Amid all the fundamentalist Ellenphobia, with its viciousness as well as adolescent jokes — like Jerry Falwell’s calling her “Ellen DeGenerate” — one sad but overlooked consequence to fundamentalism’s unpreparedness for homosexuality even within its own community is the fact that the father of actress Anne Heche, Ellen DeGeneres’s girlfriend, was a fundamentalist minister who admitted to a gay double life before he died of AIDS.
“Father Fluff plays God and automatically places ‘good ole Charlie’ in Heaven with the angels and saints — especially if Charlie was ‘martyred’ by AIDS — and never mind that everyone knows Charlie was a scoundrel and never darkened the door of Father’s church.” With these words, the New Oxford Review is soliciting subscribers. The self-styled “orthodox Catholic monthly” blames “mod” Catholicism for driving down Catholic church attendance and for Catholics’ “jump[ing] ship for, say, an Evangelical church.” Bragging that “it takes cheek to mention hellfire and brimstone, especially in an ad!,” the New Oxford Review says, “give us a try!”
“Prayer Won’t Cure AIDS. Research Will.” So much opposition was voiced over this slogan in an ad campaign for more AIDS research that the Dallas and Fort Worth transit authorities have nixed the campaign. The director of the local chapter of the Religious Right’s American Family Association said the ad was “a swipe in the face of praying people.” There was little criticism of the other two slogans in the campaign: “Red Ribbons Won’t Cure AIDS” and “Sexual Abstinence Won’t Cure AIDS” — both followed with the tag: “Research Will.”
The wife of Magic Johnson, in an Ebony magazine piece, talks about the undetectability of HIV in the latest blood tests of the former basketball superstar. Cookie Johnson says: “They think its the medicine. … We claim it in the name of Jesus.”
AIDS is now the leading cause of death among blacks aged 25 to 44. That’s higher than homicide, heart disease and accidents combined. Blacks make up only 12 percent of Americans but 40 percent of all AIDS cases. Of all children with AIDS, 60 percent are black children. Some leaders in the black community are now calling for an all-out effort to fight what one calls the worst killer of blacks since slavery. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., head of Harvard’s black studies department, told a recent AIDS conference for blacks: “I want to come down hard on our leaders about their homophobia. It’s an embarrassment to be a black person when the leadership is not countering homophobia.” Psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint agreed: “It’s outrageous [how black leaders] have done nothing.” Pernessa Seele of The Balm of Gilead, an organization that mobilizes black churches against AIDS, recalls the end of a winter retreat: “There were some real hard ministers,” she says, “but at the end, when we stood up and held hands, some of them began to cry. One dropped to his knees and began to repent for how he had treated people with AIDS, gay people and addicts. He had kicked them out of his church, and now he asked God to forgive him for condemning instead of healing. Other ministers began to drop to their knees, too, saying, ‘I’ve been wrong. Oh God, forgive me.”’
Concessions such as “ex-gay” leader Frank Worthen’s granting that “we do not attempt to make heterosexuals out of homosexuals” have not dampened antigay enthusiasm for the “ex-gay” movement. The brochure pushing the 1997 Exodus “ex-gay” conference at Asbury College still promises “Freedom from homosexuality.” But according to Worthen, “we attempt to change a person’s identity, the way a person looks at himself.”
“Ex-gay” Jim Shores reports on his on-again-off-again wedding plans and gay “fast lane” one-night stands and illegal drugs in a recent issue of the Exodus “ex-gay” Update. Of course “the more sex [he] had, the less satisfying it became.” Finally, he says, “we cautiously got engaged [and] married in 1992.” He concludes his “ex-gay” testimony by stating: “Is my life free from any pull toward homosexuality? No. It’s still difficult at times. But despite the temptations, I know the truth.” As Worthen and other “ex-gay” leaders say, it’s changing the terms by which one defines self and not changing attraction to same-sex persons that is the “ex-gay” goal.
When Reprise recording artist Jallen Rix left Desert Stream, an “ex-gay” group in California, he thought he “had failed God. But in that ‘failure’ I discovered God’s presence.” He recounts the group’s cultic aspects: “Common-sense questions about inconsistencies brought shocked and defensive responses … . Leaders demanded near-desperate loyalty” and there was “the expectation that personal feeling, thinking, common-sense and reality took second-place to the interpretations offered by the group. … They approved what we could read and who we could see.” Rix remembers that “a new male recruit would be paired with an older man. Theoretically, this older ‘role model’ replaced the younger man’s dysfunctional father-image, filling the void and bringing ‘healing’ for the younger man in need of fatherly attention. Obviously, bonding was so strong and ‘friendships’ got so close (at times with the participants even living together) that in almost every way the two men maintained a gay relationship.” According to Rix, no one really changed: “they’re still gay.”
“I know it’s not going to be easy, but I’m committed,” says “ex-gay” Jaime Gonzalez. “The hardest thing for me now is not sexualizing images. … I have to stop myself when I get to the point of thinking, ‘I wonder if he’s gay, I wonder what it would be like to jump into bed with him.’ … I have to keep myself busy. … I don’t know if I’ll ever be rid of these feelings.” According to the Religious Right magazine, World, his father, a Texas Supreme Court Justice, “says he wants more grandchildren and he hopes Jaime will someday provide them; Jaime is visibly bothered by his father’s talk of cure and recovery.” World admits that “Jaime says he still struggles with same-sex attraction” but it nevertheless pushes the notion that he’s now “out of the homosexual lifestyle.” Both Gonzalezes are involved with a new organization called PFOX — Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays. The elder Gonzalez reportedly “blames himself” for what World calls “Jaime’s skewed sexual orientation.” Against the best scientific evidence, they were told at the PFOX convention that “homosexuality is often the result of a weak or nonexistent bond between a son and his father during the first three years.”
A former Homosexuals Anonymous leader says he lost several HA friends to suicide. Kurt Jacobowitz-Cain explains that these HA members were trying to be “ex-gay” but were leading double lives. He says that throughout his own time in HA, “my fantasy life was all about men.”
Continuing to push “ex-gay” promises, Christianity Today included Sy Rogers, a former president of the Exodus “ex-gay” network, among its “50 Evangelical Leaders 40 and Under” in a recent cover-story on “Up & Comers” that accompanied three specifically antigay articles. The magazine later published a letter noting the inclusion of “so many women and minorities” among the “Up & Comers.” Said the letter-writer: “I sense this would not have been the case a generation ago.”
Right-wing religionist Donald Wildmon’s American Family Association recently sponsored an “ex-gay” rally in Colorado Springs. It drew some 90 people to hear Michael Johnson, a “former homosexual” living with AIDS. But only about 25 attended the follow-up sessions. Johnson is credited with founding “Coming Out of Homosexuality Day.”
An ex-“ex-gay” Web site is operated by former “ex-gay” Doug Upchurch. It is located at www.members.aol.com/exexgay.
John Leo is the conservative journalist whose “On Society” column appears each week in U.S. News & World Report. Responding to the Ellen phenomenon, Leo defends the presentation of the Ellen story “as a social breakthrough against prejudice.” Though he expresses reservations about “the social impact” in some regards, he says that “this is certainly a valid narrative line. Bias and the denial of rights are real, and straights have a lot to answer for in their historic cruelty towards gays.”
The president of The American Chesterton Society, Dale Ahlquist, urges that readers of the ACS’s newsletter write letters to newspaper and magazine editors protesting “the glorification of Ellen DeGenerate.” In calling DeGeneres “DeGenerate,” he’s repeating, without attribution, Jerry Falwell’s mean-spirited name-calling that reminded DeGeneres of the adolescent humor of her junior high school days. But Ahlquist tells his readers to quote Chesterton, with attribution, and “don’t sound like a crank.” Ahlquist’s suggested GKC quote: “A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice.” By “new philosophy” he doesn’t mean the Religious Right and by “old vice” he doesn’t mean pride. Here’s Ralph Blair’s suggested Chesterton quote for Ahlquist’s reflection: “It is pride to think that a thing looks ill because it does not look like something characteristic of oneself.”
Virginia Ramey Mollenkott shares her personal responses to the self-revelations of the two Ellens in “Ellen, Embodiment, and God’s Inclusiveness” in this summer’s The Other Side magazine. “I came of age in the 1940s and 1950s, discovering my own sexuality at a time when only negative information was available to me. I had no community connections and no hope. I was one of the many gay teenagers who have attempted suicide, because we cannot fit in — one of those to whom Ellen dedicated her dual coming-out. When the shows ended, I sat thinking about the parties that were occurring all over the country at that very minute. I thought of the many gay women and men celebrating perhaps the most public affirmation we had ever received.” She goes on to say that “Ellen DeGeneres, her family, her cast, and her interviewer had embodied for prime-time U.S. television a spirit of reconciliation that is a major sign of God’s kin-dom.”
The Southern Baptist boycott of The Walt Disney Company is not supported by all 16 million Southern Baptists — most especially in Orlando where many of them work for Disney. Others object that they’re now expected to cancel Disney-owned ESPN, A&E, Lifetime television and everything on ABC, not to mention deprive their kids of Disney World, Disneyland, and the summer’s treat, “Hercules.” But SBC president Tom Elliff of Oklahoma compares support of Disney to “associating with prostitutes.” To him, Disney is “a purveyor of pornography.” Another SBC executive, Richard Land, asserts: “You can’t walk the family side of the street and the gay side at the same time.” Meanwhile, James Brock, who was a Southern Baptist minister for 30 years and now serves a mainly lesbian/gay congregation of the Metropolitan Community Church, notes: “When I first started preaching 48 years ago, divorce was a big issue for Southern Baptists and homosexuality was not talked about. Unfortunately, gay people are now the number one scapegoats for mainline religion.” He added: “The whole world … is dying and going to hell and they spent three days talking about Disney. What does that say?”
The gay son of a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention recently shared his story of reconciliation with God and his family. Skip Allen did so in his first Baptist meeting in 25 years of struggle with faith, being gay and being now HIV+. The meeting was sponsored by the gay/lesbian Southern Baptist (unofficial) support group called Honesty. Another Honesty meeting featured Timothy Seelig, the director of the gay/ lesbian Turtle Creek Chorale and Women’s Chorus of Dallas and son of the vice-president of the SBC’s Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth.
Oakhurst Baptist Church of Decatur Georgia has ordained openly gay member Chris Copeland. Oakhurst is dually aligned with the Southern Baptists and the American Baptists. A Wake Forest graduate, Copeland is the first Baptist to be elected president of the student body of Candler Seminary at Emory University, a United Methodist institution.
When fellow ministers threatened to reveal his homosexuality to his Southern Baptist congregation two years ago, Mike Castle resigned. He has now been ordained by the United Church of Christ and is beginning a new UCC congregation in Dayton, Ohio.
A ban on ordaining gay men and lesbians was lifted by American Baptist Churches of Metro Chicago in March. After four years of dialogue involving local churches, an overwhelming majority supported the lifting of the ban and that now leaves the issue of the sexual orientation of a candidate for ordination up to the local sponsoring congregation.
James A. Forbes, Jr., senior minister of The Riverside Church in New York City, was the preacher at a worship service sponsored by the lesbian/gay-supportive Association of Welcoming & Affirming Baptists at this summer’s Biennial meeting of the American Baptist Churches USA held in Indianapolis.
The Presbyterian Church USA has approved a compromise on its latest antigay amendment. At General Assembly in Syracuse in June, delegates voted to require church officers to demonstrate “fidelity and integrity in marriage or singleness, and all relationships of life” rather than fidelity within marriage or chastity in singleness. But the fight continues.
A gay Evangelical Lutheran pastor in Ames, Iowa has the support of his congregation over efforts of his bishop to seek his resignation over his sexuality. Says Steven Sabin, who has pastored the church for 12 years, “God calls gays and lesbians to the ministry and it’s time the church recognized that.”
The Reformed Church in America approved, in June, an interdenominational accord with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America toward what could become a unity agreement including the Presbyterian Church USA and the United Church of Christ. But since the UCC has a policy permitting the ordination of practicing gays and lesbians, the RCA made sure to register its exemption from that part of RCA-UCC ministerial exchange. The 300,000-member RCA — America’s oldest Protestant church — does not permit sexually-active gay men and lesbians to fill its pulpits.
World-renowned composer and hymnologist Brian Wren has written two hymn texts for lesbian/gay-supportive churches. They are titled: “Great Love, Your Loveliness is Signed” and “Come, Let Us Welcome, With Warm Acclamation.” They will be sung for the first time this summer at the United Church Coalition for Lesbian/Gay Concerns conference in Ohio.
The New Jersey Gay Men’s Chorus has recorded “Prayers for Bobby: A Choral Celebration” narrated by Marlo Thomas. The work is based on letters of the mother of a gay son. At age 16, Bobby revealed to his parents that he was gay. They sent him to a church that was bent on “healing” him. He was not able to become “ex-gay” and he became depressed over the rejection within his Christian community. At age 21 his agony became too much for him and he jumped off a bridge into the path of a speeding semi-trailer.
A scheduled concert by Marsha Stevens, the Christian singer and song writer who is also openly lesbian, was pulled from The Wesley Center of First Methodist Church in Lafayette, Louisiana after newspaper publicity went out that was not “low key” enough for what the Wesley Center board president called “highly vocal opposition.” The United Methodist district supervisor explained that “we can’t allow the promotion of homosexual lifestyle.” At the last minute, the concert was moved to the First Lutheran Church. Said Stevens: “I’m not here to call people to be gay. I’m here to call gay people to be Christian.” The first song Stevens ever wrote has become a contemporary Christian standard: “For Those Tears I Died (Come to the Waters).” Her latest CD is entitled “No Matter What Way!” and can be ordered from BALM Ministries, PO Box 1981, Costa Mesa, CA 92628.
Virgil Thomson lovingly wove “Yes Jesus Loves Me” and “How Firm a Foundation” into his 1928 “Symphony on a Hymn Tune.” Now a new biography has been published a year after the 100th anniversary of the composer/ critic’s birth in Kansas City. He was a man of countless acts of kindness and meanness — the latter attributed to his life-long inability to come to terms with his hidden but unhideable homosexuality. Other works by Thomson include his collaborations with Gertrude Stein — “Four Saints in Three Acts” and “The Mother of Us All” (about Susan B. Anthony) — and four songs from the poet William Blake.
David Brudnoy, the popular and conservative radio talk show host whose evening broadcasts are heard in 38 states and most of Canada, has written a lively memoir, Life is Not a Rehearsal, published by Doubleday. Brudnoy’s typically wry and thoughtful commentary runs alongside his very frank recounting of the ups and downs of his life — including drugs, his homosexuality, and his living with AIDS. Brudnoy was a courageous advocate for gay rights in the early 1970s when his pro-gay arguments were published in Bill Buckley’s National Review. He was on the Advisory Board of New York’s Homosexual Community Counseling Center rounded by Ralph Blair in 1971.
Conservative anti-Communist organizer Marvin Liebman, who late in life became active in the gay rights struggle, died of heart failure on Easter. He was 73. In 1992 he wrote an article in National Review stating: “To be gay, conservative and Republican is not a contradiction. I’m proud to be all three.” Liebman went on to say that “as far as some Republicans are concerned we [gay men and lesbians] exist not as human beings but rather as symbols of unspeakable evil and objects of hatred, bigotry and fear.” Reared as a Jew, Liebman later became a Christian.
While the Religious Right decries the influence of Hollywood’s homosexuals, politically conservative actor/director Charlton Heston, in a letter to the gay/lesbian news magazine, The Advocate, has this to say: “I know well the deep and creative involvement of the homosexual community in every aspect of film and play making, far beyond their statistical share of the general population. The arts are richer because of this. So am I.”
AND FINALLY:
“M-i-c-k-e-y M-o-u-s-e” as an offertory in a Baptist church? That’s right!..In response to the Southern Baptist’s antigay boycott of all things Disney, the organist of a Baptist church in eastern Pennsylvania wove a softly simple Mickey Mouse theme into her playing of the morning’s offertory music a few Sundays ago. Though very few in the congregation caught on, she told those who did that she was supporting her oppressed brothers and sisters whom she loved.