Spirit in Action
LGBT - Bringing One's Whole Self to God
Sit in on a panel LGBT and clergy, sponsored by the Voices of Faith program of Equality Wisconsin, on personal and church experience of Open & Affirming Congregations - and the lack of same. The panel was held at Plymouth UCC, Eau Claire on 3/24/2012.
- Broadcast on:
- 06 May 2012
- Audio Format:
- other
(upbeat music) ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ - Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark helps me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred food in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ - Today for Spirit in Action, we're going to attend a gathering called bringing one's whole self to God. Sponsored by the Voices of Faith Project of Equality Wisconsin and hosted by Plymouth United Church of Christ here in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. There's a panel of five people, folks who've been challenged in religious settings to have their full selves accepted by the community because of their sexual identity. The hope is that by getting to know one another, the barriers of fear and prejudice and mutual rejection can be reduced and eliminated and that we can all draw closer to the God of Love in the process. In case you think I'm slacking on this program because I'm only part of the audience, you'll hear my voice in there too when it comes to question and answer time. Right now, get ready to hear the personal stories from the oft victimized sexual minorities of the LGBT community at the event called bringing one's whole self to God. On behalf of us of Plymouth United Church of Christ, welcome to our panel discussion this morning. And many thanks to our panelists. Thank you for being here. Our panelists are, we have Eric Nielsen, pastor at First Presbyterian Church. Carol Schuacher from Eau Claire, Unitarian Church, her partner, Reverend Virginia Woolf, retired from the Unitarian Church and Anne-Marie Hepner. So, welcome in, are you also Unitarian? - First Lutheran. - First Lutheran, okay. Very good. We're gonna hear from Rebecca Carol, Virginia and Anne-Marie, just hear your stories, take about 10 minutes. And then after other stories have been shared, then give Eric a chance to talk about some of the things went out in his church and some theological, and then Eric in Virginia can talk about some of the theological churchy side of the LGBT issue being open and welcoming what churches can do, what has been done, what needs to be done. And then we'll open it up for a question and answers. After that, I'm gonna turn it all over to you. We'll let whoever would like to go first go first. - Okay, my name is Anne Hepner, I'm a lifelong resident of Eau Claire. I fought my issues since I was five years old. I'm a male to female transsexual. Been married, well, this coming November will be married 44 years. My wife did stay with me, and we did have our marriage license corrected. So it kind of blows everything out of the water as far as Wisconsin's concerned. And we have two children, four grandchildren, and everybody seems to be very accepting. What I did lose, I lost my business. I had a rather large insurance agency in Eau Claire. I'd been in the insurance business for over 30 some years. And so when I lost my business, my partners stated that they thought it would be financial ruin had I stayed. Well, guess what? It's financial ruin for them, because I left, because the agency's for sale, so anyway. And I'm not buying it, so. In my floundering, what I was really gonna do, I went to school and became an electrologist. Hair removal, so I started that, and you can't teach an old dog new tricks, 'cause I did pass my state boards, and then I passed our national. And then I opened up my studio and two other insurance agencies asked me to join them. I had several of my clients said, well, we bought insurance from you, not your gender. So that kind of helped me to get back into the business. So now, when I was struggling, I drove shuttle to the airport. I was doing insurance inspections. I was selling insurance and doing my electrolysis. Well, now I'm down to two, because things have really picked up for me. So I do insurance and electrolysis now. My wife does interior painting. She was a hairdresser for 30 some years, and she fixes my hair every morning, lucky me. Lucky I still have hair. (audience laughs) So anyway, you know, I wanna tell a joke, and I hope it's not inappropriate, but you know, men that are bald in the front are thinkers, and men that are bald in the back are lovers, and men that are totally bald think they're lovers. (audience laughs) So anyway, I guess I don't know what else I can say. I feel that I'm trying to make a living. I belong to First Lutheran Church, and they've been accepting. In fact, my son and I are gonna play this Easter. We play trumpet. So, and I've joined the Chippewa Valley concert band, and it just seems like whatever I seem to do, I get very accepting. But my biggest struggle was voice. I ended up at the university here in Eau Claire for voice training, and I went through six semesters. And I'm not sure how this will work here. If you'll have a, this was my old voice. - Now we can have it for the golf course, or how to come for a breakfast for a good Western medicine in North Island. (audience laughs) I'm just gonna keep it track, we're gonna do it all. - Very masculine voice, and you can change it. It takes work, took me six semesters to make it work. So visually I'm very passable, and vocally I'm very passable. So, it has been rather easy for me. In the past, I've owned a martial arts school. I'm a six degree black belt in Korean Taekwondo. So many people know that too, and they don't really. (audience laughs) - What is messing with you? - One of my good friends is our county treasurer. In my second year in transition, I went into paying my taxes. He said, "Can I talk to you for a minute?" I said, "Sure." So we went into his office, and he closed the door, and he said, "You know?" He said, "When you've changed to be a woman," he said, "I wanted to kick your fanny." And I said, "Well, you know I'm a black belt." He said, "That's what stopped me." (audience laughs) I was also on the Shrine Board of Directors. I would have been ahead of the Shrine for the State of Wisconsin in 2009. And that was his comment, is he thought that I had made a very good president or potentate of the Shrine. And I said, "Well, probably most any woman would." (audience laughs) So anyway, life has been, I feel very accepting. When I had my surgery in Arizona, I just had bottom surgery in 2006. Well, I had my daughter, my granddaughter, and my wife with me. So I had a very large support entourage. And the third day after my surgery, the doctor said, "You're doing rather well, "would you mind talking to some of my other patients?" There was 12 of us on that floor at that time. And I said, "Talk about what?" Well, they're having some issues. And I said, "I'm not a therapist." He said, "Your attitude is very positive." And he said, "I just want you to just sit and chat." So one that I chatted with was a doctor. She was a GP. She said, "Within five hours of coming out," she lost her house, her kids, her wife, and her job, the hospital kicked her out. She had to relocate to another community. So I feel for a lot of these people, and but a lot of them, they struggled, but you know, to make the body congruent with what the brain is, it's quite a challenge. And I fought all my life not really knowing what was going on until I was diagnosed with GID, which is gender identity dysphoria. So whatever, it all worked. I'm glad for that. So end of my story. (audience applauds) - I began my first same sex relationship when I was 19 years old in college. I could go all the way back to when I was five and had my first awareness that I'd rather be a boy than a girl. 'Cause I think I was already moving in that direction. Anyway, what happened was we were found out, we were sent to the Dean of Women's Office back in the days when there was a Dean of Women's Office. And I think the Dean of Women was a lesbian, but nevertheless, she told us that if we didn't stay apart, we'd be expelled, and she sent us to counseling because this was in the 59 or something like that and homosexuality was still listed on the, what is it, the DM that listed as a littleness. So that ended my relationship and I began therapy and then when I graduated from the university, I was recommended to men and girls for psychoanalysis so that I could learn to be the woman that I was. And I went through three years of psychoanalysis. I was 98 pounds, back combed hair, contact lenses, high heels, and dating. Not necessarily happily dating, but dating. I thought I was fixed, I hoped I was fixed, which tells you something about the feeling of the time. I got married, I had two kids, my marriage fell apart really after about six years but we stayed together for nine and then we divorced. I met Carol about the same time that I was finishing the divorce process and I told my son's preschool teacher that I needed someone to live in my basement and help me with my kids and my house but I wasn't gonna advertise because I wanted someone special like this teacher who my son was in love with. I mean, she was terrific. So who does she recommend? But Carol Schumacher who comes and takes the position and then about six months later or no, maybe even sooner than that. And now it's just to me that she's a lesbian and that the woman visiting her in the basement is her partner. And she had to do this because David would get up and our son would get up in the morning and run downstairs and jump on the two of them. So it was good for me to know. Well, I don't know, we talked and we fell in love and we've been together for 36 years. So Carol has helped me raise my children. She has helped raise our grandchildren. We now have four, my son has two sons and our daughter has two daughters. So that's been a blessing for both of us. And in little ways at least, I think over the last few years, last maybe 15 or 20 years maybe, that we've been activist in the community to the extent that we've been able to. Well, I mean, one of the things that we did was that we went down to the courthouse and applied for a marriage license. We were encouraged to do that by ACLU, I think. But, you know, the press came and, you know, and so did our son who was in town and all kinds of friends and so forth. And that was kind of a big deal. So, but we've been in the paper over and over again. And of course, it's pretty hard not to speak out on this issue when your welfare depends on it. We still would very much like to be able to get legally married. We were married in our church. But Carol won't get my social security, for example, if I die before her, which I very much expect to do. I don't want it to be the other way. So, that's probably enough. - Okay, well, I'll just piggyback. I'm Carol Schumacher, Virginia and I've been together for 36 years, just to kind of abbreviate it. I really started to come to terms with my sexuality when I was about 16, I think. Then in high school, I sort of ignored it, tried to ignore it. Then when I went to way to college, I really couldn't ignore it anymore and became involved with another woman. And then, in Virginia, and then we became partnership, a relationship. The marriage thing here in Eau Claire has been, Virginia have been, and I've been activist as much as we can. From, it's probably been 25 years now, being on radio interviews and in the paper. And we've done all the legal things that we can to protect our relationship. We have power of attorney financially, we have power of attorney, medical, we have wills, and we both have this little packet of papers that we carry with us wherever we go. Because I think one of the things that both Virginia and I as we get older and kind of less able to, as you get older, medical issues become more important. If one of us would get sick, and we have in and out of our relationship, both of us at different times, have had to go into the hospital for emergencies and stuff. And you become more aware that you need to be able to go there and have your papers and get ready to make the decisions. And as I get older, I get a little bit more and more forceful. If I would have to go to the hospital with Virginia, I would be right, honestly, say who I was, what my relationship is, and I would expect them to treat me as the person that would make the decisions for Virginia and be a Virginia's main family member. I don't think recently we really haven't had any problems with that, with the Eau Claire medical people. I think the medical people are becoming more and more aware of it and open to it and open to diversity and stuff. And then it's Virginia and I have been together for such a long time and it feels so natural that I just kind of forget. So I just sort of treat her like my spouse wherever I go. And I kind of just forget that other people might not know that that's what's going on. It's very interesting. Once in a while, it takes me back that I get caught and aware that these people might not understand our relationship, but I think we're both nice people and pretty polite and kind of nice. And so I kind of expect everybody to treat us that way. And more than likely that's kind of how to ask Virginia and I travel, we do some tours and stuff and we've kind of learned when we travel to just sort of be kind of right up front with people right away. 'Cause I figure then that gives people to make a, they can determine how they want to treat us. And if they have a problem with it, I just kind of figure it's their problem and go away and deal with it. I don't know if that's not my problem anymore. So that's just kind of the way I've been. But it's taken lots and lots of years to sort of get to this point. So that's it. - Do you know what's interesting about the hospital? I've had two rotator cuff surgeries and my knee replaced. And the first rotator cuff, we had this minister come in just before you're gonna go into the operating room. Looks like Jane and I know, how are you two related? Jane said we're married. She made the boat turn in the boat. (laughing) - We did actually have a nurse that refused to let us be together in the emergency room. And what can I say? I just started raising hell. I was the one that was sick. Or maybe you were, I can't remember. - It was kind of years ago. So I think that they've been kind of maybe gone to a lot of diversity training or something. I don't know. - Seems to me like it doesn't phase most medical people are like, okay, whatever. - So it's your story time. - My name is Rebecca Janay, originally from Central Wisconsin from Marshfield and 30 years old. So I graduated way back in 2000 from high school and didn't come to realize or I guess have the opportunity whichever to realize I was bisexual until I think it was 2009. It was when I was about to move in with two other girls and I just was attracted to the other. One of my new roommates and a lesbian friend of mine, she teases me, she's like, yeah, you're an ally until you fell in love with your roommate. (laughing) She likes to have fun with that. But so yeah, we had a relationship for about two, two and a half years and that ended recently. And I'm a student at the University of Wisconsin here at Eau Claire. And I haven't really told many of my family members. I told my dad, I think it was Christmas 2009. Other than that, not too many friends. It was funny, the guy they did right before, my girlfriend, I told him I was all a nurse and everything, not too terribly though, 'cause he's an ally and so forth. But he's like, yeah, I knew. (laughing) It's like, you don't know where you're dating and such. I said, well, what if a dice, you know, you could've told me or something. 'Cause we always, you know, were allies together at a student organization back in UW Marshfield Eau Claire or Marshfield Wood County, sorry. I was like, well, you know, it's for you to tell me and figure it out, you're on your own. I was like, okay, I guess so. And my dad handled it fairly well. I was worried because he's always been fairly religious, but he at least told me, you know, I'm gonna love you either way and just as long as you're happy and so forth. And so he's mostly come around. But I haven't told my dad's either family which the majority of them are quite Catholic. So I haven't told him, but I think it came out down through Facebook of all the things. But yeah, nobody really has been negative and I haven't told my mom and both her and my dad, you know, they're remarried, but mostly because I don't wanna know what my stepdad's gonna say. So he's a retired Marine and just, he said all sorts of other negative things since they've loved him. Surprisingly enough found out that he's racist after all and just some other things and just very surprised. So I can only imagine what he would say and what have you. More things to cut on my mom about, I don't know. But that's pretty much it, I guess. - I just wanna add a little bit to my story. I'm trying to think of organizations that have been really, really important during this whole coming out process. And really the Unitarian Universalist Church was that one place in Eau Claire back in early 80s, late 1970s, where it could go and we could really feel accepted and it just wasn't an issue. People would sort of wanted to know about the family just in the sense that you'd wanna know about any new family that came in, you know, who's in it, what are you doing? But that we were a couple and that we had children really just was not an issue. We were just totally accepted and it was really that one. That was the one island for that number in the 80s and late 70s and the 80s that I think really, really helped because it was kind of a hard time with all the issues and the arguments back and forth and all the change that was going on. It was, that was a very important part, I think, for our family, at least Virginia and I, to have that group of people and it was, you know, the heterosexual, the straight people, the bi people, the other gay people, you know, was just not, it was just not a big deal. And it was so wonderful because I'm pretty involved in the, and kind of flowed in and out of our Sunday school, our religious education for the youth and the children. And there was never any kind of a problem with me being a teacher or me talking about my family and the kids, sort of like they just take it all and stride and it's not a big deal, it's not a big deal. And it kind of happens with all my nieces and nephews and all my great nieces and nephews. Virginia and I are just part of the family and it's just another option of the way a family can be. So anyway, I just wanted to, I was, I'm going to be in Virginia for about 100 kids. You, Bob, are you glad? Oh, that's an exaggeration. - I can share a little bit just kind of maybe out of my perspective and then maybe have to reply back or whatever. Yeah, I'm Eric Nielsen, the first Presbyterian here in Eau Claire, unique perspective here I suppose and that I am a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant male who's heterosexual. But having said all that, I think maybe one of the reasons David inquired to have me here today is the experience I had two years ago, I was one of six candidates within the National Presbyterian Church that stood as one of the candidates for moderator of our entire denomination. At our National General Assembly meeting two years ago, this was a big issue within the larger church, Presbyterian Church, dealing with the question of homosexuality and ordination within the church. And I don't think Presbyterians are that different, I think most mainline Protestant traditions have been struggling with this whole issue and how they're dealing with it for years. But can tell just a little bit of my story and how that progressed in our particular tradition, I think it's similar to many at this point. As far as the Presbyterian Church USA, it has never been an issue as far as anyone, regardless of their sexual orientation, being welcomed members into the church. The rub has been the secondary question of ordination within the life of the church, ordination to a particular office or leadership in the church. In our tradition, there are three ordained offices, you can be a deacon, you can be a ruling elder, or most people call clergy or pastors, technically teaching elders. Going back to 1977, the courts of the church had determined that you could not be a gay person and be ordained to office within the church. I think part of that may have been theological, I think part of it may have been kind of going back to the earlier comment, it wasn't just a few decades ago that this was seen as mental illness, all right? So the church, that was back in 1977, officially said that could not be done. It was challenged back and forth in church courts for a little bit. Finally, back in 1993, a huge national assembly meeting, it went to the church that actually wrote it into the constitution of the church, that you could not be a practicing homosexual. You could be celibate, all right? But if you were not celibate, you could not be ordained to office within the church. And so that has been the rule in the Presbyterian church since '93, again, many Protestant traditions have similar types of, they may word it differently, but that's been pretty much the norm. And since '93, there have been extended efforts about every other year at our national assembly to change that, and it has always failed. But two years ago, in 2010, when I stood as one of the moderator candidates, the issue came up again. And for the first time, finally, after a result of that general assembly, the policy of the Presbyterian church was changed. And it is now possible for a person, regardless of their sexual orientation, to be ordained to office within the Presbyterian church. There were six of us that stood as candidates for moderator, Cynthia Bullbach, who was eventually elected. She and I were probably the two most vocal, as far as saying the church needed to change its standards and change our constitution. Absolutely thrilled that Cindy won. I think she's been doing a phenomenal job of giving leadership to our tradition in these last two years. But after that assembly, the policy changed. I can speak personally here in Eau Claire, in our congregation, this really has not been an issue. We do not currently have any openly homosexual people on our church boards, or as deacons. However, I do know we have extended family members who share with us in worship at various times of the year, who are openly homosexual, and that has never been an issue. I think they have always told me they sense welcome in our midst, and I'm glad to hear that. But one of the issues that remains in the larger church and Presbyterians continue to struggle with this is the question that was raised earlier about what about marriage in the church? This was where I really kind of challenged the church as a candidate two years ago, and that I said, "Look, regardless of how a person may feel on the question of homosexuality in the church, the fact remains, we have congregations now that are in the, I think at that time, there were six states that recognize same-such marriage." And I said, "You are putting clergy and congregations in a no-win situation, 'cause how are they supposed to respond?" On the one hand, the church is saying, "You can't do this, but the state," and that's actually where the licensing of a marriage is, is with the state. They're saying it's legal. So what are churches supposed to do? What are the elders that lead the church, what are pastors? How are they supposed to respond? The church, the national church, needs to make some statement on this. Sadly, we fail to do that. We got the ordination question addressed, and I think appropriately, and I'm glad to see that. We are making some progress, but the question of marriage is still out there. Personally, my hands have been tied, I haven't had a ton, but I've had three requests in my ministry from people who are in the same-sex relationship, wanting either to be married, or to even have me reaffirm their marriage files that have been legal in other situations. And sadly, I have not been able to do that. We have recently had two clergy out in California that have been disciplined by the church because they did participate in such same-sex ceremonies. And the courts of the church have still said, "No, you can't do that." And so they have been sanctioned by the church for that. I'm hopeful sooner rather than later that our tradition is going to address that situation as well and change that. - You're sitting in on a presentation called Bringing One's Whole Self to God for today's spirit and action. It was organized by the Voices of Faith project of Equality Wisconsin. I'm Mark Helps meet in spirit and action is a Northern spirit radio production website, northernspiritradio.org. Full of archives, links, places to donate, places to comment, to track down stations that broadcast us all at northernspiritradio.org. Right now, back to the panel of LGBT folks, plus one straight Presbyterian minister. Here, he's the minority. Presenting in March 2012 at Plymouth, UCC in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Eric Nilsson of First Presbyterian continues. - And one of the questions that David asked me to maybe respond to is, you know, what can churches do to be more welcoming in that? I found I've been a pastor now for 20 years. And in those 20 years, I think the scriptural battles back and forth are pretty useless. He goes back and forth and we're getting nowhere on that. Quite frankly, most of the scriptural battles have been verbal only. If churches really wanted to spend some time really digging into what those scripts are saying, what they don't say, I think there's fruitful discourse that can happen there, but that generally doesn't happen within the church, sadly. But I think a great resource, maybe, that I would put out there for any congregation to look at and explore our congregation use this last fall with our adults in our educational time. It's a curriculum based upon Phyllis Tickle's recent book, The Great Emergence. A phenomenal book, it's a short book, it's an easy read, but there's also a DVD curriculum that goes with it that sparked incredible conversation within our congregation and I think in a very productive way. Because it raises an issue that I think in larger Christian circles today, it's a reality out there, but we're not naming it yet. And it goes like this. Many people are arguing about, you know, what is homosexual allergy, right or wrong, is it faithful or not? Most of the real debates, so I think within the Christian community, that's not the issue. The real issue that the community is struggling with is the question of biblical authority. And that this issue is simply the hot button issue addressing that larger question of biblical authority. And Phyllis Tickle's book is phenomenal in that, and I don't want to go in the whole detail though, but basically she's saying since the Protestant Reformation, the source of authority within the Protestant community has always been solo scriptura, scriptura loam. You know, Martin Luther. Yay, Lutherans, all right. And the whole Protestant Reformation. And since the Reformation, the understanding of biblical authority that standard has slowly but surely crumbled. The first notch out of the block was when the Christian community said slavery is wrong, right? Because there are plenty of scriptural texts certainly in the writings of Paul that just assume slavery is a natural human arrangement, societal arrangement. But the church stood up and said, no, that's contrary to our understandings of the teachings of Christ, the message of Christianity. And of course that was divisive. A lot of bloodshed over that. We call it civil war. It happened in another context. So that was the first big issue. The second block that came out of that foundation was the question of women's equality within the church. Certainly as Presbyterians, we were one of the early Protestant traditions that recognized full equality of women within the life of the church, certainly to ordained office in the church. There are, it's faced the majority of Christianity today still does not recognize the full equality of women. When you consider that Roman Catholicism and the Orthodox traditions are the two largest traditions around the world, along the various Protestant traditions, many Protestant traditions still do not recognize women for ordination. But that was the second major kind of block that has crumbled. And so for people that put a lot of weight on the sense of biblical authority based upon a literal reading of scripture, which is very prominent within most evangelical circles still today, there's one issue left on which that understanding of scripture stands. And that would be the question of homosexuality. So the fear I think in many more evangelical traditions is you recognize homosexuality as not a mental disease, but as this is the way God made us, all of a sudden you've blown all three foundations under the question of biblical authority from an errant interpretation. And let's face it, I know in our tradition as Presbyterians, the decision that our national church made two years ago was not universally accepted. We've had churches leave our tradition because of this. Many of them will say it's because of how we're addressing the question of homosexuality. I think they're wrong. I think the real issue is, it's an understanding of biblical authority. And that's a much more pervasive challenge to people. So that's kind of where we're at. I think it's Presbyterians, but my understanding of how we recognize the equality of all people as children of God within the church, I think that's based upon biblical authority. I'm the first one to say, although I think that the church is making progress in the area of homosexuality and recognizing the equality of people we got a ways to go. But I think that that change is happening because of an understanding of what it means to see the scriptures as authoritative. 'Cause I think the scriptures would back up that understanding of the equality of all people's children of God. I ramble there theologically a little bit. Virginia, I'll let you apply back or what you think. - I'm actually going to talk about some of the things that we have done in the church to be welcoming of LGBT people. There are really some very simple things. We put a rainbow flag on a sign outside and one up in the window. And that at least is evidence to people that this is a place where it's safe to be a sexual minority. Another thing that we did is we did workshops years ago that well, the welcoming congregation is something that comes out from our national headquarters and we did the workshops in those over the space of about two years and were certified by the National Association as a welcoming congregation. But the point of doing those workshops and it could be something like this, you know? I mean, just so that people get acquainted with actual, real living, breathing lesbians and transgender people in whatever and see that they're normal people, that they learn of bias, that they learn ways of being different and so forth. We've been demonized for so many centuries that the image change is extremely important and even people that are literal and think they have no bias are not comfortable. And so that kind of comfort that makes it possible for us to come in to a congregation and be at home comes from the congregation. The minister is not a problem as somebody's already said. It's usually the congregation. I think the welcoming process, when you come in the door, that's where it all begins and if it's a couple of, it's two women and their kids or it's two men and their kids and the person who's standing there doing the greeting welcomes them and recognizes them as a family and tells them about like they would any other family and makes them feel at home. That's an extremely important one. Have books, children's books, about same-sex families. They're out there, picture books, older books, so that they can be used in the program, the children's program on Sunday morning, so that they learn and they know. Another thing that we've done from time to time at least is have children draw their families and then talk about their families so that the other children get used to seeing that two parents might be two women or two men or whatever. One of the things that over and over again, this happened, we had LGBT groups in our church. You know, either the men, the gay men, men together or the lesbians met together or they sometimes they even met as a whole group, but some of those people started coming to our church, so it's a great recruiting device too, if you liked it, but it's just another way to make your church evidently gay-friendly. I think that worship needs to be inclusive also. We have a welcoming statement where we list almost too long, I think, all of the people that we welcome. And, you know, we say very specifically there that we welcome lesbian and gay people or LGBT people, so I think it maybe it's a sexual minorities, I'm not sure, but you can select readings that are at least some of the time that inspire LGBT people. You can sing songs also. We have one in particular that gets sung quite often. We are gentle, angry people and you probably all know, that's a hauling ear song and it has a line, we are gay and straight together, but I've even had it sung, we are gay and lesbian together. That happened to me one time when I was someplace. It was such a tremendously affirming experience because, you know, I didn't feel the least bit separate. I really felt included, so that feeling of solidarity. I think sermons can also be welcoming sermons about that address the experience of being LGBT in some way. I think the importance of community and the destructiveness of separation to people's well-being is one topic, for example, that I think can be very helpful. I think that theology is at the root of whether or not a church seems welcoming to LGBT people. Homosexuality is a fact of the natural world. If creation is good, then we cannot condemn sexual minorities as sinners. They are simply a minority expression of the divine spirit that pervades the universe. If anything, they should be treasured for that bit of understanding and wisdom, the embody of the great mystery in which we live. And finally, I think churches need to get out and support actions designed to make this state and country fair to LGBT folk. I just think it's a kind of crucial thing. And when I see, you know, members of my church going around collecting signatures for the petition against the amendment to prohibit marriage between same-sex couples, that's really important to me. And it really speaks to me being accepted at home in this particular religious establishment. I have one individual asking me, "Have God made a mistake?" I said, "That's an interesting comment." I said, "I didn't know God made mistakes, but he does give everybody a challenge. This has been my challenge. And it's not any different than people born without limbs, but I don't benefit it. Whatever, you know, we all have challenges. We have to deal with it." Kind of put him in his place for a little bit. I would share as well kind of out of my experience maybe a very hopeful sign or what I see as a hopeful sign out there is it is totally exhausting for me, but in a three-day period of time, I had to kind of shake hands and talk with about 2,500 people. But what was interesting as I shared with all of the delegates at the National Assembly, I found hopeful it is. The whole question of ordination was in the church and homosexuality. For everyone I talked to under the age of 40, it was a non-issue. - Right. - One of the largest cores of support I had in the whole process was what we called our youth and young adult advisory delegates. These were primarily folks 25 and under. In the polling of that group, it was like 92%. The favor of this change in church policy. And that gradually decreased the older the delegates got. I'm not saying they're unfaithful and nasty wrong people. They're part of the church and they're God's children too. But it's, I think part of the issue is changing as we look at demographics of people. And so I'm saying you're saying, I'd like to see the change now. I'm realizing the church is sometimes slower than molasses and changing. I'd like it to have it happen faster, but there's a part of me that is hopeful because I see the change starting to move. - I can't help but feel it's not the ministry it's the congregation where you've got the issues. - Yeah, that can happen to me. I know of our, and again, this is just an impressive trained tradition. I assume various traditions may have different breakdowns of it, but in the surveys I've been done of our teaching elders, our clergy. You know, it's well over three quarters that feel the change that we made two years ago is appropriate should have happened sooner and are very supportive of it. It's, yeah, in the congregational context that that's where I think more of the biblical reflection. Like I say, using resources like the Phyllis Tickle material are so helpful because I know when we were doing the classes last fall some eyes, you know, were just opened. That was cool to see what happened more often though. You could tell people were obviously challenged. They were starting to think. They were starting to question, hmm, maybe I need to look at this again. The change on this issue takes a little time. When you've been entrenched with a certain way of thinking, you just normally don't change overnight. And I can share out my own experience when I came fresh out of seminary, trained in all the official doctrines teaching of the church. And I mentioned back in '93, when this was officially added in our constitution that you could not ordain such a person. I was just fresh out of seminary as well. The first votes I took as a teaching over in the church was on this. And I voted to put that in. I look back and say one of the stupidest mistakes I ever made in my life as far as leadership in the church 'cause I can look back now and I can really say, you know, I'd really regret. All right, voting that way. But in my own experience, it's one thing to talk about this. Maybe theologically heady church history, why is all that. What really happens is when you interact with people. And so what happened after a couple years in ministry, you really start working with folks in your congregations. You start interacting with people in your community. You meet LGBT people. That's where the change comes from. 'Cause you get out of the books, you get out of maybe the theological history and you start to see people for who they are. These are children of God. So, you know, I can not just say in my own life, I went from voting this way to then, all right, maybe it took 18 years, but then standing before the national church and saying that's wrong. So it took me that period of time to transverse that. I wanna say, you know, hopefully as pastors work, maybe rather than condemning folks that don't see it quite that way yet, just keep talking with them, keep interacting with them, allow them the time to grow that my own faith journey took me to grow, I think we'll get there. - Good, yeah, I think so. We can open it up to questions and answers. - One of the issues, I assume, is exactly what Eric was speaking about. The older groups of people are carrying values that they've lived with for a long time. Hopefully we don't have to wait until they all pass to have the younger groups have the majority to do that vote. But there is this progression that happens. I'm particularly interested in Rebecca's experience as the youngest member of the panel, what she's experienced. I think it goes without question that as the years go on, the numbers will reverse, but I'm afraid that a number of the mainline Christian groups are heavily weighted towards the gray-haired folks. So, Rebecca, what's been your experience, acceptance? - You said you've been hesitant to speak to a lot of people about this. Is there a sense of likely acceptance of the fact that you're not standard for this society? - I don't know, even being on the college university campus, it's not something that, openly, go ahead and say, it's each individual choice as if you're gonna be out and go ahead and say something to somebody, even like if you go to a classroom at the beginning of your semester and go ahead and end up saying that as far as part of your introduction or something, I know that's something that happened in one of my first classes. A guy said, I'm such and such and I'm a bisexual male and I was happy to hear that I was still an ally at the time and I was like, wow, it takes a lot of guts to say that and I was surprised, but also happy that he felt comfortable enough and or happy enough with himself and he could go ahead and say that. As far as I'm on the university, I know there's a lot of religious student organizations that definitely wonder if it seems like there's so many students that are part of those groups that you don't know if they're LGBT friendly or not and I think my feeling is that a lot of them are not so I'm cautious about being around, allow those individuals or even saying anything in class 'cause I don't know how friendly it is altogether 'cause there's been some issues on the university campus as far as some professors saying negative, like homophobic comments and what have you, so you know what's out there and so forth. - No, the truth is that churches have lost a lot of members. Gay people are not gonna go to a lot of churches. That may be less the case today than it once was, but boy from my generation, it really was the case. You didn't get accepted, you left. Or if you stayed, you suffered. That's the other, you know, I've counseled young people who suffer as a result of being, of their sexual orientation and wanting, believing in this church, believing in this theology and not feeling, are feeling condemned. - I think it's a huge issue out there for certainly the Protestant traditions and it's been validated what was two weeks in March, 10th or whatever it was, a recent issue of Time Magazine. Future story was on the 10 changes, you know, that are gonna most directly affect you in your lifetime. Well, the first issue they said was, of course, the largest housing demographic in the United States now is single. And I've been telling my congregation for years, wake up folks, ministry is not with your traditional married couple with two children. They're a very small minority when you think of the US population. And if you're planning to grow a church based on that traditional understanding of the American family, you got a problem, all right? But of the other 10 issues they listed there, number four, was what Time Magazine called the rise of the nuns. And I'm not talking in the Catholic order, all right? And the whole issue of no religious preference or no religious participation. And the rise of the nuns, it's demographically largely come out of Roman Catholicism, but it's hit the Protestant traditions hard too. And I think this issue, you can point to it and say, allow these younger folks that are not participating in the Christian community. This is a prime example of why. And so they walk away. But I'm hesitant to make it strictly a generational issue 'cause probably some of the most vocal advocates, certainly my own congregation about full inclusion of people or some of our senior members. So I'm hesitant to just demonize people just based on age 'cause I don't think you can universally say that, but the pattern is kind of there. So yeah, it's a huge issue. - Questions, it's very curious to hear from Anne and Rebecca, I don't know what your church experience is, necessarily, but curious what the two of you, what your whole life's process has been, issues in the church 'cause I know you're still certainly active and part of it. - I haven't had much of a problem. I'm not with the ministry or the staff, but with some of the parishioners. So I've stopped going to church. They make me feel uncomfortable. Not the ministry, not the staff. In fact, they've asked me to show up at some meetings just to help keep peace, which I've done. But some of the parishioners have made me feel uncomfortable. I don't need that. So you just stop going. - Mine's pretty mismatched. Born and raised Catholic all the way until my parents got divorced and I think my dad stopped going and what have you, but then he went to Baptist churches and one or two other different kinds of churches. So visiting him on the weekends would always end up having to go to church with him. If I never followed any of it. And when I was in the military in '99 through like 2003, I went to some different churches here and then I don't even know what faith they were at all. Really didn't go to church at all. Just through for quite a few years. And then really the only reason I went to UU is 'cause they had the rainbow flag in their window. (laughing) I was still an ally at the time. I was like, well, they're welcoming them. Something at least be interested in and something I'd wanna check into. 'Cause I've been pretty well scared away from religion altogether. I just have my own faith and what have you. And whatever happened, I was mostly through family issues or mostly being forced to go to church and not having much of a choice and believing in what I wanted to believe kind of thing. I don't know. Definitely found a home over it. Don't, you know, tear in your verse list. I can say, I went to one over and found a lack when I lived there for a little while, too. It was a really nice welcoming congregation as well, so. - What Eric said about the nonce, the growth to something close to 15% of the population identifying it as not affiliated and not attending any religious group. That has equaled the loss of the Catholics and the Protestants. That's where they've come from. The thing that has been frightening to me is, certainly there's groups like the UUs or the Quakers. The Twin Cities meeting, I think there's probably 25% of the congregation is gay, lesbian, transgender, everything. What I've been afraid of is that the growing fundamentalist edge, the religious fundamentalist edge, there they have a strong religious identification against homosexuality frequently. So the liberal groups have been painted with the brush that says, well, religious groups are anti-gay. Well, the mainstream ones are less and less so, and sometimes obviously not in that direction, like the UCC church where we are right now. I mean, there's welcoming all over there, but still people think religion, they think the fundamentalist, and therefore they say people are anti-gay if you're in church. And so this whole gathering that we're having today is about being welcoming, having people bring their whole self to God and to community. And that's the part that I think Rebecca perhaps, and a lot of other people did without. They said, well, obviously my church is not going to be accepting of me, so therefore I can have my spirituality, but I do it individually, I just do it myself. So I'm really concerned that we provide community for all of God's people. - That's all we have time for from the panel sponsored by Quality Wisconsin's Voices of Faith Project, but you can find more info on them and the participants of the LGBT panel at northernspiritradio.org. Drop by, drop us a comment on this and other spirit and action programs, and we'll see you next week. - The theme music for this program is Turning of the World, performed by Sarah Thompson. This spirit and action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. ♪ With every voice ♪ ♪ With every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world home ♪ ♪ With every voice ♪ ♪ With every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world home ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ [MUSIC PLAYING]