CHURCHES AND HOMOSEXUALITY

Protesting Discrimination

In the 1970s homosexuals, now identifying themselves as gays and lesbians, began to demand an end to the discrimination they encountered because of their sexual orientation and activities. They achieved some public success in large, tolerant cities like New York City and San Francisco but encountered opposition in other places. In 1977 Anita Bryant, a former Miss Oklahoma and well-known singing star, led a successful effort to keep Dade County, Florida, from adopting laws to bar discrimination based on sexual orientation. Bryant, the most visible member of the antigay organization Save Our Children, based much of her argument against nondiscrimination laws on religious grounds and received most of her support from other religious conservatives. While she won this war and the ordinance failed to pass, she ultimately lost her position as a spokesperson for the Florida Citrus Commission, which preferred not to work with a "controversial" public figure.

Religious Response

As the demand for gay rights intensified, homosexual members of various religious groups, such as the Episcopal Integrity and the Roman Catholic Dignity, organized to influence their denominations. Pressed by these groups and the current of the times, denominations wrestled first with the issue of homosexuality itself and then with the question of whether gay and lesbian people should be ordained.

Ambivalence

The terms of the debate were set by the National Council of Churches in 1975, when its governing board voted overwhelmingly to support equal rights for homosexuals but discouraged their participation in the ministry. The same year the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church agreed that homosexuality was not condemned by Scripture but refused to recognize the Presbyterian Gay Caucus. When a commission established to review ordination recommended that gays and lesbians be ordained, the General Assembly rejected the recommendation, except in the case of celibate homosexuals. The Southern Baptist Convention flatly refused ordination to homosexuals. The Episcopal church was sharply divided when Bishop Paul Moore, Jr., of New York ordained an avowed lesbian in 1977. Later that year the Episcopal bishops condemned homosexual activity and opposed ordination as counter to Scripture but did not take action against Moore. In 1978 Rabbi Abraham B. Hecht, president of the Rabbinical Alliance of America, which represented Orthodox rabbis, announced an "all-out campaign against gay rights." He contended that while homosexuality should not be illegal, the state should not legitimize perversion.

Reaction

While many homosexuals remained in their congregations and continued their loyalty to their denominations, others left their home churches to join or establish other congregations. The Metropolitan Community Church, a ministry to gays and lesbians, was founded in Los Angeles in 1968 by the Reverend Troy Perry. The Metropolitan Community Church quickly found other gays and lesbians who felt rejected by their churches for their orientation and behavior and established Community Churches in other major cities. This denomination, calling itself the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC), acquired an estimated twenty thousand members by the end of the decade. Many of its ministers were men and women ordained in other denominations who now found a home in an ecumenical communion of Christians united by their belief that Jesus loved them. The UFMCC would later apply, unsuccessfully, for admission to the National Council of Churches.