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Barry Smith oral history, 2019.
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- speakerAll right. This is Elizabeth Wittrig interviewing Barry Smith on October 2nd 2010.
- speakerAnd Barry Barry if you just want to go ahead and start by talking about how you became
- speakerinvolved in the movement.
- speakerWell I as I mentioned in my previous interview I started
- speakerattending Lincoln Park Church in the summer of 1978 and joined in
- speakerMarch 1979. First church I'd ever joined.
- speakerAlthough I was raised in the Methodist Church I'd actually never joined that
- speakerchurch. Do I need to talk louder?
- speakerNo you're fine.
- speakerOK.
- speakerAnd I got involved really fast there.
- speakerI was on the session within, I was asked to be on the session within
- speakertwo years.
- speakerAnd but let me back up on that and tell you about the first time I met David Sindt.
- speakerIt was coffee hour after church one Sunday and he was
- speakerstanding near me and I saw that he was wearing a pink triangle on his collar which
- speakerpink triangle being something that originated in the Nazi concentration camps
- speakerthat gay men had to wear.
- speakerAnd I knew it was a symbol of the gay movement, pride and affirmation,
- speakerand I was just I was almost immobilized in shock that somebody
- speakerwould wear that at church and
- speakerbecause I was struggling with my own sexual orientation at the time and I just couldn't
- speakerimagine that I would ever even make a statement like that by wearing a pink triangle.
- speakerSo that was my first introduction to David Sindt.
- speakerAnd then as I mentioned I was asked to be on the session, to
- speakerstart my term on the session in it would have been January 1980 so
- speakerthis was in the summer of 1979.
- speakerAnd so there was going to be a congregation meeting in October to
- speakerelect the next class of officers.
- speakerAnd I said fine. I was excited. And then about two weeks before the congregational
- speakermeeting the chair of the nominating committee called me and said, we just want you to
- speakerknow that someone is going to be nominated from the floor for for
- speakera position on the session. And so therefore we're gonna have a
- speakerwe're gonna vote by secret ballot.
- speakerAnd it's possible that somebody might not be elected.
- speakerThere's only four positions and there will be five people running.
- speakerSo that the fifth person was gonna be David Sindt.
- speakerOne of his friends in the congregation was going to nominate him for this session
- speakerfeeling that it was time to address
- speakerthe regulations of the Book of Order.
- speakerAnd actually it wasn't in the Book of Order.
- speakerIt was the definitive guidance that had been passed by the 1978 General Assembly and then
- speakerruled to be binding by the Stated Clerk William Thompson.
- speakerSo I went. The day of the congregational meeting arrives
- speakerand the congregation is involved in at least a two hour debate
- speakerwhether David should be elected or not.
- speakerAnd here I am Barry Smith, knowing that
- speakerI'm gay but not being public about it, I remain silent during the meeting.
- speakerAnd David Sindt who was out as a gay man, and public and
- speakerit ended up that he was not elected.
- speakerAnd I was elected. So being silent, I got in.
- speakerHe was being honest about who he was, he did not get in.
- speakerSo that is a jarring, jarring thing
- speakerto have in your mind. That you were part of a
- speakersystem that did not honor honesty and integrity.
- speakerAnd so I thought you know I'm just going to be on the session and
- speakerdo my best and let this issue just sit for a while.
- speakerWell the session created a Homosexual Rights Task Force
- speakerto try and figure out a way to change denominational policy.
- speakerWe were very naive about the possibility of doing that.
- speakerBut they felt everyone felt bad about David Sindt.
- speakerThey liked him. He'd been a member there for a number of years.
- speakerSo every month at the session meeting there
- speakerwas a report from this task force and it just the issue
- speakerwas not going to just fade into the background it was there all the time.
- speakerAnd I saw how this small church really wanted to change denominational policy
- speakerso that everyone could serve regardless of sexual orientation.
- speakerAnd they produced a remarkable paper called ordination in the local church where
- speakerthey said that we should evaluate everybody based on all their
- speakerhuman qualities, treating sexual orientation as just one of those qualities.
- speakerAnd so three years went by and I thought you know I was
- speakerbeing asked by the nominating committee, ok so do you want to serve another term.
- speakerI had been elected clerk of session.
- speakerIt was something I enjoyed very much.
- speakerI really enjoyed being on the session.
- speakerI said I'm going to. I told them that I'm going to do it as an openly gay man.
- speakerI am a gay man. And so I'm not going to run on that as
- speakera gay person but people need to know that it's part of who I am.
- speakerAnd I confided that to the pastor some months earlier.
- speakerAnd so he sent out a memo to the
- speakersession and the nominating committee, I think it was in September sometime,
- speakersaying this is the issue that is going to be before us but let's keep this confidential
- speakerfor now and we'll see where we go.
- speakerWell by the next Sunday the entire congregation
- speakerknew which is so typical of so many groups.
- speakerOnce so many people know some hot news it just
- speakerspreads like wildfire and it blew up into a big issue and there was still it
- speakerwas only three years later from when David Sindt was not elected. And there were
- speakersome people that said they would leave the church if I was elected.
- speakerPeople would say they would they would withhold their pledges whatever.
- speakerSo it was another big issue, another big congregational meeting with
- speakerdebate back and forth. But I
- speakerwas elected and unlike
- speakereveryone else in the denomination that
- speakerwas involved in some judicial thing I was involved in a judicial thing but not the way
- speakereveryone else was. Everyone else faced charges for being elected or being a
- speakerpastor or being ordained or whatever. We had a our pastor left
- speakerweeks a couple of weeks before the congregational meeting.
- speakerSo we were in interim situation.
- speakerWe had an interim pastor who is from the P.C. U.S.
- speakerwho could not moderate our session.
- speakerSo the Presbytery appointed a moderator to moderate our
- speakersession and they made sure they appointed a moderator, they were aware of what was going
- speakeron, that would not install me to the session.
- speakerSo our congregation our session filed charges against the presbytery
- speakerfor preventing me from being installed on various legal
- speakerpoints in the Book of Order which we will not get into but one of the points was that the
- speakerBook of Order did say that the right of the congregation to elect its own officers was
- speakerinalienable and that one of the rights of membership was the right to be to
- speakerserve if called. And so that
- speakerjudicial action proceeded and we were misled by
- speakerpeople in the Presbytery deliberately.
- speakerWe went on wrong paths to sort of delay and diffuse,
- speakerto tire us out. And we were not daunted.
- speakerIt took 15 years. Not 15 years.
- speakerOh my gosh 15 months.
- speakerIn that time.
- speakerOh I should then back up and mention the chair of the Ministerial
- speakerRelations Committee which is similar to our committee on ministry came to the session and
- speakersaid you know that if this case gets out into the
- speakernational media you could wreck the planned reunion
- speakerof the two churches.
- speakerSo we had that on us that we were going to wreck reunion.
- speakerThat didn't daunt us.
- speakerWe were just going to proceed. I mean in in the process of this another elder on the
- speakersession came out as gay. And it helped immensely because people realized it's more than
- speakerjust Barry Smith, this is a whole category of people that are
- speakerbeing excluded. But the reunion of the two
- speakerchurches gave us a new Book of Order and a lot of what our case
- speakerwas based on was on the in the old Book of Order. Things were different.
- speakerSo the general counsel of the presbytery said you
- speakerknow you should not pursue the case anymore.
- speakerIt would be better to just have a new election.
- speakerThe whole thing is moot now.
- speakerSo we had a different interim pastor at that point.
- speakerOur first interim pastor took a call to
- speakerthe Northeast Georgia Presbytery which is interesting that they went to the Presbytery
- speakerthat John came from. And we had a new pastor who
- speakercould moderate our session.
- speakerIt was Bill Lovell. He had worked, he had a storied career at the National Council of
- speakerChurches and in retirement he came back to Chicago and was serving as interim pastor for
- speakervarious congregations. He was a wonderful man.
- speakerHe had been involved in the Civil Rights Movement in Detroit, integrating lunch counters
- speakerin Detroit. He
- speakerhad gone to jail for being a Conscientious Objector in World War II. So this guy was
- speakercommitted to social justice work.
- speakerSo I was re-elected at another congregational meeting by an even larger vote.
- speakerThere were still a few holdouts.
- speakerTen people voted against me. And he said I will install you, even called the executive
- speakerPresbyter and said I'm going to install Barry Smith because it is the Christian thing to
- speakerdo. And you know there was no there were no charges filed.
- speakerThe Presbytery left us alone and I served out my term.
- speakerAnd as I mentioned in another interview at one point I was kind
- speakerof afraid the church is never going to elect another gay
- speakeror lesbian person after all this for fear of having to go through the same thing.
- speakerAnd the exact opposite happened.
- speakerIt was never an issue again. People never.
- speakerIt never came up. People were just picked based on all their
- speakerhuman qualities.
- speakerAnd we've had many fine gay and lesbian people serve to
- speakerthis present day and now in 2013 we
- speakercalled the first she prefers to say queer
- speakerpastor as our as our pastor.
- speakerBeth Brown.
- speakerSo we have come a long way.
- speakerYou might want to say too Barry, how the election and judicial action
- speakerimpacted your personal life with your family.
- speakerRight.
- speakerWell that realizing it could become a newspaper
- speakerarticle, prompted me to come out to my family
- speakerwhich was a shock to them. But they
- speakerwere ultimately accepting about it.
- speakerSo it helped move me along and similar to John's story where he was
- speakerloved into wholeness by his congregation. I could see the same thing about the Lincoln
- speakerPark congregation. They were immensely supportive of me and even
- speakerthe people that were opposed and spoke against me were personally supportive.
- speakerAnd so that makes a huge difference. And when you think of all the LGBTQ
- speakerpeople that have come out in hostile churches and hostile family situations
- speakerit's really a devastating experience to go through that and to have
- speakerthe support that we did makes all the difference in the world.
- speakerAnd it propelled me on to be involved in the More Light Movement.
- speakerAt that time in the 80s and 90s we really felt we were beating our heads against
- speakerthe wall. There was so little progress that was being made.
- speakerGeneral Assembly after General Assembly would vote down any overture
- speakerthat would come forward. There were wonderful studies done that were not even were
- speakeraccepted. That was the 1993 General Assembly.
- speakerBut bit by bit and that's what I saw in going through these records, the
- speakergrass roots of organizing.
- speakerWhen I was downstairs I saw the picture of James Thompson who was the Stated Clerk that
- speakersaid.
- speakerBill. Bill Thompson.
- speakerWell I hope I took a picture of the right guy.
- speakerWell I think I think I did.
- speakerWilliam Johnson. Yes that was him.
- speakerAnd it was made very clear on the floor of the General Assembly in 1978
- speakerthat the definitive guidance was not to be binding.
- speakerThe chair of the committee that brought that that overture, Tom Gillespie
- speakersaid this is not to be binding but is to be rather
- speakerdefinitive guidance which there's been a long debate about what definitive guidance
- speakerreally meant. It was a vague term. And then it was a couple weeks later
- speakerthat Bill. Jim.
- speakerBill. What is it again?
- speakerBill Thompson.
- speakerBill
- speakerThompson and I'm a historian.
- speakerJust giving him a nickname.
- speakerMade that ruling and I thought would we be
- speakerin. What. Where would we.
- speakerWhere would the More Light Movement have gone if it wasn't binding.
- speakerIt would still be a struggle because there was such a change that had to happen
- speakerfor the people in the pew but it might not have been as long and protracted.
- speakerBut at the same time sometimes something like that is what
- speakermobilizes the new grassroots movvement which
- speakerover the length of time that it took it ended up reaching
- speakermaybe more people than it would have had if that definitive guidance had
- speakernot been ruled binding. So it's an interesting question that we'll never know the answer
- speakerto unless we find there's a parallel universe going on to ours.
- speakerBut that's a science fiction story.
- speakerAnd in the Southern Church we never had that definitive guidance.
- speakerRight. The '79 P.C. U.S.
- speakervoted something similar to but again there was a difference where it
- speakerwasn't quite as locked down as what we had in the Northern
- speakerChurch.
- speakerBut I was involved in various various cases.
- speakerI did go to one General Assembly. The 1985 General Assembly.
- speakerYou know and I was kind of turned off by it in the sense that the
- speakerMore Light Movement had discussions with some of the leadership to see if there were some
- speakerways we could move things through. And then when the actual
- speakerGeneral Assembly happened we found out that the national
- speakerstaff would really do anything to avoid conflict which is
- speakerbred into national staff. National staff and Presbytery
- speakerstaff they really don't want to have conflict.
- speakerAnd so. And this is something that the our opponents have often
- speakercomplained about, that they ran into the same thing.
- speakerBoth the More Light Movement and our opponents had trouble with national staff because
- speakerthey didn't really want either of us to have a
- speakervoice on certain things at the General Assembly.
- speakerSo I was kind of turned off by how that happened and I never went to another General
- speakerAssembly and I avoided Presbytery meetings too because I don't
- speakerknow.
- speakerLet's not get into that.
- speakerI did want to say something about Janie Spahr.
- speakerIn the early That
- speakerAll May Freely Serve she came to Lincoln Park frequently but
- speakershe came early on in That All May Freely Serve.
- speakerI want to say it was probably 93, 94, 95. And
- speakerwe arranged for her to have a get together in the evening at one
- speakerof our elders houses.
- speakerAnd I expected maybe the same five to 10 people that came out for
- speakerthese sort of things and I was shocked when about 30
- speakerpeople came. I'm glad we were in a larger home because people were sitting on the floor.
- speaker30 to 40 people showed up.
- speakerAnd Janie didn't.
- speakerJanie was Janie.
- speakerShe was asked to talk about what her travels were like around the country.
- speakerWhat was she encountering when she talked about the movement?
- speakerAnd this was eye
- speakeropening to me about what Janie's ministry was about.
- speakerShe every place that she went and talked, people would come out
- speakerof the woodwork afterwards to talk to her one on one with
- speakerall sorts of stories that they could not tell their pastor
- speakeror anyone in their church. And this was not only about being
- speakergay or lesbian or having a gay or lesbian or transsexual child
- speakertransgender child or knowing somebody
- speakerthat definitely is what people talked about.
- speakerPeople would talk to her about marital problems they were having,
- speakersexual or physical abuse they were having or had had in their marriage, or growing
- speakerup from their parents. All this stuff that
- speakerthey could not tell their pastor.
- speakerAnd so it showed to me how limiting
- speakerour denominational life was in terms of our pastoral care to
- speakerpeople around subjects that could not be talked about and that
- speakerto me was some was a ministry that had immense value and
- speakershe went to a lot of places in the U.S. A lot of conservative Presbyteries.
- speakerShe has heard so many stories and she
- speakeralways had a word of comfort.
- speakerAssurance. Guidance.
- speakerAnd so when there was, and I have forgotten the year she was given the woman of faith
- speakeraward from the women's unit or something and
- speakerit blew up into a huge controversy in the church and her opponents led
- speakera campaign to have that that that award withdrawn.
- speakerAnd it was withdrawn it was withdrawn on the day that she found out her father had died.
- speakerSo it was a double whammy for her.
- speakerAnd then that withdrawing that award created a huge outpouring
- speakerof support for Janie and they had to reinstate the award.
- speakerAnd I wish I could've been at the General Assembly because apparently
- speakerthe room was packed with people and she got an extended standing ovation.
- speakerSo there was justice for Janie Spahr and she got that award and was so well deserved.
- speakerI mean our opponents the Lay Committee which churned up all this stuff,
- speakerPresbyterian Coalition saying it was a travesty that it was being given to her.
- speakerThey had no idea the type of ministry that she'd had with all these people through
- speakerthe church for years.
- speakerSo.
- speakerI just thought I had to tell that story.
- speakerThank you.
- speakerWhat was your relationship like with David Sindt then?
- speakerI mean you spoke a little bit about how you met him.
- speakerWe had a great working relationship.
- speakerHe knew that I was in advertising and had a graphic arts background and
- speakercould produce things so when Presbyterians for Lesbian and Gay
- speakerConcerns, the Lincoln Trails segment decided that they would do a slide tape
- speakershow which sounds so primitive by today's standards but they had a
- speakercarousel with slides and then a cassette tape that went
- speakerwith it. That told and it was entitled Presbyterian parents of gays.
- speakerIt was from the parents point of view.
- speakerWhat it was like to have gay and lesbian children and what that was like when they came
- speakerout and how the church what their experience was with the church.
- speakerSo I helped him put together the resource guide to the study guide that went
- speakeralong with that.
- speakerWhen I, backing up
- speakera little bit in 1970 not 19.
- speakerNo no. It was about the same time maybe when I decided
- speakerto be open for my second term on the session that was in the fall of
- speaker1982. I had lunch I arranged to have lunch with David.
- speakerWe met in the Art Institute of Chicago.
- speakerHe worked on the south loop and I worked on the north loop so it was a meeting point and
- speakerwe were seated in there one of their dining rooms and they had the tables for two
- speakerbut they were separated by a foot from the adjacent tables and they
- speakerwere all filled with people and here I'm going to come out to him and apologize
- speakerfor being silent during the meeting when he was elected.
- speakerI had no idea how he was going to react.
- speakerI mean I didn't think he would be awful about it but you know I wasn't sure.
- speakerAnd so fortunately you know in those sort of restaurant settings
- speakerpeople are talking to each other and they're not really listening and I just went ahead
- speakerand I said David I'm so sorry that I was silent when I could
- speakerhave spoken up and he was incredibly gracious to me.
- speakerAnd that's something I learned from him about when
- speakeryou're confronting your opponents in the movement you
- speakershould never be, you should be firm and
- speakerstand up for what is just, but you cannot put them down as people and
- speakerbe ugly with them about it because that doesn't give them much room
- speakerto evolve and change their position.
- speakerAnd so the way he modeled me, it wasn't that I had to be convinced, but
- speakerthe way he modeled his behavior to me was you
- speakerare welcoming to that person with whatever step they are taking and that's a
- speakerthat's a key learning for me right there at that time.
- speakerSo we we had a great working relationship and in
- speaker1983 he developed started having some physical symptoms of what would
- speakerend up being diagnosed as AIDS.
- speakerAnd I I can't tell you how everyone
- speakerdidn't want to even say it, is this a possibility.
- speakerWe didn't want this to be we want this to come true but eventually it
- speakerdid become true.
- speakerAnd I've written up the summary of his last three years for the archives for
- speakerhis papers what we went through with that.
- speakerWell John I don't know if you have any questions you'd like to ask.
- speakerWell you might talk about how
- speakerthings have evolved for us being together for 20 almost
- speaker25 years. That Janie played a major part in my installation
- speakerat Church of the Three Crosses in Chicago.
- speakerShe did our marriage celebration at Church of the Three Crosses.
- speakerAnd Barry and I were married in 2012 officially in
- speakerMassachusetts. We came back to Chicago that fall.
- speakerThis was in May. That fall we we had a celebration
- speakerfor Church of the Three Crosses which at that time was is still a United Methodist,
- speakerUnited Church of Christ.
- speakerSo we had an overrunning crowd of people who came out to celebrate
- speakerthat. And it was the first gay wedding that that
- speakercongregation had experienced and it just happened to be the pastor.
- speakerRight we invited
- speakerof course the Lincoln Park community so it's really for our two church communities.
- speakerAnd in that it was interesting
- speakerin the United Methodist system back when the Church
- speakerof the Three Crosses was formed they wrote their constitution
- speakerthat they would keep both denominational affiliations but if there
- speakerwas a conflict between the polity of one denomination over the other, the
- speakercongregation would vote which one it would follow and they voted to follow the
- speakerUCC of course on the LGBTQ issues.
- speakerSo the Methodist bishop was aware of the wedding
- speakerand said well you are part of the United Church of Christ
- speakerand we will.
- speakerYou're right. I mean it's it's it's a damning thing for the Methodist to
- speakersay that the United Church of Christ was protecting us from the bigotry of the United
- speakerMethodist Church because churches are not allowed to host same sex
- speakerceremonies but because it was duly affiliated and in the constitution
- speakerhad been adopted and approved by both denominations, the Methodists
- speakerwere powerless to do anything about our ceremony there.
- speakerBut it's just like a Barry's story with Bill Lovell
- speakerand with our story of the Methodist system in Chicago.
- speakerThere are some courageous ecclesiastical leaders who were willing to take a stand
- speakerand do the right thing and they were these brave souls they helped this
- speakermovement continue in the denominations.
- speakerOne other one other little anecdote to which I'd like to mention is that I
- speakerthink it was 1985 the Urban Presbyterian
- speakerPastors Association was having their meeting in Chicago
- speakerand this of course would be a group that would be more
- speakerprogressive because they're in urban areas.
- speakerWe found out they were having their worship services at the Boynton Presbyterian Church
- speakerwhich is in the heart of Chicago's gay and lesbian community.
- speakerAnd a year before that there we had found out
- speakerthat the session of that church had voted to bar homosexuals from membership which is
- speakera violation of what had happened in 1978.
- speakerEven though the ordination was being denied there was
- speakera specific statement that said that as long as someone can make
- speakera profession of faith there should be no other reason to deny them membership.
- speakerSo their case was being handled by the presbytery pastorally initially
- speakerbut we thought we had a meeting of PLGC Chicago which on a good day might
- speakerhave 10 12 people there.
- speakerAnd we thought this is wrong for an Urban Pastors Conference to be
- speakermeeting and having their worship services they are.
- speakerSo we wrote a letter to the design team of them which is
- speakera couple weeks out and asked them to move the conference to a more welcoming
- speakerchurch and.
- speakerWe had a Mark Palermo was on that.
- speakerHe had been moderater of the Presbytery of Chicago.
- speakerThey didn't know at the time one of their first gay moderators
- speakerbut he wasn't out of the closet at that time because he was a schoolteacher
- speakerand.
- speakerHe said put it on our letterhead.
- speakerWe designed a letterhead for PLGC Chicago.
- speakerWe didn't have one. We designed a letterhead and we signed it as the
- speakercommunications committee or something and had four signatures so it made it look like we
- speakerwere a much bigger group.
- speakerAnd then we were shocked to find out that the steering committee had met and they had
- speakervoted to move the conference and that was like one of
- speakerthe first little victories we had had.
- speakerAnd we thought hey maybe we have a little more power than we think we have.
- speakerThat wasn't too evident through the long 90s when
- speakerthere was a lot of litigation against More Light Churches and people.
- speakerBut things began to change.
- speakerI remember someone saying you know the intellectual argument has already been won in the
- speakerchurch, the seminary professors are already on your side, a
- speakerlot of the leaders are. It's just really at this point changing the
- speakerattitude of the people in the pews.
- speakerAnd I think what changed? What brought about the change in the late
- speakertwenty hundreds, the first decade of the twenty hundreds with some things being changed
- speakerwhere they took away the definitive guidance and some of the previous authoritative
- speakerinterpretations and then in 2010 when they passed the ordination
- speakerrights thing that was eventually.
- speakerWhat changed that that made that happen?
- speakerI think there's a couple things. I think it was definitely the grassroots organization
- speakerthat happened. I think there was a demographic change in the Presbyterian Church.
- speakerA lot of the older generation was dying off and it's not to say that
- speakersome of our most fabulous fighters for justice were in the older generation
- speakerlike Virginia Davidson. You cannot.
- speakerIt's too bad she's not alive for you to interview she was I use the word towering
- speakerpresence so it's not like I mean every generation that dies
- speakeryou're losing a lot of valuable stuff but literal.
- speakerI mean let's be honest a lot of older folks died that were opposed
- speakerto the More Light Movement and the general cultural
- speakerthe culture was changing and gay and lesbian issues were becoming more accepted.
- speakerStates were passing laws to guarantee nondiscrimination or marriage
- speakerrights. So all this stuff contributed to a policy change that
- speakerwe never thought we'd live to see this victory but we did.
- speakerThat might be the place to stop.
- speakerI think that's a good place to stop.