Ashley DeTar-Birt oral history, 2019.

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This is Elizabeth Wittrig and Sonia Prescott interviewing Ashley DeTar-Birt on November
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11, 2019. Ashley if you want to start by talking about kind of what your experience in the LGBTQ rights movement within the church has been?
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Sure. So I came out
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to most people in my life in 2006, 2007.
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And I came out as bisexual. That was when I was in college.
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And at that time I was still
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a part of my church.
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I grew up in Pittsburgh.
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I went to a pretty affirming church, East Liberty Presbyterian.
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And I didn't know that I was that I
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wanted to go into ministry at that point in time.
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I just sort of knew that I belonged to this church that had been really
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LGBT friendly, but also that the church had some weird
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rules around what was permitted and what
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wasn't permitted. So I remember it being a big deal after I came out and
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coming to the realization that we had folks on our session and deacons
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who were out gay or lesbian when they technically weren't supposed to
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do that because nobody who was LGBT was supposed to be ordained.
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And our church decided that they just really didn't care about that rule and that
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qualified people who were called to serve were called serve.
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And so I remember hearing about that and that whole thing.
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And when I was younger, I had considered going into ministry.
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And then I realized that pretty much all the ministers I knew in the Presbyterian Church
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were like old white guys.
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And so I figured that that wasn't going to be me.
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And then when I considered it again and it's like, oh, well, they're all straight old
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white guys. So that's definitely not me. And the church has rules against this.
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And so I figured that that just never was gonna be what I was going to do.
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And then I graduated from college. I worked at my church for
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four years after that as a youth leader.
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And somewhere in that time period, I started to
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realize that the reason that we didn't I didn't see
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anybody who looked like me, who sounded like me, who acted like me,
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who was out like me in the church, is that there wasn't anybody.
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I didn't exist yet as an ordained entity.
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And so I realized that I was being called to ministry and I realized,
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oh, the reason you don't see anybody is that you have to do it.
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And so I decided, I was in grad school at the time at the University of Pittsburgh.
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I decided when I finished that if I got into the seminary, I was going to go there.
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And at that point, at that point, a lot of stuff
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was happening, starting to happen.
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I had seen Janet Edwards go to trial
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for marrying two women, which
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that that trial was hilarious to me because it was one side,
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her side talking with theologians
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and scholars, sociologists, anthropologists, all of these experts.
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And then the other side with just like a wedding program.
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And that was the extent of the argument.
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And that trial actually had the case thrown out, because there was no
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there was no such thing as same sex marriage in the state of Pennsylvania at that point.
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There was no such thing as same sex marriage in the country.
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So for a handful of states as far as the church was concerned, she couldn't have married
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two women because that didn't exist.
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You can call it whatever you want, but same sex marriage doesn't exist.
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Therefore, she's done nothing wrong.
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So I saw that happen.
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I saw some
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energy coming around towards voting to change
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language in the Book of Order.
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My first year of seminary was actually right
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when that General Assembly happened in Pittsburgh. And I volunteered at it
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because I was broke and I wanted to go.
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And it was my hometown. So I volunteered so I could go help people for
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part of it and then get a pass to go watch these conversations.
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And it still didn't pass.
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And the conversations were, I
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hate to say stupid, but stupid.
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The arguments that were being made were wrong.
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They were lies. They were offensive.
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They were the same thing that people pull out over and over and over again trying to
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vilify not just LGBT people, but people in general.
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Like it's the same playbook that folks use for sexism and racism and transphobia
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homophobia biphobia and all of that where they're trying to take away the humanity of
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somebody else.
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And so I got to watch that happen firsthand and tried not to get upset
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about it.
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I remember the elected vice moderator resigned
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because she had, I think in DC maybe done same sex
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marriage where it was legal in DC. And she's getting death threats over this.
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Which what? What in the world kind of church of Jesus Christ and the Holy
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Spirit and God, the creator are you threatening death over?
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I get I got the idea of like, you're upset about it.
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I get the idea that you think it goes against the church.
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But death, really? But you called it out.
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And so I got, I was outside in plenary session, but I got to watch that on a TV screen in
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the center. And so I was watching all of these things happening while I'm waiting
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to see what's going to go on, and so I'm waiting
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until a lot of this was me waiting to find out am I gonna be in a
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denomination that's gonna ordain me? Am I going to be in a denomination that's gonna let
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me get married someday if I choose to marry a woman, which I did,
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while at the same time saying that I was gonna do it anyway.
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Did you consider leaving?
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So here's the thing.
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I for maybe all of five seconds, considered leaving
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the denomination. I had heard from folks that the UCC process was actually easier
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and would not care about this.
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But the thing that I learned, especially
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in seminary, is that I'm really, really, really Presbyterian.
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And I'm a person who often gets labeled as anything but
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because of how I speak, because of how I preach, because of my different approaches
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to the Bible, because of what I look like.
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I can go into a Presbyterian space and people assume that I'm Baptist.
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People assume that I'm people assume that I'm a lot of things
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except for Presbyterian. And it's like, no, listen to my theology.
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Listen to what I'm saying in terms of order.
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Listen to the way that I'm structuring things. These things are based on John Calvin.
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These things are based on Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
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They're based on different
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confessions in the Book of Confessions. I can't remember the Barmen, I think that's the
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German one. Yeah. It's the one that came out of World War II like I remember
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reading that when I was 15 and it was transforming for me because it was like, oh, the
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church took a stand when nobody else was taking a stand.
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And even the church didn't take a stand. But these specific people took a stand against
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true evil in the face of God's creations.
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And we thought that was important enough to put in our Book of Confessions.
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That meant something to me. All of this means something to me.
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And so I'm in the Presbyterian Church by call, and I'm in the Presbyterian Church by
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choice. And sure, I could have left.
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I had a lot of friends leave. It would have been a lot easier.
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I don't do easy.
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So could you go back to, it was kind of like around 2008 or so you were talking about
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that General Assembly and you know seeing the Janet Edwards marriage trial.
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Yeah.
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Oh, yeah. So like I watched, I think,
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LGBT ordination passed 2011.
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I think it officially passed in 2011 in like May.
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And then I started seminary in August.
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So I'd already I had already signed up and was ready to go before this had been approved.
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I got to watch the marriage stuff go down.
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By the time that had passed, I was already in a serious, committed relationship.
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And I just sort of decided at some point that I was gonna fight for these things because
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I was gonna fight for myself and I was gonna fight for everybody else.
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But also I was going to live my life in the church is gonna catch up to it.
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And in the midst of all of this, I got
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pointed in the direction of Covenant Network and I got pointed in the direction of More
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Light, which was amazing to me because I didn't know these things existed and I didn't
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know. I assumed there were other people out there doing things, but I didn't know that it
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was a thing. And so I think I first learned about
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More Light, I think right as I was getting out of college because
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my church was discussing it and whether or not they wanted to be a More Light church.
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And it was really exciting to know that there was
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there were multiple organizations in the denomination that were working for these things.
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And.
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I mean, it's a much longer windy story how
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I got from that point to I'm actually on More Light's board right now.
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But I mean, that was my first introduction of hearing about them and then at
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General Assembly actually getting to see their work and what they were doing and get to
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worship with them, which is really exciting.
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So then do you want to talk a little bit about the process and how you eventually did
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become ordained?
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Yeah sure that was fun. So I decided that I wanted to I was going to go for ordination.
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I had folks in my church asking me for years when I was going to go to seminary and when
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I was going to go into ministry. And I told them no.
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I thought I was gonna be a lot of other things.
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I thought I was gonna be a playwright.
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I literally had a backup plan.
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I was in grad school for theater and I was doing sound
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design as sort of an addition to the program that I was doing, because the program I was
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doing was focused on history and my boss in the scene shop basically
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had an internship lined up for me if I didn't get into school so
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I could have been a sound designer. I got into seminary.
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I still do sound design. But so I went to seminary and
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my church approved to take me under care.
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And I had one person on the session who was another out person.
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I knew that. And she knew about me. She asked me if I had
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any concerns, if I was worried at all about this.
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And very arrogantly I said no. Probably probably should have been much
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more worried than I actually was.
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But I figured, like, I've gotten this far, I'm gonna
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do it.
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God is with me. Who was against me?
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Turns out a lot of different forces.
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So I grew up in Pittsburgh Presbytery which
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is notoriously conservative. It's gotten better, but it's notoriously conservative.
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And on issues that at this point you would've figured the church would have figured out
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by now. So I remember like the big story that I got warned about was
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somebody used Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer language for
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God instead of Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
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And they got called out for that, for not saying Father.
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Like literally somebody said that if Father was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough
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for her. And that wasn't that far from when I started my process,
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so it's like, all right. You don't have any you all don't have women set.
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So this is going to be fun.
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And so I decided that all
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of my information was gonna be on a need to know basis at that point.
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I wasn't going to lie about my orientation, I wasn't going
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to lie about anything. But also it was none of your business.
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You're not my parishioners, you're not my family, you're not my church.
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So unless you're demanding this information from me, I'm not gonna tell you anything.
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And was this after ordination had passed?
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Ordination had passed.
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And the way that I talked to multiple people about it but
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all the people that I was talking to were straight because we weren't there
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yet.
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I hadn't been connected to a lot of LGBT people who had gone to seminary
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at that point. I didn't get connected to that till I was literally in seminary.
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And so at that point, I was just taking the advice of
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parishioners who might be out and the straight people I know who were ordained
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or who were working on their ordination. And what I basically
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got told is they can't use this as a reason to say no to you,
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but they can find. They don't need an actual reason.
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They can just say, we don't think you're qualified or we don't think you're a good fit.
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And they'll say no.
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And that will be the reason. But they'll never say it, just like the church can not want
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a Black person and they don't say that. They'll just say they weren't a good fit.
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And so I went into this knowing that that was always a possibility.
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And also, I like being
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in somewhat control of what information I give people.
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I'm pretty open about a lot of stuff, but that should be my decision.
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And so I decided I'm not volunteering information.
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If you know you know, if you find out, fine.
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But if you don't know, then you don't need to know.
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And so I didn't tell anyone.
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I didn't make a big deal out of it.
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I never discussed dating or anything like that.
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The one issue that I did have was
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my presbytery had a list of centers that you could go to if
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you need your psychological evaluation.
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They would not let me use a New York person. They made me go out to Princeton, New
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Jersey. And the person in Princeton, New Jersey,
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had a history of kind of being awful.
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And so I talked to some of my classmates who had gone to her and listened to some of what
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what they had said about her and how to make sure that I was
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being truthful to protecting my information.
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And I realized at some point she was gonna ask about dating and that I was dating someone
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at that time. I was living with someone at that time.
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And I
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didn't know how to handle it.
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I didn't know how to talk about that in a way where I wasn't going to be lying
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about her. But also, I didn't want to jeopardize anything
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because I recognize anything I said she could put in the report.
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So I broke up my girlfriend for two days.
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Like literally we were literally living together and we kind of treated it as a joke.
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Like, I woke up and said, this isn't working out. She's like, fine.
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But I broke up with my girlfriend for two days specifically to be able to say, like, I am
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not dating anyone. I just got out of a relationship.
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And she'd asked me about the people that I had dated in the past and all that.
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And at some point she point blank asked me were they men or women.
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And I sort of
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did some psychological judo to get out of that
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because she had given me, she said something at the beginning, if
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there was anything I didn't feel comfortable talking about, I can reroute that and all
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that. And first of all, heard her methodology was shoddy because she
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was trying to pin well, if you date men, then this has something to do with your
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relationship with your father and if you date women, it has something to do with your relationship
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with your mother, which no, it doesn't.
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Psychology and dating are way more complicated than that.
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But I sort of finagled my way out of that by turning her words back
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on her and saying, you know, I actually really respect my relationships and really value
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them. And I don't really feel comfortable getting this in depth with
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a stranger about relationships with people who aren't in the room and don't have a say
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about this. But if you want to talk about my mother and father, let's talk about my
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mother and father. And we can talk about my friends and my childhood, if you want.
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And she took that bait.
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And so I managed to sort of steer clear of that.
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This was for your psychological evaluation for ordination.
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This was for my psychological evaluation that was for my ordination that was going back
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to my presbytery.
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And it was just really bizarre and weird.
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And like like I said, like my girlfriend at the time, she's my wife now, but
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we'd like we treated it as a joke.
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But then I remember calling one of my mentor friends back home and just
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being really upset about an angry that I had to even play this stupid game like
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this is this is ridiculous.
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I'm in a loving, healthy relationship.
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I'm in a relationship that's going so well that I live with the person and I
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like I have to jump through all these hoops.
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Why?
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If there's something wrong with my qualifications, if I'm mentally unfit,
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if I need to go to therapy or something like that, that's one thing.
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But this was just so much extra and stupid.
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And anyway, it worked.
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And so that was great. And I
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got through most things.
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I've made it all the way to certified.
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Without really a problem for my Presbytery.
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I don't remember
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the exact dates of everything. But I think I got certified in
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effect right after my birthday.
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So was it like in November and in the February after that, I got engaged.
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And so I was working.
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I was already out of seminary. I was working at the church I'm working at now. Which is Rutgers Presbyterian in New York City. I had a seminary. I was working at the church.
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And I work at now records.
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I work at Records Presbyterian I was working as the director of Christian Education.
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Are they a welcoming congregation?
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Yeah, Rutgers is so welcoming that I walked into my interview and
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they told me that we are a progressive, welcoming Presbyterian
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church. Do you have a problem with that? Like they they made sure before we even started
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the interview that I knew who they were because if that was gonna
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be a problem then this interview wasn't gonna happen.
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And then I responded. Yes.
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And then their first real question was, what something in your in
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your week that has brought you joy?
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And I responded that I hosted a drag show.
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So they I knew who they were at the beginning.
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They knew who I was at the beginning. And we clearly get along really well.
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So much that they ordained me.
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But back at that time, I was working at the church.
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I got ordained and I was talking with Janet Edwards.
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She and I know each other now. We're friends. And she suggested that I tell one
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of the members of my care team because that was one of Janet's good friends.
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And so I told her that I was getting married.
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And I told her to who. And she
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was really excited about it. She said she said congratulations.
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She wanted to know when I was coming home so we could meet for lunch and
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discuss things and celebrate and all that. And then she asked, could she tell the other
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member of my care team? And he was very nice to me.
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He was an older guy,
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really liked my energy, really liked that I work with children and youth.
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One of those guys who, like you are the future of the church kind of people.
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And then he found out that I was getting married to a woman.
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And the good news is he didn't try to mess anything up.
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The bad news is he immediately resigned from my care team.
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So he could have been a lot worse.
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But also whoever I was before that didn't matter anymore.
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And then later on I found out that if I had just come
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out, but I had been single, he could have lived with that.
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But because I was getting married that's the part he couldn't stand by.
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Potentially because he couldn't handle the idea of not being able to take
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a celibacy clause or something like that, which once again,
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what in the world are we, are you doing?
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I'm not a totally different person. And honestly, if you're.
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Why are you worried about what anybody is doing behind closed doors?
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And if you're really all that worried about it, please go talk to your candidates who are
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straight. I guarantee you they have much more interesting things to say.
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So thankfully, I got through that.
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That was sort of one of the hardest parts of it.
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My church began
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exploring a way to ordain me,
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and so at the same time Janet Edwards was trying to think of a way
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to do some philanthropy within the denomination that was going to help
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out particularly people of color and younger folks.
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And what she came up with was a fellowship.
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So there's a fellowship through Auburn Seminary for LGBT
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folks. I think also people of color.
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I think that's like specifically stipulated in there, like LGBT and/or people of color.
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It might specifically be for like millennials and younger generation.
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I'm not 100 percent sure, but basically it helps pay the salaries
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for three years for churches who are willing to ordain folks,
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but maybe don't have them in the budget for that.
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Or that's a little more complicated because we're the least likely to get calls.
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There are lots of folks who support same sex marriage, support LGBT ordination,
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and then when the LGBT folks go to apply, they never hear back
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and then their straight friend has the job three months later
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and so us getting calls is really, really difficult.
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And so they were working on creating this fellowship position for me based on
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the job that I'd already had and then expanding that into a bigger position and expanding
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into some outreach with other churches, including Broadway.
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And we got hung up in COM.
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What's that?
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Committee on Ministry. So they're the ones who get the say when a church decides that
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they want to start a new position or get rid of a position or bring in a new minister
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or anything like that the COM is the committee that interviews
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them and says, OK, you can do that.
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And so COM hung my church up
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and my ordination process up for about two years.
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And that's a really complicated situation.
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Their argument for those on the committee who were
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stopping us was that we weren't doing things in order, that we were
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going against the Book of Order, which we weren't.
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If you were going based on a Book of Order from maybe 10 years ago, fine.
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But the most updated Books of Order at that time, because we were doing a
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non-installed position because it was a fellowship there was nothing telling us that we
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that we couldn't proceed.
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And so we kept getting stuck.
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And it was really, really frustrating.
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And still thinking about it is really frustrating because it's one of those things where
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it felt like we were being treated differently and it felt like there was discrimination
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happening, but you couldn't prove it.
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So it wasn't that somebody was giving me a hard time
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because I'm a Black woman.
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It wasn't overtly anyway.
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It wasn't that they were giving our church a hard time for being a progressive, affirming
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church with I don't know 30 to 50 percent of the church is
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probably queer. It wasn't that.
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We couldn't say that.
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What I could say is that I watched my
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colleagues who were straight white men get
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passed through COM with no problem.
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And they had positions that weren't at churches.
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We had somebody who passed through, no
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problem and he was working at a seminary.
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Meanwhile, we were being told that we had to prove that what I was doing needed to be
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ordained, that children's ministry should be an ordained
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ministry from a church.
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And so it was one of those situations where I just couldn't
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do anything except for just keep restrategizing.
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And it was really, really hard because it felt like there wasn't anything
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that I could do. I couldn't fix it.
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I couldn't change anybody's mind. I was getting sort of pushed out of the process and
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being told to let the church handle it, which was the correct answer.
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But at the same time, this is my life on the line.
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I don't. And like, I didn't know if I couldn't get ordained at this church
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where I was gonna go. I have a wife who's a minister, who's also a minister
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in the Unitarian Church. So we have to figure out dual calls.
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If this church that's this loving and affirming like this is sort of an ideal place to be
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if I can't go here who was going to want me?
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And what compromises am I going to make? And I got really depressed and
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frustrated, and I almost quit the church over that.
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And I realize that there are people who had it a lot harder.
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There are folks who who have been in process for 10,
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15, 20 years over stuff like this.
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And it's really overt.
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And I don't mean to compare my journey to theirs, but it was just one of those situations
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where I wish they could have just said, this is because you're Black.
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This is because you're a woman. This is because you're going into a ministry we don't
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respect. This is because you're a queer person.
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Because at least then I would have known instead of just sitting there trying
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to figure out, am I being discriminated against or is it just me?
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And that really hard.
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And like I said
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we started that process and it took about two, two and a half years.
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I had a professor, an old professor who
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was on that committee who had been trying to help. And he is a God send.
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Straight white male was the most
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helpful person, amazingly enough.
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And he had gotten a new job and he was transferring Presbyteries and he had like one last
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idea. And the
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night of the meeting, that afternoon they sent the paperwork in
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for him to transfer Presbytery. So in theory, he wasn't on the committee anymore.
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And by the grace of God, they let him present his compromise.
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And the committee accepted it.
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And the minute they accepted the compromise, everything happened very, very quickly.
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So they accepted the compromise.
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They immediately accepted our proposal.
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The next COM meeting.
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I went before the committee with my statement of faith.
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They approved me a couple weeks later.
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I was in front of the presbytery. They asked me a couple questions.
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They approved me three weeks later.
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It was like right after Valentine's Day. it was right after a Black Panther came out so
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it was the most Black History Month celebration we could have had. I took a plane home and I got ordained.
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So we went from two years to two months of getting things done.
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What was that compromise?
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They came up with a list of criteria.
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They came up with this list of criteria of
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what someone would have to meet for them to approve them for
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this.
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For a non-installed position without doing a search or something like that.
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Like it was something really, really procedural.
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And then once they got past that, everything was fine.
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Like it went through
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after that, which was great because it
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answered the question that it wasn't me.
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That it wasn't my call or my skills that were in question here.
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I don't know if it was my identity or not because like I said, I saw folks get through
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with harder to
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argue calls I would say. They're not invalid, but doing
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church work with children in a church, doesn't feel
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like it should require a lot of argument for ministry and yet it did.
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Whereas other things didn't. For whatever reasons.
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So that all happened really, really quick.
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In the meantime, I had I watched
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pretty much all of my straight friends get ordained.
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I watched the first three
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out, Black folks or Black men get ordained and the first
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out Black woman since the rule change or possibly ever get ordained.
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And we are all friends with each other.
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And like even the
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first out, Black woman and I joke because if the timeline
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had been different, we would have been switched.
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But her Presbytery had their act together and were willing
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to work with her and ours wasn't
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and literally something as simple as that changed
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the order of our ordination by about a year.
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But she did do the charge in my ordination that was pretty awesome.
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I was going to ask if you wanted to talk a little bit about your ordination service.
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Yes, I do. That was fun.
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So after all of that,
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I decided that I was to try some things and
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ask forgiveness and not permission.
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And so I
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was looking through the documents for Pittsburgh Presbytery, because I got ordained in Pittsburgh around
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what the Commission for Ordination needed to look like.
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And it said something that it
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had to reflect the diversity of the presbytery. Pittsburgh is a pretty white city.
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The Presbytery is really white.
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Even for the city. And so I suspect
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that what that actually is, therefore, is you can't just have all white people and you
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can't just have old men. I was like, alright.
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Let's try something else.
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And so I submitted my commission.
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It was all women.
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And I had a former
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member of my care team, not the guy who quit, one of the women who was on beforehand, who
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had rotated off and then rotated back on because I was
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under care for like six or seven years. So I invited her to do it.
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I invited Shanea Leonard, who is
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one of, they're an out Black pastor.
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They work in Louisville now but they were in Pittsburgh at
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that point. I e-mailed the pastor and said, hey, can your daughter be in it?
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She was on session. I got two of the ministers
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from my church to do it. So we had queer people, we had straight people, we had
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young people, we had old people. We had married, unmarried, as
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diverse as we possibly could get. And just no guys. And I submitted it and was
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like, all right, we'll see what happens.
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And a little while later, I get a phone call from
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my friend Heather, who had been married, had been
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my youth leader when I was a teenager, and then my boss and now my friend.
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But she was also the former moderator of the Pittsburgh Presbytery.
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And she called on behalf of the Presbytery because
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they had received my list.
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And the guy who was in charge of that, who I know, he and I are friendly,
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was sort of worried because he had known what I'd gone through and
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he didn't want anything else to stand in the way. And so he took one look at the list and
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was like, she can't do that. Like, this is the most diverse list I've
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ever seen. And also she can't. Can she do that?
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I don't think she can do that. And Heather's just like, let me call her.
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And so Heather calls me and she says, can
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I take a guess as to why you did this?
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It's like, yeah, go for it.
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And she says, so I'm gonna say it like, these are the people who are meaningful to you.
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And also, like in
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this particular circumstance, there is a double standard having historically majority men
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like this sort of inverts that.
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So it's not it's not a one for one kind of thing. Absolutely.
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And it's like yeah all the people who are the most meaningful to me are not guys.
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And this represents the
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types of people, including these specific individuals that helped me in my ordination
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process and helped me get through all these things and remind me of why I do my work.
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And she said all that back to me. And I was like yeah, you got it.
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And she's like, great. I'm just gonna go make that argument for you. It's like, cool.
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I'll talk to you in a couple days.
speaker
And so they showed that to whoever was in charge of CPM,
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which is the committee for preparation of ministry in Pittsburgh.
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And she took one look at the list and signed it like she did not care.
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She was like, yeah, whatever, do it.
speaker
So I got that through. Janet Edwards preached my
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ordination, which apparently she had not preached in my home church in many years.
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So that was really exciting. We flew in, my friend, Annanda Barclay.
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She was the the first out person, the first Black woman
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to be out for her whole process to get ordained.
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And so she did my charge.
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I had a bunch of gospel songs that were
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really meaningful to me and our church happens to have a praise band, and
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so we had a combination of the organ and the praise band to make sure that all that was
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in there. As far as I was concerned, I had made it this far in the presbytery.
speaker
The Presbyterian Church had put me through so much that I was going to ask for anything
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and y'all like people were gonna do it. So there
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was lots of gospel music. Like I said, Black Panther had just come out, so
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all the Black people during passing of the piece were the Wakanda forever salute.
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There was a lot of talk about queerness.
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There was a lot of talk specifically about bisexuality because both my wife and I are
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bisexual to the point that I would like.
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I was a little bit like pleasantly unnerved by it because I wasn't used to so many people
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in church using the word.
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It was such a big celebration.
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And I remember the moment that really hit me
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was when I went up to have everyone lay their hands on me and pray.
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And my mother went up and we had two things
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set right away. My mother had been ordained as a deacon, but not an elder.
speaker
And so I asked, like, when we do the laying on the hands
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part I know that, like ordained people are supposed to come up, does that count Deacons?
speaker
Like, no not usually. But your mother can come up and it's like, well, also
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communion. And they're like, yeah, she can serve.
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And so I got special permission for my mother to serve communion with me because I
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couldn't think of anything more powerful than being able to serve communion alongside my
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mom. And so she comes up and my mother is a very
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loving, lovely woman.
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She doesn't cry.
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Like I've seen her cry a few times and it's really shocking
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when it happens, just because that's not the kind of person she is.
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It's got to be something really big.
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And so she gets up and I think my wife is at my back and my mother was in front of me and
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she puts her hands on me and I look up and she's sobbing
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and I look at her and I lose it because I mean, I knew that
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my mother loved me and I knew she supported me on the journey, but I didn't know how much
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this meant to her until we were in the moment.
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And it
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was just really.Like
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powerful doesn't describe it like I'm never going to
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have a moment like that again.
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I'm going to take that with me for the rest of my life and then getting to serve
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communion with her afterwards was just so meaningful.
speaker
And then even with the the the presiding over
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communion, I did that with Annanda. So it's two Black queer women presiding over
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communion. And I'd written the liturgy in such a way so that everybody was saying the
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words of institution together, specifically because I had waited for so damn long
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to be able to say these words.
speaker
And it's like the fact that I couldn't do this, even though I was qualified, even though
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I was called, was so frustrating. I was like, you know what?
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My first act as an ordained minister is going to make sure that everybody in this room
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gets to do the one thing that I been waiting for six, seven years to do.
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We are all going to do this together because we are all ordained by God in some way.
speaker
And so just getting to do that getting to do that with my mom and with my friends and
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have this celebration of Black queerness was awesome.
speaker
Well, I was going to ask, and you mentioned a little bit about how the
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ordination service was really affirming of bisexuality.
speaker
Did you feel like within the movement working for LGBTQ rights like you had to really
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push for bivisibility?
speaker
Yes. So the
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thing that we keep discussing, I keep discussing with some of my other queer
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Black clergy friends in the denomination is whether or not
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I'm the first Black bi person.
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And no one seems to know because we don't we can't find another one.
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So like we we don't like there's so there's got to be maybe somebody somewhere, but we
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don't know.
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And so like maybe. Maybe not.
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We don't.
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I don't actually know.
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And I think there's a visibility issue in that there's not that many of
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us. I know some white folks, including Janet.
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But it's in comparison to
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gay and lesbians specifically, there just aren't a ton of us like around, which is
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interesting because in theory we make up most of the LGBT
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populace or the LGB population.
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Trans folks fall into all of those things as well.
speaker
And it's always sort of.
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It goes everywhere from the really micro aggression thing of like we are
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gay and we are straight and gay like, no, you're not straight and gay.
speaker
There are other things, too.
speaker
Are you trying to be inclusive or are you just reciting off platitudes?
speaker
Please stop. To having to dispel
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myths about what bisexuality is. I think people get real scared about that
speaker
because gay and lesbian are homosexuality.
speaker
But you can. There are other words for those things that don't have the word sex in them.
speaker
And so we don't have to be scared of those things.
speaker
But people get nervous about bisexuality because it has the word sex in it and you can't
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get around that. And also because folks don't necessarily understand it.
speaker
And my reaction to that is to be extra super loud
speaker
about it. There's literally a video online with my boss
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and I called Ask a Bisexual.
speaker
It's real fun. You should find it.
speaker
But I think I think it's one of those things where
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we're dealing with the same stuff that that bi folks in the community at large are
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dealing with.
speaker
And also, we have to be able to translate some of those things into
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church language and get people to sort of I mean, stop being scared of sex in general,
speaker
but stop being scared of the word bi just because it has the word sex in it and not
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thinking that just because you say like gay and lesbian that you've covered us.
speaker
I mean, some people say gay, lesbian and trans to try and be more inclusive.
speaker
And it's like, yes, please put my trans siblings in there.
speaker
But also I'm still here and I'm none of those things.
speaker
So, like, if you're gonna make me read this, can I put myself into it, please?
speaker
And so there's been a lot of stuff with that.
speaker
But also it leaves me like some pretty fun opportunities for education
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and just for exploration.
speaker
I remember I when I came out at my home church in Pittsburgh long before I got ordained,
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I had two high school students come out to me and both as bi
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and it was really, really exciting.
speaker
I even had one of them...How did he describe...
speaker
I'm not fifty percent straight. I'm not fifty percent gay.
speaker
I'm 100 percent both. It's like the humanity and divinity of Jesus.
speaker
And that came from like a 15 year old kid.
speaker
And so like on the one hand, yeah, we're not
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super visible and the church doesn't really get us
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as a community, as if there's not multiple people of different perspectives.
speaker
But also, on the other hand, we get stuff like that where
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we get to be with folks as they're evolving
speaker
and get to hear all these really interesting theology that nobody is really thinking of
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because nobody was really thinking about bisexuality.
speaker
And we get to talk about those and we get to create them and we get to see ourselves in
speaker
scripture, in places that nobody else is seeing us.
speaker
And I find it really exciting, frustrating,
speaker
but exciting.
speaker
Well I guess I'll just ask one last question here, I did want to talk about
speaker
how you started serving on the More Light board and the work you do for More Light.
speaker
So I was volunteering at a summer camp
speaker
and I got this phone call.
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I was in the middle of nowhere in the woods.
speaker
And the call was sort of
speaker
freaky from Alex McNeill, who I had met several years before
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that through that Presbyterian Welcome/Parity, we called it gay camp.
speaker
I'm sure it had a different name than that.
speaker
But I had met Alex through there a while ago.
speaker
I'd known him for a while. And I had known that he had become the executive director
speaker
of More Light, and I liked sent him congratulations.
speaker
I was really happy for him. I was really impressed because he is not much older than me.
speaker
I was just like, yeah, Alex, way to go.
speaker
And so I get this really shaky phone call in the middle of the woods from Alex and I can
speaker
barely decipher what he is asking.
speaker
But at some point I sort of hear something about More Light board and I'm like,
speaker
what? You want me to serve on... do you know who you're calling? Cause I was nobody. I think I was director of Youth and Families at a random church in New York. I wasn't doing
speaker
anything nationally.
speaker
I wasn't on any committees. I wasn't even ordained like.
speaker
You sure you called the right person? But he did.
speaker
And I asked if I could think about it, and he said, OK.
speaker
But not for too long. And I'm like, all right.
speaker
I don't know what a board does, but I do like More Light and I do want to do the work.
speaker
So what happens if I say yes?
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So I said yes.
speaker
And so I signed up and I
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went to my first board meeting
speaker
and honestly, being on More Light board has
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been one of the most meaningful experiences of my life.
speaker
I learned the
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more traditional aspects of being on a board about fundraising and all of that.
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That's not a skill that comes naturally to me.
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That's not one of my gifts. But I learned about that.
speaker
But what I did learn that plays into my skills and gifts is
speaker
that I have a passion for this stuff.
speaker
And I have a passion for being able to go out to people and
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to make these connections and to be able to go to General Assembly, to go to a
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conference, to go out somewhere in the world and be able to say, oh, you have a question
speaker
about this. Let me, I'm on the board of More Light, let me introduce you to Alex.
speaker
Let me put you in contact with these people.
speaker
Let me help get you these resources that your church is going
speaker
to need to have the conversations that you're interested in having.
speaker
I've been on videos with More Light.
speaker
I've done workshops and teach-ins online.
speaker
I've gotten to help out at General Assembly.
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I get to do all of these really exciting things with them.
speaker
That has just been really incredible.
speaker
And it's just a whole different form of ministry than I was even expecting it to be.
speaker
And then I also get to pull More Light into places that people are not necessarily
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expecting More Light to be.
speaker
So I'm currently on the task force through the denomination.
speaker
I forget the exact title, but it's basically exploring the plight of Black women and
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girls.
speaker
And to be able to go into those meetings and when we're working on our documents or
speaker
meeting with people and being able to say like we can make a recommendation and I can
speaker
tell you right now More Light will help with this. I've already been I've already
speaker
discussed it with the board. Whatever you need them
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to do in terms of helping Black, queer and trans women put their name in the document, I
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will go back to them and tell them what we're doing and we're doing it.
speaker
And so being able to think about sexual orientation and gender identity and whatnot
speaker
beyond just the issues that affect us, which people think are ordination
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and marriage, but also include mental
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health, that includes issues of race,
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issues around homelessness, around the
speaker
prison industrial complex, around so many different things.
speaker
I mean, even to make those connections, which is something that More Light already is
speaker
trying to do to begin with, but getting to be part of that and getting
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to be a catalyst for that, part of a solution in how we're going to deal with these
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interconnected problems has been absolutely
speaker
incredible and has made me consider what
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I want to add to my own ministry beyond just being on the More Light board and how I want
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to take the things that I have learned from being on this board and apply that to my own
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life.

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Title: Ashley DeTar-Birt oral history, 2019.
Description: In 2018, Rev. Ashley DeTar-Birt, an out bisexual woman, was ordained in the PC(USA). She was ordained by Rutgers Presbyterian Church in New York as the Pastoral Fellow for Youth and Families. Ashley DeTar-Birt holds a Masters of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary. She currently serves on the board of More Light Presbyterians and is an advocate for youth ministry and social justice.
Creator: DeTar-Birt, Ashley. (interviewee)
Wittrig, Elizabeth L. (interviewer)
Prescott, Sonia. (interviewer)
Date: 2019
November 11, 2019
Type of resource: moving image
Genre: oral histories
interviews
Form: born digital
video recordings
Extent: 1.16 GB (1 MP4 file)
Subject names: More Light Presbyterians.
Presbyterian Welcome (Organization)
DeTar-Birt, Ashley.
Topics: Bisexuality--Religious aspects--Presbyterian Church.
Homosexuality--Religious aspects--Presbyterian Church.
Social justice--Religious aspects--Presbyterian Church.
African American Presbyterians.
Presbyterian women.
Ordination of gays.
Ordination of lesbians.
Geographic subjects: North and Central America--United States
Rights status: IN COPYRIGHT - NON-COMMERCIAL USE PERMITTED; http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/
Physical location: ARCHIVES 19-1125; Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, PA
Related item: Pam Byers Collecting Initiative oral histories, 2019.--http://prestohost68.inmagic.com/Presto/content/Detail.aspx?ctID=Y2RiNWNk...
Identifier (local): 19-1125_Ashley_DeTarBirt
PID (Persistent Identifier): islandora:166800

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