Barry Smith oral history, 2019.

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    All right. This is Elizabeth Wittrig interviewing Barry Smith on October 2nd 2010.
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    And Barry Barry if you just want to go ahead and start by talking about how you became
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    involved in the movement.
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    Well I as I mentioned in my previous interview I started
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    attending Lincoln Park Church in the summer of 1978 and joined in
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    March 1979. First church I'd ever joined.
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    Although I was raised in the Methodist Church I'd actually never joined that
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    church. Do I need to talk louder?
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    No you're fine.
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    OK.
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    And I got involved really fast there.
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    I was on the session within, I was asked to be on the session within
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    two years.
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    And but let me back up on that and tell you about the first time I met David Sindt.
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    It was coffee hour after church one Sunday and he was
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    standing near me and I saw that he was wearing a pink triangle on his collar which
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    pink triangle being something that originated in the Nazi concentration camps
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    that gay men had to wear.
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    And I knew it was a symbol of the gay movement, pride and affirmation,
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    and I was just I was almost immobilized in shock that somebody
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    would wear that at church and
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    because I was struggling with my own sexual orientation at the time and I just couldn't
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    imagine that I would ever even make a statement like that by wearing a pink triangle.
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    So that was my first introduction to David Sindt.
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    And then as I mentioned I was asked to be on the session, to
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    start my term on the session in it would have been January 1980 so
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    this was in the summer of 1979.
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    And so there was going to be a congregation meeting in October to
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    elect the next class of officers.
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    And I said fine. I was excited. And then about two weeks before the congregational
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    meeting the chair of the nominating committee called me and said, we just want you to
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    know that someone is going to be nominated from the floor for for
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    a position on the session. And so therefore we're gonna have a
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    we're gonna vote by secret ballot.
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    And it's possible that somebody might not be elected.
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    There's only four positions and there will be five people running.
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    So that the fifth person was gonna be David Sindt.
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    One of his friends in the congregation was going to nominate him for this session
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    feeling that it was time to address
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    the regulations of the Book of Order.
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    And actually it wasn't in the Book of Order.
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    It was the definitive guidance that had been passed by the 1978 General Assembly and then
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    ruled to be binding by the Stated Clerk William Thompson.
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    So I went. The day of the congregational meeting arrives
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    and the congregation is involved in at least a two hour debate
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    whether David should be elected or not.
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    And here I am Barry Smith, knowing that
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    I'm gay but not being public about it, I remain silent during the meeting.
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    And David Sindt who was out as a gay man, and public and
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    it ended up that he was not elected.
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    And I was elected. So being silent, I got in.
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    He was being honest about who he was, he did not get in.
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    So that is a jarring, jarring thing
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    to have in your mind. That you were part of a
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    system that did not honor honesty and integrity.
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    And so I thought you know I'm just going to be on the session and
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    do my best and let this issue just sit for a while.
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    Well the session created a Homosexual Rights Task Force
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    to try and figure out a way to change denominational policy.
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    We were very naive about the possibility of doing that.
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    But they felt everyone felt bad about David Sindt.
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    They liked him. He'd been a member there for a number of years.
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    So every month at the session meeting there
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    was a report from this task force and it just the issue
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    was not going to just fade into the background it was there all the time.
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    And I saw how this small church really wanted to change denominational policy
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    so that everyone could serve regardless of sexual orientation.
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    And they produced a remarkable paper called ordination in the local church where
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    they said that we should evaluate everybody based on all their
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    human qualities, treating sexual orientation as just one of those qualities.
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    And so three years went by and I thought you know I was
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    being asked by the nominating committee, ok so do you want to serve another term.
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    I had been elected clerk of session.
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    It was something I enjoyed very much.
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    I really enjoyed being on the session.
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    I said I'm going to. I told them that I'm going to do it as an openly gay man.
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    I am a gay man. And so I'm not going to run on that as
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    a gay person but people need to know that it's part of who I am.
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    And I confided that to the pastor some months earlier.
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    And so he sent out a memo to the
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    session and the nominating committee, I think it was in September sometime,
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    saying this is the issue that is going to be before us but let's keep this confidential
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    for now and we'll see where we go.
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    Well by the next Sunday the entire congregation
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    knew which is so typical of so many groups.
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    Once so many people know some hot news it just
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    spreads like wildfire and it blew up into a big issue and there was still it
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    was only three years later from when David Sindt was not elected. And there were
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    some people that said they would leave the church if I was elected.
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    People would say they would they would withhold their pledges whatever.
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    So it was another big issue, another big congregational meeting with
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    debate back and forth. But I
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    was elected and unlike
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    everyone else in the denomination that
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    was involved in some judicial thing I was involved in a judicial thing but not the way
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    everyone else was. Everyone else faced charges for being elected or being a
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    pastor or being ordained or whatever. We had a our pastor left
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    weeks a couple of weeks before the congregational meeting.
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    So we were in interim situation.
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    We had an interim pastor who is from the P.C. U.S.
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    who could not moderate our session.
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    So the Presbytery appointed a moderator to moderate our
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    session and they made sure they appointed a moderator, they were aware of what was going
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    on, that would not install me to the session.
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    So our congregation our session filed charges against the presbytery
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    for preventing me from being installed on various legal
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    points in the Book of Order which we will not get into but one of the points was that the
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    Book of Order did say that the right of the congregation to elect its own officers was
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    inalienable and that one of the rights of membership was the right to be to
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    serve if called. And so that
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    judicial action proceeded and we were misled by
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    people in the Presbytery deliberately.
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    We went on wrong paths to sort of delay and diffuse,
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    to tire us out. And we were not daunted.
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    It took 15 years. Not 15 years.
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    Oh my gosh 15 months.
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    In that time.
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    Oh I should then back up and mention the chair of the Ministerial
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    Relations Committee which is similar to our committee on ministry came to the session and
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    said you know that if this case gets out into the
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    national media you could wreck the planned reunion
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    of the two churches.
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    So we had that on us that we were going to wreck reunion.
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    That didn't daunt us.
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    We were just going to proceed. I mean in in the process of this another elder on the
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    session came out as gay. And it helped immensely because people realized it's more than
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    just Barry Smith, this is a whole category of people that are
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    being excluded. But the reunion of the two
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    churches gave us a new Book of Order and a lot of what our case
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    was based on was on the in the old Book of Order. Things were different.
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    So the general counsel of the presbytery said you
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    know you should not pursue the case anymore.
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    It would be better to just have a new election.
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    The whole thing is moot now.
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    So we had a different interim pastor at that point.
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    Our first interim pastor took a call to
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    the Northeast Georgia Presbytery which is interesting that they went to the Presbytery
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    that John came from. And we had a new pastor who
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    could moderate our session.
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    It was Bill Lovell. He had worked, he had a storied career at the National Council of
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    Churches and in retirement he came back to Chicago and was serving as interim pastor for
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    various congregations. He was a wonderful man.
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    He had been involved in the Civil Rights Movement in Detroit, integrating lunch counters
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    in Detroit. He
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    had gone to jail for being a Conscientious Objector in World War II. So this guy was
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    committed to social justice work.
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    So I was re-elected at another congregational meeting by an even larger vote.
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    There were still a few holdouts.
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    Ten people voted against me. And he said I will install you, even called the executive
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    Presbyter and said I'm going to install Barry Smith because it is the Christian thing to
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    do. And you know there was no there were no charges filed.
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    The Presbytery left us alone and I served out my term.
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    And as I mentioned in another interview at one point I was kind
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    of afraid the church is never going to elect another gay
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    or lesbian person after all this for fear of having to go through the same thing.
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    And the exact opposite happened.
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    It was never an issue again. People never.
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    It never came up. People were just picked based on all their
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    human qualities.
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    And we've had many fine gay and lesbian people serve to
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    this present day and now in 2013 we
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    called the first she prefers to say queer
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    pastor as our as our pastor.
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    Beth Brown.
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    So we have come a long way.
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    You might want to say too Barry, how the election and judicial action
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    impacted your personal life with your family.
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    Right.
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    Well that realizing it could become a newspaper
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    article, prompted me to come out to my family
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    which was a shock to them. But they
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    were ultimately accepting about it.
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    So it helped move me along and similar to John's story where he was
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    loved into wholeness by his congregation. I could see the same thing about the Lincoln
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    Park congregation. They were immensely supportive of me and even
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    the people that were opposed and spoke against me were personally supportive.
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    And so that makes a huge difference. And when you think of all the LGBTQ
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    people that have come out in hostile churches and hostile family situations
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    it's really a devastating experience to go through that and to have
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    the support that we did makes all the difference in the world.
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    And it propelled me on to be involved in the More Light Movement.
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    At that time in the 80s and 90s we really felt we were beating our heads against
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    the wall. There was so little progress that was being made.
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    General Assembly after General Assembly would vote down any overture
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    that would come forward. There were wonderful studies done that were not even were
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    accepted. That was the 1993 General Assembly.
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    But bit by bit and that's what I saw in going through these records, the
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    grass roots of organizing.
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    When I was downstairs I saw the picture of James Thompson who was the Stated Clerk that
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    said.
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    Bill. Bill Thompson.
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    Well I hope I took a picture of the right guy.
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    Well I think I think I did.
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    William Johnson. Yes that was him.
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    And it was made very clear on the floor of the General Assembly in 1978
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    that the definitive guidance was not to be binding.
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    The chair of the committee that brought that that overture, Tom Gillespie
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    said this is not to be binding but is to be rather
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    definitive guidance which there's been a long debate about what definitive guidance
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    really meant. It was a vague term. And then it was a couple weeks later
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    that Bill. Jim.
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    Bill. What is it again?
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    Bill Thompson.
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    Bill
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    Thompson and I'm a historian.
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    Just giving him a nickname.
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    Made that ruling and I thought would we be
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    in. What. Where would we.
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    Where would the More Light Movement have gone if it wasn't binding.
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    It would still be a struggle because there was such a change that had to happen
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    for the people in the pew but it might not have been as long and protracted.
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    But at the same time sometimes something like that is what
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    mobilizes the new grassroots movvement which
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    over the length of time that it took it ended up reaching
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    maybe more people than it would have had if that definitive guidance had
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    not been ruled binding. So it's an interesting question that we'll never know the answer
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    to unless we find there's a parallel universe going on to ours.
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    But that's a science fiction story.
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    And in the Southern Church we never had that definitive guidance.
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    Right. The '79 P.C. U.S.
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    voted something similar to but again there was a difference where it
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    wasn't quite as locked down as what we had in the Northern
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    Church.
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    But I was involved in various various cases.
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    I did go to one General Assembly. The 1985 General Assembly.
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    You know and I was kind of turned off by it in the sense that the
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    More Light Movement had discussions with some of the leadership to see if there were some
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    ways we could move things through. And then when the actual
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    General Assembly happened we found out that the national
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    staff would really do anything to avoid conflict which is
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    bred into national staff. National staff and Presbytery
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    staff they really don't want to have conflict.
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    And so. And this is something that the our opponents have often
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    complained about, that they ran into the same thing.
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    Both the More Light Movement and our opponents had trouble with national staff because
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    they didn't really want either of us to have a
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    voice on certain things at the General Assembly.
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    So I was kind of turned off by how that happened and I never went to another General
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    Assembly and I avoided Presbytery meetings too because I don't
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    know.
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    Let's not get into that.
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    I did want to say something about Janie Spahr.
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    In the early That
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    All May Freely Serve she came to Lincoln Park frequently but
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    she came early on in That All May Freely Serve.
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    I want to say it was probably 93, 94, 95. And
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    we arranged for her to have a get together in the evening at one
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    of our elders houses.
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    And I expected maybe the same five to 10 people that came out for
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    these sort of things and I was shocked when about 30
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    people came. I'm glad we were in a larger home because people were sitting on the floor.
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    30 to 40 people showed up.
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    And Janie didn't.
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    Janie was Janie.
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    She was asked to talk about what her travels were like around the country.
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    What was she encountering when she talked about the movement?
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    And this was eye
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    opening to me about what Janie's ministry was about.
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    She every place that she went and talked, people would come out
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    of the woodwork afterwards to talk to her one on one with
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    all sorts of stories that they could not tell their pastor
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    or anyone in their church. And this was not only about being
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    gay or lesbian or having a gay or lesbian or transsexual child
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    transgender child or knowing somebody
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    that definitely is what people talked about.
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    People would talk to her about marital problems they were having,
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    sexual or physical abuse they were having or had had in their marriage, or growing
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    up from their parents. All this stuff that
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    they could not tell their pastor.
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    And so it showed to me how limiting
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    our denominational life was in terms of our pastoral care to
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    people around subjects that could not be talked about and that
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    to me was some was a ministry that had immense value and
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    she went to a lot of places in the U.S. A lot of conservative Presbyteries.
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    She has heard so many stories and she
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    always had a word of comfort.
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    Assurance. Guidance.
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    And so when there was, and I have forgotten the year she was given the woman of faith
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    award from the women's unit or something and
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    it blew up into a huge controversy in the church and her opponents led
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    a campaign to have that that that award withdrawn.
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    And it was withdrawn it was withdrawn on the day that she found out her father had died.
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    So it was a double whammy for her.
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    And then that withdrawing that award created a huge outpouring
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    of support for Janie and they had to reinstate the award.
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    And I wish I could've been at the General Assembly because apparently
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    the room was packed with people and she got an extended standing ovation.
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    So there was justice for Janie Spahr and she got that award and was so well deserved.
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    I mean our opponents the Lay Committee which churned up all this stuff,
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    Presbyterian Coalition saying it was a travesty that it was being given to her.
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    They had no idea the type of ministry that she'd had with all these people through
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    the church for years.
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    So.
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    I just thought I had to tell that story.
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    Thank you.
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    What was your relationship like with David Sindt then?
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    I mean you spoke a little bit about how you met him.
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    We had a great working relationship.
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    He knew that I was in advertising and had a graphic arts background and
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    could produce things so when Presbyterians for Lesbian and Gay
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    Concerns, the Lincoln Trails segment decided that they would do a slide tape
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    show which sounds so primitive by today's standards but they had a
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    carousel with slides and then a cassette tape that went
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    with it. That told and it was entitled Presbyterian parents of gays.
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    It was from the parents point of view.
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    What it was like to have gay and lesbian children and what that was like when they came
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    out and how the church what their experience was with the church.
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    So I helped him put together the resource guide to the study guide that went
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    along with that.
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    When I, backing up
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    a little bit in 1970 not 19.
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    No no. It was about the same time maybe when I decided
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    to be open for my second term on the session that was in the fall of
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    1982. I had lunch I arranged to have lunch with David.
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    We met in the Art Institute of Chicago.
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    He worked on the south loop and I worked on the north loop so it was a meeting point and
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    we were seated in there one of their dining rooms and they had the tables for two
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    but they were separated by a foot from the adjacent tables and they
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    were all filled with people and here I'm going to come out to him and apologize
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    for being silent during the meeting when he was elected.
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    I had no idea how he was going to react.
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    I mean I didn't think he would be awful about it but you know I wasn't sure.
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    And so fortunately you know in those sort of restaurant settings
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    people are talking to each other and they're not really listening and I just went ahead
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    and I said David I'm so sorry that I was silent when I could
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    have spoken up and he was incredibly gracious to me.
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    And that's something I learned from him about when
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    you're confronting your opponents in the movement you
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    should never be, you should be firm and
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    stand up for what is just, but you cannot put them down as people and
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    be ugly with them about it because that doesn't give them much room
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    to evolve and change their position.
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    And so the way he modeled me, it wasn't that I had to be convinced, but
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    the way he modeled his behavior to me was you
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    are welcoming to that person with whatever step they are taking and that's a
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    that's a key learning for me right there at that time.
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    So we we had a great working relationship and in
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    1983 he developed started having some physical symptoms of what would
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    end up being diagnosed as AIDS.
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    And I I can't tell you how everyone
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    didn't want to even say it, is this a possibility.
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    We didn't want this to be we want this to come true but eventually it
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    did become true.
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    And I've written up the summary of his last three years for the archives for
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    his papers what we went through with that.
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    Well John I don't know if you have any questions you'd like to ask.
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    Well you might talk about how
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    things have evolved for us being together for 20 almost
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    25 years. That Janie played a major part in my installation
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    at Church of the Three Crosses in Chicago.
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    She did our marriage celebration at Church of the Three Crosses.
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    And Barry and I were married in 2012 officially in
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    Massachusetts. We came back to Chicago that fall.
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    This was in May. That fall we we had a celebration
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    for Church of the Three Crosses which at that time was is still a United Methodist,
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    United Church of Christ.
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    So we had an overrunning crowd of people who came out to celebrate
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    that. And it was the first gay wedding that that
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    congregation had experienced and it just happened to be the pastor.
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    Right we invited
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    of course the Lincoln Park community so it's really for our two church communities.
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    And in that it was interesting
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    in the United Methodist system back when the Church
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    of the Three Crosses was formed they wrote their constitution
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    that they would keep both denominational affiliations but if there
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    was a conflict between the polity of one denomination over the other, the
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    congregation would vote which one it would follow and they voted to follow the
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    UCC of course on the LGBTQ issues.
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    So the Methodist bishop was aware of the wedding
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    and said well you are part of the United Church of Christ
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    and we will.
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    You're right. I mean it's it's it's a damning thing for the Methodist to
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    say that the United Church of Christ was protecting us from the bigotry of the United
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    Methodist Church because churches are not allowed to host same sex
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    ceremonies but because it was duly affiliated and in the constitution
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    had been adopted and approved by both denominations, the Methodists
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    were powerless to do anything about our ceremony there.
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    But it's just like a Barry's story with Bill Lovell
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    and with our story of the Methodist system in Chicago.
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    There are some courageous ecclesiastical leaders who were willing to take a stand
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    and do the right thing and they were these brave souls they helped this
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    movement continue in the denominations.
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    One other one other little anecdote to which I'd like to mention is that I
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    think it was 1985 the Urban Presbyterian
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    Pastors Association was having their meeting in Chicago
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    and this of course would be a group that would be more
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    progressive because they're in urban areas.
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    We found out they were having their worship services at the Boynton Presbyterian Church
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    which is in the heart of Chicago's gay and lesbian community.
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    And a year before that there we had found out
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    that the session of that church had voted to bar homosexuals from membership which is
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    a violation of what had happened in 1978.
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    Even though the ordination was being denied there was
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    a specific statement that said that as long as someone can make
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    a profession of faith there should be no other reason to deny them membership.
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    So their case was being handled by the presbytery pastorally initially
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    but we thought we had a meeting of PLGC Chicago which on a good day might
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    have 10 12 people there.
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    And we thought this is wrong for an Urban Pastors Conference to be
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    meeting and having their worship services they are.
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    So we wrote a letter to the design team of them which is
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    a couple weeks out and asked them to move the conference to a more welcoming
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    church and.
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    We had a Mark Palermo was on that.
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    He had been moderater of the Presbytery of Chicago.
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    They didn't know at the time one of their first gay moderators
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    but he wasn't out of the closet at that time because he was a schoolteacher
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    and.
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    He said put it on our letterhead.
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    We designed a letterhead for PLGC Chicago.
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    We didn't have one. We designed a letterhead and we signed it as the
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    communications committee or something and had four signatures so it made it look like we
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    were a much bigger group.
  • speaker
    And then we were shocked to find out that the steering committee had met and they had
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    voted to move the conference and that was like one of
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    the first little victories we had had.
  • speaker
    And we thought hey maybe we have a little more power than we think we have.
  • speaker
    That wasn't too evident through the long 90s when
  • speaker
    there was a lot of litigation against More Light Churches and people.
  • speaker
    But things began to change.
  • speaker
    I remember someone saying you know the intellectual argument has already been won in the
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    church, the seminary professors are already on your side, a
  • speaker
    lot of the leaders are. It's just really at this point changing the
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    attitude of the people in the pews.
  • speaker
    And I think what changed? What brought about the change in the late
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    twenty hundreds, the first decade of the twenty hundreds with some things being changed
  • speaker
    where they took away the definitive guidance and some of the previous authoritative
  • speaker
    interpretations and then in 2010 when they passed the ordination
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    rights thing that was eventually.
  • speaker
    What changed that that made that happen?
  • speaker
    I think there's a couple things. I think it was definitely the grassroots organization
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    that happened. I think there was a demographic change in the Presbyterian Church.
  • speaker
    A lot of the older generation was dying off and it's not to say that
  • speaker
    some of our most fabulous fighters for justice were in the older generation
  • speaker
    like Virginia Davidson. You cannot.
  • speaker
    It's too bad she's not alive for you to interview she was I use the word towering
  • speaker
    presence so it's not like I mean every generation that dies
  • speaker
    you're losing a lot of valuable stuff but literal.
  • speaker
    I mean let's be honest a lot of older folks died that were opposed
  • speaker
    to the More Light Movement and the general cultural
  • speaker
    the culture was changing and gay and lesbian issues were becoming more accepted.
  • speaker
    States were passing laws to guarantee nondiscrimination or marriage
  • speaker
    rights. So all this stuff contributed to a policy change that
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    we never thought we'd live to see this victory but we did.
  • speaker
    That might be the place to stop.
  • speaker
    I think that's a good place to stop.

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