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Ashley DeTar-Birt oral history, 2019.
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- speakerThis is Elizabeth Wittrig and Sonia Prescott interviewing Ashley DeTar-Birt on November
- speaker11, 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?
- speakerSure. So I came out
- speakerto most people in my life in 2006, 2007.
- speakerAnd I came out as bisexual. That was when I was in college.
- speakerAnd at that time I was still
- speakera part of my church.
- speakerI grew up in Pittsburgh.
- speakerI went to a pretty affirming church, East Liberty Presbyterian.
- speakerAnd I didn't know that I was that I
- speakerwanted to go into ministry at that point in time.
- speakerI just sort of knew that I belonged to this church that had been really
- speakerLGBT friendly, but also that the church had some weird
- speakerrules around what was permitted and what
- speakerwasn't permitted. So I remember it being a big deal after I came out and
- speakercoming to the realization that we had folks on our session and deacons
- speakerwho were out gay or lesbian when they technically weren't supposed to
- speakerdo that because nobody who was LGBT was supposed to be ordained.
- speakerAnd our church decided that they just really didn't care about that rule and that
- speakerqualified people who were called to serve were called serve.
- speakerAnd so I remember hearing about that and that whole thing.
- speakerAnd when I was younger, I had considered going into ministry.
- speakerAnd then I realized that pretty much all the ministers I knew in the Presbyterian Church
- speakerwere like old white guys.
- speakerAnd so I figured that that wasn't going to be me.
- speakerAnd then when I considered it again and it's like, oh, well, they're all straight old
- speakerwhite guys. So that's definitely not me. And the church has rules against this.
- speakerAnd so I figured that that just never was gonna be what I was going to do.
- speakerAnd then I graduated from college. I worked at my church for
- speakerfour years after that as a youth leader.
- speakerAnd somewhere in that time period, I started to
- speakerrealize that the reason that we didn't I didn't see
- speakeranybody who looked like me, who sounded like me, who acted like me,
- speakerwho was out like me in the church, is that there wasn't anybody.
- speakerI didn't exist yet as an ordained entity.
- speakerAnd so I realized that I was being called to ministry and I realized,
- speakeroh, the reason you don't see anybody is that you have to do it.
- speakerAnd so I decided, I was in grad school at the time at the University of Pittsburgh.
- speakerI decided when I finished that if I got into the seminary, I was going to go there.
- speakerAnd at that point, at that point, a lot of stuff
- speakerwas happening, starting to happen.
- speakerI had seen Janet Edwards go to trial
- speakerfor marrying two women, which
- speakerthat that trial was hilarious to me because it was one side,
- speakerher side talking with theologians
- speakerand scholars, sociologists, anthropologists, all of these experts.
- speakerAnd then the other side with just like a wedding program.
- speakerAnd that was the extent of the argument.
- speakerAnd that trial actually had the case thrown out, because there was no
- speakerthere was no such thing as same sex marriage in the state of Pennsylvania at that point.
- speakerThere was no such thing as same sex marriage in the country.
- speakerSo for a handful of states as far as the church was concerned, she couldn't have married
- speakertwo women because that didn't exist.
- speakerYou can call it whatever you want, but same sex marriage doesn't exist.
- speakerTherefore, she's done nothing wrong.
- speakerSo I saw that happen.
- speakerI saw some
- speakerenergy coming around towards voting to change
- speakerlanguage in the Book of Order.
- speakerMy first year of seminary was actually right
- speakerwhen that General Assembly happened in Pittsburgh. And I volunteered at it
- speakerbecause I was broke and I wanted to go.
- speakerAnd it was my hometown. So I volunteered so I could go help people for
- speakerpart of it and then get a pass to go watch these conversations.
- speakerAnd it still didn't pass.
- speakerAnd the conversations were, I
- speakerhate to say stupid, but stupid.
- speakerThe arguments that were being made were wrong.
- speakerThey were lies. They were offensive.
- speakerThey were the same thing that people pull out over and over and over again trying to
- speakervilify not just LGBT people, but people in general.
- speakerLike it's the same playbook that folks use for sexism and racism and transphobia
- speakerhomophobia biphobia and all of that where they're trying to take away the humanity of
- speakersomebody else.
- speakerAnd so I got to watch that happen firsthand and tried not to get upset
- speakerabout it.
- speakerI remember the elected vice moderator resigned
- speakerbecause she had, I think in DC maybe done same sex
- speakermarriage where it was legal in DC. And she's getting death threats over this.
- speakerWhich what? What in the world kind of church of Jesus Christ and the Holy
- speakerSpirit and God, the creator are you threatening death over?
- speakerI get I got the idea of like, you're upset about it.
- speakerI get the idea that you think it goes against the church.
- speakerBut death, really? But you called it out.
- speakerAnd so I got, I was outside in plenary session, but I got to watch that on a TV screen in
- speakerthe center. And so I was watching all of these things happening while I'm waiting
- speakerto see what's going to go on, and so I'm waiting
- speakeruntil a lot of this was me waiting to find out am I gonna be in a
- speakerdenomination that's gonna ordain me? Am I going to be in a denomination that's gonna let
- speakerme get married someday if I choose to marry a woman, which I did,
- speakerwhile at the same time saying that I was gonna do it anyway.
- speakerDid you consider leaving?
- speakerSo here's the thing.
- speakerI for maybe all of five seconds, considered leaving
- speakerthe denomination. I had heard from folks that the UCC process was actually easier
- speakerand would not care about this.
- speakerBut the thing that I learned, especially
- speakerin seminary, is that I'm really, really, really Presbyterian.
- speakerAnd I'm a person who often gets labeled as anything but
- speakerbecause of how I speak, because of how I preach, because of my different approaches
- speakerto the Bible, because of what I look like.
- speakerI can go into a Presbyterian space and people assume that I'm Baptist.
- speakerPeople assume that I'm people assume that I'm a lot of things
- speakerexcept for Presbyterian. And it's like, no, listen to my theology.
- speakerListen to what I'm saying in terms of order.
- speakerListen to the way that I'm structuring things. These things are based on John Calvin.
- speakerThese things are based on Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
- speakerThey're based on different
- speakerconfessions in the Book of Confessions. I can't remember the Barmen, I think that's the
- speakerGerman one. Yeah. It's the one that came out of World War II like I remember
- speakerreading that when I was 15 and it was transforming for me because it was like, oh, the
- speakerchurch took a stand when nobody else was taking a stand.
- speakerAnd even the church didn't take a stand. But these specific people took a stand against
- speakertrue evil in the face of God's creations.
- speakerAnd we thought that was important enough to put in our Book of Confessions.
- speakerThat meant something to me. All of this means something to me.
- speakerAnd so I'm in the Presbyterian Church by call, and I'm in the Presbyterian Church by
- speakerchoice. And sure, I could have left.
- speakerI had a lot of friends leave. It would have been a lot easier.
- speakerI don't do easy.
- speakerSo could you go back to, it was kind of like around 2008 or so you were talking about
- speakerthat General Assembly and you know seeing the Janet Edwards marriage trial.
- speakerYeah.
- speakerOh, yeah. So like I watched, I think,
- speakerLGBT ordination passed 2011.
- speakerI think it officially passed in 2011 in like May.
- speakerAnd then I started seminary in August.
- speakerSo I'd already I had already signed up and was ready to go before this had been approved.
- speakerI got to watch the marriage stuff go down.
- speakerBy the time that had passed, I was already in a serious, committed relationship.
- speakerAnd I just sort of decided at some point that I was gonna fight for these things because
- speakerI was gonna fight for myself and I was gonna fight for everybody else.
- speakerBut also I was going to live my life in the church is gonna catch up to it.
- speakerAnd in the midst of all of this, I got
- speakerpointed in the direction of Covenant Network and I got pointed in the direction of More
- speakerLight, which was amazing to me because I didn't know these things existed and I didn't
- speakerknow. I assumed there were other people out there doing things, but I didn't know that it
- speakerwas a thing. And so I think I first learned about
- speakerMore Light, I think right as I was getting out of college because
- speakermy church was discussing it and whether or not they wanted to be a More Light church.
- speakerAnd it was really exciting to know that there was
- speakerthere were multiple organizations in the denomination that were working for these things.
- speakerAnd.
- speakerI mean, it's a much longer windy story how
- speakerI got from that point to I'm actually on More Light's board right now.
- speakerBut I mean, that was my first introduction of hearing about them and then at
- speakerGeneral Assembly actually getting to see their work and what they were doing and get to
- speakerworship with them, which is really exciting.
- speakerSo then do you want to talk a little bit about the process and how you eventually did
- speakerbecome ordained?
- speakerYeah sure that was fun. So I decided that I wanted to I was going to go for ordination.
- speakerI had folks in my church asking me for years when I was going to go to seminary and when
- speakerI was going to go into ministry. And I told them no.
- speakerI thought I was gonna be a lot of other things.
- speakerI thought I was gonna be a playwright.
- speakerI literally had a backup plan.
- speakerI was in grad school for theater and I was doing sound
- speakerdesign as sort of an addition to the program that I was doing, because the program I was
- speakerdoing was focused on history and my boss in the scene shop basically
- speakerhad an internship lined up for me if I didn't get into school so
- speakerI could have been a sound designer. I got into seminary.
- speakerI still do sound design. But so I went to seminary and
- speakermy church approved to take me under care.
- speakerAnd I had one person on the session who was another out person.
- speakerI knew that. And she knew about me. She asked me if I had
- speakerany concerns, if I was worried at all about this.
- speakerAnd very arrogantly I said no. Probably probably should have been much
- speakermore worried than I actually was.
- speakerBut I figured, like, I've gotten this far, I'm gonna
- speakerdo it.
- speakerGod is with me. Who was against me?
- speakerTurns out a lot of different forces.
- speakerSo I grew up in Pittsburgh Presbytery which
- speakeris notoriously conservative. It's gotten better, but it's notoriously conservative.
- speakerAnd on issues that at this point you would've figured the church would have figured out
- speakerby now. So I remember like the big story that I got warned about was
- speakersomebody used Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer language for
- speakerGod instead of Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
- speakerAnd they got called out for that, for not saying Father.
- speakerLike literally somebody said that if Father was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough
- speakerfor her. And that wasn't that far from when I started my process,
- speakerso it's like, all right. You don't have any you all don't have women set.
- speakerSo this is going to be fun.
- speakerAnd so I decided that all
- speakerof my information was gonna be on a need to know basis at that point.
- speakerI wasn't going to lie about my orientation, I wasn't going
- speakerto lie about anything. But also it was none of your business.
- speakerYou're not my parishioners, you're not my family, you're not my church.
- speakerSo unless you're demanding this information from me, I'm not gonna tell you anything.
- speakerAnd was this after ordination had passed?
- speakerOrdination had passed.
- speaker
- speakerAnd the way that I talked to multiple people about it but
- speakerall the people that I was talking to were straight because we weren't there
- speakeryet.
- speakerI hadn't been connected to a lot of LGBT people who had gone to seminary
- speakerat that point. I didn't get connected to that till I was literally in seminary.
- speakerAnd so at that point, I was just taking the advice of
- speakerparishioners who might be out and the straight people I know who were ordained
- speakeror who were working on their ordination. And what I basically
- speakergot told is they can't use this as a reason to say no to you,
- speakerbut they can find. They don't need an actual reason.
- speakerThey can just say, we don't think you're qualified or we don't think you're a good fit.
- speakerAnd they'll say no.
- speakerAnd that will be the reason. But they'll never say it, just like the church can not want
- speakera Black person and they don't say that. They'll just say they weren't a good fit.
- speakerAnd so I went into this knowing that that was always a possibility.
- speakerAnd also, I like being
- speakerin somewhat control of what information I give people.
- speakerI'm pretty open about a lot of stuff, but that should be my decision.
- speakerAnd so I decided I'm not volunteering information.
- speakerIf you know you know, if you find out, fine.
- speakerBut if you don't know, then you don't need to know.
- speakerAnd so I didn't tell anyone.
- speakerI didn't make a big deal out of it.
- speakerI never discussed dating or anything like that.
- speakerThe one issue that I did have was
- speakermy presbytery had a list of centers that you could go to if
- speakeryou need your psychological evaluation.
- speakerThey would not let me use a New York person. They made me go out to Princeton, New
- speakerJersey. And the person in Princeton, New Jersey,
- speakerhad a history of kind of being awful.
- speakerAnd so I talked to some of my classmates who had gone to her and listened to some of what
- speakerwhat they had said about her and how to make sure that I was
- speakerbeing truthful to protecting my information.
- speakerAnd I realized at some point she was gonna ask about dating and that I was dating someone
- speakerat that time. I was living with someone at that time.
- speakerAnd I
- speakerdidn't know how to handle it.
- speakerI didn't know how to talk about that in a way where I wasn't going to be lying
- speakerabout her. But also, I didn't want to jeopardize anything
- speakerbecause I recognize anything I said she could put in the report.
- speakerSo I broke up my girlfriend for two days.
- speakerLike literally we were literally living together and we kind of treated it as a joke.
- speakerLike, I woke up and said, this isn't working out. She's like, fine.
- speakerBut I broke up with my girlfriend for two days specifically to be able to say, like, I am
- speakernot dating anyone. I just got out of a relationship.
- speakerAnd she'd asked me about the people that I had dated in the past and all that.
- speakerAnd at some point she point blank asked me were they men or women.
- speakerAnd I sort of
- speakerdid some psychological judo to get out of that
- speakerbecause she had given me, she said something at the beginning, if
- speakerthere was anything I didn't feel comfortable talking about, I can reroute that and all
- speakerthat. And first of all, heard her methodology was shoddy because she
- speakerwas trying to pin well, if you date men, then this has something to do with your
- speakerrelationship with your father and if you date women, it has something to do with your relationship
- speakerwith your mother, which no, it doesn't.
- speakerPsychology and dating are way more complicated than that.
- speakerBut I sort of finagled my way out of that by turning her words back
- speakeron her and saying, you know, I actually really respect my relationships and really value
- speakerthem. And I don't really feel comfortable getting this in depth with
- speakera stranger about relationships with people who aren't in the room and don't have a say
- speakerabout this. But if you want to talk about my mother and father, let's talk about my
- speakermother and father. And we can talk about my friends and my childhood, if you want.
- speakerAnd she took that bait.
- speakerAnd so I managed to sort of steer clear of that.
- speakerThis was for your psychological evaluation for ordination.
- speakerThis was for my psychological evaluation that was for my ordination that was going back
- speakerto my presbytery.
- speakerAnd it was just really bizarre and weird.
- speakerAnd like like I said, like my girlfriend at the time, she's my wife now, but
- speakerwe'd like we treated it as a joke.
- speakerBut then I remember calling one of my mentor friends back home and just
- speakerbeing really upset about an angry that I had to even play this stupid game like
- speakerthis is this is ridiculous.
- speakerI'm in a loving, healthy relationship.
- speakerI'm in a relationship that's going so well that I live with the person and I
- speakerlike I have to jump through all these hoops.
- speakerWhy?
- speakerIf there's something wrong with my qualifications, if I'm mentally unfit,
- speakerif I need to go to therapy or something like that, that's one thing.
- speakerBut this was just so much extra and stupid.
- speakerAnd anyway, it worked.
- speakerAnd so that was great. And I
- speakergot through most things.
- speakerI've made it all the way to certified.
- speakerWithout really a problem for my Presbytery.
- speakerI don't remember
- speakerthe exact dates of everything. But I think I got certified in
- speakereffect right after my birthday.
- speakerSo was it like in November and in the February after that, I got engaged.
- speakerAnd so I was working.
- speakerI 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.
- speakerAnd I work at now records.
- speakerI work at Records Presbyterian I was working as the director of Christian Education.
- speakerAre they a welcoming congregation?
- speakerYeah, Rutgers is so welcoming that I walked into my interview and
- speakerthey told me that we are a progressive, welcoming Presbyterian
- speakerchurch. Do you have a problem with that? Like they they made sure before we even started
- speakerthe interview that I knew who they were because if that was gonna
- speakerbe a problem then this interview wasn't gonna happen.
- speakerAnd then I responded. Yes.
- speakerAnd then their first real question was, what something in your in
- speakeryour week that has brought you joy?
- speakerAnd I responded that I hosted a drag show.
- speakerSo they I knew who they were at the beginning.
- speakerThey knew who I was at the beginning. And we clearly get along really well.
- speakerSo much that they ordained me.
- speakerBut back at that time, I was working at the church.
- speakerI got ordained and I was talking with Janet Edwards.
- speakerShe and I know each other now. We're friends. And she suggested that I tell one
- speakerof the members of my care team because that was one of Janet's good friends.
- speakerAnd so I told her that I was getting married.
- speakerAnd I told her to who. And she
- speakerwas really excited about it. She said she said congratulations.
- speakerShe wanted to know when I was coming home so we could meet for lunch and
- speakerdiscuss things and celebrate and all that. And then she asked, could she tell the other
- speakermember of my care team? And he was very nice to me.
- speakerHe was an older guy,
- speakerreally liked my energy, really liked that I work with children and youth.
- speakerOne of those guys who, like you are the future of the church kind of people.
- speakerAnd then he found out that I was getting married to a woman.
- speakerAnd the good news is he didn't try to mess anything up.
- speakerThe bad news is he immediately resigned from my care team.
- speakerSo he could have been a lot worse.
- speakerBut also whoever I was before that didn't matter anymore.
- speakerAnd then later on I found out that if I had just come
- speakerout, but I had been single, he could have lived with that.
- speakerBut because I was getting married that's the part he couldn't stand by.
- speakerPotentially because he couldn't handle the idea of not being able to take
- speakera celibacy clause or something like that, which once again,
- speakerwhat in the world are we, are you doing?
- speakerI'm not a totally different person. And honestly, if you're.
- speakerWhy are you worried about what anybody is doing behind closed doors?
- speakerAnd if you're really all that worried about it, please go talk to your candidates who are
- speakerstraight. I guarantee you they have much more interesting things to say.
- speakerSo thankfully, I got through that.
- speakerThat was sort of one of the hardest parts of it.
- speakerMy church began
- speakerexploring a way to ordain me,
- speakerand so at the same time Janet Edwards was trying to think of a way
- speakerto do some philanthropy within the denomination that was going to help
- speakerout particularly people of color and younger folks.
- speakerAnd what she came up with was a fellowship.
- speakerSo there's a fellowship through Auburn Seminary for LGBT
- speakerfolks. I think also people of color.
- speakerI think that's like specifically stipulated in there, like LGBT and/or people of color.
- speakerIt might specifically be for like millennials and younger generation.
- speakerI'm not 100 percent sure, but basically it helps pay the salaries
- speakerfor three years for churches who are willing to ordain folks,
- speakerbut maybe don't have them in the budget for that.
- speakerOr that's a little more complicated because we're the least likely to get calls.
- speakerThere are lots of folks who support same sex marriage, support LGBT ordination,
- speakerand then when the LGBT folks go to apply, they never hear back
- speakerand then their straight friend has the job three months later
- speakerand so us getting calls is really, really difficult.
- speakerAnd so they were working on creating this fellowship position for me based on
- speakerthe job that I'd already had and then expanding that into a bigger position and expanding
- speakerinto some outreach with other churches, including Broadway.
- speakerAnd we got hung up in COM.
- speakerWhat's that?
- speakerCommittee on Ministry. So they're the ones who get the say when a church decides that
- speakerthey want to start a new position or get rid of a position or bring in a new minister
- speakeror anything like that the COM is the committee that interviews
- speakerthem and says, OK, you can do that.
- speakerAnd so COM hung my church up
- speakerand my ordination process up for about two years.
- speakerAnd that's a really complicated situation.
- speakerTheir argument for those on the committee who were
- speakerstopping us was that we weren't doing things in order, that we were
- speakergoing against the Book of Order, which we weren't.
- speakerIf you were going based on a Book of Order from maybe 10 years ago, fine.
- speakerBut the most updated Books of Order at that time, because we were doing a
- speakernon-installed position because it was a fellowship there was nothing telling us that we
- speakerthat we couldn't proceed.
- speakerAnd so we kept getting stuck.
- speakerAnd it was really, really frustrating.
- speakerAnd still thinking about it is really frustrating because it's one of those things where
- speakerit felt like we were being treated differently and it felt like there was discrimination
- speakerhappening, but you couldn't prove it.
- speakerSo it wasn't that somebody was giving me a hard time
- speakerbecause I'm a Black woman.
- speakerIt wasn't overtly anyway.
- speakerIt wasn't that they were giving our church a hard time for being a progressive, affirming
- speakerchurch with I don't know 30 to 50 percent of the church is
- speakerprobably queer. It wasn't that.
- speakerWe couldn't say that.
- speakerWhat I could say is that I watched my
- speakercolleagues who were straight white men get
- speakerpassed through COM with no problem.
- speakerAnd they had positions that weren't at churches.
- speakerWe had somebody who passed through, no
- speakerproblem and he was working at a seminary.
- speakerMeanwhile, we were being told that we had to prove that what I was doing needed to be
- speakerordained, that children's ministry should be an ordained
- speakerministry from a church.
- speakerAnd so it was one of those situations where I just couldn't
- speakerdo anything except for just keep restrategizing.
- speakerAnd it was really, really hard because it felt like there wasn't anything
- speakerthat I could do. I couldn't fix it.
- speakerI couldn't change anybody's mind. I was getting sort of pushed out of the process and
- speakerbeing told to let the church handle it, which was the correct answer.
- speakerBut at the same time, this is my life on the line.
- speakerI don't. And like, I didn't know if I couldn't get ordained at this church
- speakerwhere I was gonna go. I have a wife who's a minister, who's also a minister
- speakerin the Unitarian Church. So we have to figure out dual calls.
- speakerIf this church that's this loving and affirming like this is sort of an ideal place to be
- speakerif I can't go here who was going to want me?
- speakerAnd what compromises am I going to make? And I got really depressed and
- speakerfrustrated, and I almost quit the church over that.
- speakerAnd I realize that there are people who had it a lot harder.
- speakerThere are folks who who have been in process for 10,
- speaker15, 20 years over stuff like this.
- speakerAnd it's really overt.
- speakerAnd I don't mean to compare my journey to theirs, but it was just one of those situations
- speakerwhere I wish they could have just said, this is because you're Black.
- speakerThis is because you're a woman. This is because you're going into a ministry we don't
- speakerrespect. This is because you're a queer person.
- speakerBecause at least then I would have known instead of just sitting there trying
- speakerto figure out, am I being discriminated against or is it just me?
- speakerAnd that really hard.
- speakerAnd like I said
- speakerwe started that process and it took about two, two and a half years.
- speakerI had a professor, an old professor who
- speakerwas on that committee who had been trying to help. And he is a God send.
- speakerStraight white male was the most
- speakerhelpful person, amazingly enough.
- speakerAnd he had gotten a new job and he was transferring Presbyteries and he had like one last
- speakeridea. And the
- speakernight of the meeting, that afternoon they sent the paperwork in
- speakerfor him to transfer Presbytery. So in theory, he wasn't on the committee anymore.
- speakerAnd by the grace of God, they let him present his compromise.
- speakerAnd the committee accepted it.
- speakerAnd the minute they accepted the compromise, everything happened very, very quickly.
- speakerSo they accepted the compromise.
- speakerThey immediately accepted our proposal.
- speakerThe next COM meeting.
- speakerI went before the committee with my statement of faith.
- speakerThey approved me a couple weeks later.
- speakerI was in front of the presbytery. They asked me a couple questions.
- speakerThey approved me three weeks later.
- speakerIt was like right after Valentine's Day. it was right after a Black Panther came out so
- speakerit was the most Black History Month celebration we could have had. I took a plane home and I got ordained.
- speakerSo we went from two years to two months of getting things done.
- speakerWhat was that compromise?
- speakerThey came up with a list of criteria.
- speakerThey came up with this list of criteria of
- speakerwhat someone would have to meet for them to approve them for
- speakerthis.
- speakerFor a non-installed position without doing a search or something like that.
- speakerLike it was something really, really procedural.
- speakerAnd then once they got past that, everything was fine.
- speakerLike it went through
- speakerafter that, which was great because it
- speakeranswered the question that it wasn't me.
- speakerThat it wasn't my call or my skills that were in question here.
- speakerI don't know if it was my identity or not because like I said, I saw folks get through
- speakerwith harder to
- speakerargue calls I would say. They're not invalid, but doing
- speakerchurch work with children in a church, doesn't feel
- speakerlike it should require a lot of argument for ministry and yet it did.
- speakerWhereas other things didn't. For whatever reasons.
- speakerSo that all happened really, really quick.
- speakerIn the meantime, I had I watched
- speakerpretty much all of my straight friends get ordained.
- speakerI watched the first three
- speakerout, Black folks or Black men get ordained and the first
- speakerout Black woman since the rule change or possibly ever get ordained.
- speakerAnd we are all friends with each other.
- speakerAnd like even the
- speakerfirst out, Black woman and I joke because if the timeline
- speakerhad been different, we would have been switched.
- speakerBut her Presbytery had their act together and were willing
- speakerto work with her and ours wasn't
- speakerand literally something as simple as that changed
- speakerthe order of our ordination by about a year.
- speakerBut she did do the charge in my ordination that was pretty awesome.
- speakerI was going to ask if you wanted to talk a little bit about your ordination service.
- speakerYes, I do. That was fun.
- speakerSo after all of that,
- speakerI decided that I was to try some things and
- speakerask forgiveness and not permission.
- speakerAnd so I
- speakerwas looking through the documents for Pittsburgh Presbytery, because I got ordained in Pittsburgh around
- speakerwhat the Commission for Ordination needed to look like.
- speakerAnd it said something that it
- speakerhad to reflect the diversity of the presbytery. Pittsburgh is a pretty white city.
- speakerThe Presbytery is really white.
- speakerEven for the city. And so I suspect
- speakerthat what that actually is, therefore, is you can't just have all white people and you
- speakercan't just have old men. I was like, alright.
- speakerLet's try something else.
- speakerAnd so I submitted my commission.
- speakerIt was all women.
- speakerAnd I had a former
- speakermember of my care team, not the guy who quit, one of the women who was on beforehand, who
- speakerhad rotated off and then rotated back on because I was
- speakerunder care for like six or seven years. So I invited her to do it.
- speakerI invited Shanea Leonard, who is
- speakerone of, they're an out Black pastor.
- speakerThey work in Louisville now but they were in Pittsburgh at
- speakerthat point. I e-mailed the pastor and said, hey, can your daughter be in it?
- speakerShe was on session. I got two of the ministers
- speakerfrom my church to do it. So we had queer people, we had straight people, we had
- speakeryoung people, we had old people. We had married, unmarried, as
- speakerdiverse as we possibly could get. And just no guys. And I submitted it and was
- speakerlike, all right, we'll see what happens.
- speakerAnd a little while later, I get a phone call from
- speakermy friend Heather, who had been married, had been
- speakermy youth leader when I was a teenager, and then my boss and now my friend.
- speakerBut she was also the former moderator of the Pittsburgh Presbytery.
- speakerAnd she called on behalf of the Presbytery because
- speakerthey had received my list.
- speakerAnd the guy who was in charge of that, who I know, he and I are friendly,
- speakerwas sort of worried because he had known what I'd gone through and
- speakerhe didn't want anything else to stand in the way. And so he took one look at the list and
- speakerwas like, she can't do that. Like, this is the most diverse list I've
- speakerever seen. And also she can't. Can she do that?
- speakerI don't think she can do that. And Heather's just like, let me call her.
- speakerAnd so Heather calls me and she says, can
- speakerI take a guess as to why you did this?
- speakerIt's like, yeah, go for it.
- speakerAnd she says, so I'm gonna say it like, these are the people who are meaningful to you.
- speakerAnd also, like in
- speakerthis particular circumstance, there is a double standard having historically majority men
- speakerlike this sort of inverts that.
- speakerSo it's not it's not a one for one kind of thing. Absolutely.
- speakerAnd it's like yeah all the people who are the most meaningful to me are not guys.
- speakerAnd this represents the
- speakertypes of people, including these specific individuals that helped me in my ordination
- speakerprocess and helped me get through all these things and remind me of why I do my work.
- speakerAnd she said all that back to me. And I was like yeah, you got it.
- speakerAnd she's like, great. I'm just gonna go make that argument for you. It's like, cool.
- speakerI'll talk to you in a couple days.
- speakerAnd so they showed that to whoever was in charge of CPM,
- speakerwhich is the committee for preparation of ministry in Pittsburgh.
- speakerAnd she took one look at the list and signed it like she did not care.
- speakerShe was like, yeah, whatever, do it.
- speakerSo I got that through. Janet Edwards preached my
- speakerordination, which apparently she had not preached in my home church in many years.
- speakerSo that was really exciting. We flew in, my friend, Annanda Barclay.
- speakerShe was the the first out person, the first Black woman
- speakerto be out for her whole process to get ordained.
- speakerAnd so she did my charge.
- speakerI had a bunch of gospel songs that were
- speakerreally meaningful to me and our church happens to have a praise band, and
- speakerso we had a combination of the organ and the praise band to make sure that all that was
- speakerin there. As far as I was concerned, I had made it this far in the presbytery.
- speakerThe Presbyterian Church had put me through so much that I was going to ask for anything
- speakerand y'all like people were gonna do it. So there
- speakerwas lots of gospel music. Like I said, Black Panther had just come out, so
- speakerall the Black people during passing of the piece were the Wakanda forever salute.
- speakerThere was a lot of talk about queerness.
- speakerThere was a lot of talk specifically about bisexuality because both my wife and I are
- speakerbisexual to the point that I would like.
- speakerI was a little bit like pleasantly unnerved by it because I wasn't used to so many people
- speakerin church using the word.
- speakerIt was such a big celebration.
- speakerAnd I remember the moment that really hit me
- speakerwas when I went up to have everyone lay their hands on me and pray.
- speakerAnd my mother went up and we had two things
- speakerset right away. My mother had been ordained as a deacon, but not an elder.
- speakerAnd so I asked, like, when we do the laying on the hands
- speakerpart I know that, like ordained people are supposed to come up, does that count Deacons?
- speakerLike, no not usually. But your mother can come up and it's like, well, also
- speakercommunion. And they're like, yeah, she can serve.
- speakerAnd so I got special permission for my mother to serve communion with me because I
- speakercouldn't think of anything more powerful than being able to serve communion alongside my
- speakermom. And so she comes up and my mother is a very
- speakerloving, lovely woman.
- speakerShe doesn't cry.
- speakerLike I've seen her cry a few times and it's really shocking
- speakerwhen it happens, just because that's not the kind of person she is.
- speakerIt's got to be something really big.
- speakerAnd so she gets up and I think my wife is at my back and my mother was in front of me and
- speakershe puts her hands on me and I look up and she's sobbing
- speakerand I look at her and I lose it because I mean, I knew that
- speakermy mother loved me and I knew she supported me on the journey, but I didn't know how much
- speakerthis meant to her until we were in the moment.
- speakerAnd it
- speakerwas just really.Like
- speakerpowerful doesn't describe it like I'm never going to
- speakerhave a moment like that again.
- speakerI'm going to take that with me for the rest of my life and then getting to serve
- speakercommunion with her afterwards was just so meaningful.
- speakerAnd then even with the the the presiding over
- speakercommunion, I did that with Annanda. So it's two Black queer women presiding over
- speakercommunion. And I'd written the liturgy in such a way so that everybody was saying the
- speakerwords of institution together, specifically because I had waited for so damn long
- speakerto be able to say these words.
- speakerAnd it's like the fact that I couldn't do this, even though I was qualified, even though
- speakerI was called, was so frustrating. I was like, you know what?
- speakerMy first act as an ordained minister is going to make sure that everybody in this room
- speakergets to do the one thing that I been waiting for six, seven years to do.
- speakerWe are all going to do this together because we are all ordained by God in some way.
- speakerAnd so just getting to do that getting to do that with my mom and with my friends and
- speakerhave this celebration of Black queerness was awesome.
- speakerWell, I was going to ask, and you mentioned a little bit about how the
- speakerordination service was really affirming of bisexuality.
- speakerDid you feel like within the movement working for LGBTQ rights like you had to really
- speakerpush for bivisibility?
- speakerYes. So the
- speakerthing that we keep discussing, I keep discussing with some of my other queer
- speakerBlack clergy friends in the denomination is whether or not
- speakerI'm the first Black bi person.
- speakerAnd no one seems to know because we don't we can't find another one.
- speakerSo like we we don't like there's so there's got to be maybe somebody somewhere, but we
- speakerdon't know.
- speakerAnd so like maybe. Maybe not.
- speakerWe don't.
- speakerI don't actually know.
- speakerAnd I think there's a visibility issue in that there's not that many of
- speakerus. I know some white folks, including Janet.
- speakerBut it's in comparison to
- speakergay and lesbians specifically, there just aren't a ton of us like around, which is
- speakerinteresting because in theory we make up most of the LGBT
- speakerpopulace or the LGB population.
- speakerTrans folks fall into all of those things as well.
- speakerAnd it's always sort of.
- speakerIt goes everywhere from the really micro aggression thing of like we are
- speakergay and we are straight and gay like, no, you're not straight and gay.
- speakerThere are other things, too.
- speakerAre you trying to be inclusive or are you just reciting off platitudes?
- speakerPlease stop. To having to dispel
- speakermyths about what bisexuality is. I think people get real scared about that
- speakerbecause gay and lesbian are homosexuality.
- speakerBut you can. There are other words for those things that don't have the word sex in them.
- speakerAnd so we don't have to be scared of those things.
- speakerBut people get nervous about bisexuality because it has the word sex in it and you can't
- speakerget around that. And also because folks don't necessarily understand it.
- speakerAnd my reaction to that is to be extra super loud
- speakerabout it. There's literally a video online with my boss
- speakerand I called Ask a Bisexual.
- speakerIt's real fun. You should find it.
- speakerBut I think I think it's one of those things where
- speakerwe're dealing with the same stuff that that bi folks in the community at large are
- speakerdealing with.
- speakerAnd also, we have to be able to translate some of those things into
- speakerchurch language and get people to sort of I mean, stop being scared of sex in general,
- speakerbut stop being scared of the word bi just because it has the word sex in it and not
- speakerthinking that just because you say like gay and lesbian that you've covered us.
- speakerI mean, some people say gay, lesbian and trans to try and be more inclusive.
- speakerAnd it's like, yes, please put my trans siblings in there.
- speakerBut also I'm still here and I'm none of those things.
- speakerSo, like, if you're gonna make me read this, can I put myself into it, please?
- speakerAnd so there's been a lot of stuff with that.
- speakerBut also it leaves me like some pretty fun opportunities for education
- speakerand just for exploration.
- speakerI remember I when I came out at my home church in Pittsburgh long before I got ordained,
- speakerI had two high school students come out to me and both as bi
- speakerand it was really, really exciting.
- speakerI even had one of them...How did he describe...
- speakerI'm not fifty percent straight. I'm not fifty percent gay.
- speakerI'm 100 percent both. It's like the humanity and divinity of Jesus.
- speakerAnd that came from like a 15 year old kid.
- speakerAnd so like on the one hand, yeah, we're not
- speakersuper visible and the church doesn't really get us
- speakeras a community, as if there's not multiple people of different perspectives.
- speakerBut also, on the other hand, we get stuff like that where
- speakerwe get to be with folks as they're evolving
- speakerand get to hear all these really interesting theology that nobody is really thinking of
- speakerbecause nobody was really thinking about bisexuality.
- speakerAnd we get to talk about those and we get to create them and we get to see ourselves in
- speakerscripture, in places that nobody else is seeing us.
- speakerAnd I find it really exciting, frustrating,
- speakerbut exciting.
- speakerWell I guess I'll just ask one last question here, I did want to talk about
- speakerhow you started serving on the More Light board and the work you do for More Light.
- speakerSo I was volunteering at a summer camp
- speakerand I got this phone call.
- speakerI was in the middle of nowhere in the woods.
- speakerAnd the call was sort of
- speakerfreaky from Alex McNeill, who I had met several years before
- speakerthat through that Presbyterian Welcome/Parity, we called it gay camp.
- speakerI'm sure it had a different name than that.
- speakerBut I had met Alex through there a while ago.
- speakerI'd known him for a while. And I had known that he had become the executive director
- speakerof More Light, and I liked sent him congratulations.
- speakerI was really happy for him. I was really impressed because he is not much older than me.
- speakerI was just like, yeah, Alex, way to go.
- speakerAnd so I get this really shaky phone call in the middle of the woods from Alex and I can
- speakerbarely decipher what he is asking.
- speakerBut at some point I sort of hear something about More Light board and I'm like,
- speakerwhat? 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
- speakeranything nationally.
- speakerI wasn't on any committees. I wasn't even ordained like.
- speakerYou sure you called the right person? But he did.
- speakerAnd I asked if I could think about it, and he said, OK.
- speakerBut not for too long. And I'm like, all right.
- speakerI don't know what a board does, but I do like More Light and I do want to do the work.
- speakerSo what happens if I say yes?
- speakerSo I said yes.
- speakerAnd so I signed up and I
- speakerwent to my first board meeting
- speakerand honestly, being on More Light board has
- speakerbeen one of the most meaningful experiences of my life.
- speakerI learned the
- speakermore traditional aspects of being on a board about fundraising and all of that.
- speakerThat's not a skill that comes naturally to me.
- speakerThat's not one of my gifts. But I learned about that.
- speakerBut what I did learn that plays into my skills and gifts is
- speakerthat I have a passion for this stuff.
- speakerAnd I have a passion for being able to go out to people and
- speakerto make these connections and to be able to go to General Assembly, to go to a
- speakerconference, to go out somewhere in the world and be able to say, oh, you have a question
- speakerabout this. Let me, I'm on the board of More Light, let me introduce you to Alex.
- speakerLet me put you in contact with these people.
- speakerLet me help get you these resources that your church is going
- speakerto need to have the conversations that you're interested in having.
- speakerI've been on videos with More Light.
- speakerI've done workshops and teach-ins online.
- speakerI've gotten to help out at General Assembly.
- speakerI get to do all of these really exciting things with them.
- speakerThat has just been really incredible.
- speakerAnd it's just a whole different form of ministry than I was even expecting it to be.
- speakerAnd then I also get to pull More Light into places that people are not necessarily
- speakerexpecting More Light to be.
- speakerSo I'm currently on the task force through the denomination.
- speakerI forget the exact title, but it's basically exploring the plight of Black women and
- speakergirls.
- speakerAnd to be able to go into those meetings and when we're working on our documents or
- speakermeeting with people and being able to say like we can make a recommendation and I can
- speakertell you right now More Light will help with this. I've already been I've already
- speakerdiscussed it with the board. Whatever you need them
- speakerto do in terms of helping Black, queer and trans women put their name in the document, I
- speakerwill go back to them and tell them what we're doing and we're doing it.
- speakerAnd so being able to think about sexual orientation and gender identity and whatnot
- speakerbeyond just the issues that affect us, which people think are ordination
- speakerand marriage, but also include mental
- speakerhealth, that includes issues of race,
- speakerissues around homelessness, around the
- speakerprison industrial complex, around so many different things.
- speakerI mean, even to make those connections, which is something that More Light already is
- speakertrying to do to begin with, but getting to be part of that and getting
- speakerto be a catalyst for that, part of a solution in how we're going to deal with these
- speakerinterconnected problems has been absolutely
- speakerincredible and has made me consider what
- speakerI want to add to my own ministry beyond just being on the More Light board and how I want
- speakerto take the things that I have learned from being on this board and apply that to my own
- speakerlife.