberating, life-giving, joyous, fun, easy, ecstatic, fantastic.  And it resists all cruelty, all exploitation, all impersonalization.

This kind of ethic for sexual behavior is appropriate, I believe, for both gay and straight Christians.

IV

I want to share another conviction I have on homosexuality.  I have come to the place in my own thinking that I now believe I should bless the covenant of same-sex couples.

There has been a strong theme in Jewish Christian thought that procreation was the justification for sex.  This began to change in the seventeenth century.  Some Puritans, Anglicans and Quakers began to teach a different understanding of the Bible.  They preached that God's main purpose in creating us as sexual creatures was not to make babies but to make love.  Loving intimacy is the primary goal of sex.  If children come, it is only an added blessing.  They are not the primary reason for marriage.  The reason is love and commitment.  We all know that such an ethical position has had a difficult struggle in the councils of the Church.

Over the years I have gotten acquainted with some wonderful gay and lesbian people.  They have been my friends and have gently led me on my journey.  I've seen goodness and holiness and beauty and love in these people.  Nothing in me could ever see their lives as sinful and perverse.  They have been the instruments of grace for this community of faith.

At least ten per cent of this congregation are gay and lesbian persons.  There are more who have children and friends and colleagues who are homosexuals.  We have all learned so much by the willingness of these people to share with us.

The holy spirit is speaking to this congregation in and through the experience of gay and lesbian Christians.  Our ministry with persons with AIDS has brought me into contact with some extraordinary people.  I've seen remarkable love between persons with AIDS and their lovers.  I've witnessed such tenderness and fidelity, such affection and care and deep respect to the last breath.  I've seen the holy God at work in their relationship.

I know many same-sex couples in this congregation.  Some of them I know up close and down deep.  I'm convinced, without any question, of the integrity and goodness of their relationship.  I believe I should bless those unions if the request is made.  Even though the National Episcopal Church says no to the blessing of same-sex covenants, I feel God is calling me and this great parish into a new place.  I've come to believe that not to be willing to bless a relationship that is committed to the same standards of love and lasting fidelity as heterosexuals is to say in effect to a same - sex couple that whatever their relationship is, it is not "fit" for public Christian affirmation, support and celebration.

We should not be in such a place in this Christian community.  The blessing of a same-sex covenant is the clearest symbol the Church can offer that these precious children of God are fully accepted into the life of the congregation.

Don't ever underestimate the power of healing such an act would bring.  When we bless a union of a homosexual couple, I believe this is what we are saying: the church sees goodness in you and your love for each other; we recognize your intention to share that love for a lifetime; the church wants to bless you on your journey and sustain you when the way is difficult; we cheer you on your way and hope for your success; and we shall rejoice in your victories and weep for your failures.

That is where I want us to be.  Even though I've been too long in coming to this position, we will not jump into a radical policy.  I want us to struggle, gay and straight together, to discern the best way to move on this decision.

I certainly recognize we are not all at the same place.  We need to share how we feel, our fears and our hopes, as we plan this important act of justice for gay and lesbian persons.

But it is for us all.  Sexuality is vitally important to the dignity of each one of us.  The issue isn't about "them" but about all of us.  I'm confident that the more I live in the radical grace of God and trust myself, body and soul, to this loving God the more steadily I will travel on this adventure.

After a long pilgrimage I'm solidly committed to bless same-sex covenants, but I want to listen to you and make our way together as a parish.  I look forward to that day when gay men and lesbians will be embraced fully and unconditionally in love with justice. And once more in this church those famous words of the prophet Amos will mark our corporate life:

Let justice flow on like a river and righteousness like a never failing stream.  (5: 24)

Amen.

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1.  James B. Nelson's books:

"Embodiment: An Approach to Sexuality and Christian Theology."  (Augsburg Publishing House, 1978)

"The Intimate Connection: Male Sexuality and Masculine Spirituality."  (Westminster Press, 1988)

"Between Two Gardens: Reflections On Sexuality and Religious Experience."  (Pilgrim Press, 1983)

2.  John J. McNeill's books:

"The Church and the Homosexual."  (Beacon Press, 1988)

"Taking a Chance on God: Liberating Theology for Gays, Lesbians, and Their Lovers, Families and Friends."  (Beacon Press, 1988)

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A PESSIMISTIC VIEW OF THE FUTURE

*Excerpt from "A personal Prospectus on the Episcopal Church in the 1990s" by the Rev. Walter Dennis, Bishop Suffragan of New York, which appeared in the St. Luke's Journal of Theology, December 1990.*

I see shifts in the orientations of our own constituencies.  The Church in the 1990s will have an active and vital outreach to blue collar workers and Yuppies.  It will become less sensitive to the concerns of constituencies such as women, blacks, hispanics, gays, and lesbians.  Looking back over the long span of history, I conclude that the Anglican Church, in general, and the Episcopal Church-USA, in particular, has never handled matters of race and sexuality well.  We have an opportunity in the 1990s to turn that around, but I sadly doubt if we will.  Unless time stands still, it is the nature of pendulums not to stop at a reasonable dead center.  The swing from the sexual revolution, begun by the evident bankruptcy of lust and narcissistic consumerism, is speeding toward sexual repression, lamentably using the gross perversion of the tragedy of AIDS as one of its weapons.  I hope that the Church will not yield to the tendency to malign homosexuals or otherwise encourage homophobes to come out from under the rocks.  The signs are not promising, however.  The Church will be gun-shy of controversial issues, such as blessing pair-bonded gay and lesbian relationships and the ordination of monogamous gay and lesbian clergy.  With gay-bashing at an all time high and no one speaking out against it in spite of the resolutions of General Convention, with some seminaries requiring people to sign pledges regarding their sexuality; and with persons seeking the Episcopate being asked to allow sexual checks on their past history, I am pessimistic about progress in this area in the 1990s.  While the Church has spoken clearly on this matter, most dioceses are not carrying it out.  It seems odd that, at the very moment in history when Liberal and Reformed Jews are admitting women and homosexuals to the Rabbinate, Christian church are fighting hardest to keep those persons out of their ministries.  It is also ironic that it is in the Old Testament that most biblical prescriptions are found against homosexuality.  I foresee the church hardening its line on sexuality outside of marriage and the 1990s, like the 1890s, will be grim, not gay.

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HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE BIBLE

Just as the classic story for the justification of black slavery was the story of Ham and Noah's curse of Canaan, and that for the subordination of women is the story of Eve and the forbidden fruit, the story used to justify the persecution of homosexuals is Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 10:1-29).  A perusal of the story will probably puzzle the reader as to why it has played the role it has in history.

The crux hangs on the use of one Hebrew word translated 'to know.' Lot, a foreigner, lives in Sodom, where two angels visit to investigate rumors of great evil.  He offers them the hospitality of his home.  But the men of the city, hearing he is hosting two strangers, gather at his door and demand that the men come out.  "Bring them to us that we may 'know' them."  Lot refuses and bribes them to go away with the offer of his daughters instead.

Some argue that the men of Sodom have come to check these strangers out.  'Know' here means just, 'Let's get to know them and find out if they are trustworthy.'

This word translated 'know' can also mean 'to have intercourse.' Of the 943 times it is used in the Old Testament, only 10 times is it used unquestionably in this way, and then it always refers to heterosexual intercourse.  But Lot uses the same word of his daughters 'who have not known man,' and sex is clearly the issue. Yet even this reading emphasizes the importance of hospitality, since Lot is prepared to give his daughters to these men to protect his guests.  If the men wish to 'know' these strangers carnally, the issue is not homosexuality per se but homosexual rape - another matter!

There is a parallel story in Judges 19:1-21:25.  A Levite and his concubine are taken in by a sojourner.  The men of the town surround the house and demand that the man be brought out 'so that we may know him.' Instead, the concubine is put outside and ravished until she is dead.  Later the Levite says the intent of the men was to kill him (20:5).  He stirs up Israel and the men are killed and the city burned.

0

In both cases it is clear the men intend violence, and while there is a sexual element, the key issue is the violation of hospitality, which dictates that a guest be treated with respect.

We find references to Sodom many times in Scripture as a symbol of the utter destruction caused by great sin, but nowhere in Scripture is that sin identified as homosexuality.  Jesus (Luke 10:10-13) seems to think the sin is inhospitality.  Ezekiel (16:49-50) says it is pride and thoughtless ease.  Isaiah (1:10ff) says it is injustice.  Jeremiah (23:14) says moral laxity.  In the New Testament, 2 Peter (2:6ff) says licentiousness, and Jude (1:7) says they acted 'immorally and indulged in unnatural lusts,' apparently referring to Jewish legends of women mating with angels.

Whether inhospitality is merely one of Sodom's sins, here dramatized in a homosexual rape attempt, or whether inhospitality was the primary sin of Sodom (after all, the angels had come to investigate an existing rumor of evil), at no point in the story or elsewhere in either the Old or New Testament is homosexuality itself stated as the cause of Sodom's destruction.

That the sin of Sodom was not connected with homosexuality in Biblical times is further borne out by the fact that none of the Biblical passages traditionally understood to condemn these practices mentions the story.

Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 are the only places in the Old Testament where homosexual acts per se are mentioned.  In both they are forbidden in a series of rules and prohibitions (the Holiness code) which are intended to maintain Israel's distinctiveness from the nations around her.  Here they are associated with idolatry.  Among Israel's neighbors, fertility rites were common and worshippers used male and female temple prostitutes for this purpose.  These acts are forbidden as 'abominations,' a word in Hebrew that does not mean morally wrong but 'unclean or disgusting to the Hebrews,' like eating pork or intercourse with a menstruating woman.

This is a body of law not binding on Christians since Jesus and Paul declared that under the new covenant lt was not the external violation of Levitical law, but spiritual infidelity that made a person unclean.  Indeed, in Acts 15, Gentiles were explicitly exempted from Mosaic Law, including circumcision, with four exceptions.  In order to have communion with Jews, Gentiles were asked to: abstain from food sacrificed to idols; from blood; from things strangled; and from fornication.  Homosexuality is not mentioned.  While contemporary taboos make the prohibition in Leviticus of homosexual acts seem of a different order to us than the dietary laws, the ancient world felt no such hostility to homosexuality, and made no such distinction.  Prohibition of same sex behavior would have seemed to most Roman citizens as arbitrary as prohibition of cutting the beard.

In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and Timothy 1:9-10, the words often translated 'homosexual' in these lists of sins are uncertain ln their meaning.  In the first, 'malakoi' literally means soft, and is used elsewhere of dissolute or wanton behavior in general.  It is not used in Greek elsewhere for homosexual but it is used elsewhere of heterosexuals.  The word 'arsenokoitai' is quite rare and very probably referred to a male prostitute who services either sex.

What is striking is that there were a number of words available in Greek commonly used to describe people who practiced homosexual behavior, which would have been unequivocal in meaning.  If the author's intention was to refer to homosexuality generally, it is likely one of them would have been used.

Finally, in Romans 1:26-27, Paul discusses the Gentiles who, abandoning the true God, turned to idols and as a result abandoned their natural heterosexual behavior for homosexual. Uniquely, Paul mentions women as well as men.  This behavior, he says, is 'against nature.'

We should not read our concept or nature of natural law into Paul - 'against nature' seems to mean 'unusual' or 'uncharacteristic' rather than intrinsic evil.  Earlier he says God acts 'against nature' grafting the Gentiles on the cultivated tree - that is, the Jewish covenant with God.  The point of Paul's argument is against idolatry.  The reference to homosexual behavior is illustrative.  One of the results of idolatry is confusion in sexual matters as in matters of God.  The people condemned are not homosexuals as we know them, but heterosexuals who commit homosexual acts.  If the persons condemned are not 'naturally' heterosexual, the argument makes no sense.

Paul did not discuss gay persons but homosexual acts committed by heterosexuals.  There is a very real question as to whether homosexuality as we understand it, as an affectional orientation, was known to Biblical writers.  There is no word for it in Scripture, as there is no discussion of loving homosexual relationships; neither the Old Testament or the New takes a demonstrable position.  Sexuality itself seems to have been a matter of indifference to Jesus.

In conclusion, we have examined all the references purporting to address the question and find that Scripture gives us no specific guidance on homosexuality as we understand it today.  Any conclusions we may come to Biblically will have to derive from our understanding of the purpose sexuality and the more general principles of our faith.

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THis excellent summary was prepared by a clerical member of Integrity/Southland for use at the Los Angeles Diocesan Convention, where it was distributed as a pamphlet.

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A SNOWBALL'S CHANCE IN PALM SPRINGS:

Los Angeles votes on blessing same-sex couples

by Larkette Lein

Integrity/Southland, the newly re-constituted gay and lesbian caucus of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Los Angeles, made national news when a resolution we sponsored focused attention on the question of whether the Episcopal church "acts appropriately and for the good of the people of God when it upholds and celebrates ... two persons who are willing to make a life-long covenant of fidelity and love with each other."

Delegates from 148 churches in six counties considered the resolution at the diocese's annual convention, held in Riverside in December.  Clergy members voted 91 to 55 in support of the resolution; lay delegates turned thumbs down by a margin of about 300 to 200 in a stand-up-and-be-counted vote.  A majority of both orders were required to pass the non-binding resolution.

Nonetheless, supporters of the resolution are elated at the strong showing.  I'd been telling reporters I thought passage of the resolution the first time around had a snowball's chance in Palm Springs.  But it does snow in Palm Springs, just not very often.  Integrity plans on making several tries.  But even the clergy who were opposed say the church will give its blessing within a few years.

One unexpected boost was the stance taken by the Rev. George Regas, rector of the largest Episcopal church west of the Mississippi, whose recent sermon stating that he intends to start performing the blessing of same-sex unions made the L.A. Times and the wire services [and is reprinted herein].

More deeply significant was having our bishop, the Rt. Rev. Frederick H. Borsch, behind us.  He not only told Integrity that the resolution "made good Christian sense" to him, but sent a mailing containing the following statement to all the clergy in the diocese:  "In my office as bishop I do not at this time have authority from the Episcopal Church to sanction the blessing of the covenants of gay and lesbian couples.  Speaking personally, however, I have long held that the Church should support and uphold faithful and committed Christians in such covenants, and I continue to work toward that goal."

While the church's canons do not expressly forbid blessing same-sex couples, conventional wisdom states that you do not do this.  However, this has not stopped priests in several Southern California parishes from performing such ceremonies.

While such celebrations confer no legal rights or benefits, we hope that passage of the resolution, when it comes, will send a strong signal to secular law-makers.

But more important to those of us who believe in nurturing our  own, and others', spiritual health, that the church is even considering blessing same-sex couples is Good News.  In fact, it's Gospel, because, after all, Gospel means Good News, and what better news than that God loves and nurtures all of his children? When the church can publicly state that it is appropriate to bless loving relationships, that will be a big step towards welcoming gays and lesbians back home into the wider spiritual community.

Integrity plans to bring a similar resolution before the convention next year.  Between now and then, we'll be promoting workshops and discussion groups throughout the diocese.  Our main purpose this first year was to stimulate discussion and to give people a chance to get used to the idea.  No one could stay neutral on the topic when it was a standing vote.  I was really proud of the kind of open and genuine dialogue that we heard.  People really seemed to be trying to understand where the other guy was coming from.  And that goes for both sides, which is a good sign.

Our more immediate concern, however, is the church's national convention, to be held this summer.  Resolutions dealing with blessing same-sex relationships and with ordination of openly gay and lesbian priests will be on the agenda of the triennial meeting.  We'll have our work cut out for us.  And speaking of snowballs, the convention is scheduled for Phoenix --in July!

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Larkette Lein is the Convener of Integrity/Southland, which was certified as a chapter in October, 1990.  She and her husband, Paul Courry, live in Irvine and have been active in a number of peace and justice ministries of the Episcopal Church.

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CLOSETED GAY BISHOP DIES OF AIDS

Finis Crutchfield's first post as a Methodist bishop was the Louisiana Conference.  Even in his new role, one of enormous visibility and influence, Crutchfield was determined to continue his double life.

Early in his tenure in New Orleans, Crutchfield took the most daring and uncharacteristic step of his career.

On June 24, 1973, a fire broke out in the Up Stairs Lounge, a gay bar in the French Quarter.  Thirty people were killed; among them was a minister of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, a denomination founded in 1968 by the Rev. Troy Perry to minister to the gay community.

As soon as Perry was told of the fire he flew from his headquarters in Los Angeles to New Orleans to oversee a memorial service for the victims.  But every church he approached for permission to hold such a service in its sanctuary turned him down.  Then Perry heard that there was a small Methodist church in the French Quarter whose minister was willing to hold the service.

On July 1 Perry conducted the memorial service, attended by more than 200 people, among them Finis Crutchfield.  At the service Perry met Crutchfield,  who had sanctioned use of the church.

Perry recalled:  "He said, 'I just wanted to let you know not everyone in Louisiana is a redneck.  I wanted you to know there are people who care.'  Then he said, 'Several people killed in the fire were my friends.'  And the way he said 'my friends,' I knew he was saying something more to me."

After Perry returned to Los Angeles, he received a call from a Metropolitan Community church minister who was temporarily presiding over the New Orleans congregation.  Someone had seen Bishop Crutchfield at a gay bar and was threatening to report him to Methodist authorities, the minister had heard.  Perry immediately called Crutchfield with the news.

Crutchfield replied in a weary voice, "I guess it's time for me to change my bar."

Crutchfield's role in the memorial service caused a lot of talk.  Given his outspoken conservatism, people wondered why he would take a stand on behalf of homosexuals.

One Methodist who heard of the bishop's action and was deeply heartened was Richard Monroe.  Shortly after the fire, Monroe, on the church's national staff in Nashville at the time, wrote Crutchfield thanking him for his stand.  A few weeks after he wrote his letter, the council of bishops met in Nashville, and Crutchfield called Monroe and suggested they meet.

"I thought we would talk about our concern with the gay community," Monroe, now 63, recalled.

He found out that Crutchfield had a simpler agenda.  Monroe and Crutchfield met in the hotel lobby, and the bishop invited Monroe up to his room.  Once there Crutchfield offered Monroe a soft drink and walked across the room to get it.  He came back with the drinks and put them down on a table near Monroe.  Then Crutchfield exposed himself and invited Monroe to do the same.

"He was aggressive, very intentional, and he didn't waste any time," Monroe said.  "I was very shocked."

With Crutchfield standing over him, Monroe tried to defuse the situation.

"I said, 'I'm sorry.  I'm not going to get into this.'  He said, 'Oh, I think you are.'"  Then, much to Monroe's relief, the telephone rang.

Crutchfield took the call in another room.  Monroe sat wondering what to do.  When Crutchfield returned a few minutes later, he explained that he had to leave on business.  He then escorted Monroe to the lobby, engaging in pleasant small talk as they went.  It was the only time they ever met.

Monroe knows that telling the story of his encounter with Bishop Crutchfield will put his job in jeopardy and cause pain to the bishop's family, but he said:  "I think the truth is more important than the deception.  Continuing to care for people with AIDS is more important than the question of the bishop's lifestyle."

He decided that he had to speak because of the damage that could be done by a false story of how the bishop contracted AIDS. (The family had issued a statement after Crutchfield's death denying that the bishop was a homosexual and, it was widely thought, suggesting that he contracted the disease from casual contact with gays in the course of his ministry.)

When homosexual issues later came up at Methodist conferences, Crutchfield vehemently opposed any softening of church prohibitions.  But privately he was proud of his role in the memorial service.

"I heard him tell the story hundreds of times," said a longtime gay friend.

In 1976 Crutchfield, then 59, finished his first four-year term as bishop.  He had two terms left before he reached mandatory retirement age.  That year he transferred to the Texas Conference, an area that stretches from Galveston to Texarkana and includes most of East Texas.

The Texas Conference during his tenure increased its membership from 243,000 to 270,000, becoming one of the fastest-growing in the country.

Crutchfield was a frequent patron at many of the gay bars in Montrose.  The Venture N on Main Street was one of his favorites.  Crutchfield was a steady customer for 10 years, often coming in three or four times a week.  Jim Dondson, owner of the Venture N, remembers him well.

"He always came in with young men in their 20s; he didn't pick people up.  He always wore a suit.  He'd sit with the person he brought in; they'd kiss and hold hands."

While cruising Montrose, Crutchfield ran into an old acquaintance: the young man from the Tulsa savings and loan association, now a Houston executive.

The executive recalled:  "I started to see him in a few bookstores--you know the kind I'm talking about.  It was a real shock to me.  I told him I had been in a raid a few years before.  I said to him, 'Finis, how can you afford to be in here?'" Crutchfield just shrugged off the question.

Crutchfield became close friends with a young gay minister he had encountered at the Brazos River Bottom bar, although the two were never lovers.  Crutchfield enjoyed talking to him about his official events and about his life in the gay world.  They also had more serious talks about homosexuality.

"He was interested in how I was feeling, that I had a good self-image," the young minister said.  "He would say whether a person was gay or not was immaterial; what's important is how you feel about yourself.  He knew he was gay, and he knew gay wasn't bad."

The minister recalls one conversation in particular:  "We were driving around, and I made some sarcastic remark about being gay and in the clergy.  He said, 'Never make fun of your calling.  That is to be taken with the utmost seriousness and joy, and you have nothing to be ashamed of.'"

The bishop and the young minister often went to gay bars together.  The minister found that the bishop's taste ran the gamut.

"Once he took me to a trucker bar.  It was a raunchy place not far from First Methodist Church.  He was dressed for the role in his cowboy boots and jeans."

Crutchfield seemed unconcerned about being discovered.  "He said, 'People here don't know who I am.  They don't read the papers.'"

Crutchfield also had a long relationship with a church layman, now in his mid-30s, whom Crutchfield met in 1976 at a church outside of Houston.  Shortly after meeting, the two became lovers, often traveling together to cities where Crutchfield's  duties took him.  The young man's employment by the church gave them an excuse for being seen together.

One of their trips was to a city Crutchfield knew well, New Orleans, the young man recalled.  The two also went to gay bathhouses in Houston, Dallas and Austin.  When they weren't traveling together, Crutchfield liked to report his adventures to the young layman.

"He had a huge sex drive.  He would call me from New York City and tell me who he had picked up.  He said he met gay people the entire world over."

For Finis Crutchfield 1984 was the end of an era.  After 44 years as a minister, 12 of them at the highest level of the church, at 67 he was retiring.

At the 1984 General Conference, his last as an active bishop, a major item in the agenda was a question concerning homosexuality.  Homosexuality always had been considered immoral, but as the gay rights movement spread to the church, ministers began challenging that assumption.  In response, there were those who felt the church must make explicit its opposition to homosexuality among the clergy.

After heated debate, language that excluded "self-avowed, practicing homosexuals" from the ministry was added to the Book of Discipline.  As was his pattern, Crutchfield was in favor of his church's repudiation of homosexuality.

But he seemed troubled by what he was doing.  When he told the young gay minister about the conference, he reported happily how many people had voted against the prohibition.

"He came back and said, 'You wouldn't believe the number of people in support of ordaining gay clergy.  The vote is getting closer,'" the minster recalled.

Still, Crutchfield seemed not completely at peace with his public role.  At the General Conference he spoke at length to the Rev. Morris Floyd, of Minneapolis, an openly gay minister and spokesman for the unofficial church organization called Affirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian/Gay Concerns.

In several phone calls to Floyd, Crutchfield discussed the burdens of leading a double life.

"He didn't indicate he ever seriously considered doing it any other way, which is consistent with the way gay men of his generation functioned," Floyd said.

Crutchfield also told Floyd that he wanted but knew that he never could have an open and emotionally satisfying homosexual relationship.

Crutchfield also talked about his fear of discovery, Floyd said.

"He was proud of the role he had had as a leader in the church; he continually expressed the concern that if he was found out, that would be the end of his career.  He also spoke of his family and what it would do to them if it came out that he was gay.  In some ways that was a concern greater than for the church."

Crutchfield had condemned homosexuality publicly while he was bishop.  But after his retirement he was willing to take a small step forward.  He began working with people with AIDS.

John Paul Barnich, a soft-spoken, bearded Houston attorney, got Crutchfield involved in the work.  He met the bishop at a Montrose coffee shop around the time of his retirement.

Barnich first asked Crutchfield for help in 1985, when a young man living at the McAdory House, a home for indigent AIDS sufferers in Houston, received a letter from his stepfather, a Methodist minister, saying that the family would have no further contact with him.  When Barnich told the bishop, Crutchfield immediately visited the young man and also helped bring about a partial reconciliation within the family.

Barnich said of Crutchfield,  "He was one of the most compassionate people I've ever met."

AIDS by now was the No. 1 topic in the gay community. Crutchfield himself, while continuing to find new sexual partners, had conversations about the disease with his gay friends.  He warned them about being careful, but no one recalls his expressing concern for his own health.

In July, 1986, Crutchfield began to have problems with his voice.  Crutchfield saw a throat specialist, but the source of the trouble was unclear.

Then he began having digestive problems and difficulty sleeping.  He told friends he was suffering from a hiatal hernia. By Thanksgiving a case of the flu that the bishop was unable to shake had developed into pneumonia, and his wife took him to Methodist Hospital.  In January the family was told the bishop had AIDS.

It was a shocking diagnosis.  The doctors asked the bishop about his exposure to risk factors.  The bishop assured his doctors and family that he was not an intravenous drug user nor had he received a blood transfusion.  That left only the most common mode of transmission:  sexual contact, primarily homosexual contact.

The bishop's son wanted to know.  Charles went into the room of his dying father and asked about his sexual conduct.  The two men were there alone; it was Bishop Crutchfield's last chance to give up his secret life.  But Crutchfield told his son he had had no homosexual experiences.

Adding to the pain of the bishop's imminent death was the isolation the family imposed upon itself because of the AIDS diagnosis.

Mrs. Crutchfield was barely able to utter the word; friends of decades' standing were not even told the bishop was in the hospital.  When they found out, most were politely discouraged from visiting.  But for some of those who did come, the precautionary sign on the hospital door, the bishop's emaciated condition and the memory of the rumors left little doubt about his illness.

In spite of her anguish, Mrs. Crutchfield declined to be interviewed for this story.  But she did prepare a statement, which reads in part:

"I was married to him for 46 1/2 years in the most beautiful, sacred, loving marital relationship that one can image.  We worked together as partners--not just in the home--but in 'our work'--for 'his work' was 'my work,' too.  And so to lose him is like losing a part of my own being."

As the bishop's death drew closer, the family was forced to deal with the question of what to say publicly about his disease. Mrs. Crutchfield was distraught at the idea of any disclosure. But Spurgeon Dunnam, the editor of the Methodist newspaper and a family adviser, urged the family to issue a statement on the nature of the bishop's illness.

He said that he explained:  "If they chose not to, it would not keep the information from being revealed.  It would just eliminate their say in it."

Not all church officials agreed.  Several other bishops visited the hospital and suggested the strategy the church had taken on the matter of Crutchfield's private life for so many years:  silence.

Finis Crutchfield died on Thursday, May 21.  The family was told that the death certificate, a public document in Texas, would list a single cause:  AIDS.

The bishop's funeral, attended by more than 800 mourners, was the following Saturday.  No mention was made of AIDS at the service.  A few hours after the funeral the bishop's widow and son finally decided what they had to do, and Charles released his statement.

The family immediately was enveloped in an uproar over how the bishop had contracted the disease.  Houston Chronicle reporter Steve Maynard wrote an article in which members of the gay community said Crutchfield's homosexuality was well known.

In our interview, Charles Crutchfield took pains to assure that he never intended for his statement to hurt people with AIDS:

"We would be devastated if anything we said was taken to mean we did not affirm and support ministry to AIDS patients.  That would be the biggest betrayal of my father's concerns."

He said the implication that Bishop Crutchfield died as a result of such ministry is one drawn by others.

"We simply said we do not know how he got the AIDS virus."

In Houston, AIDS is a reportable disease.  When someone dies from it, an attempt is made to trace the source of transmission. In the records of the Houston health department the cause of Bishop Crutchfield's infection by the virus remains in the category "Undetermined At This Time."

When I told Charles I have spoken to men who say they were lovers of his father, he winced, but he will entertain no second thoughts.

"The whole pattern of my father's life was one of honesty, integrity, and truthfulness with family and friends," he said. "It is not in the nature of my father's character to have lied to me."

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Copyright 1987 *Texas Monthly*, Reprinted with Permission

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MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

A White Southerner's Perspective 

by Louie Crew

A person's message often succeeds as much with outsiders as with the audience at home.  As Gandhi astounded the British, Dr.  Martin Luther King, Jr., left some of his greatest treasure to white Southerners, like me.

      Dr. King taught me that people close to me, people whom I  trusted, *my people*, people who had treated me well, wronged black people.  Learning this lesson, I wondered how many other ways my people had taught me to transgress.  Dr. King took away some of my props.  I could no longer afford to accept anyone's views without first carefully examining them.  He began my education.

      Dr. King taught me that fair people sometimes have to subvert a sick society.   While only a few in the black community considered him "subversive," in living room after living room in my part of town the name "Martin Luther King" used to turn even sweet grandmothers into raving preachers and jolly uncles into Klansmen and Citizens Councilors.  It did not take long for me to see that the violence my people feared from Dr. King was the violence of our own nature.  His doctrine of love exposed us, as spiritually impoverished.  Without this painful exposure, few of us would have done much to remedy our plight.

      Dr. King humanized my personal heroes.  I do not mean remote heroes in books.  I mean those closer to us, figures in one's family or community who, despite routine and heavy exposure, still suggest a measure of greatness.  I could have chosen one of the little Confederate soldiers on any town square, or a daddy serving on a local school board.  But Dr. King showed me that the soldier (my great-grandfather) fought in a morally questionable cause and that the school board which my father chaired, unjustly robbed black people of their human rights and personal dignity when it segregated them.

      Dr. King became a different kind of hero, someone who  showed that when we try to discover a just way, the world does not tumble down.  On the contrary, it starts to make sense.     

      Dr. King did not allow even well-meaning white people to control him.  He taught me to respect blackness as I had never done before.  I graduated from high school the year of the Little Rock decision.  My environment had segregated me from all black people except domestic servants.  I never met a black person with more than a high school education until I was out of college.  I even had to sneak to read black literature, never mentioned by my professors.   Dr. King broke through these barriers, revealed to me the inadequacy of my education, showed me that to live in the world, I had better start looking for leadership in new places, in black places, from black people.

      Most importantly, Dr. King shared his dream of reconciliation.  He taught me that no matter how wickedly my people had behaved, we whites might one day worthily sit at tables with blacks.  Dr. King kept open for me and for all people, a chance to walk out of narrow racism into a world community right in my own home town.

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An earlier version of this article first appeared in "The Living  Church" for March 31, 1974.  Louie Crew founded Integrity the same year.  He has published over 800 items, including the first openly gay materials in *Christianity & Crisis, Change Magazine, Chronicle of Higher Education, The Churchman, Episcopalian, Fellowship, Living Church, The Witness*, and many more.  He teaches at Rutgers University.

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BISHOPS SHOULD 'COME OUT' FOR GAYS

by Jack Gessell

      One of the most astonishing developments in the donnybrook over homosexuality in the church is the startling report that Bishop John Howe of Central Florida plans to present a resolution to the next General Convention establishing a new canon specifically inhibiting the ordination of gay men and lesbian women and specifically inhibiting advocacy of the same.  Howe appears to take his cues on homosexuality and politics from the infamous and bigoted California congressman, William Dannemeyer.

      This proposed canon would, for the first time in history, establish a biological, in addition to the theological and moral, qualification for admission to Holy Orders.  This is unheard of, although the debate over the ordination of women implied the possibility of altering the canons to restrict Holy Orders to males.  If such a canon were approved it would be contrary to scripture, reason, tradition and, indeed, would be heretical.

      Homosexuality is a natural variant in creation and, as such, morally neutral and participates in the essential goodness of God's created world.  The proposed canon, by declaring homosexual persons ineligible for Holy Orders, would also negate a portion of God's creative grace.  We may as well retroactively declare women ineligible while we are about it, and preserve the purity of an all-male heterosexual priesthood.

      Equally troubling is the proposed inhibition on advocacy. Logically such canonical provision would be a matter of prior restraint and inhibition of the natural liberty of all persons.

      It is also troubling because it seems to reflect an ignorance of the depth and richness of the spirit of Anglicanism, which has always embraced and held in tension differences and diversity.  If the opinion of some is to be notoriously silenced by the authority of legal provision, then we will elaborate a church which would be unrecognizable to, say, the Tudor and Caroline divines and to William Porcher DuBose, all of whom stood for a liberal Catholicism which is our church's foundation. 

      DuBose's beliefs have, as much as that of any other one person's, formed the life and spirit of the Episcopal Church.  His liberalism was expressed in his commitment to a critical study of Scripture, in his recognition of the development of doctrine, in his unending search for truth wherever it might be found, in his understanding of evolution, process and growth, and in his efforts to reconcile historic theology with modern ideas. The canonical proposal against ordaining gays and lesbians violates this tradition.

      Cutting off discussion because of a phobic paranoia which refuses to entertain alternative views will destroy the church as a community of moral discourse, frustrate the search for truth, and will deny Anglican spirituality, which is rooted in the human as a disclosure of the divine.  This would be a grave violation of that charity which we are sworn to exemplify. 

      Is this what we wish?

      But while the proposal of such a novel canon may be based on mischievous and political motives, it leads me to recommend that we become serious about this discussion of homosexuality in the church, and clear away the rubbish which prevents clarity and resolution.

      Much of the discussion of homosexuality is confused because of the often unstated premise -- held by those who would deny to gays the church's blessing of stable committed relationships and the grace of ordination -- that homosexuality is a perverse moral choice.  But not to acknowledge that there is substantial historical, social, scientific, and experiential evidence to the contrary is perverse, regardless of one's own personal view. 

      There is evidently no clear and unambiguous warrant in Scripture or tradition for the condemnation and marginalization of homosexual persons, and it is equally unreasonable in light of increasingly compelling contemporary data.  Thus if theological objections and moral condemnations fail, as they will, then the continuing hysteria on this matter is simply political.  In other words, who will gain power and money by manipulating the issues of sexuality in order to control the church?  My exegesis of the reports from the recent House of Bishops meeting strongly urges me to this conclusion. 

      I am persuaded that the present discord on this question is so destructive that immediate action is required lest further inanition of the House of Bishops occurs.  If this issue is not soon resolved, it will create grave disunity, acrimony, and temptation to power. 

      The struggles over the inclusion of blacks in the mainstream of church life, and the ordination of women were not edifying or healthy.  We might have learned, however, from these struggles that full inclusion will happen.  Just as with blacks and women, so gays and lesbians who meet the canonical criteria will be ordained by the church.  But if the struggle is protracted, the loss of purpose, vision, and energy will be incalculable, and will vitiate the mission of the church in the world.

      This crisis is so dire that it may destroy the capability of the church to carry out its mission.  To marginalize, dehumanize, and oppress homosexual persons in the church is, in part, to be complicit with those who deny the humanity and rights of homosexual persons, and with those who subject them to violence and even murder.  Homosexual persons share the same right to life as abused women and children, racial minorities, and the unborn.

      I believe that the present impasse on this issue, because of the character of recent events, can be resolved only in the House of Bishops.  A parallel case concerned the matter of clerical alcoholism, the resolution of which, by God's mercy, began with the bishops.  The power of denial regarding alcohol abuse and its devastating results is instructive.  Once that power was defeated, healing began to occur.  In the present instance, denial is more complex.  It takes the form of closeted bishops and clergy, and denial that gays and lesbians may be fully included in the life of the community of Word and Sacrament.

      Therefore, to begin the task of clearing away the rubbish, and of healing and restoring, I suggest that the bishops consider taking the following steps:

      Let the House of Bishops become that place where love and compassion are given unconditionally, and change will begin to take place.  The gays can dare to leave their secret lives and be enlivened and ennobled by who they are.  The straights can dare to confront their fear and hatred and be ennobled by the purification of their thoughts and feelings.

      Specifically I suggest that:

      (1) In circumstances which must be guarded by strict and careful confidentiality and which must be maintained indefinitely, the gay bishops, perhaps beginning with three or four who can agree together, "come out" to their fellows in the House. 

      (2) Support systems must be provided for both gay and straight bishops to enable the gays to withstand the inevitable trauma of personal disclosure following many years of secrecy, and the straights to withstand the inevitable blows to their perceptions and their emotional commitments.  No one not a member of the House need know the process by which this is done. 

      (3) These steps will be very painful and very difficult, but if they are carefully planned and entered into in full confidentiality and mutual trust, the House can begin to discover a freedom to show the way of loving acceptance and heal the considerable wounds which have been inflicted. 

      Then we may all get on with our business in furthering God's mission for this church.

_____

Dr. John M. Gessell, a priest of the Diocese of Tennessee, is a Professor of Christian Ethics, emeritus, at the University of the South School of Theology and was until recently the editor of "The St. Luke's Journal of Theology."  This article is appearing simultaneously in the February issue of "The Witness."

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A TRIBUTE TO JIM TOY

By Davi Napoleon

He's taunted from fraternity porches but revered by those he's counseled.

"If not for this man, I would be dead."  So says Billie Gordon, a 400-pound black transvestite who confides that her father and suicidal mother abused her sexually.  She first turned to Jim Toy for help when she was a male Michigan student in the early 1970's.

Now a Hollywood writer-performer and author of two humorous cookbooks [ed. note - and pictured on innumerable greeting cards], Gordon still dials Toy's number from memory when she feels depressed.  "Jim helped me understand you can't molest a child and have him grow up to be Beaver.  I'm not the girl next door, but I still have the dignity of the girl next door.  Some people try to save nations.  He can save a nation, one individual at a time."

Tom, Gay Male Coordinator of the U-M Lesbian-Gay Male Programs Office, also works with groups as an educator or consultant.  On one recent day, he brainstormed with a social work professor for a course she was developing on AIDS, strategized with a U-M employee who reported job discrimination, helped someone deal with news that he was positive on an AIDS antibody test, met with university officials to discuss discrimination against gays in married housing, and trained a group of students who wanted to be peer counselors.

One former peer counselor, Scott Dennis, talked to Toy before revealing his own homosexuality to family and friends in 1978.  Dennis was impressed from the start with Toy's honesty and informality, his empathy, and his willingness to enjoy campy fun.  He credits Toy with making his trip from the closet smooth.  "I came out very early and very well because I had that kind of support when I was that young," Dennis says.

What advice does Toy give to win such confidence?  None.  "I help a person transform a problem into a goal that's possible, positive, and stated in terms of action.  Advice I don't give, unless it's a suicide situation."

When someone considers coming out of the closet, Toy points out hazards; he may face rejection or physical violence.  "People get attacked coming out of the Nectarine Ballroom....  At MSU, a student's room was set on fire after he participated in a gay pride week up there."  Toy himself often hears taunts from people sitting on fraternity porches as he walks near his office in the Michigan Union.

Then Toy suggests "possible pros."  Here, he might describe those years when he own unwillingness to reveal his sexuality "stopped me from talking to anybody about anything."  And how, when he came out -- in church -- he found "all that energy used [to keep the secret] could be turned to another purpose." -- integrating his sexual orientation into the rest of his life.

A trained counselor with a master's of social work from the U-M, Toy tries to listen actively.  "In Laotian, the word 'to know' means 'to enter someone's heart,'" he says.  "To know someone is to walk in their emotional shoes....  People come here with a burden -- which has another meaning.  A burden is the deepest note in a peal of bells, a phrase that just resonates forever.  Everyone has a different song -- this is all high-flown and metaphoric -- but I try to connect somehow to whatever that fundamental song is."

His approach strikes a deep chord with many clients, sometimes reaching beyond them to their families.  Scott Dennis introduced Toy to his parents, who worked to create an Ann Arbor chapter of a national association, PFLAG, Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.  "It was logical for him and my parents to know each other," says Dennis, "because he was like the gay father I never had.

"Ethnic minorities comes from families of the same minority," Dennis goes on, "but for young gays that's almost never the case.  You can't talk to another generation about shared problems.  I used to call Jim my fairy godfather."

"A lot of gays get ostracized by their families," says Billie Gordon.  "And the gay community is very transient.  I probably know a thousand queens, but couldn't tell you where nine hundred and ninety-nine of them are.  But Jim Toy has been that [family-like] support for many people.  I'm not the only one who calls him from sixteen years ago."

Jim Whiteside, acting director of U-M Counseling Services, says he's "under the impression Jim's here eighteen hours a day, seven days a week.  There have been ten different women [coordinating lesbian programs] n seventeen years.  He's the only man.  He's hung in through organization strife with a dedication .."

"Stubbornness," interjects Toy, who has been listening.

"He has many difference organizational skills," Whiteside resumes.  "And he plays the organ, viola, violin, and piano."

"He is the office," says Greg Prokopowicz, a peer counselor and group facilitator.  "He's an amazing resource person.  He knows how everything works and carries the office around in his head."

Not everyone likes it that way.  "Every new [lesbian director] brings grand-new ideas," says lesbian activist Judy Levy.  "There are young gay men who want a chance to do that job.  Jim is not relinquishing his knowledge and authority to give other people a chance to try new things."

Scott Dennis relies that those who believe groups stagnate without personnel changes don't understand the importance of "having that one bedrock person."  He points out that most similar organizations at other schools have shut down, probably because there has not been enough continuity.  "There always are people who are willing to help out and pitch in," he adds, "but leaders are few and far between."

Toy is in his fifties, and he says that he and Billie Edwards, the current Lesbian Programs Coordinator, worry that they're older than the students they often serve.  But some feel that they're better counselors because they grew up before the gay rights movement began.  "Teen-agers are struggling with an attraction toward other members of their own sex felt as I did," Toy recalls.  "Totally confused, alone, sick, guilty and despairing."

Toy's father, whose parents were Chinese, was born in Portland, Maine.  His mother, whose parents were American, was born and raised in Tokyo.  They met in New York, where he was a chemist and she taught elementary school.

Toy's mother died shortly after he was born, and his bereaved father sent him to live with a paternal aunt in California.  When he was two, he came to stay with his maternal grandparents in Granville, Ohio, near Denison University, where he eventually went to school.

After graduating, Toy taught high school English in France, then moved to New York.  He worked in a hospital blood bank until he received a letter from Joseph Dickson, who had boarded with his grandparents while a ministry student at Denison.

Dickson had become rector at St. Joseph's Episcopal, the first racially integrated church in Detroit and a locus of draft resistance in the 1960's.  St. Joe's needed a music director, and Dickson knew that Toy played several instruments, including the organ.  Toy moved to Detroit and simultaneously enrolled in a musicology doctoral program at U-M.  In 1958, he married and for nine years remained in a union he calls "amicable."

After his divorce, an announcement in the church calendar caught his eye.  "Gay discussion group.  Thursday at seven."

Gay?  "I told one of my friends about the meeting, and we looked at each other and said, 'Should we go?  If I go, this must mean I'm gay.'  I wasn't letting myself be sure, although I'd been going to gay bars.  So we agonized over our decision and forced ourselves to go."

In January 1970, Toy helped found Detroit Gay Liberation.  "It was in some sense the beginning," he recalls, "but we discovered later there had been some underground groups in Detroit."

Soon afterwards, Toy, still a U-M music student, decided to start a gay student group in Ann Arbor.  The university swiftly denied the group's first request, for facilities to hold a statewide gay conference.  Using the precedent of recently created advocacy offices for blacks, women, and other groups, Toy began to negotiate with the Office of Student Services.

In 1972, the year the group convinced the city council to pass the broadest non-discrimination ordinance in the country at the time, Toy secured a quarter-time appointment to do what turned out to be full-time work.  The university also hired Cyndi Gair as lesbian advocate.  "We insisted it would be a co-ed effort," says Toy, who is still proud that Michigan's is the only office nationwide to employ both a gay male and a lesbian to provide services.  In 1977, at the urging of the campus ministries, they were raised to half-time.  The positions were finally made full-time in August, 1987.

By then, the university had closed its other advocacy offices -- "I think because the regents felt uncomfortable with anybody having the title 'advocate,'" says Toy.  The gay-lesbian office survived because of its broader counseling and educational roles, but on a very limited budget.  "It's always been stressful," says Toy, "because we're overloaded with work and short on resources."

For years, Toy lived in an efficiency apartment.  Now his quarters are only slightly larger, ut he still wears hand-me-downs and clothes he buys at St. Vincent de Paul.  "With the talents he has, if he were more selfish, he could be off in a large mansion someplace with boats and cars," Billie Gordon reflects.  "Instead, he chose to serve others."

Patti Myers, office co-coordinator for educational outreach, believes it is Toy's exceptional sense of humor that makes him an effective counselor and consultant and keeps him going in trying times.  She has worked with Toy since 1979 and says he often breaks into songs, sometimes made up on the spur of the moment.

That spontaneity marks his work and his personal life.  "Once, Jim and a group went to the Rubaiyat [a since-closed gay bar] and literally danced on the tables," Scott Dennis recalls.  "There was no place in town where we could dance, so he made one.  [When someone is willing to be that crazy] it gives you license to be who you are ....  There are no limits to creativity.

"The thing that's amazing about Jim is that he's still doing it," Dennis adds.  "The others dancing on the table burned out years ago."

-----

This article appeared in the "Ann Arbor Observer," February 1990.  Jim Toy is a founder of Integrity/Ann Arbor and is one of Integrity's longest-term and most loyal members.

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EVANGELIZING LESGAYS THIS DECADE

by Chris Ambidge

A friend of mine, who goes to a parish I will call St. Henry's (Hogtown) was recently having a discussion with his rector.  Roger is gay, and while he knows that there are others in the congregation who are also gay, there is no sense of community for them there.  Roger feels that St. Henry's is positively unwelcoming to gays, and he wants to change that.  The discussion with the rector focused on ways to do so.

The rector though that enough was being done.  Roger disagreed.  The sign outside might say "everyone welcome," and ads appear from time to time in the Toronto dailies, but those aren't specifically aimed to gay/lesbian people.

Roger wanted to advertise St. Henry's services, and a welcome to lesgay people in *Xtra!*, the Toronto bi-weekly paper for the lesgay community.  Metropolitan Community Church, whose particular (though not exclusive) ministry is to homosexual people, advertises in every issue - so there is an established classification for religious groups.

The rector looked at a recent copy of *Xtra!* and blanched, because of the facing page to the classified ads for religious services are ads for "masseurs" and escorts" - thinly disguised (and sometimes undisguised) ads for male prostitutes.  Some people in the parish would be quite distressed by an ad for St. Henry's appearing here, he said.  (Ads for things less-than-moral appear in the Toronto dailies, too, though not often in the religion pages.)  The subject wasn't pursued, but I think it should have been.

The people who read that section of *Xtra!* are EXACTLY the people the church should be trying to get inside its doors.  They are people looking for love, looking for acceptance.  They are looking so hard that they are prepared to pay cash for someone to give them fleeting physical contact as a substitute for real, enduring love and acceptance.

This is the Decade of Evangelism, and everyone, including St. Henry's should be taking it seriously.  Evangelism means getting the message to other human beings that God loves them, and that a church is a reasonable place to find a human face on that acceptance.

Evangelism is not wandering the streets buttonholing people and demanding to know if they are saved.  Evangelism is not selling Jesus like patent medicine to cure all one's ills, in the way deodorant is supposed to solve social difficulties.  As Bishop Finlay said to Toronto's Diocesan Synod in November, evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.  We all go to church because something happens there that we like that we find is good for us.  We go to church to find bread.  We are all there because someone else shared that information with us - another beggar showed us where to find bread.  Roger has found a community of God's love at St.Henry's, and wants others to know about it.

One suspects, though, that other people at the Hogtown parish would rather Roger didn't bring any of THOSE people here to their nice clean parish.  They'd rather not know Roger is gay, and they MUCH rather that people who consort with prostitutes, to say nothing of homosexuals, didn't come to THEIR church.  That attitude doesn't jive with my reading of the gospel.  Churches are not (or shouldn't be) private clubs.  They are not only for "people like us," they are for all who are looking for the bread of life.  Jesus spent a fair amount of time with prostitutes and other social outcasts when on earth, even in the face of a goodly amount of static for doing so.  It would behoove people who call themselves Christians to remember that.

Lesgay people have been actively dis-evangelized by the church.  They have been told that they are not welcome.  The Decade of Evangelism is an appropriate time to reverse that unwelcome, by whatever means are appropriate and will reach those people.

The rector of St. Henry's, I know, wants people to come to know the love of Christ.  He wants people to realize God's love and acceptance the way he has.  He, like Roger and like me, is a beggar who has found bread and who wants to tell other beggars where to find it.  I hope that he can guide the people of St. Henry's to come to feel that God's acceptance and love is for all of the creation, and not just for "people like us."

Does the "Everyone Welcome" sign outside St. Henry's really mean what it says?  I've disguised the name of Roger's church because it is every parish, and every Christian community that needs to hang out the sign - and mean exactly what it says.

-----

Chris Ambidge, a frequent contributor to this journal's predecessor, is immediate past co-convener of Integrity/Toronto and serves as editor of *Integrator*, in which this first appeared in the Lent 1991 issue.  Chris's article, "The Court of the Gentiles; Looking in from the Outside," which appeared in the Spring, 1990 *News & Notes*, was reprinted in the February, 1991 issue of *The Witness*.  The word "lesgay" was coined by Integrity's founder, Dr. Louie Crew.

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UNDER ONE ROOF

Reminiscent of a 1970s consciousness-raising seminar, the various "social action" organizations gathered to "network" with like-minded, sympathetic groups.  As you might have guessed, UOR was sponsored by gays and lesbians of *Integrity*, the aging doves of the *Episcopal Peace Fellowship*, and the vocally feminist contingent of the *Episcopal Women's Caucus*.  In other words, all the folks that you would expect to have lifetime subscriptions to *The Witness*.

-----

From "Too Much For One Room," *Anglican Opinion*, Fall 1990

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SOME PROGRESS FROM DIOCESAN DIALOGUE

A REPORT FROM THE TASK FORCE ON HOMOSEXUALITY OF THE DIOCESE OF WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS

September, 1990

INTRODUCTION & OVERVIEW

In response to Resolution #4 passed at the 1988 Convention of the Diocese of Western Massachusetts, our bishop has called a 10-member task force comprised of homosexual and heterosexual Christians, to study the issues of homosexuality, and to report its findings to this 89th Convention, as well as to the Standing Commission on Human Affairs and Health.

The process of dialogue has been the key focus of the task force. Our challenge was to go beyond stereotyping one another through honest listening, in a spirit of caring and trust.  It was predicated upon the belief that, in spite of what divides us, our faith holds us together, removing misunderstanding and self-righteousness.  We invited the Holy Spirit to direct and lead.  Our dialogue did not provide us with easy answers, and for some of us there are still more questions.  In all our Listening and sharing we kept coming back to the central questions: What does the Bible say?  What has the church said in its tradition?  What do you say?  How should I feel?  What should I do?  What should the church do?  What does Jesus want for His Church?

For 16 months, we met a minimum of once-per-month for 3-hr evening sessions, and many day-long, Saturday workshops.  The process unfolded in a trusting and caring movement -- sprinkled with pain and lots of good humor -- through our personal life cycles.  We've followed the Holy Spirit through Scripture, traditional Christian mores, and our individual experiences, to bring reason to our observations.  But reason is subjective; one member's enlightenment became another's confusion.  Uncertainty and conviction ran together and, ultimately, we represent the same basic diversity as when we began.  But the process itself *did* change us all in some way.  Sympathy, understanding, respect, and appreciation of the issue of homosexuality were realized!

Biblical scholars and various counselors were invited to share their knowledge and experience with us.  This report's bibliography demonstrates the broad spectrum to which we were exposed, from Regeneration Ministry ("Homosexuality is curable"), through genetic, psychological and theological readings, to meeting with members of INTEGRITY -- gay and lesbian Christians willing to open themselves to our quest.  We dealt earnestly with those theories decrying homosexuality as a sin ("We have a choice in our sexuality.") -- to those riding the middle ground of uncertainty -- to those who state it is a natural alternative lifestyle...  "Ordained by nature, not chosen."

Despite the biblical, philosophical, or political diversity of this task force's members, be assured that the participation (and struggle) has been genuine, creative, most broad in its questioning of *all* aspects of the issue, and wholesomely focused on the Light which is Christ.

*OBSERVATIONS*

HOMOSEXUALITY

Through dialogue we opened ourselves to the pain surrounding homosexuality, including the special pain of hearing how often the church has failed to be helpful, or has even been a source of hatred and rejection.  We learned that despite considerable research by psychologists, sociologists, biologists, physicians and others, there is, as yet, no definitive answer to explain how or why human beings develop the sexual feelings and responses they have, or what causes homosexual orientation.  There is growing biological evidence that sexual orientation may be impacted by hormonal events prior to birth, as well as environmental and social factors.

W