Walk Away Stranger at the gate By Mel White Word that I was gay spread quickly among my ol

Walk Away

Stranger at the gate
By Mel White

Word that I was gay spread quickly among my old ghostwriting clients 
and friends on the Religious Right. Contracts and unwritten agreements 
we had made to do a book or film together were canceled. My letters 
and faxes were ignored. My phone calls went unanswered.

Because I had been honest about my sexual orientation, it was becoming 
painfully clear that I could no longer serve the very people who had 
heaped honors and awards on me for my lifetime of contributions to 
Christ and His church. In spite of my graduate degrees in ministry 
and twenty-five years of Christian service as a pastor, a seminary 
professor, a writer of best-selling books, and a producer of prize-winning 
religious films, admitting I was gay ended all chances of continued 
service. For the first time in my life, I began to wonder seriously 
how I would support my family, but even more important, I began to 
wonder what I should do to help turn back this growing avalanche of 
bigotry, discrimination, and violence the Religious Right had loosed 
against us.

About that time, the Reverend Michael Piazza, pastor of the largest 
gay/lesbian church in the world, called to ask if he could drop by 
our cottage on the beach at Laguna for a visit. I knew Michael and 
his amazing congregation. A year earlier, they had invited me to preach 
a spiritual-emphasis weekend in Dallas while their church was still 
meeting on the group floor of an embarrassingly pink office building 
they had rented when they outgrew their four hundred seat sanctuary 
on Reagan Street.

Michael parked his rental car near our cottage, hugged me cheerfully, 
and suggested immediately that we take a long walk on the beach. He 
didn't even take time to change his shoes before we were in the wet 
sand, walking through the tide pools, I pointed out a peregrine falcon 
that lived in a magnificent wind-twisted pine high on the cliffs above 
Shaw's Cove. I picked up sea slugs stranded by the high tide and showed 
him Nuns' Cove with its fresh assortment of shells and driftwood. 
We walked along Crescent Beach and passed by a series of fascinating 
caves en route to Seal Island. I was chatting about the wonders of 
Laguna. Michael was polite, but anxious to get on with business.

When I paused on my typically frenetic walk just long enough to watch 
a large flock of pelicans flying by, Michael took advantage of the 
pause to ask what he had come to ask. "I want you to be the dean of 
our new cathedral in Dallas," he said directly. "I don't have any 
money to pay you, at least not yet. We've spent all our funds building 
the cathedral, but we want you to seriously consider coming anyway."

I was genuinely surprised by Michael's offer. Quickly, he explained 
that his commitment as senior pastor to preaching, teaching, and administering 
the largest lesbian/gay church in the world required his full-time 
attention. He needed someone to help develop the cathedral's ministry 
as a spiritual center for the gay and lesbian community. He had dozens 
of speaking and writing opportunities he couldn't accept. Michael 
also wanted to establish a national television ministry and to launch 
nationwide Circles of Hope, small, informal study and action groups 
that would help gays and lesbians in towns and villages across the 
country where there was currently no proactive, pro-spiritual gay 
or lesbian presence.

In 1970, just two years after the Reverend Troy Perry founded the 
Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, one of the 
earliest sister congregations was founded in Dallas, Texas. Under 
the leadership of the Reverend Don Eastman, and now, the Reverend 
Michael Piazza, that congregation — the Cathedral of Hope UFMCC — 
has grown to be the largest Christian church in the world with a primary 
ministry to lesbians and gays, their friends and families.

I was looking for a safe, supportive place to come out against my 
old clients on the Religious Right, to help alleviate the suffering 
caused by their homophobic rhetoric to my gay brothers and lesbian 
sisters, to write my own coming-out story, and to see where God would 
lead. All my life I had felt called to a Christian ministry. At this 
moment when my old opportunities to minister were dying, it seemed 
that God was using Michael and the Cathedral of Hope to bring new 
ones to life.

No actual job description was agreed upon. "If you'll just come to 
Dallas and do your thing there," Michael told me, something will happen 
that will honor Christ and help extend the Cathedral's ministry to 
the nation." Little did we know how prophetic Michael's words would 
be. Michael didn't even spend the night. He rushed back to the airport 
and left me alone on the beach considering the implications of the 
move from California and my beloved family to Dallas, Texas, the place 
Michael called "the buckle of the Bible Belt."

The first consideration was my family. Lyla was working sixty and 
more hours a week with her army of volunteers at All Saints Church, 
where she had become the director of stewardship and was being invited 
to conduct seminars in fundraising all across the country. Lyla was 
staffing two major campaigns a year to support the ministry of this 
influential parish, including model programs for the homeless, people 
with AIDS and their caregivers, health care for Pasadena's uninsured 
school children, pre-school child care, substance abuse, and low-cost 
housing. On those rare occasions when she could take a day off, she 
came to Laguna and we walked the beach together, talking about everything, 
but especially about our children and the ways that God had blessed 
them. Not only had they survived those difficult days of our struggle 
and stress, but they had grown into creative, responsible, loving 
adults who shared our values and enjoyed our presence.

Everything was changing so fast. Erinn had graduated from Azusa Pacific 
with her teaching credentials in elementary education. When she and 
her classmate, Bob Harriman, were married, they had asked me to conduct 
the service. Bob had then gone on to earn his master's degree in student 
administration and had later accepted a position in a nearby Christian 
university. Erinn remained busy caring for our granddaughter, Katie, 
who was just a few months old.

When Michael graduated from Wesleyan with honors, Lyla and I sat drenched 
and proud in a rainstorm with a plastic raincoat held over our heads 
watching him cross the platform to receive his diploma. Protesting 
that he didn't want to cost us "any more money," we finally managed 
to convince him to let us underwrite his first year of writing. Halfway 
through that year, Michael was hired to write a film script for Twentieth 
Century Fox. Already, he had an impressive little office on the lot 
at Fox Studios near Century City. In my files I had a collection of 
the plays my son had written, directed, and performed at Wesleyan, 
and his posters and other memorabilia were tacked proudly to my office 
walls.

When I told my family about the offer to move to Dallas, Lyla looked 
sad for a moment, and then after a few honest words of warning and 
a genuine smile of support, she encouraged me to accept the Cathedral's 
offer. Erinn was immediately happy that I would be working in a church 
again, but insisted that I return for Katie's first birthday party. 
Michael was genuinely glad that my  ghostwriting days were over. "Go 
for it, Dad," he said, grinning. One by one they hugged me. I didn't 
even try to hide my tears. I loved my family and wanted always to 
be near them. Besides, I had a brand-new granddaughter and I wanted 
to see her pass through each of those delightful stages from infancy 
to maturity. I wanted to carry her around on my back in the old pack 
that I had used to carry Erinn and Michael. I wanted to pass on to 
her my love for the sea as we walked hand in hand on Laguna Beach. 
I wanted to teach Katie to swim in the Laguna River pool. I didn't 
want to hear her first "I love you, Grampa" over the telephone long 
distance. For all those years my family and I had been together, if 
not in residence, only a few minutes away. Moving to Dallas would 
be painful in personal losses. And in all probability, the move would 
be a financial disaster as well.

Becoming dean of the largest gay and lesbian congregation in the world 
would end my closet days forever. Once the word was out, there would 
be no turning back. In all likelihood, my network of conservative 
Christian friends, clients, producers, and publishers that had taken 
a lifetime to build would vanish. There would be no salary at the 
Cathedral. They couldn't even help us with our move. How would I pay 
the bills if I couldn't go on ghostwriting, producing films and TV 
specials for my old clients? And though I felt called to preach and 
teach, I would no longer be asked to speak in conservative Christian 
universities, seminaries, or churches. I even worried about the national 
press, especially the sensation-seeking tabloid papers and what they 
might do with my story, and the embarrassment it might bring my family.

How Gary's life would be changed by the move was of equal concern 
to me. I wasn't even sure that he would go along with the idea. He 
had a responsible position in Los Angeles, managing commercial properties 
for a major corporation. He had been honored as employee of the year 
in 1991. He had excellent work benefits, generous health and life 
insurance, and, in a plunging economy, total job security. I was asking 
him to leave all that to begin the journey into a brand-new life for 
both of us.

I wanted to accept Michael Piazza's offer to join him and his people 
at the Cathedral in Dallas, but I didn't want to go alone. My romance 
and friendship with Gary had evolved into a long-term, committed relationship, 
but could I ask him to sacrifice his career to go with me? When I 
finally got up my courage to ask, he didn't even pause to consider. 
The night I told him about Michael Piazza's offer, Gary just hugged 
me and said, "Let's go!"

There was a war being waged by the Religious Right against homosexual 
people across this country. Because of my old clients' strident antigay 
campaign, my lesbian sisters and gay brothers were suffering bigotry, 
discrimination, violence, and death. It was past time for me to do 
something to help those who suffered and, at the same time, by taking 
a stand against the lies my clients were telling, to help cut off 
that suffering at its source. I had prayed, worried, and fussed long 
enough. With Gary's vote, the decision was unanimous. It would be 
a risk, but we would take that risk together. I remembered Naomi's 
famous words to Ruth: "Where you go, I will go. And what you do, I 
will do also. Your people shall be my people. And your God, my God."

When there were difficult decisions to make, such as the move to Dallas, 
or when Gary could see that I was perplexed, fearful, or stressed, 
just before we turned out the lights on another day, he would climb 
into bed, prop up the pillows, and pat gently on the sheets. "Get 
up here," he would say quietly, and I would sit between his knees 
and lean back against his chest. "Talk," he whispered, and as I began 
to rehearse the options one more time, Gary would massage my neck 
and shoulders, ask important questions, and let me ruminate until 
the decision was made, the conflict was resolved, or I just fell asleep 
in his arms.

Those moments with Gary were comforting to be sure, but over the years, 
they had proven to be far more than just a source of comfort. They 
had become a source of truth as well. Accepting my sexual orientation 
and entering into a loving, committed gay relationship had proven 
to me once and for all times that my homosexuality was another of 
God's gifts. Many of my old friends and counselors on the Religious 
Right had told me that homosexuality was a sin and that God would 
abandon me if I "gave in" to that sinfulness. Others thought I was 
just crazy or misled.

"You're somewhere in the middle of Freud's sexual-identity scale," 
one of my many counselors told me. "You are clearly a bisexual," another 
exclaimed. "You're AC/DC," one of my friends said with a sly grin. 
"You flow both ways." "You're just confused," a supporter of the "ex-gay" 
movement once warned me with an unctuous smile. "You never had an 
effective male role model so you never really grew up." Then before 
praying for me one last time, he added, "You're suffering from a kind 
of retarded adolescence that God will help you overcome with time."

Since childhood, I had been a victim of those conflicting voices. 
In their noisy cloud of misinformation and judgment, I had doubted, 
feared, and questioned my sexual orientation. In Gary's arms, that 
painful debate ended. For me, the ultimate test of sexual orientation 
had not been the test of passion but the test of time. In his wonderful 
book _Memories,_Dreams,_Reflections_, Carl Jung writes, "A man who 
has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome 
them."

The real test of sexual orientation came when romantic feelings died, 
when those first few months or years of fiery sexual passion burned 
down to a warm glow (or even burned out altogether), when there was 
no urgent desire, as I heard a young friend say recently, "to jump 
on each other's bones," when we were content to lie beside each other 
in bed reading, watching television, talking and holding hands, or 
when we just slept side by side.

The fires of passion were a test of sexual orientation to be sure. 
It had been important to ask myself whom did I cast in my sexual fantasies, 
a woman or a man? At the beach or swimming pool, was it a male body 
that excited me and demanded my attention, or was it a female body 
that "turned me on"? When I glanced through those full-page ads for 
tight-fitting jeans or underwear in newspapers and magazines, was 
it the male model or the female model who caught my eye? I tried to 
ignore these involuntary, physiological responses for too long when 
I should have trusted myself to heed them, but there had been other 
tests of sexual orientation when passions cooled that I had found 
equally trustworthy. 

Was it a man I wanted to come home to after a hard day's work, or 
was it a woman I needed to greet me at the door with a smile and a 
hug? Was it a man who brought me comfort by his very presence in the 
kitchen, at the fireplace, and in the bedroom; or was it a woman's 
company that made me feel safe, comfortable, and at home at last? 
Was it a man I wanted to sit beside at church, at a coffee shop, and 
in the movies; or was it a woman I liked to see in candlelight across 
the restaurant table?

In the early years of our friendship, passion drew me to Gary like 
a bee to honey. But after almost ten years, though passion still flared 
between us, other equally compelling forces drew me to him. Finally, 
after all those years, in my relationship with Gary, I knew who I 
really was, a gay Christian man in a committed relationship with another 
gay Christian man. Was it right for my relationship with Gary to be 
demeaned, dishonored, and declared sinful and disgusting on Jerry 
Falwell's "Old Time Gospel Hour," Pat Robertson's "700 Club," or Jim 
Dobson's "Focus on the Family" simply because it was a homosexual 
rather than a heterosexual relationship? Should my human rights be 
threatened and my civil rights be denied by the Christian Coalition 
because I felt more compatible with a man than with a woman?

At that moment, my old clients and friends from the Religious Right 
were raising tens of millions of dollars supposedly to support antigay 
legislation already pending in fourteen states and more than one hundred 
counties and cities across America. Loving, private sexual acts between 
consenting adult homosexuals were illegal in twenty-four states, and 
the Religious Right was mobilizing to put antigay volunteer workers 
in every one of America's fifty thousand voting precincts to pass 
legislation that might end our rights forever.

Even worse, good people such as my parents were being confused by 
the avalanche of lies. They watched Pat Robertson faithfully. They 
heard Jim Dobson on the radio. Almost every day another antigay fundraising 
letter appeared in their mailbox with the disgusting and untrue charges 
against gay people underlined in red. My parents didn't want my civil 
rights curtailed. They liked and respected Gary and could see we loved 
each other, but like millions of other religious and political conservatives 
in this county, my parents were being swept away by the lies against 
us being told by the Religious Right. They knew me and Gary and they 
loved us. They knew our beliefs and lifestyles and knew they were 
similar to their own. But they believed that we were the exception. 
In their minds, everyone else who is gay must be just as Pat Robertson 
and all the others depicted them.

If only Pat, Jerry, and the others could understand the great good 
they could do in helping their faithful listeners to understand the 
truth. My mom and dad need to know that gay and lesbian people are 
just like everybody else. I know I'm beginning to sound like a scratched 
record, caught in one groove, playing the same old track over and 
over again. But this truth cannot be repeated enough. Gay and lesbian 
people do not want or need "special rights." We are for, not against, 
"family values." We have no "agenda" that threatens the spiritual 
or moral standards of this nation. We just want to the right to love 
and to be loved without fear, ridicule, or discrimination.

We are not the enemy. The real enemies are those who teach hate instead 
of love, those who use misinformation and fear tactics to raise money 
and mobilize volunteers, those who play on ancient superstitions to 
destroy lives and ruin families. All we want is our God-given right 
to live and to love with integrity and to take our place in the community 
as responsible neighbors and faithful friends.

Back as far as 1980, while I still cowered in my closet, two gay teenagers 
in Anaheim, California, refused to be intimidated by those who hate. 
With the whole world watching, Andrew Exler, nineteen, and his boyfriend, 
Shawn Elliott, seventeen, demonstrated courage and conviction that 
astounded me. After dating regularly for just two months, Andrew and 
Shawn headed for "Date Night" at Disneyland. Hand in hand, they rode 
the Matterhorn. Then on Space Mountain, they placed their arms around 
each other as the young heterosexual couples were doing. After watching 
"Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln" and hearing Abe speak of individual 
liberties and rights, they headed for the outdoor disco.

Eyewitnesses reported to the _Los_Angeles_Times_ that the dance floor 
was jammed with teenage couples when Andrew and Shawn walked to the 
center of the floor, directly in front of the bandstand, and began 
to dance. For a moment, no one noticed. Then, one by one, the teenage 
couples dancing near Andrew and Shawn began to whisper and point in 
their direction. Security personnel monitoring the dance through television 
cameras saw the two boys dancing proudly. Tall men in white uniforms 
carrying walkie-talkies with small headsets in their left ears rushed 
to the scene. A few couples left the floor. Others stood to stare 
at Andrew and Shawn. Finally, the young bandleader noticed the confusion 
and stopped the music, but the courageous gay men danced on, refusing 
to be intimidated.

Looking back now, I wish Jerry Falwell had been there to see those 
two young gay men doing exactly what God intended them to do. I wish 
Pat Robertson could have been a witness to their courage as they danced 
their way into their place of honor in the history of our liberation 
movement. I wish Jim Dobson had been in the crowd to see what two 
of our gay kids were willing to pay to enforce the values of families 
who have learned to love instead of hate.

In the legal battle that followed, Andrew and Shawn refused to settle 
until the courts declared their victory. The Religious Right suffered 
a terrible defeat four years later, in 1985, when the verdict was 
announced. Disney-land was instructed by the courts to let Andrew 
and Shawn dance. While the leaders from the Religious Right jumped 
up and down in rage, a growing number of Americans, even those who 
didn't understand homosexuality, were wondering to themselves, "Don't 
these preachers have anything better to do than pick on two young 
gays who just want to dance?" In a _USA_Today_ poll, more than 50 
percent of this nation's people said, "Let 'em dance."

As I walked the beaches of Laguna and thought, prayed, and worried 
about moving to Dallas, I remembered Darrel, the Boy Scout in his 
loincloth and feathers who forty years before had reached out his 
hand and led me in my first dance. This time, Michael Piazza was holding 
out his hand to me. To join him in the dance would be a terrible risk, 
but how awful it would feel to plug my ears to the music and walk 
away. Over those next few weeks, it became more and more clear that 
it was time for me to take Gary by the hand, walk out into the middle 
of that floor, and begin the dance. And just perhaps, if we had half 
the courage and the grace that Andrew and Shawn had shown, others 
would come dance with us.

_Excerpted_with_permission_from_Stranger_at_the_Gate_by_Mel_White._


[ref001][ref002] Return to table of contents 
Copyright 1995 IFAS
Walk Away / ifas@crocker.com

[ref001] articles.html
[ref002] ../uparrow.gif

        This file is copywritten by the Institute for First
        Amendment Studies.

        Subscribe to The Freedom Writer and Walk Away news
        letters by writing to or telephoneing the Institute
        for First Amendment Studies:

        Post Office Box 589
        Great Barrington, Massachusetts.  01230
        Telephone: (413) 528-3800
        E-Mail: ifas@crocker.com
        Web page: http://www.crocker.com/~ifas