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Friday, September 27, 1996 Ministry Reaches Out to Young Gay ChristiansMetropolitan Community Church let’s young people know 'God does not condemn them'by Leah Wynn, Washington Blade Intern Sexual minority young people who are Christian can find fellowship and family at a local ministry created especially for them. The Metropolitan Community Church of Washington, a predominantly Gay congregation, started its youth program a year ago, recalled Rodney Holton, 19, who has been attending MCC since October 1995. “At first it was just me,” he said, “and then there was karaoke night and things took off.” The group has expanded to about 20 people, with a median age of around 17, said Dewan Lee, youth leader. “Our mission is outreach,” Lee said. “We are trying to grab [the young people] spiritually, and let them know that God loves them just the way they are.” MCC sponsored a picnic on Sunday, Sept. 22, for all those between the ages of 14-20. The group of about 15 met a few doors down from MCC for burgers, chips, and “Christian fellowship,” said Mary Phillips, chairperson of MCC’s youth fellowship. “We’re trying to let the kids know that they are loved, and that God does not condemn them,” said Phillips, who is also a teacher at Laurel High School in Maryland. “I’m very grounded in my faith,” she said, “but I’m also very grounded in my sexuality.” “It is not our intent to exclude anyone, we are a Christ-centered group. We are ministering to Gays, Lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders, and friends,” added Phillips. The group meets every other week for discussion, prayer, and a chance to catch up with each other on the week. Holton said meetings are not “all business and no play.” “So far we’ve had homemade lasagna dinners, a Fourth of July picnic on the Mall, karaoke night, and we’ve met out for dinner,” he said. “The [youth] group is like a family,” said 17-year-old Curtis Savoy, who has been attending the group since July. “After my first meeting, I thought to myself, ‘Where have I been so long?’” A few individuals have some big projects, too. Group member Terita Russell, 17, is in the process of starting a Gay male and Lesbian support group at Roosevelt High School in Washington, D.C., which she attends. “The principal is at least willing to talk with us,” Russell said. “A few years ago, a girl was expelled just for being openly Gay, so things do look better.” Sunday’s picnic also came with an important agenda: Officer elections were held for the first time. “This is a big day for the youth. They’re making this their own ministry,” said MCC Deacon Bill Duroe. “With the youth running things, it will only get better.” Copyright © 1996 The Washington Blade Inc. A member of the gay.net community. Back to List of Articles
Sunday, September 29, 1996 "I Can Be Fully Myself...Gay and Christian"by Laurie Goodstein, Washington Post Staff Writer Dallas, Texas---Until she discovered the Cathedral of Hope two years ago, Pam Dunnam, a 38-year-old telecommunications engineer, could not shake the conviction that she was going to hell. Pray as she did, try as she might, she said her deep Christian faith could not conquer her lesbianism. "I kept thinking I had to be one or the other -- gay or Christian," Dunnam said. "But in this church I can be fully myself -- gay and Christian." As she waited silently in line for Communion, her pinkie finger hooked around her partner's pinkie, Dunnam was surrounded by hundreds of other gay worshipers, who have experienced similar dilemmas. This was Gay Pride Sunday at the Cathedral of Hope, the largest church in America for gay men and women. With a congregation that has quadrupled to 1,734 over the past eight years, it is one of the nation's fastest-growing churches. As more and more gay Christians step into the open, many seek their own churches as sanctuaries from what is increasingly seen as a growing religious war. The issue of homosexuality is dividing religious Americans today nearly as dramatically as slavery divided them more than a century ago. Mainline Protestant denominations are bitterly ruptured over whether to ordain gay ministers and whether to welcome or try to change gay congregants. And in many evangelical churches, condemnation of the "homosexual lifestyle" has become a driving political cause. Gay congregations across the country are swelling with refugees from churches that preach that homosexuality is a sin. They practice a home-grown Christian liberation theology, which teaches that being gay is not grounds for hellfire and damnation, but a "gift" from God. In a community withered by the fatal plague of AIDS, gay Christians say they seek solace from suffering. In a political system that just voted to deny them the right to legal marriage, they seek ceremonies to bless their love. But they say they also are drawn to church for many of the same reasons as heterosexuals: spiritual inspiration, quiet prayer, uplifting music, a sense of community, an outlet for charitable service, and a place to meet potential mates or to teach their children values. The congregation here is only the most visible church in the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches [UFMCC], the first Christian denomination founded to minister especially to gay men and lesbians. From the MCC's fragile beginning 28 years ago when 12 fearful worshipers gathered in a living room, the denomination has grown into a fixture on the modern religious scene, claiming 42,000 members in the United States, and 352 churches in 19 countries. While most mainline Protestant churches are losing members, the MCC is expanding. While many churches count fewer at Sunday services than on the official membership list, at MCC churches, according to officials, there are far more participants than official members. There are other predominantly gay churches and many straight churches that welcome gays. But the MCC is by far the strongest presence. This month, the denomination moved into a new five-story headquarters in West Hollywood, Calif., recently purchased for $3.8 million. MCC officials said its members in the United States donated more than $11 million in offerings last year. That figure outstrips contributions to more visible gay political organizations including the Human Rights Campaign (which raised $7 million in individual contributions) and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (which raised $2.1 million). "From a political perspective," said Daniel Zingale, political director of the Human Rights Campaign, who studied at Harvard Divinity School, "in the way that black churches were essential in advancing civil rights, you'll see the MCC emerge as an important force in the struggle for gay rights." But whether or not the church ultimately has an impact on how society sees homosexuals, some gay people say it has already changed the way they see themselves. Ten years ago, John Hankins was a Southern Baptist who said he felt like "I wasn't good enough to breathe God's air." Now he serves as a part-time MCC pastor in Atlanta. He said the MCC convinced him that "being gay or lesbian is nothing to be ashamed of. God has chosen us to be a special people with special gifts to offer society . . . The Israelite children were oppressed too. Maybe we're like the Israelite children, chosen by God." The MCC's founder, the Rev. Troy D. Perry was a preacher in his Florida Pentecostal church by age 13. He married his pastor's daughter at 18, divorced at 23 and was quickly excommunicated from his church when he openly acknowledged his homosexuality. By age 28, distraught when the first man he ever loved walked out on him, Perry said he crawled into a bathtub one night and slit his wrists. When he woke up in the hospital the next morning with bandaged arms, he said he heard God speaking to him like a friend, telling him that he was loved, and a strange joy came over him. "I was like a lot of gays and lesbians. The church had told me that God doesn't love me, and so I just called it quits," said Perry, 56. "But God had called me to preach, and not the church. The church had taken away my credentials, but they hadn't taken away my calling." Six months later, Perry placed an ad in the local gay newspaper in Los Angeles inviting people to come worship in his living room in Huntington Park, on Oct. 6, 1968. Nine friends and three strangers showed up. A year and a half later, he had a fledgling congregation of 1,000, which purchased its first building. Other gay clergy who were closeted or excommunicated began contacting him, and soon they had the makings of a denomination. From the beginning, Perry said he and his clergy colleagues had to figure out how to create a new church that would appeal equally to Catholics, mainline Protestants, evangelicals and those who never attended church. He envisioned a church that would reach out to gay men and lesbians, but be welcoming to everybody. He said he wanted to unite the passionate preaching found in Pentecostal churches with the ritual sacraments-which he found so moving-as practiced in the more liturgical traditions such as roman Catholicism or Episcopalianism. In most MCC congregations today, a worshiper can be baptized and receive Communion from ministers dressed in white robes, and a few minutes later be clapping to evangelical hymns. It is the church's policy to offer the Communion cup and wafer to all who step forward. The MCC has its own prayer book, written in gender-neutral language that refers to God as Father and as Mother. The clergy are men and women, homosexual and heterosexual. Most have been trained and ordained in other Protestant denominations, although an increasing number of new ministers have been trained with the MCC. Each Sunday, in congregations large and small, MCC ministers meld familiar religious traditions with new liturgies unique to the MCC. Just outside Atlanta, the Rev. John Hankins and his lover, the co-pastor, baptize a lesbian couple in the strong current of the Chattahoochee River in the name of "the Parent, the Child and the Holy Spirit." In rural Denton, Texas, a congregation of 108 dances the Lord's Prayer in a white-steepled former Baptist church next to a highway. In the District, the Metropolitan Community Church of Washington -- 498-strong and one of the denomination's oldest -- worshipers clap to a gospel choir in a modern sanctuary of glass and steel at Fifth and Ridge Streets, NW. Some churchgoers, gay and straight, say that if some kind of 20th century inquisition were to expel all the closeted homosexuals from church choirs, Sunday schools, deaconates, curias and pulpits, the nation's churches would simply cease to function. Yet gay members of mainstream churches say they stay closeted because, in more theologically conservative congregations, they hear from the pulpit that the Bible says homosexuality is an "abomination," language used in two scriptural passages in Leviticus. The MCC teaches that those passages refer to "prostitution" in the Hebrew temples, and that in biblical times there was no understanding of a genetic predisposition to homosexuality that is accepted by many today. Although some Catholic parishes and mainline Protestant churches today may welcome people they believe are homosexual, they officially condemn homosexual behavior. A United Methodist Church resolution adopted in 1972, for instance, says that homosexuality is "incompatible with Christian teaching." The United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalist Association have been ordaining into their clergies openly homosexual people since the early 1970s. But the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the United Methodist Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America all passed resolutions in the 1970s and 1980s banning ordination of gay people, and have been fighting over the issue ever since. "The tragic thing in my mind is that so many people are affirming the [homosexual] lifestyle that we're leaving people in a lifestyle that is obviously destructive and damaging," said the Rev. Maxie Dunnam, no relation to Pam Dunnam, a Methodist minister and president of Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky. He said that churches like the MCC rely on psychological and sociological beliefs about homosexuality, but ignore scripture. "God created us male and female. . . . In terms of the order of creation, homosexuality is a distortion." Many conservative churches regard homosexuality as a sickness or a habit that can be overcome through discipline, prayer and psychological treatment. Preaching "love the sinner, hate the sin," many of these churches have embraced the "ex-gay ministry" movement that claims to help gays along the conversion path to heterosexuality or, at the very least, to celibacy. At the heart of this conversion approach is the assumption that homosexuality is a "lifestyle choice" made by the sinner. Perry and his church reject that entirely and consider homosexuality a God-given trait as innate as eye color or gender. Perry said his church is full of Christians who tried "ex-gay ministry" programs to no avail, making themselves miserable and even suicidal in a vain attempt to deny what he called "God's plan" for their lives. "If there's one spiritual truth God gave me years ago," Perry said, "it's that God didn't create me so that God could have something to sit around and hate. In our community I run into so many people who've been beaten up emotionally, who have very poor images of themselves. I say my homosexuality is a gift from God. . . .Jesus came to take away my sin, not my sexuality." From the pulpit of pink marble at the Cathedral of Hope, framed by flower arrangements donated by two men named Kevin in honor of their first anniversary as a couple, the Rev. Michael S. Piazza, 42, looks out at the sea of worshipers on Gay Pride Sunday. They fill every pew and extend into the foyer on folding chairs, with many standing along the wall in the back. Even with two Sunday services, this flock already is outgrowing this 900-seat sanctuary, dedicated merely three years ago. He will baptize six people this morning and welcome an additional 40 new members. He asks the congregation to support the building of a church, which will seat 3,000 and be designed by the noted 90-year-old architect Philip Johnson, and which could cost $18 million. Piazza hopes to see it completed by 2000. His sermon on this day is peppered with wry anecdotes about his "spouse" of 16 years, Bill Eure, 41, and their deliberations about which wood chips to buy for their garden. He mentions their two young daughters, one adopted and one conceived by artificial insemination, whom they co-parent with a lesbian couple. Piazza said he uses these personal examples to show that gay family life can be normal and healthy. Like most MCC churches, this one walks a fine line between refusing to condemn certain kinds of behavior -- there is a spiritual support group for "leather people," for example -- and yet clearly encouraging committed, monogamous relationships. Piazza officiates at more than 100 gay weddings, called "holy union" ceremonies, each year. He said the recent vote by Congress allowing states to deny recognition of gay marriages is a violation of religious freedom, and he is preparing to fight in court. With the growing number of couples, this MCC church, like many others, is experience its own baby boom. In the church's small Sunday school classroom, six school-age children are being taught about honesty in fishing and other endeavors by coloring "rainbow trout," while in the pews, several dozen younger children and babies squirm on their parents' laps. The service, like others here, at first glance resembles traditional Protestantism. Rev. Piazza and two assistant pastors step forward to two human-sized candelabra, each with four unlit candles. The first holds four "candles of pain" and Piazza lights the first, explaining that it represents the fear of living in an "oppressive world" where gay men and women -- such as the television producer, air-conditioner repairman and several teachers sitting in the congregation -- can lose their jobs merely because they are homosexual. The second candle symbolizes violence toward the gay community-18 MCC churches have burned over the years, many in unsolved arsons, and several members have been killed in alleged gay-bashings. The third candle commemorates those who have died of AIDS, more than 1,000 in this congregation, and the fourth "internalized homophobia," reminding the congregation, Tucker says, that hatred of self can be as crippling as external oppression. But there are four more candles to light, symbolizing reasons for hope: the first for the ability to maintain loving relationships against harsh odds; the second for the "heterosexual heroes" who have stood by gay people; the third for gay people of faith and the gay church; and the fourth for gay "heroes," including the few "out" members of Congress. The harmonies of [one of] the church's choir[s], Positive Voices -- composed entirely of HIV-positive singers -- resound in the church as Piazza takes his seat on the pulpit. Tammy Bima has listened to it all and now stands in line for Communion, something she hasn't done since she was in high school. Twenty-eight and gay, she has long felt like an outcast in the Catholic church in which she was raised. Today, she reaches the altar, sips from the cup, bows her head, and walks to her seat, hands clasped before her. The service ends and the church's foyer is filled with friends hugging, showing off their children. Bima eyes the hubbub around her. "Coming today, I was very moved," she says, "I could definitely feel I could go back to church." © Copyright 1996 The Washington Post Company Back to List of Articles
Sunday, November 20, 1996; Page D01 Every Girl's DreamOn This Untraditional Wedding Day, the Traditional Jitters and the Traditional Tearsby Washington Post Staff Writer Angela was a princess, a ruffles girl, with flickery brown eyes and a pink bath towel that she would drape around her shoulders like a bridal veil. “My wedding will be big,” Angela pronounced, fluttering her towel in the tall mirror at the end of the hall. She was 4 or maybe 5, but she knew just what she wanted: 12 girl cousins for her bridesmaids; Mommy and Daddy at the front of the church, smiling as she walked down the aisle. She looked into the mirror and she saw it shining there -- her happy, someday wedding. Many years passed. Angela Powell woke up lying on her side, her betrothed curled around her like a spoon. Most morning they were sprawled on opposite sides of the bed. Today was special, though, “One more day and we’ve done it,” said her sweetheart. “I can’t wait to be your wife, “ murmured Angela. And they kissed, lightly, on the lips. She had been planning the occasion for more than a year. She had scheduled the evening down to the minute: “5:45 -- blessing of the couple; 5:47 -- Presentation of the couple; 5:48 -- Cue music.” She had timed the processional song -- 3 minutes 27 seconds. She had counted the number of steps it takes for the back of the church to the altar -- 21. So many details to a wedding. So many of them mundane: Register at Crate and Barrel. Engrave the wedding bands with initials and date. Tell the deejay the first dance will be “A Whole New World” from their favorite Disney movie, “Aladdin.” Angela had taken care of all the details. Except for the one she can’t cross off any to-do list -- the one her thinks is so serious, they’ve threatened not to attend. Angela is a bride. So is her fiancee. A satin bra, control-top pantyhose, Secret clear deodorant: Angela’s fiancee is in the bedroom, packing a bag for their wedding night. “My favorite underwear,” says Elise Young, 38, tossing in her gray Calvin Kleins. “You need the blow-dryer?” Angela, 34, calls from the bathroom. Angela leans against the sink as she coaches Elise: “Comb, hairbrush, blow-dryer.” It is the day before her wedding and she still isn’t sure who will walk her down the aisle. “When you’re little, that’s all you see -- Cinderella and the fairy prince,” Angela says. Her back is to the mirror now. She sees no reflection, no clues. No telling how this princess will survive her fairy tale. The Twain Meet Her dad was always inviting boys home for her to meet. He was a high school principal in Memphis, and his former students would drop by and ask, “Where’s Angela?” looking for his spunky, teenage daughter. Angela was running out the other door. It’s not that she didn’t have boyfriends -- she did -- or that she didn’t sleep with them -- she did. It’s just that it was so much nicer to kiss her best girlfriend. Every Christmas, Angela’s grandmother would clasp her hand, and ask, first thing: “When are you getting married?” Angela would smile and think to herself, “I’m not going to marry who you think I’m going to marry.” Three years after her grandmother died, Angela mailed out the invitations. Beneath her name is her partner’s, Elise Sie Yen Young, a small, sturdy woman who spent her childhood slopping in puddles and dirt piles in Hawaii, rolling trucks down hills. If Angela was a princess, they joke, Elise was the aspiring prince. “I think there’s only one person for everyone in the world,” Angela says. “You do?” Elise glances at her, surprised. Elise had more girlfriends than Angela before she was ready to make a commitment. “There are many people for me,” Elise teases. Not after “the magic day,” Angela says, arching her eyebrows. It is several weeks before the wedding. They are sitting in Starbucks in Dupont Circle, on a lunch break from their jobs; Elise is a psychotherapist, and Angela is an administrator at the Department of Health and Human Services. Angela and Elise have just met with the caterer for the third time, discussing the dipping creams and pastries that have plumped the budget for the affair from $5,000 to $10, 000. “I want it to be pretty, but I don’t want to go broke,” says Angela, quenching her nervous dry mouth with a mochaccino. “That’s what it’s all about -- going broke,” says Elise. She knows exactly how to tease Angela out of her panic. They met through work and have been dating for four years, the last two living together in a house in Silver Spring with Angela’s adopted 6-year-old daughter, Casey. They know each other’s quirks, they fight about the toilet lid. “Cover down,” says Angela. “Cover up,” Elise says. Their wedding won’t change any of these things. Their wedding won’t change their legal status either. Congress passed a bill this fall that in effect bans same-sex marriages under federal law. It authorizes states to reject gay marriages performed in other states. But their wedding isn’t about joint tax returns, health insurance plans or pension benefits. “I want to have our relationship blessed in my church,” Angela says. She is a deacon at the Metropolitan Community Church, a gay ministry in the District. She believes Elise was born in her soul, that she was there from the beginning. When Elise says she loves her, she can feel it. The lightest plink of a piano key. “When she gets old, I want to wipe her drool,” says Angela. They want to retire near Disney World, land of glass-slipper endings. Here Angela found a friend who also grew up in a family that prized education, religion, frugality, someone whose mother also taught her to turn doorknobs in public bathrooms with a paper towel. That is a marriage. And more than anything, Angela wants her parents there, celebrating the union. A few weeks earlier, she signed on to their e-mail and found an unread message blipping on the screen: “Your mother and I will be with you to help celebrate your joint commitment to each other. Our blessing go with you both. “Lots of love, Papa” It was from Elise’s father, Elise’s parents and four siblings were flying in from Hawaii, California and Pennsylvania. Elise’s sister persuaded her parents to come telling them, “Well, she’s never going to marry a guy, so you might as well come to this wedding.” The letter from Angela’s father came a few days later, along with a pair of returned airline tickets. “My Dearest Daughter, “As could be expected, I’m trying from the bottom of my heart to tell you that you are my daughter, my heartbeat and everything. I’ve been there whenever you needed me; and I will be there for you in the future. However, I don’t think that we will be able to come up for your occasion. The only thing that’s questioning me, is why you have to publicize your relationship? I’m praying for you and the answer came, and I’m telling you what it is -- you’re still my child. “[heart icon] Daddy” Angela had worried that Elise’s family would boycott the wedding. She was sure her own folks would be there. She even had sent them round-trip tickets from Tennessee. She was their Angie, their only child. Angela took out her date book and drew a line through her handwriting: “Northwest #984, 1:55-4:57." They were supposed to fly in two days before “the magic day.” “Daddy seems to be trying,” Angela scribbled in her journal. “My mother, as it seems, is having a hard time. It’s funny how her claims of always wanting to know what I’m doing has put a big wall between us. I keep thinking about how I want to ask them again -- not to participate -- but just to sit and be present with me. I wonder if that’s possible. I need to respond to their letter. Who knows. Maybe they’ll be there.” She had an idea. “I shall be accepted as I am,” she wrote in another letter to her parents, copying an affirmation poem from a postcard she saw. “I will not harbor hatred. I will not accommodate fear. I will not validate injustice.” She sealed the tickets inside an envelope and mailed them back to Memphis. Details, Details “So the florist is make the cake?” the caterer says to Angela and Elise. “You’re making the cake,” Angela gasps, her mouth going dry. “That’s why you’re here,” Elise says in a low, even voice. She nuzzles Angela’s Nike with the toe of her Nike. They’re sitting in Elise’s office, going another round with the caterer. He is ticking off the menu, waving a gold pen around in the air, as if he were whisking stiff egg whites. The meeting worries Angela. Already, the dressmaker botched her gown. She ordered embroidered antique gold, and they sewed her a tacky lemon-yellow dress. “Seventeen days away from the big day, and I’m feeling a lot of stress,” Angela wrote in her journal. “Is it cold feet or just stress?” Typical moody bride. But there are extra complications for the lesbian bride. The bridesmaids refuse to wear dresses. The videographer is not gay, and there is a tinge of anxiety about how he will react to the guests. There isn’t adequate vocabulary to describe everyone’s role. One evening they sat with Jim Plankenhorn, the florist, ordering corsages: “What about our ushers? says Elise. “Usherettes,” says Angela. “Usher-persons?” Plankenhorn offers, twisting a point of his Dali mustache. The next day, at home in their living room, the women reviewed items ordered from the bridal registry at Macy’s: “I wanted ribbons and doves,” says Angela. “Ew! That’s girlie stuff,” says Elise. “It’s my wedding,” says Angela. “It’s mine, too,” Elise says. “If there was just one bride, she could make all the decisions.” These are prickly times for even the smoothest of relationships. Angela arranges a set of poetry cubes on the coffee table to read: “Please -- speak -- details -- of -- your -- trust -- and -- love.” “What if nobody shows up? says Angela. “Or the sound system makes squeaky sounds,” says Elise. “One of us falls down as we’re coming down the steps.” “We rip our dresses when we kneel!” They conjure up a list of disasters, but they smile the whole time. The most important piece has finally locked into place. Angela’s father called on Saturday. Her second letter touched him, he said: “I’m going to use my ticket.” Her mother won’t come, but still, her father will be there, crying happily, just as she’d always imagined when she was a princess. Down to the Wire Casey sleeps with a Cinderella doll curled in her fist. She usually keeps Cinderella in her bedroom upstairs, but tonight, the night before her mother’s wedding, Casey gets to sleep downstairs with Angela. “You’re not going to dribble on my pillow, are you?” Angela says, tucking Casey in. Casey was a boarder baby at a hospital where Angela had volunteered; she adopted her as an infant. Casey giggles. Mommy is letting her sleep on her side of the bed tonight. Elise is staying at a hotel. “Next time I sleep in that bed, I’ll be an honest woman,” Elise whispers, throwing her clothes together in a bag in the dark. She is reviewing her vows in her head. “I was trying to think of what real people -- straight people -- say, and I was going to modify it. Angela is bending over Casey. “You need to go to sleep. Say your prayers.” “How come you guys choose not to be with each other?” asks Casey. “That’ll make it extra special when we see each other in church,” Angela says. Elise smiles; they have been observing an oath of chastity for the past week. They won’t see each other until the altar. The house is full of guests. In the living room, the wedding bands lie on the coffee table. Friends flop onto the couches and begin to work on their toasts. “I want to say I was Elise’s first lesbian lover, but her parents will be there -- what do you think?” says one woman. The rehearsal went well. Elise’s mother, Laura, remarked afterward, “We didn’t expect it to be so normal.” And her father, Clifford, said with amazement, “Just like a wedding.” Casey stuffed herself at the rehearsal dinner and now is snuggled under a flowery quilt, too excited to sleep. “Why are you marrying Mommy?” she asks Elise. “Maybe Mommy should marry Leon.” At school, her friends all have a mother and a father. “Mommy and Leon are good friends,” Elise says. Leon Hampton is another deacon at the church. “But Mommy is marrying me.” “Why?” “’Cause I love Mommy, and I think Mommy loves me.” Casey hugs Elise. “I love you.” Mostly Casey has been talking about being a flower girl. She’s worried she’ll forget to drop the petals. Angela nudges Elise out the door. “It’s almost midnight, you have to get out.” “Bing! Bing!” Elise says, laughing, and she’s gone. The clock strikes midnight. Angela slips into bed, sadness squeezing the back of her neck. The call came three days ago. Her father had phoned to find out what kind of coat to bring to Washington -- leather jacket or winter coat? Her mother broke into the call, crying, angry. How could Angela do this to them? She hasn’t been able to sleep since Angela sent them the wedding invitation. Why did she insist on embarrassing them in public? By the end of the tearful conversation, her father was staying home, too. A Dream Ending Something went wrong. I couldn’t get to the church. I was calling Elise on the car phone. “You’re late! You’re late!” Elise said, in a panicked voice. “I know I’m late. There is traffic and I can’t get there.” I was trying to calm her down, but I was really anxious. I was stuck in traffic, and there was no way to go. I would turn and try to drive one way, and it would be a dead-end street. Nothing was cleared. The road was blocked. And no one could tell me why. Angela woke up at 4 a.m. from a nightmare on her wedding day. She clicked on a small light, and pored over her to-do list one more time. Step by Step The daffy caterer forgot to bring ice cubes. And the soft drinks. And also, his oven broke. The deejay lost the CD for “A Whole New World.” The flowers above the altar spilled onto the floor. The church staff failed to set up the chairs, and 20 minutes before the guests began to arrive, Angela is dressed in jeans, pushing chairs across the chapel floor, her mouth as dry as ashes. She hears a woman’s step. “Mom!” Angela says, looking up, her voice lifting. “Is my makeup running? How’s my eyeliner?” says Jeanette Paroly, 44, a longtime friend. At the last minute Jeanette insisted that she escort Angela. “At least I haven’t caused you trouble from birth,” Angela says. Leon, the deacon, will stand in for her father. Ten minutes behind Angela’s minute-by-minute schedule, the wedding march begins: Casey scampers down the aisle, ahead of her turn. Elise smiles broadly, dreaming of her wedding night. Elise’s father, his arm linked through Elise’s, tells himself, “Just don’t stumble.” The minister walks down the aisle, worrying he’ll mix up the prayers. A bridesmaid promises herself she’s going to propose to the first girl she sees. “Come on,” Jeanette says to Angela, who is hovering by the door. “They’re playing the wrong music!” Angela hisses. Leon grabs her hand. Jeanette grabs the other hand. “Let’s go, honey,” Leon says. “Don’t be nervous. I can get you through this just as good as your father could.” Angela takes two steps. She thinks of her parents and starts to cry. She wonders what they’re doing today. She steps again, another step. And she imagines her parents are sittingh in the church, up front. They are turning around and are watching her walk down the aisle. Her father is so proud, tears are running down his cheeks; her mother is so proud her smile never wavers. At 5:20, Angela’s father is raking the leaves on their back lawn in Memphis. Her mother is at the grocery store, doing her routine shopping. Still, after five steps down the church aisle, Angela is floating, light with happiness . . . And They Lived . . . “Once upon a time,” says Casey, in the blankety dark of the back seat, driving home. “There was a church service. And the service was for Elise and Mommy to get married. They walked slowly down the aisle. Casey was the flower girl. And Mommy and Elise were the wedding girls. And that’s the end of the story, happily ever after.” © Copyright 1996 The Washington Post Company Back to List of Articles
Friday, December 6, 1996 Almost Heaven: West Virginia Gets MCCby Wendy Johnson, Washington Blade Staff Writer CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- More than 70 people last weekend attended the first worship service of the newly formed Appalachian Metropolitan Community Church, located in the West Virginia capital of Charleston. The new congregation joins the other 260 churches in the nationwide MCC denomination. Like the others, it will minister primarily to Gay, bisexual, and transgender people. "We are a Christian church with an open ministry to all of God's people," said the Rev. Becky Dickman, pastor. Though Appalachian MCC is now part of the MCC family, it was formed differently than many of the other 17 MCCs in the region. MCC churches usually form when an existing MCC has a large number of worshipers who live far away from the church. Many times these worshipers branch out and form a church that is closer to home. Last year, for example, parishioners from Open Door MCC in Boyds, Md., formed a new MCC in Hagerstown, Md., that enabled Gay people along Maryland's western panhandle to have a congregation in their area. The Boyds church itself was formed in 1982 as an extension of MCC Washington. But this was not the case with Appalachian MCC. With no MCCs nearby, the Rev. Dickman and her partner, Karen Dickman, had to start from scratch when they decided to bring MCC to West Virginia. Their first order of business was to find some church members. Setting out to "meet some folks," Dickman said, she and Karen decided that the best place to tap into Charleston's Gay community was at its Gay bars. "At the bars, we met people of faith and Gay activists," she said. "A lot of the Gay people in Charleston attend other churches. They want to worship, but in many cases, they have [to be closeted]." The two women attended potluck dinners and local pride events, spreading the word about their plans to bring MCC to Charleston. The couple also had the full support of MCC's mid-Atlantic district committee, which last winter gave them permission to form an MCC in Charleston. The committee also gave them funding for the start-up costs of the church, though the church will eventually be self-supporting, said the Rev. Dickman. "The idea for the church came up because Karen used to live in West Virginia," said the Rev. Dickman, who is in the process of legally changing her last name from Edwards to Dickman. "It was a particular calling by God that the timing was right to do this." Both women have a long history of involvement with MCC churches. Becky Dickman has been a member of the denomination since 1983, when she attended an MCC in Ft. Meyers, Fla. Most recently, she was a staff clergy at MCC Richmond. Karen Dickman has been an MCC member for six years and most recently served as interim pastor of MCC in Charlottesville, Va. She is poised to serve as director of Christian education for Appalachian MCC. For now, the new congregation will rent worship space from the Unitarian Universalist fellowship of Kanawha Valley, 520 Kanawha Blvd. West in Charleston. Worship will take place each Sunday at 6 p.m. AMCC can be reached at (304) 343-5330. "We want to be about saving lives, building safe places, and spreading good news," said Becky Dickman, adding that she hopes all Gays who attend her worship services will feel safe and welcome. "Those who are 'out' will find AMCC a place to celebrate our growing relationship to God," she said. "Those [who] remain closeted to protect their jobs and family relationships will find AMCC to be a safe, affirming environment." Copyright © 1996 The Washington Blade Inc. A member of the gay.net community. Back to List of Articles
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