The Comma

This Sunday folks from our congregation will be walking in the Pride Parade.  When I take a moment to reflect on it, that sentence is stunning to me.  Folks from my church.  Walking in a Pride Parade.   Well, of course, in the last decade and a half I have taken that for granted.  But when I remember my own struggles growing up, and what I once believed about God, and where the church I belonged to as a young adult still stands on GLBT issues (they would be protesting the parade, not walking in it), I stand in awe of the grace of God.  This Sunday, folks from my congregation will be walking in the Pride Parade.  And they will be walking with other University District churches, who together have assembled an ecumenical float!

I can’t go.  I wish I could, but the parade is Sunday morning, and I will be in church preaching.  Now, dear readers, note that I did not say I can’t go because if anyone saw me there I would lose my job.  I did not say I can’t go because my own internalized fears and poor theology leave me too conflicted to walk.  I did not say I can’t go because I don’t care.  I can’t go because I will be preaching, preaching at an Open and Affirming church, which had a pastor who spoke up for gays and lesbians even before Stonewall, in a denomination that was the first to ordain an openly gay man, and to a congregation that was the first that we know of anywhere to hire an openly gay couple.

As I was listening to NPR this morning, two features stories caught my attention.  The first was a local one.  A Seattle employee wants the names of people who’ve joined a city–sponsored group for gay and lesbian staffers. He says he needs those names, email addresses and other contact information so he can be sure that laws are being obeyed, that city money is not being used in a discriminatory way.  He adds that he thinks the city “needs a big kick in the head” in order to “stop what they’re doing.”  Folks in the GLBT group do not want their names released.  They say that they fear harassment.  Still.  In Seattle.  And I understand.  The man who wants the names says he doesn’t intend harassment, or “outing,” just fairness.  Forgive my skeptical reluctance to trust someone who says that in the name of Jesus he wants to give the city a big kick in the head.

The second story was a national one, related to promises Barack Obama the candidate made regarding GLBT rights, and his disappointing follow-through on those promises as president.  By the way, let me add this editorial comment.  These were not promises to “the gay community,” but promises to the whole community. Dan Savage, a national gay rights activist, and editorial director of the Seattle weekly The Stranger, was speaking of his own frustration regarding presidential follow through.  He told of a woman in Florida who had to wait outside the hospital room, with no right to be by her partner’s side, while inside her partner died alone.  This in spite of the fact that the couple had registered as domestic partners and had filed power-of-attorney rights.

I am grateful that twenty years ago I was surrounded by compassionate health care professionals and at Eileen’s bedside when she died.  I am grateful that I found my way to a compassionate church that walked with me into a deeper understanding of God, of love, of justice and of grace.  And I am deeply grateful for those of you who are walking with Pride on Sunday, because I know we still have a ways to go.  In today’s post, I just wanted to say thank you.