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[Back to index of July/August 2007 articles] Parishes extend a welcome at Pride Parade By Paul Donnelly “It wasn’t just for the Bishop,” explains the Rev. Susan Blue, rector of St. Margaret’s, D.C., and a participant in the June 9 Gay Pride March. “I rode with Bishop Chane, and people called out to us, gay and straight, people ran out to shake his hand. But as the other Episcopal churches came along, St. Thomas’ and St. George’s [Glenn Dale], St. John’s, Lafayette Square and Ascension [Silver Spring] and so on, the applause built. People understand what the Episcopal Church is doing, and it matters.” So – what is the Diocese of Washington doing? Under the leadership of Bishop John Chane, it is taking a clear stand. “The other Protestant denominations are struggling,” notes Blue. “But no one doubts where we stand, or why.” The following evening in the lovely park where the old St. Thomas’ church had stood before it burned, the Rev. Connie Reinhardt, rector of St. George’s, Glenn Dale, gave a homily at a service of celebration and blessing for couples living in a committed relationship: “For those of you who unfortunately cannot yet be legally married, take heart, for as the reading from John today teaches us, if we abide in God's love, our joy will be complete.” The Rev. Nancy Lee Jose, St. Thomas’ rector, surprised many when she directed the gathering of couples to divide into four groups each with a priest or deacon in order to celebrate and affirm their relationships individually, a couple at a time: “Something happened here that we didn’t expect,” laughed Louie Stewart, who stood by his longtime partner, Senior Warden John Carter. “I had thought of it as an outreach to both gay and straight couples in our community, that there would be some sort of group blessing. But actually when I got up to bat I found it a very moving thing and it was good for our relationship, to say the words. Surprises are good for people.” “Don’t forget Jon and Jan celebrating and affirming their relationship with Theo,” adds Jose, referring to a married couple whose teething son demonstrated his part of “We will, with God’s help,” by chewing contentedly on his mother’s finger. Nor was Jose left unsurprised. She was expecting to move on after blessing all the couples in her group, but then Carter stepped forward: “You’re not done yet,” he told her, as her husband Wayne materialized at her shoulder, and “with the authority vested in me as Senior Warden and Eucharistic Minister,” he led the rector and her husband through the same renewal as the rest. “Both commitment ceremonies and baptisms are examples of living out our baptismal covenant, to seek out and serve Christ in every human being,” Blue says. “Therefore it is our charge not to set limits on who is in and who is out.” Everyone, clergy and congregation alike, realizes that the visible and enthusiastic participation of the Diocese of Washington in the Pride march may cause additional friction with the Anglican Communion worldwide. But for many, that is work worth doing. “No one is beyond the span of God’s saving grace,” Blue says. “I’ve always said, if I’m going to hell, I want it to be because God is mad at me for being too inclusive.” Yet Jose believes: “It is a fleshing out of what we see as our mission at St. Thomas’, as a place to find God and to be found by God. There is a benefit, and there is a risk. The benefit of course is the very real experience of God in our lives. But the risk is that welcoming all, welcoming the stranger or the other, doesn’t always contribute an easy cohesion to the community. But it’s good to be uncomfortable for Christ.” There was a straight couple in their 80s in another circle, a man and woman who had survived their first marriages by many years, with their children and grandchildren gathered around them. The celebration and affirmation of their bond was not spontaneous; they had come in for counseling with Jose, “sitting there holding hands and weeping on the couch,” is how she described it. They weren’t alone: when they looked into each other’s eyes and affirmed their commitment, there wasn’t a dry face in the circle. From Beethoven’s Ode to Joy played by Michael Woods’ trumpet, to the drumming by Performing Artists Under the Lord to Timothy Hagy’s original compositions and arrangements of Anglican, Navajo and Zimbabwean music, the St. Thomas’ service was an outpouring of magnetic joy. No one in the parish could remember having seen Roger and Michael before, a cradle Episcopalian in jeans and a tanned man with a pair of sharp sideburns under a straw cowboy hat. “I’m sure that they only came because they saw us at the Pride March,” said John Johnson, a St. Thomas’ parishioner. The two men stood in a little circle of couples, and when it was their turn they repeated to each other: “I give myself to you. I love you, trust you, and delight in you. I will share your burdens and your joys. I will go with you wherever God calls us. This is my solemn promise.” Michael was holding Roger’s hand, when the straight guy standing next to him asked: “You ever done this before?” “No,” he said. He reached out to shake the man’s hand, and there were tears in his eyes. “And isn’t that the power of God?” Jose asks. [Back to index of July/August 2007 articles]
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