Breach of faith
John Kelly at the Jesuit Learning Center in Boston's South End. (Globe Staff Photo / Lane Turner) |
The struggle of gays and lesbians to find a spiritual home is dividing congregations across America.
By Diego Ribadeneira, Globe Staff
John Kelly remembers the moment more than 30 years ago when he turned his back on his church. He was inside a dark confessional at a Roman Catholic church in Boston. ``I told the priest I was gay,'' Kelly recalls. ``I will never forget what he said: `May almighty God have mercy on your soul.''' Kelly shakes his head at the priest's reaction. ``I was stunned. I walked out of that confessional shaking, feeling defeated and abused.''
The church had been Kelly's refuge as a child, the place where he found peace whenever his adoptive mother hit him, which was often. In fact, Kelly so revered the church that he built an altar in the bedroom of his childhood home in South Boston. He would pray to the Blessed Virgin, certain of Mary's love as he could never be of his mother's.
After his encounter with the priest, though, Kelly, who is 55, vowed never to set foot in a Catholic church again. And for nearly three decades, he didn't, except for weddings and funerals. But the rejection he felt from the church could not destroy Kelly's faith, his belief in Jesus and the Gospel. The church might have cast him out, but Jesus hadn't.
That feeling of acceptance saw him through some tough times. Ever since he realized he was attracted to men, as a student at South Boston High School, Kelly says, he felt guilty, as if he were committing a sin merely by thinking such thoughts. He asked his father what he thought of homosexuals. ``They should all be locked up,'' his father replied.
The son of a Greek mother and an Italian father, the adopted son of Irish parents, John Kelly never doubted, though, that he was a beloved child of God. It was what he had been taught at St. Brigid's, the South Boston church that had been Kelly's shelter. ``My faith, my spirituality, was always there; it never disappeared, no matter what the church or the pope said,'' Kelly says. ``It was like a candle. If you put out the candle, the wick is still there. My spiritual wick was still there. It just needed to be relit.''
Through therapy and a stable, long-term relationship with a man, Kelly had become content with his sexuality. And, after three decades, Kelly's spiritual flame has finally been rekindled. Today, he has come home to the church: Kelly sings, prays, and finds God at the Jesuit Urban Center, housed inside the Church of the Immaculate Conception, an imposing Italian Renaissance-style granite edifice that looms over Harrison Avenue in Boston's South End.
The Jesuit Urban Center, as part of the New England Society of Jesus, is not under the direct control of the Archdiocese of Boston, giving it more freedom than an archdiocesan-controlled church. And the church has become known in the city's homosexual community as a place that welcomes gays and lesbians without prejudice or judgment.
Over the years, Kelly had tried various ways to worship: as a member of Dignity, a gay and lesbian Catholic group; with a congregation of the Metropolitan Church, a predominantly gay Christian denomination; and at some Unitarian Universalist churches. But none, Kelly says, had the mystery or the beauty of a Roman Catholic liturgy.
Kelly's spiritual journey exemplifies one of the most emotionally charged battles being waged on the American religious landscape: the quest by gays and lesbians to find a spiritual home. ``The struggle over homosexuality has become, arguably, the biggest fault line in American religion today,'' says Randolph Hewitt, a church historian and consultant in Los Angeles. ``It has become one of the dominant themes in congregational life and one that promises to remain a major source of friction for a long time to come. There are no easy answers. ... Gays and lesbians will never allow themselves to be pushed out of the churches. At the same time, however, there are conservative forces determined to keep them out.''
For gays and lesbians the issue is simple: If straight people can have a spiritual life, if they can pray from the pews, if they can sing in the choir, if they can read Scripture from the pulpit, if they can be clerics, if they can be married in the eyes of God, then why can't homosexuals? If God created humans, then God also created homosexuals, gays and lesbians argue. Gays and lesbians, too, need a place to get closer to God.
``The things gays are looking for from church are no different from what nongays look for: a place to be respected, good worship, good preaching, pastoral counseling, the freedom to be yourself,'' says the Rev. Robert Nugent, a Catholic priest and cofounder of a ministry to gays and lesbians that has drawn the ire of some conservative Catholic leaders.
For many established churches, the issue is equally simple: Gays and lesbians who are public about their homosexuality should not be wholeheartedly embraced by churches, nor should they be allowed to become ministers or be married. Homosexuality, many churches and synagogues say, goes against centuries of Christian and Jewish teaching.
``We certainly wouldn't drum anyone out of the church because of it, but we also would definitely teach against homosexual activity,'' says the Rev. Mark Acuff, pastor of Grace Baptist Church, in Hudson. ``We have people in our church who struggle with the lifestyle, either personally or in their families. Now, we're not into strong condemnation of people, but we do believe it's against God's design or will.''
In many conservative Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish congregations, openly gay worshipers aren't even welcome to sit in the sanctuary. In more liberal congregations, gays and lesbians are allowed to join, but they are still forbidden from becoming ordained clergy or from having their unions blessed. Only the Unitarian Universalists, the United Church of Christ, and the Reform movement within Judaism support allowing openly gay and lesbian people to be ministers. And among major religious bodies, only the Unitarian Universalists officially allow their clergy to perform commitment ceremonies for gays and lesbians.
In the arsenal of those who oppose homosexuals in the church, two Bible verses, -both from Leviticus, are the ultimate weapon. ``You must not lie with a man as with a woman: That is an abomination,'' reads the first (18:22). The second (20:13) says, ``If a man has intercourse with a man as with a woman, both commit an abomination. They must be put to death; their blood be on their own heads!'' To many conservatives, the Bible clearly supports their contention that God hates homosexuality. Biblical teachings have played a pivotal role in the consistent decision by most major Christian and Jewish denominations to exclude homosexuals from the pulpit and prohibit religious marriages of gays and lesbians.
``I'm an evangelical Christian who takes the Bible seriously, and the Bible clearly sees homosexualo practice as wrong,'' says Glenn Strassen, a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, in Pasadena, California.
Increasingly, though, more liberal Christian and Jewish scholars have been turning to Scripture to rebut biblical literalists. Using individual biblical verses to make a case that homosexuality is a sin is a simplistic and misleading reading of Scripture that fails to take into account the social context of ancient times, these scholars maintain.
The Leviticus condemnation of a man having intercourse with another man was written at a time when Jews were a minority struggling to survive. The prohibition against sex between two men may have had more to do, some biblical scholars argue, with concerns about perpetuating the Jewish people and not wasting ``seed'' than with disapproval of homosexual contact. Also, in biblical times, sex between men was a practice associated with pagan cults considered blasphemous by the Israelites.
``Just because the Bible says to do this or not to do this doesn't necessarily make it an absolute timeless principle to be followed at all costs,'' says Michael Coogan, professor of religious studies at Stonehill College, in Easton, and co-editor of the Oxford Companion to the Bible, published in 1993. ``No major Christian or Jewish denomination would hold that all statements in the Bible ought to be observed.'' Deuteronomy, Coogan notes, declares that a rebellious son ought to be stoned to death. ``The Bible was written by men and women in a different culture with a different understanding of themselves and the world they lived in,'' he says.
Liberal religious scholars argue that it is impossible to apply the Bible's laws and ethical codes literally to contemporary culture. That's one of the centralo themes in The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart, the best-seller by the Rev. Peter J. Gomes, the openly gay chaplain of the Memorial Church, at Harvard. ``The language of the Bible,'' Gomes writes, ``is meant always to point us to a truth beyond the text, a meaning that transcends the particular and imperfectly understood context of the original writers, and our own prejudices and parochialisms we bring to the text.''
Given the tug-of-war over the Bible, it's not so surprising that schisms have opened across the religious landscape. Battles rage within almost every major faith. Gays and lesbians have formed caucuses within the Catholic Church and in most Protestant and Jewish denominations to push for change. Some congregations and church leaders have rebelled against denominational rules by ordaining gays and lesbians and blessing same-sex unions. The Rev. Rick Spaulding, the Presbyterian minister at the Church of the Covenant, in the Back Bay, for example, performs same-sex unions, in violation of his denomination's rules.
The Rev. Thomas Gumbleton, auxiliary bishop of Detroit, whose brother is gay, has consistently challenged the Catholic Church to become more tolerant toward gays and lesbians. Last year, at a conference on gay and lesbian issues in Pittsburgh, Gumbleton called on all gay and lesbian Catholics, including priests, to proclaim their homosexuality ``so our church will truly change. If they were willing to stand up on a Sunday morning in front of the community and say who they really are, our church would much more fully and effectively appreciate the gifts homosexuals can bring to the whole community of our church and society as well.''
Conservative activists, too, have organized to protect their belief that the Bible condemns homosexuality. Last year, the auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Boston, the Rev. William Murphy, sent a letter to priests telling them not to attend a convention in Boston of the gay Catholic group Dignity, because the organization, Murphy wrote in the letter, opposes ``Catholic moral teachings.'' Last month, an Iowa pastor was stripped of his clergy credentials by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America because he openly violated church rules barring noncelibate homosexuals from the ministry. Some conservative Episcopal bishops, angry at other bishops who violate church rules by ordaining noncelibate gays, formed a breakaway Episcopal denomination last year.
Helen Rhea Stumbo, a Methodist and president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a conservative group based in Washington, argues that failing to uphold biblical strictures against homosexuality would ``threaten our traditional understanding of holiness and grace, fracture our denomination, and further undermine our nation's already precarious moral consensus.''
On a summer day in 1985, about a dozen men and women, most of them gay or lesbian, gathered at Temple Israel, in Boston, to talk with the rabbis about whether the congregation and its board would permit homosexuals to join the synagogue as openly gay members.
At one point, Rabbi Bernhard H. Mehlman, who has been the senior rabbi at Temple Israel, New England's largest Jewish congregation, since 1977, turned to David Passer, who is gay. ``I said, `David, are your spiritual needs different from mine?''' Mehlman recalls. ```I'm not talking about your social needs or your sexual needs. I'm talking about your spiritual needs. Are they significantly different from mine?'
``The room became very quiet, and David finally said, `Well, put that way, I suppose they aren't.' `In that case,' I said, `if there are no significant differences between your spiritual needs and mine, then the only way we can advocate for you is if you become members of our congregation.'''
Passer asked Mehlman what would happen if he and his partner, Mark Maxwell, were to join the temple as an openly gay couple, something that had never happened at Temple Israel. They could join any way that they wanted, the rabbi told Passer.
``And what if someone in the congregation objects?'' Passer asked.
``Don't worry about that,'' Mehlman answered. ``I'll take care of it.''
At the board of trustees meeting, Passer and Maxwell's joint membership came up for a vote, as all such applications do. Someone asked who had endorsed Passer and Maxwell's membership, and Mehlman said he had. The board voted unanimously to allow them to join the congregation as a couple. It was the beginning of a new era at Temple Israel, a Reform congregation.
Since then, the temple has became nationally known as one of the most inclusive Jewish congregations in America. Mehlman says he can think of only one person, an older woman, who left Temple Israel because of its tolerant position on homosexuality. ``There may be others who object, but no one has come to me, and there has never been any public discussion,'' he says.
To be sure, Temple Israel is unusual, even within the liberal Reform movement. The issue of homosexuality has triggered explosive debate and internal turmoil in many places. Many gay and lesbian Jews have been shunned by traditional congregations and have had to form their own temples. But Temple Israel has successfully and without much visible acrimony absorbed gays and lesbians into the wider congregation.
Over the years, Temple Israel has performed Jewish rituals, conversions, baby-naming ceremonies, bar mitzvahs, and commitment ceremonies for gay and lesbian members. The events are announced to the entire congregation in the temple's newsletter. ``I'm very proud of what we have done here, of the fact that we have no isolated or marginalized gays and lesbians but have integrated them into the congregation,'' says Rabbi Ruth Alpers, an associate rabbi at Temple Israel.
``Why shouldn't we welcome all who are interested in Judaism and for whom Judaism is important, no matter their sexual orientation?'' says Richard Berkman, the temple's president and a senior partner at the legal firm of Hale and Dorr. ``Judaism shouldn't be an exclusive club. We should be an example of justice.''
For Meir Sherer, Temple Israel is a place where he feels comfortable being gay and being Jewish, a synthesis that has taken much of his 31 years to achieve. Born into a conservative Jewish family, Sherer felt a strong connection to his faith. He attended temple services with his family. He became active in the synagogue's youth group, traveling to Israel as a teenager.
He knew he wanted to work in the Jewish community and received bachelor's degrees in Jewish studies and sociology from the Jewish Theological Seminary, in New York, and Columbia University, respectively. He also knew he was gay. But he remained secretive about his sexual orientation, because he feared it would jeopardize his desire to work with Jewish youth and families.
``I had no gay Jewish role models,'' Sherer says. ``I felt that if I were to come out, I would be rejected by all the communities I was a part of because there was no one else like me. I didn't have a group of gay Jewish friends, and I definitely was very much scared for my career. I knew that the Torah said homosexuality was an abomination.''
Sherer tried to suppress his homosexuality, even marrying a woman, in 1989, but after four years they divorced, and he started coming out. He became involved in Am Tikva, a gay and lesbian Jewish group. Then, in 1994, Sherer met Jeffrey Richard, the man he lives with now in Brookline. Sherer had heard about Temple Israel through the gay Jewish grapevine, and Richard had grown up in a Reform Jewish home, so Sherer went to check out Temple Israel. He liked what he saw. Today, Temple Israel is not only his spiritual home but also his employer: Sherer is the congregation's family educator.
When he and Richard walk into the synagogue for Friday-night Shabbat services, Sherer says, he is overcome by joy. ``It's wonderful to come to a place where you can feel comfortable, where you don't have to look over your shoulder and wonder if someone is talking about you, where you don't have to hide who you are,'' he says. ``It's wonderful to be part of this larger congregation, where everyone, gays and nongays, can gather together to celebrate Shabbat. Those are still `wow' moments for me.''
The debate on gays and lesbians is shifting slowly toward greater tolerance. Sometimes, change happens one person at a time.
Marcello Bailon used to think he had an unshakable view of homosexuality. ``It was a sin against God,'' says Bailon, who recently moved from Boston to Bogota, Colombia, to take a teaching job. But that was before he met Eddie Gomez, three years ago, at an Assembly of God congregation in Boston where Bailon worshiped. Gomez and Bailon became friends, and eventually, Gomez confided to Bailon that he was gay and had AIDS. Word leaked out to the congregation, too, and Gomez was asked to leave. Furious, Bailon left too. The two remained friends until Gomez's death last year.
``There is no way I can justify what the Bible says with the beautiful person Eddie was,'' says Bailon, who would not identify the Assembly of God church he belonged to. ``After Eddie told me, I spent hours reading the Bible. I concluded that Jesus, my personal Lord and savior, never had a problem with gays or lesbians. That was good enough for me. I threw everything I had ever heard in the church about gays out the window.''
Stassen, the evangelical biblical scholar, says scriptural teaching does not excuse ``meanness. We must treat each other with mutual respect.''
Also helping to change attitudes toward gays is the willingness of more and more church leaders, sometimes at the risk of being disciplined, to speak out against or challenge their religious body's position on homosexuality. In the Episcopal Church, liberal bishop John S. Spong sparked heated global debate when he issued a white paper to Anglican bishops around the world, denouncing the church's teachings on homosexuality.
The Episcopal Church in the United States is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Anglican bishops are scheduled to meet this summer, and issues of sexual mores are expected to set off fireworks. ``I am fearful,'' Spong says, ``that when we meet, we will act out of our longstanding ignorance and fears, instead of out of the Gospel imperative, and thus deal one more violent blow to these victims of our traditional prejudices.''
Citing scientific evidence that homosexuality is not chosen, Spong chastises ``uninformed religious people who buttress their attitude with appeals to a literal understanding of the Bible. This same mentality has marked every debate about every new insight that has arisen in the Western world over the last 600 years. It is a tired, threadbare argument that has become one of embarrassment to the cause of Christ.''
In the Roman Catholic Church, several church leaders have urged the church to extend a warmer welcome to gays and lesbians; the church officials include Cardinal Roger Mahony, the influential leader of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the country's largest Catholic diocese. At least 30 dioceses nationwide (of which Boston is not one) support ministries to gays and lesbians.
And in an important change in tone, if not church teaching, the US bishops last October issued a pastoral letter on homosexuality addressed to parents of gays and lesbians. While clearly reiterating the church's teaching on homosexuality, the church wrote that gays and lesbians must be treated justly. ``God does not love someone any less simply because he or she is homosexual,'' the bishops wrote, encouraging priests to use words like ``homosexual,'' ``gay,'' and ``lesbian'' from the altar.
It was the first pastoral letter devoted solely to homosexuality. ``It was important simply because it was written. The usual approach from church leaders has basically been to ignore the issue,'' says Nugent, the priest who cofounded a ministry to homosexuals. ``This letter gives permission for people in the parishes to talk about the issue.''
At the congregational level, a growing number of gay and lesbian clergy are willing to go public about their sexual orientation. Doing so, they hope, will challenge congregants and perhaps set an example for others in their denominations.
``Any leader of a religious community has to be fully present in order to make any kind of impact,'' says Rabbi Wes Odell, who came out to his congregants at Temple Israel, in Dover, New Hampshire, during Rosh Hashana services three years ago. ``Part of the job of a rabbi is to push people to a higher level of understanding. Sometimes, that involves having the courage to say, `This is who I am, and this is what I represent.'''
Jan Stott and Tamara Indianer don't consider themselves gay activists. They are just two people in love who want to have their commitment sanctified in the eyes of God. Stott, 37, who works at the Muscular Therapy Institute, in Cambridge, and Indianer, 30, an independent insurance agent and financial planner, joined Boston's Temple Israel last year after visiting the synagogue several times.
Stott, brought up Episcopalian, moved to Boston from New York to be with Indianer, who describes herself as not very devout. They knew Temple Israel's reputation in the gay and lesbian community, and they were not disappoint-
ed.
Any doubts about the temple were erased during an introductory Judaism class the two attended while Stott was preparing for conversion. The teacher, Rabbi Alpers, was discussing the Jewish marriage contract in a class filled with couples. Stott and Indianer were the only gay couple. But Alpers, explaining the role of the marriage contract in a wedding ceremony, handed a sample copy of the document to Stott and Indianer. ``It was an amazing feeling. She just confirmed everything we were feeling about the place,'' Indianer says, sitting with Stott on a couch in their Arlington apartment.
After Stott's conversion, the couple knew that the next step, if they were serious about their relationship, was to have it blessed. So on July 25, Alpers will bless Stott and Indianer's union. Holding the ceremony in a temple, Indianer says, ``gives weight to the whole thing. A rabbi is doing it in the house of God. It shows the community that there is some official religious sanction.''
Like Stott and Indianer, John Kelly isn't interested in political fights. He doesn't expect Rome to change its mind about homosexuality anytime soon. It's enough, he says, that he has found his own Catholic niche. His faith has nothing to do with what the Vatican says, but only with what he experiences every Sunday at the Jesuit Urban Center.
``For too long, I blamed the church for my own feelings,'' he says. ``But I have come to the conclusion that if I can say, `I'm gay and I'm Catholic,' and I can come here to receive Communion and be with God, then I have overcome any hangups the church or anyone else has put on me. I've made peace with the church. Coming here has made me feel like a true Catholic again. I don't think any of the priests or anyone else who gets up on the altar doesn't realize who they are talking to. And they have made it a point to make us feel that we are not bad people. God has to have something to do with that.''
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