Get Used to It: Ep. 39, "Communities of Faith"

oh [Applause] [Music] hi welcome to get used to it i'm sheila james kuhl your host uh discussion leader and camp counselor i think sometimes as you know this is as i hope you know this is a a show in which we talk about issues of interest to the lesbian and gay community but certainly not limited to our community i noticed that uh i'm hearing from an awful lot of non-gay and lesbian people who are watching this show and i'd like to welcome all of you we have as usual a very interesting episode for you today we're going to talk about communities of faith all around this country and how the center of discussion these days seems to be our gay and lesbian community issues dealing with our ability to marry issues dealing with our ordination into to be leaders of the faith and a whole lot of other issues that i'm sure my guests will bring up that i haven't even thought about so let me introduce you to them and welcome you to the show uh the reverend janine macklin who is the founder and minister of new thought church in hollywood california welcome janine thank you the rabbi denise eager who is spiritual leader of congregation colemie welcome back denise good to see you again thanks and the reverend dan smith a lot of reverence here i'm not i'm the only one not a reverend huh who is the pastor of the west hollywood presbyterian church welcome dan thank you i'm really pleased that you're all uh able to make it today this uh this topic seems to be kind of at the center of what many communities of faith are calling uh their sort of basic spiritual discussions i know we read in the paper every other day that yet another congregation or another national body has spent their entire convention talking about us so i wanted to let me begin with you denise why is it that our community that our life that sexuality itself seems to be at the center of this discussion about moral and spiritual values in communities of faith today why us well i think it's not just why us but it's about sexuality sexuality is the core of human beings in humanity um traditionally it is the it is a gift from god now the challenge becomes when you think about the varieties of expressions of human sexuality and love that goes beyond the boundaries of what traditional religions have called permitted and so when you bring up issues of gay and lesbian sexuality and issues that perhaps that it too is god blessed then you're bracing lots of issues not just about the traditional gay and lesbian issues and or prohibitions that uh come from biblical texts and other writings in churches and in judaism and in other religions but you're touching the deepest issues of sexuality for all people and once you talk about gay and lesbian sexuality and bring it up you have to talk about sex and for the most part with our victorian overlay and puritan overlay in this country we don't want to talk about sex well we want to talk about it behind closed doors but we don't talk about it openly with a healthy attitude towards human sexuality and loving and ethical sexual behaviors well it always seemed to me that this was a very uh powerful way of of controlling people's behavior of maybe even controlling or attempting to control sort of reproduction by i noticed that whenever a new religion um the in the early uh uh books and you you i hope will say what what you know because i know you're also a scholar early books of judaism and the whole notion that sex is an aspect of morality that god has an interest in this in the way we do this or who we do it with it's a very powerful message i think to human beings right it is a very powerful message not only that god has an interest and an interest in all of who we are and who we are sexually it is not something that is separate from ourselves it's an innate part of our humanity but the issue as you bring up of procreation of be fruitful and multiply as it says in the book of genesis was a way to you know strengthen the people whether it was the ancient israelite people or x y or z nation uh that has a particular philosophy or theology and that is critical for power and control now the question becomes as is raised in these discussions that's happening in in general assemblies and church national church bodies within uh the different jewish denominations and our various bodies and in other assemblies traditions um what does that mean in light of a world that's overpopulated what does that mean to uphold human dignity and not just count numbers but to really to talk about this on an individual basis a lot of the i'm sorry go ahead and and that discussion about population and people and procreation relates to a whole host of other issues which we see being played out on our political stage here in our country right now from abortion issues and right to life issues to issues of welfare and protecting the child and protecting mothers and that's as much the same kind of control issues as the ancient religions uh used and still today many uh contemporary religious traditions and a place to kind of get hold of people where you either to control or to liberate i mean that's been part of the discussion uh in many of the churches there's an enormous division uh about our community and about whether the the churches will be embracing or not embracing the judaism has a slightly different structure in this country and in the world so how are those disagreements if playing themselves out um in judaism in jewish tradition well jewishly around the world we the big secret is is that we're all the same but the reality is is the jews have different denominations much like uh protestant uh christianity has different denominations and we approach the biblical text the torah the five books of moses with a whole variety of interpretations from what we call orthodox meaning there's only one way to approach it with a literal interpretation that god wrote these words to reform judaism reconstructionist judaism uh the more progressive traditions which talk about the torah text the bible being divinely inspired and is the human record of our encounter with the eternal the creator and yes it is about the story of our people but uh you know that there are uh interpretations within that so does that make a difference in terms of the way orthodox or conservative or reform would approach the issue of gay and lesbian people absolutely so for example in the orthodox tradition they would read the verses in the two verses in leviticus that say a man shouldn't lie with a man as he lies with a woman it is an abomination literally now that wouldn't mean that they would today stone the sinner as was called for a capital crime in ancient days but they would embrace the so-called sinner and also you know hate the sin in reform reconstructionist judaism the liberal branches of judaism we have a different approach that says that the torah didn't understand the way we have the social construction of sexuality today of being innately lesbian or gay or bisexual or heterosexual and presumed heterosexuality but when we study those texts we find something even more and that is that really those levitical verses really have much more to do with separating the ancient israelites out from the pagan people that they lived amongst because in the ancient world one of the ways you worship the ancient gods and goddesses was to go to the ancient temple and engage in fertility rights not only for human beings to have more children and therefore more workers to till the land and the soil but also for the crops and so this was seen as practicing idolatry because when we went to our temples we supposedly didn't have sexual relations under the guise of our religious worship right and that was one of the major dividing points i mean one of them uh there was one there's many monotheism was one of the major dividing points right but there's also there's also a tradition in reform judaism that has to do with i mean you know i grew up 50s and 60s and i saw an awful lot of activism out of reform judaism there was some connection in terms of the expression of faith and civil rights right and that clearly comes out of the reform jewish tradition of identifying not with the ancient temple cult sacrifices that judaism grew out of but connecting more strongly with the prophetic era within our tradition the isaiah the ezekiel the jeremiah who really challenged the status quo to make it a better place on behalf of god and to challenge the people to lift themselves up from oppression or from their own self-oppression or the fact that they were oppressing others and reformed judaism for a long time has identified a significant part of our spiritual expression not only through prayer and observance but through social justice and the reform movement for a long time has been involved in social justice issues and on gay and lesbian issues really was the first to tackle issues of our freedom and uh and of liberating from oppression and and in the late late 60s and early 70s the reform movement was beginning discussions about homosexuality and how to de resolutions about decriminalizing sex between consenting adults and calling for that and helping to organize gay and lesbian synagogues and to know that there was needed to be a safe place for gay and lesbian people to congregate and to worship met some great resistance but there was some foresight there that called us urged us to stand with the oppressed so it really is it seems to kind of make sense that we would be at the crux now as it were because it's a discussion between kind of traditionalists and those who think that uh certain traditions in judaism or in christianity including sort of what christ himself was about may have to do with shaking up the status quo why do you think janine that we're that this has become sort of the the big topic of discussion or has it as you see it in the community in the community that i spend a lot of time in i think it's just now beginning to be part of the discussions as you had mentioned about some of the conventions where they're beginning to discuss it i remember hearing that at the baptist convention they came out of that discussing disney and the partnership and those kind of things and i immediately thought they had better things to do with their time than you know to address those issues but that at least meant there was some dialogue and something going on some discussion about it but it's still coming more from a traditional sense in a literal sense and looking at the scriptures and applying it to our community so outside of that though there really isn't in in some areas a lot of discussion about inclusion of particularly the african-american gay and lesbian what that's going to look like and what that means for some of the same reasons that rabbi edgar has said the issue of sex and sexuality and reproduction and what that that all means and so there's still a lot of homophobia a great deal of homophobia in the community and we seek to try and bridge some gaps at least open up some discussion about that and that then makes me more visible and that then creates a great deal of fear for people that oh you want to change the status quo or you want to write things your own way but i think for us a lot of it really has to do with fear the fear that god we really could be similar you know they've kept the gays and lesbians particularly african-americans in the bath houses and away from mainstream society and now we're moving forward and saying no we have valid relationships what we do is valid we have morals we have families we have children and yes when you really look at us you realize that there's not that much difference really between us that we really want some of the same things that you want and as much as you'd like to keep us in the dark or keep us away from it one we're not going to tolerate it and what we do and who we are is very valid and so i think a lot of it is you know those powerful four-letter words fear of change of having to embrace us and what that means to really accept the fact that god really does love everybody has no respect of person that is true and how that is demonstrated and manifest in our daily living and what that would mean and that scares people it really it makes them i think we talked about before beginning they have to begin to look at how come they hold the beliefs that they hold the values the morals that they hold is it as i always call hand-me-down religion that was just given to them that they grew up with and they really haven't explored it and you know teased it out to see if that's who i really am and what i stand for or is this just what mother said and grandmother said and so i have to say it too and this is where i go to church and that's what the congregation says so i have to be a part of that that's kind of a scary thing i mean it is it is because we were talking about this it's you can go you go along and get along and it's just fine and you don't think about these things uh and this is happening in a lot of places i mean uh reporters you know who want to talk to to me in the capitol about naturally gay marriage it's all they seems like they want to talk to me about and we talk about it they turn off the camera they turn off the mic and they say you know i never thought about this before i mean i never had to think about this before and i think i have great faith that people would rather be good people and that they will struggle to work towards equality and fairness but they have different definitions of it and i think that's part of what is the good part of it but the scary part of it it must be scary too being a gay or lesbian person in your own church do you find that african-american gay lesbian people have had to seek out different communities and this is really a question for all of you too in in turn different churches to go to or has there been a change in people's sort of home churches i think they struggle with it i'm not sure that there's someplace else to seek out and so i find that a lot of them will stay in the home church hoping that there will be some change ignoring things that they hear trying to take what they can from it and letting the rest stay there so it seems like there's a big clearly a big struggle with me loving god being gay and what that means and having a church home and being able to go someplace and be safe there which is what we really try and create is a safe place for people to come this non-judgmental where they can worship their god and know that god has no respect of color and what that means is that we are shining lights and we need to demonstrate that in our daily living and embrace even those who are saying that you know you're not accepted by god you're trying to change the bible you don't procreate you're not going to have any children so that then means that you're not valuable you're not valid in the society and that's not that's not true at all so i think that for in the african-american community you know i had one member at one point who will come to my service at um 10 30 but we'll go to her home service at eight and she straddles the two and though it's not healthy for her and she knows it's not okay it's something about having to let that go and what that means and so as opposed to having nothing or one or the other are choosing she could does a combination of the two and it's really it's such a struggle to see that happen with some of the members have any um folks that you know kind of confronted their own ministers and or at least asked for openly kind of come out in their church and gain some respect or there was one young man who um i was assistant pastor at one of the largest gay and lesbian churches in los angeles trinity fellowship and he would come to our service afterwards but he would go to his home church and he said he would not join that church because he wanted to stay at his home church and he felt like they needed to embrace him and that that was what he was going to do so he came out to his pastor told him that he was gay and he also at that time was hiv positive and they did embrace them and they really worked with them and since then there's been a lot of turnaround and openness and enlightenment that's happened there and that's at home in united methodist and reverend lawson in that congregation has really embraced him they've had very various programs aids memorials there at that service and at the church there so he really stayed there and did what i think a lot of gay and lesbians in the african community could do is stay in your home church and gradually bring them around and help them see and enlighten them and bring them to the awareness of who we are what we're all about and see that you know it's okay and god does love us and they've known us and been around us for years but they stay in that closet and that's what's so empowering about coming out let people see oh we really aren't that different we've had sunday dinners together we've prayed together we worshiped together and that hasn't interfered in on any kind of level and when i really look at you you really are just like i am that must have been quite an experience for the church though i think it really was i think it was really a first awakening for them yeah each person has to it's really one at a time essentially and and yet you have a congregation and um i think it's sort of like you know coming out in the newspaper or something except it's much more personal because here is and especially to think of a place as your home church how very risky and how very important to you um has that congregation what have you seen happen in that congregation just as individuals it would seem to me that they would they would be going through quite a time having to deal with just being more open well i was on the periphery of some of that but i've gone back as well as denise has for different activities there around aids issues and hiv issues and you can see um like an unfoldment that happens for them and it is individually it's a person by person because you still have some stodge members who've been there and just saying this is just moving too fast and are we sure and you know but the bible says and god says and as time goes on you see them gradually changing their position and moving over to realize regardless of what the doctrine may be or what i'm hearing this is someone that i know this is someone that i care about and i want to embrace and move aside from all the labels and what all those different things and just really embrace this person for who they are and what they contribute to this congregation as a whole so gradually it seems like they have embraced aids issues which was good because in the african-american community there's still a lot of silence around aids and hiv and there are a lot of people struggling in closets that haven't come out and said anything to anyone about that and so they've at least embraced that issue and they've embraced uh have a heightened awareness about aids issue and gays and lesbians and there's not that stereotypic of what um gays and lesbians may look like and how they behave and uh any of those things that's just untrue so it begins to break down some of that what we had talked about earlier getting people to look at their own thoughts their own ideas and where did that come from and what that really means but some of the some of the churches are have gone or stayed totally at the other end absolutely part of the preaching itself is about um how what you know how evil homosexuality absolutely sounds absolutely because i know people who have essentially probably want to come you know worship at your church where they feel more welcome to have experienced that yeah so it's still a big it's a big division it really is we're right particularly it really is he that's one church and that's only the one that i can think of and there may be some other methodist churches that i can think are gradually moving but for the whole it you know the inclusion um gays and lesbians there is not that inclusion happening and the ministries and the teachings there's a little bit of room to say okay you can be in our congregations but as far as accepting people as whole individual people in those congregations and what that means beyond the stereotype of who's playing your piano or who's singing your choir that it's not beyond that and that's where i see a lot of the pain and the struggle and right those are some of the people who trickle into our ministry what do you think dan is this going on at other churches at the national level absolutely and you know i think sometimes in our community we forget that stonewall was just 26 years ago and in religious institutions of christianity we have a 2 000 year history around our faith issues with christ and then our relationship with the old testament community of faith you know so we throw in another two or three thousand years and um one of the things that that i'm mindful of is that um our culture and our churches are going through a radical paradigm shift like we never have before at least in thousands of years and for at least 2 000 years for christianity the mode of social interaction was christian marriage and the church the early christian church had no elaborate ceremonies whatsoever around marriage at the very best the early services are very similar to blessing of gay and lesbian relationships in christianity for heterosexuals but over 2000 years period there developed this spirituality around heterosexuality and around marriage and um we in our traditions and in our culture have pushed that model to the limits i mean every parent knows that their child's experience today is radically different than their own experience around sex it's so different the gay and lesbian community blows the model apart you cannot accommodate divorce you cannot accommodate all the changes that have happened and so the church is stuck in this thing saying do we hang on to marriage as the only image the only model or do we try to begin to develop spiritualities around the way that people are really relating to each other sexually in our culture um and what and this is so integral not only with gay and lesbian issues but with feminist issues as well because the this is the only century where we have been able to procreate without sex we can procreate without a man and a woman doing it and there's a whole new set of models that are coming up and our lesbian community is well aware of how how uh artificial insemination has become you know such a possibility for so many of our women that never ever could have thought of having a child 50 years ago and so this this kind of traditional model that the church and the culture has been built around of heterosexual marriage has just gone you know and now we're having to go and say okay so what do we do and um one of the one of the criticisms of of that the paradigm of marriage has been that in christianity and i think in almost all religious institutions we've worried more about the form that is are you married if your married sex is okay then about the substance of the relationship and so in christianity up until just recently spousal abuse happened and the church was silent on it because well you were married you made this commitment for life work it out there was tremendous gender and justice issues going on and suddenly all of this is being challenged and i think the gay and lesbian community focuses that more profoundly than anybody wants to admit because we don't fit into the old model we have women and women and men and men who are challenging stereotypes roles gender roles even the way we procreate for goodness sakes as a culture is being challenged and so it's an amazingly wonderful but but difficult time and i think those who have uh who have you know put so much stock into the church's authority in their life are suddenly saying the experience that i get from people is they recognize that non-traditional relationships are wonderfully life affirming and giving and real they're as meaningful as as the relationships that they see within heterosexual marriage but the church and the culture still says no i know in in my own situation for me one of the profound moments was when uh there are three boys in our family i'm in the middle of three and have been in a long-term relationship and when my younger brother just got married my mother said you know i feel such a sense of relief that all three of you have partners who care for each other you're not alone and it was that you know it's that kind of coupling model that our culture and our church teaches and likes um but recognizing that my relationship was very different from my other two brothers who have the gift of legalized marriage well it seems as though this this conflict then is kind of reflective of not terribly new or special but almost uh an example of a a sort of a long-standing conflict between sort of rules and regulations versus liberation both of which are inherent in the in in the bible itself in notions of of worship or of faith because there was supposed to be great joy uh in relationships human relationships and relationship with god and it seems to me that this i mean what feminists were talking they they would use the the issue of the so-called patriarchy the uh you know father worship having taken the place of mother worship and hierarchical sort of rigid rules and regulations and christianity of course if you break the rules not only will you suffer in life because people often didn't suffer when they sinned so of course we had to say you were going to suffer later you know in your afterlife and no one could prove whether that was true or not so it sounds as though we're just one new example of this larger conflict of the question of tradition rules and regulations authoritarian religious bodies versus a notion of liberation which may smack a little too much of what the pagans were kind of into um is that true so we're not knowing all that yes and this is most bizarre in christianity because christianity is always a liberationist fringe movement that's who jesus is from conception through death you can't get away from it in the sacred text and yet uh you know in 321 a.d when constantine decided christianity should be the religion of the western world suddenly this very liberationist this very freeing uh style of of religious belief became institutionalized and to this day we run into this this in in christianity and the truth of the matter is the religion itself cannot be life-giving christianity cannot be life-giving when it is authoritarian and when it is legalistic it is only life-giving when it sets free those who are oppressed um and those who have been broken by the culture of the religious institution well maybe when it becomes involved a little too deeply in government as constantine did with the you know the holy roman empire i mean that was not about faith that was about government exactly and making a government faith maybe that's where it airs now i show my own prejudice perhaps but it wasn't maybe a modern lesson and we're seeing that right now in terms of of the struggle in this country about whether a particular brand of christianity a very conservative right-wing brand is going to be kind of named as the civil religion for our country and um uh you know clearly there's tremendous tension around that and there are many of us within communities of faith who do not want that whatsoever in this country there should not be any single religion and it certainly should not be a specific brand of christianity that gets sanctioned just because the form of that sanction speaks back to a traditional pattern of relating that we're comfortable with well we're going to take just a little tiny break don't go away because there's plenty more to come i don't think it's a sin if you leave us but i think it would be a mistake see you soon [Music] it was the perfect date [Music] i got everything your test came back positive [Music] hi welcome back to get used to it i'm sheila cuell and today we're talking about communities of faith and the way that they're trying to deal with gay and lesbian issues and succeeding wildly and failing miserably and having a fabulous discussion argument fist fight brawl enlightenment whatever you want to call it three wonderful guests today two reverends and a rabbi pretty high company i think reverend janine macklin rabbi denise edgar and reverend dan smith welcome back we talked a little bit about sort of why us and why we are such a topic of discussion and even historically kind of in in the faith but i wanted to ask you all three of you are out all three of you are spiritual leaders in your religious communities what's that been like for you um dan well it's it's wonderfully freeing it's the only way to do ministry um i served for a church as an associate pastor for six years where i was not fully out and it was absolutely the worst experience of my life so personally it's the only way to be i also am extremely lucky and that i serve a predominantly lesbian and gay congregation so we do ministry and we're working through all these theology issues and and ethical issues together as a community of faith and and that's a real gift that i have however the presbyterian church itself is still very very divided almost equally divided on this issue and i would not be able to move to another church i have to stay where i am under the present rules of the church so there's tremendous institutional homophobia that we're still working on within our own systems but personally it is wonderful and the most freeing experience i've ever had now do you participate nationally in conferences or absolutely and how are you received or what in what different ways are you receiving i guess just like everyone who's out some of us love you know some people receive me very well some people respect me um i've i've only had uh positive exp personal experiences i do have to say um but other people would just as soon that we leave that we disappear that we not be part of the presbyterian church it's very divided so when you said you would not be able to move is that because congregations invite you to to move or does the um i don't know what part of the way that we would change clergy in the church write the hierarchical system um janie sparr who's an open lesbian was refused to the ability to serve a parish and so that set precedent that gay and lesbian people can't move into other ministries we can stay where we are for the present time but we can't move into other ministries how about you janine what's it been like for you it's been exciting also but a little bit different um i've served at the churchwise ordained for a year and i was out there but that congregation was primarily heterosexual and i left there to move more into my community and served at a primarily gay and lesbian african-american ministry for about three years and so that was very exciting and at different points and times we participate with um interfaith activities or meetings with other churches in our community and that would be very touchy you could it's it's like dan was saying you could see that it was kind of like why are you here do you have to be here could you just go away you know it isn't okay and we clearly were always making a statement and having to make our presence known and yes we are here and there are black gays and lesbians and yes we do love god and we know that god loves us and or we are having to put that in your face a little bit and so um you know we would run into that at different meetings that the baptist churches would have things and at that time i was working with bishop carl bean and so we were having to be places and really um take a stance really more from a civil rights kind of a stance too and and political stance and be there and be present uh and so in that i moved away to my own um ministry to really look at empowering and inspiring all walks of faith in all people who are on their spiritual journey that may want to move from some of the more issues that are traditional in the form and the rigid to really seek to have and maintain a relationship with god a place where their unions would be recognized where they would be validated and they can have their own individual religions and if they want to read the bible or the quran the kabbalah whatever it is that works for them to do that but to do that earnestly and honestly without some of the other politics at times that make it get involved and so that's been really rewarding and uh inspiring for me to be participating in that so essentially in the communities you're in now it's it's very accepting are you also doing work at the center or through the gay and lesbian center yes our ministry right now is being held at the center and i do a spiritual workshop series there for um several months out of the year on forgiveness overcoming fear and how to make money work for you sounds good from a spiritual perspective of course of course so it's been generally accepting it it was interesting you said the first congregation that you were in you were out but it was primarily heterosexual congregation right it was more of a metaphysical teaching along my journey i had been drawn there and that was where i was ordained my pastor there was reverend trudy journal and i had gone to two and a half years of training there and continued to serve there but wanting to do something larger wanted to empower and inspire some more people a different kind of way and there weren't that many lesbian and and gay people in the congregation and it was a place where it was okay but everything was pretty much okay and i guess i needed to be someplace where it was okay but it still made a point or made a statement it would help people liberate people to move out of those closets and to embrace the teachings of jesus not just the person but what those teachings were really all about and how to incorporate that so i needed to move into something a little bit bigger and how about you denise well it's been an interesting journey the reform movement since it had such a welcoming stance for many years at least from the the lay level really only came to decide about open ordination for gay and lesbian people in 1990 at which time i was already ordained but going through school was when this when i was going through seminary this debate was really in the forefront and i remember writing an anonymous five-page single speech letter to the committee debating the issues of ordination for openly gay people while i was in rabbinic school and it was no secret i mean my professors knew who i was partnered with at the time and didn't really hide it but didn't wave a lot of lavender or rainbow flags either served in a gay and lesbian synagogue after ordination and really since i was identified with that community um certainly was out publicly and and even stronger so after the uh 1990 resolution on inclusion of openly gay and lesbian people in our ordination process i think the thing that has happened through the years is that many my colleagues have certainly welcomed me and accepted me as their colleague as a rabbi having nothing to do with issues of human sexuality because they would march right with us in all of those places and have others in the community that aren't necessarily in the reform movement and some within our own movement have approached with great great caution i've been at this almost a decade now since i'm out of school and have worked hard with my colleagues and they know me as a person they know me as a person of commitment and follow-through i think and have come to respect me for my gifts my talents as a rabbi not just as the lesbian rabbi and i think one of the things that's also happened with my more traditional colleagues who i work with at our local board of rabbis which spans all the movements and denominations from the the most liberal to the most traditional most orthodox um i've had some very nasty things said about me in public in some early years the lesbian pig rabbi was one that was a good one by a prominent orthodox rabbi in town and that was painful but he doesn't define for the most part my colleagues my colleagues are even though they might not agree with me politically ritually spiritually um you know respect the work that i do for a long time there weren't a lot of rabbis dealing with people with aids and i've done more than my share of funerals as i know dan has and we've shared that and janine has and somehow working with populations of people that the rest of the community doesn't want to deal with acts one is a relief valve for them and gets them so to speak off the hook because they can send everything our way and we'll take care of you yeah you deal with it we'll take care of what you know you'll take care of what we don't really want to deal with and want to sweep under the rug and on the other hand i think it's allowed them to see a positive side about being okay with who i am as a person in my fullness and that hiding which we know can play such havoc with our lives uh doesn't matter about our clergy status or ordination status that what we do to self-destruct when we have to hide our sexual orientation is just too painful and to be a person of faith and i think a spiritual person you need to really bring your whole self together and so as dan said it was that freeing liberating moment of finally coming out um after having i think coming out is a spiritual experience it really as well as a political experience it's so hypocritical in the christian churches what's going on around the the issue of ordination uh because everyone knows there are so many gay and lesbian people in ministry but i i don't know how one can describe it if you haven't had the experience but just imagine on if you're dealing with the christian tradition on sunday morning standing up in front of your people to try to talk about honesty and integrity and religious truth and god all the while you're lying and hiding about who it is you are and then you have that endorsed by the hierarchy and they say well we know but nobody else should know and you must be silent and then on top of it like someone to do you must be celibate and not express your human sexuality as given by god which is the biggest lie interestingly enough in the old line christian traditions methodist episcopalian lutherans uh presbyterians the the debate is not about homosexuality it's about being out and that's what they're terrified of you know and it's so stupid that we would be so fearful of honesty and integrity in in in spiritual communities that's that's crazy but maybe it's not stupid if the way you can maintain a certain truth is by making certain that no other it's more than that it's not just about truth it's about dehumanization and when they keep us silent and when the rigid rules of hierarchy are there to enforce our hiddenness or force us to withdraw into closets to hide from our congregations what they're doing is dehumanizing us and it doesn't matter all of these arguments about us not being procreate not procreating even when technology has liberated us is really about dehumanizing people because the image of a human being is one who does a good job at their job that's a work ethic right and and goes to work and and has normal relationships friendly to their neighbors caring loving kindness reaching out the hand to the poor supporting your spouse and being there for him or her but when they deny us access to celebrating those rituals that affirm those relationships when the arguments are made about procreation because see you're not human if you don't procreate right and in the old line churches in the episcopal church this within the last six months the episcopal the methodist and the presbyterian church the fights are always about ordination now 20 years ago when i started in this journey of justice in the church all of our issues were were lodged in a committee of the church called justice and the rights of persons and that's where the justice issues were and in the religious institution the sacred cow if you will is ordination and now the whole debate is around ordination yes let's talk about heresy first and that's so yes that's so crucial for our people though because you see when religious institutions will finally ordain us then they have to admit that we are created in the image of god just like everybody else and um i think it is absolutely of the utmost importance that we we in the religious institutions we continue this debate about ordination because it says so much within the sacredness of each of our traditions about who is holy and who is loved and who is not and and also you know the churches or the communities of faith that say yeah we'll welcome gay and lesbian people come and sit in our pews support our institution but we won't marry you we won't ordain you we won't recognize you as a family you know again that's the dehumanizing process you can be a half human if you will if you're queer but it's also isn't it sort of the what you said about the difference between knowing that there are gay and lesbian people there and having us come out if you're sitting there in the pew in the temple you know worshiping quietly right you no one knows who you are or what you are but god forbid you should say who you are and more importantly that you should take some leadership because now you're not just sitting there you're in front of everyone you're demonstrating your you know god must love you you must be holy you've been ordained i mean that is such a validation and that validation to i guess to some extent must be the way the congregations are also talking about marriage that's a validation participation in the ritual and in our reform movement we've we've kind of tackled the ordination issue and we ordain a qualified candidates who are openly gay or lesbian whether they can always find employment is a different issue although that's beginning to change more gay and lesbian rabbis are being called to synagogues as the assistant or the associate there are have yet to be although soon will be a gay or lesbian person who is the rabbi of a mainstream congregation although when they came in they hid for many years and only in this process you know eventually came out but this is still a positive step so we're really empowering people as well right right each of you who is out seems to me there's at least one or two people saying okay if they can do it i can do it at least that's what the hope is particularly i know for me it is if people see me out as a leader and some of that fear that i would lose my job well there's always the fear of family of rejection what's going to happen in the congregation and if they can see okay that's one person and she's doing it so it may not be so bad but that's one of the biggest issues i think in in my community is that you can be in the congregation you can sit you can pay your ties you can contribute you can do all of that but she said we won't recognize you as a whole person we won't validate you come be quiet we may or may not even do your funeral service when you call us you may have to call me or someone else to do it even though you've served in this congregation and this membership for six or seven or eight years and that's what is so dehumanizing and there's so much pain around that issue particularly in the african-american community and it keeps them oppressed it keeps people saying well if that's what's going to happen then why should i come out but they don't see the trade-off for the pain of being in the closet and sitting there and being quiet and they miss their liberation they miss their abundant life they miss knowing a true and loving god that is compassionate and loves them unconditionally they miss out on all of that and that's what's sad about it also well it's interesting too and we're hearing a lot about a crisis of values in the country i see articles in the you know in every kind of london new york and la times whatever times you read about and it is a big topic of discussion and everyone is trying to take the so-called moral high ground which means morality is the way i define it to be i am the more moral person and here again i think we're seeing this conflict between the sort of traditional handed down wisdom and a kind of liberation as if you will theology about what is of value um are we in the middle of that and how do you think this is all going to resolve itself it's a really wonderful topic because as dan mentioned earlier we are in a paradigm shift and one of these discussions about morals values and ethics and who defines them and what they content are and is it just a relativistic what's okay for you janine is fine as long as it doesn't hurt me or is there some overarching meta ethic that helps to create a societal fabric that holds us together all of these questions have to do with this paradigm shift because the sands are shifting under all of our feet it doesn't matter whether you're at the conservative spectrum or at the most liberal perspective the sands are shifting and the family problems the family in crisis leadership i believe of religious traditions be they liberationist like those of us that are represented here or those who feed or planted firmly in a fundamentalist reading of the bible need to understand that they too are caught up in this paradigm shift and no matter what they want to do to draw their line in the sand they're they're being even though they're dragging and kicking while they're being dragged this paradigm shift has happened it's happened to our country it's happened to all of our peoples um and it's reflected in the breakdown of our society and so the question i think hasn't really been answered yet it's really been a kind of this debate between we're gonna we need to do something different oh no you're not we need to do something oh no you're not but we haven't gotten beyond that and the question is how are we going to address the peoples how are we going to speak to one another how are we going to help build healthy families what ethic is going to govern our country i just received a wonderful cartoon in the mail the other day it's two young kids pinned up against the school wall of the school after school and the bullets are flying by them and the caption reads well at least the congress is protecting us from same-sex marriages you know and it's like he's when you when you get right down to it and you look at the larger picture of what's happening in our country around the way we value people just in plain old loving caring what is right kinds of stuff you know why is it that there's such animosity about allowing two people who want to love themselves to marry because they're gay and yet the nra still controls the vast number of votes so that you can you know be shot on any street corner in our cities and we can't move beyond that and we've become so community has become so shattered that everybody is an individual and cares nothing about another person's well-being well sooner or later this cumulative stuff just continues to to build among us and um you know when people talk to me about us living in a valueless time i said we're not living in a valueless time the values are very clear they're not very healthy values and they're not very good values if you value people and people's well-being but nonetheless the values are real clear we're living in a very punishment-oriented time we want to go back to a time when when society and the american culture had very white straight heterosexual families with a husband in control and a wife there and that's the kind of valuing that one side is pushing us towards and our community says no it's time that we look at a more inclusive value and that we deal with all of the isms and i think that's wonderfully hopeful for us well we're certainly seeing the the contrasts set out for us yes i don't think this is such a new thing it may be new because now we're on the other side of the chessboard uh there used to be sort of only one side playing it reminds me of the just before the civil rights movement when you would hear a lot of talk from the ku klux klan about race you wouldn't hear anything from the black community about race because they were just busy trying not to get killed and in a way that community of course never needed to come out we knew who was black but to be vocal when dr king started you know with others organizing and there began to be a voice suddenly it was as though there was a new set of players on the chessboard you could see it in selma it was so interesting to me when you saw these two sides come together it was very much like a chess game one very respectful the other very abusive but still there was another voice and since then since that civil rights movement it seems to me there has never been a moment in this country when there hasn't been a discussion so that was a great gift i think that we that we got in the 50s out of silence and into the debate and our community has been sort of watching and catching up all along going okay now we're going to speak out too and we're going to talk too and i think it's been this crisis of values is not a crisis it is that there's no longer just one player on the chessboard right and there's a voice right you're saying there's a loud voice speaking out clearly saying that this isn't okay we can't do it this way anymore and people are trying to hold on tight as they've said to what they feel is secure what they know what they're used to and it's not working that's what's interesting to me is that they want to hold on to it but it's not working um i'm a licensed clinical social worker and deal with children and there's children their children being molested we're dealing with domestic violence now there's a lot more going on than where the focus is being put on two people who love each other who take care of each other who want to be together validate their union and do that in legal ways have the same rights that everyone else has there are a whole lot of other issues around our children if nothing else that we need to embrace and begin to look at but we want to hold on to the very thing that isn't working now i hope this doesn't sound kind of arrogant for the community and that's why i take the opinion on myself but this is a very loving community as hidden as it's been it is about love it's all it's about actually it's who you love that's right and in in the context of faith it seems to me that this struggle over adversity and hatred to simply be true to who you are which is you were talking about is sort of a complete spirituality courage uh honesty seems to me that we have some values that we are living that are very important to communities of faith do you do you see that this it is vital to communities of faith and to true communities of faith communities of faith are about caring communities of faith i mean the whole idea of a congregation is not just someplace you drop in to say a few prayers or give a few dollars because they can go off and help feed the homeless it's about being involved in that community of faith and caring about the person who's next to you who you're praying for who you're building a community with and that is something that how we have to take beyond our individual communities that we all work in and we have to move it back into the neighborhood neighborhoods used to be about caring for your neighbor see this is about civics it's about taking pride in our country it's about being patriotic and lest we think because we're the voice of the others sometimes that we don't have anything to say about patriotism the values that we hold and that even though we have different ways of expressing them as sitting here on your show sheila really is about values of caring and that's about what america is about well i'm going to leave this show right here because we're probably 30 seconds short of our ending and i i love to end a show by saying that's what america is about especially one of our shows thank you all very very much it was much too quick much too brief and fabulously interesting i appreciate your participation i appreciate your work very much in our community and in your communities i'm really happy that you tuned in i hope you enjoyed it um say a little prayer for all of us and for yourself take care of each other and uh remember when you look at the great variety in our community get used to it 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