The History of Gay Liberation at the Fourth Universalist Society in the City of New York
Abstract
In 1967, the Fourth Universalist Society in the City of New York was in trouble – disengaged from the surrounding neighborhood, affected by urban decay and decline, and led by a Unitarian minister unpopular with his congregation, its elderly members were dying off rapidly with no one ready to replace them. The congregation’s extension of a call to Rev. Richard Kellaway in 1968 rapidly changed the dire situation at Fourth Universalist. Rev. Kellaway began to preach and write on acceptance for homosexuals, inviting gay and lesbian groups to meet at Fourth Universalist and exhibiting a degree of support for gay liberation that was uncommon amongst UU ministers in the early 1970s. Yet within a few years, the congregation shifted to a more muted approach on these issues, with leaders offering quiet support for homosexuals within the congregation and the surrounding neighborhoods, but lacking in the kind of vocal public affirmations that characterized the first few years of Kellaway’s ministry.
Liberal attitudes about sex saved the Fourth Universalist Society from the brink of institutional death in the early 1970s, but gay liberation was too radical an issue to inspire full-throated support within this all-too-recently conservative congregation. Fears, uncertainties, and differences of opinion over how to navigate this new territory – where, for many members, their own homosexuality would be publically named and affirmed for the first time – persisted in the congregation throughout the 1970s. In response to competing tensions surrounding the emerging gay liberation movement, the Fourth Universalist Society initially took a strong public stance, led by its straight young minister, supporting homosexuals in the congregation and beyond; yet the membership gradually chose a path of generous acceptance for gays and lesbians within the church, rather than continuing with radical action that included gay and lesbian issues as a major component of the congregation’s public identity and speech.
Introduction
In 1967, the Fourth Universalist Society in the City of New York was in trouble. Founded nearly fifty years after John Murray was forbidden to preach at City Hall, and the last standing of what were once seven Universalist churches in New York City, it was disengaged from the surrounding neighborhood, affected by urban decay and decline, and led by a Unitarian minister unpopular with his congregation, its elderly members dying off rapidly with no one ready to replace them. Opposition to the denominational merger that created the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) in 1961 reflected a culture of defensiveness and resistance to change within the historic Universalist congregation – their ambivalence shown clearly as the very call to their own Unitarian minister was extended at the same parish meeting where merger with the Unitarians was rejected. Long-standing conflicts brewed between members, ideological differences thwarted attempts to define the future vision of the church, and the annual operating budget was propped up by regular infusions from reserve funds. The congregation’s extension of a call to Rev. Richard Kellaway in 1968 rapidly changed the dire situation at Fourth Universalist. With a newly radicalized pulpit occupied by its youthful, progressive minister, fresh off an eight-year first pastorate at First Unitarian in New Bedford, Mass., the church began to draw in liberal young people of modest means from the surrounding West Side neighborhoods to fill the pews.
Soon after Rev. Kellaway’s installation, Fourth Universalist began hosting popular singles groups for “liberated” men and women, incorporating the language and ideas of the 1960s into its public speech and character. Some older members were likely dismayed by Rev. Kellaway’s focus on community engagement rather than pastoral care of congregants, as Kellaway channeled his energies in ways that echoed and intensified the congregation’s earlier conflicts with the Rev. Leonard Helie. However, the less-conservative wing of the old membership – including lay leaders Roland Gammon, Elizabeth Parmelee, Ed Clifton, and Ed Pease – supported their new minister and helped him lead the charge for change in their dying congregation. By engaging young singles from across the metropolitan region, the Fourth Universalist Society reclaimed its place as a bustling religious center in the city, attracting new visitors and members who held in common liberal social attitudes, particularly on issues of gender and sexuality. Around this same time, Rev. Kellaway began to preach and write on acceptance for homosexuals, inviting gay and lesbian groups to meet at Fourth Universalist and exhibiting a degree of support for gay liberation that was uncommon amongst UU ministers in the early 1970s. Yet within a few years, the congregation shifted to a more muted approach on these issues, with leaders offering quiet support for homosexuals within the congregation and the surrounding neighborhoods, but lacking in the kind of vocal public affirmations that characterized the first few years of Kellaway’s ministry.
Liberal attitudes about sex saved the Fourth Universalist Society from the brink of institutional death in the early 1970s, but gay liberation was too radical an issue to inspire full-throated support within this all-too-recently conservative congregation. Fears, uncertainties, and differences of opinion over how to navigate this new territory – where, for many members, their own homosexuality would be publically named and affirmed for the first time – persisted in the congregation throughout the 1970s. In response to competing tensions surrounding the emerging gay liberation movement, the Fourth Universalist Society initially took a strong public stance, led by its straight young minister, supporting homosexuals in the congregation and beyond; yet the membership gradually chose a path of generous acceptance for gays and lesbians within the church, rather than continuing with radical action that included gay and lesbian issues as a major component of the congregation’s public identity and speech.
A Once Proud Church in Decline (1838-1967)
The Fourth Universalist Society in the City of New York was founded in 1838 amidst a Universalist boom in the city, partly inspired by Thomas Sawyer, preacher at the Second Universalist Society who “filled his church to overflowing” and encouraged the development of new congregations in New York (Stock-Morton 1999, 1). As Phyllis Stock-Morton argues in her history of the congregation, its membership proudly rode the successful tide of Universalism in the state, and sought to distinguish itself amongst the crowded list of congregations by changing its name to the Church of the Divine Paternity in 1852, clarifying and, in a sense, marketing itself to the religiously liberal with a clear Universalist theological statement on its front gate. The name change coincided with the purchase of a new building, formerly a Unitarian church which was called the “Church of the Divine Unity” – the congregation’s choice to modify the original name of the building in this way was therefore quite likely an attempt to distinguish themselves from the Unitarians as well (Stock-Morton 1999, 5). The church enjoyed substantial wealth and a strong reputation through the early 20th century, thanks in large part to the successful ministry of Rev. Frank Oliver Hall, who formed coalitions with Unitarian John Haynes Holmes and Rabbi Stephen Wise to spread the liberal religious message and encourage interfaith dialogue in the 1910s. Rev. Hall left the church after the death of his wife in 1919, but later returned as senior minister from 1929 to 1938. A centennial history produced from within the congregation notes that the church was still growing in 1938, despite Hall’s final retirement, but by 1943 his replacement had left, leaving the congregation in the hands of their first female pastor, the Rev. Eleanor G. Collie, called as assistant minister 4 years earlier (Fourth Universalist Society 1938, Stock-Morton 1999). Rev. Collie saw membership decline during World War II and by 1946 she was replaced by Dr. Benjamin B. Hersey. At this time, “six of the seven Universalist churches in the metropolitan area were gone” (Stock- Morton 1999, 30). Financially strained by operational and maintenance costs of church mission programs for youth and the aged, both established during the congregation’s era of prominence in the late 19th century, members of Divine Paternity disagreed over how best to forge alliances – or not – to restore the strong membership, fiscal stability, and lively community engagement of the church.
In 1960, the total assembled and absentee-voting membership of Divine Paternity voted 36 to 14 against the Universalist merger with the American Unitarian Association, but chose not to disaffiliate their congregation with the newly formed UUA (Stock-Morton 1999). This begrudging acceptance of affiliation with the Unitarians was buoyed by the assurance of congregational independence and autonomy within the UUA, and by the congregation’s experience maintaining a distinctly Universalist character despite installation of the Unitarian Rev. Leonard Helie to the pulpit of Fourth Universalist in June 1959, which reverted back to the name of its founding amidst mid-century decline. The search for Rev. Helie was a source of prolonged conflict within the congregation, which spilled over into the congregation’s relationship with their minister almost immediately upon Helie’s arrival. Helie had been selected as a candidate for their pulpit just a year before, but garnered insufficient votes from the congregation to be called at that time. He came to the church in 1959 reeling from a recent separation with his wife, and according to Stock-Morton, “all indications are that it was the older members that found him wanting” in terms of the quality of his service to the congregation (Stock-Morton 1999, 40).
Concerned about the fate of their declining congregation, the Board of Trustees worked to limit Helie’s focus to pastoral visits, follow-up with visitors, and membership recruitment, despite his resistance. Rev. Helie agitated within the church to “do more in the field of social action” and lifted up a prophetic vision of Fourth Universalist as “mov[ing] out into the by-ways, the darkened alleys, and the infested jungle of a great sprawling city to bring the ministry of its healing touch” (Newsletter 1965). Yet the congregation was ambivalent in its response to the social issues adopted by the UUA throughout the early 1960s; a report from the 1962 General Assembly (GA) shows that while the congregation did support resolutions promoting birth control and engagement on certain international policy issues, they did not support resolutions passed at GA pertaining to “Civil Rights Support… Support of an International Truce on Nuclear Weapons Testing… [or] Support of an Improved Penal Code” (Report from GA 1962). In his 1962 Annual Report to the congregation, Helie implores his members to “decide whether genuine friendship, mature understanding, and creative impulses are going to shape and guide this parish in the days that follow, or whether you will allow the sad and sinister atmosphere of intrigue to dominate the life of this church” (Annual Report 1962). By 1967, Rev. Helie was gone, and the church’s expenses had begun to outweigh income from a membership which had “dwindled to no more than 50” according to a future Development Officer of the church – cut nearly in half since 1963, when close to 90 individuals were listed on the first membership list from Rev. Helie’s tenure that exists in the congregational record (Bowen n.d.). A handful of membership withdrawal requests are also included in the record for the ’62- ’63 church year, and while the occasional new member is noted in newsletters from Helie’s tenure, these do not seem to have outweighed the exodus from current members who either left or were deceased. At the May 1967 Board meeting, a year-to-date budget shortage of $2214.30 was reported, whereas “last year at this time there was no deficit,” and records show that the congregation regularly drew from reserve funds to cover expenses at least through 1969 (Newsletter 1967, APM Report 1969).
In the Fall of 1967, the newly formed Ministerial Search Committee sent questionnaires to members through a visioning process that aimed to discern the future character of the church and identify an appropriate leader to serve as its next minister. The committee’s report was released in April 1968, presenting Rev. Richard Kellaway as the selected ministerial candidate; it is written under the leadership of search committee Chairman Ed Pease, present on the old membership list of 1963, and according to Rev. Kellaway, known to some within the congregation at that time as a gay man – “he didn’t hide his homosexuality, but he didn’t proclaim it” (Kellaway 2010). There is no evidence to show that Pease’s gay identity had a specific effect on his characterization of the church’s future goals, but an examination of reported open-ended responses to the questionnaire, when compared to the percentage of members identifying as “Moderately Conservative” (14%) and “Quite Conservative” (21%) reveals that this search process was likely influenced disproportionately by more progressive elements within the church (MSC Report 1968). It’s true, as the report says, that “the majority of the core group of active members held generally liberal views,” but considering the conservative element at this time constituted a full 35% of church members, Pease may have been selective in helping the committee identify recurring themes to support an opinion of the church as “too tradition-bound and not progressive enough,” and identified a central need to “get the church moving, to become more relevant and involved in the community” (MSC Report 1968). Indeed, later records show that many who constituted this progressive element from Rev. Helie’s tenure went on to serve as high-level lay leaders for the congregation under Rev. Kellaway, moving the church forward in more or less exactly the way that Ed Pease had encouraged.
It is difficult to tell whether the congregation at Fourth Universalist might have been a haven for gay men and women prior to Rev. Kellaway’s arrival. Incomplete membership records make it difficult to identify when many of the congregation’s prominent gay and lesbian lay leaders joined the church, but in 1963 Ed Pease and Ed Clifton, both gay men, were included on the membership list, and Elizabeth Parmelee, a lesbian, had presumably been a member all her life, as she was born into a family that was active in the church for generations. As Kellaway notes, Ed Clifton did stop attending the church for a time, an issue brought to the Board in 1968 by a fellow congregant who objected to his running for a committee post, as she believed he was no longer a member; the notes on this dispute referred to an “episode” which “happened 11 years ago,” but does not elaborate upon what exactly caused Clifton to limit his attendance (Board Minutes 1968). Elizabeth Parmelee was known within the congregation, albeit quietly, as a lesbian, and it is possible that her family’s status in the church contributed to an attitude of tolerance that was more explicitly acknowledged than it would have been in other religious communities in New York City. The informal networks that helped construct gay and lesbian community in urban centers like New York would likely carry news of such a church far and wide to any religious liberal interested in a gay-friendly place where they might worship without fear of intrusion into their private lives. It is also interesting to note that the concept of “coming out” as gay shifted significantly mid-century, such that the criteria for identifying safe spaces for out homosexuals also changes over time. Before the Stonewall Riots and the emergence of gay liberation as a movement in New York City, being out “signified the private decision to accept ones homosexual desires and to acknowledge one’s sexual identity to other gay men and women;” gay liberation activists, however, took a different approach, which figured “coming out” as “a profoundly political act” that implied one would live openly as homosexual at work, home, church, and in society at large (D’Emilio 1983, 235). This shift took place gradually over the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, but the activists who organized post-Stonewall certainly pushed the latter understanding of a fully out gay and lesbian culture. Elizabeth Parmelee may have therefore been “out” at Fourth Universalist in the way she understood, while later gays and lesbians to join the church likely carried with them a very different understanding of what it meant to have a congregation that both fully accepted and affirmed their homosexuality.
A Rapidly Radicalized Community (1968 – 1973)
Rev. Kellaway was installed on November 17, 1968, and his early sermons address the conflicts and concerns of the turbulent 1960s – these issues entering the church through his pulpit in ways unforeseen during the early part of the decade. While Rev. Helie had preached to his conservative Universalist congregation primarily on traditional ethical and theological themes, Kellaway began his tenure at Fourth Universalist preaching on self-actualization and identity, the search for personal fulfillment, new forms of relationship, and empowerment issues, particularly with respect to the Black community. Rev. Kellaway served as vice chairman for the New York Metropolitan District FULLBAC group, allied in support of the Black Affairs Council (BAC) to bring UUA resources into disadvantaged Black communities to spur education, economic development, and cultural empowerment; in addition to Kellaway’s personal backing, his congregation supported these efforts enough to host a 1973 gala for UU congregations in New York City to raise funds for BAC. A revitalized and expanded slate of church committees demonstrated the congregation’s new interest in program development and social action– focused on re-entry of ex-convicts and prison reform, mental health, low-cost housing in the neighborhood, tutoring youth and the blind, and visiting seniors – with Ed Clifton, a “vociferously out” homosexual according to Kellaway, elected to serve on both the Program and Social Responsibility committees in 1969 (Kellaway 2010). By 1970, Kellaway had affiliated the church with neighborhood councils and block associations to support the needs of the New York City’s disadvantaged residents.
On matters of gender and sexuality, the congregation began opening its doors to controversial groups and new ideas, in 1970 inviting New Yorkers for Abortion Law Repeal to meet at the church, and hosting a lecture on “The Future of Man’s Sexuality” (Newsletter 1970). The congregation’s President, Roland Gammon, notes the success of these initiatives that same year, citing an increase in worship attendance “from a Sunday average in the 1960’s fluctuating between 60 and 100 persons to a Sunday average this year that oscillates between 125 and 200” (Board Minutes Apr 1970). In the Annual Report issued by the Minister, Board, and Committees in 1971, we see a fully developed culture shift in the church’s characterization of itself as quite liberal and open, fully active and engaged in the surrounding neighborhood, and “‘accepting’ of almost everybody” (APM Report 1971). As new and expanding committees require the election of new lay leaders, we see a shift in the biographical sketches presented for candidates; from business owners, lawyers, and other professionals in the late 1960s, to nonprofit employees, writers, and administrative assistants in the early to mid-1970s. A Long Range Planning Committee established in December of 1971 was again served by Ed Pease as Chairman, and spoke of the need for Fourth Universalist to preserve its physical space in order to meet “expanding program needs,” and to develop an identity “without losing the advantages of diversity” (LRP Report 1971). The Committee sees their congregation as “a third alternative among UU churches in Manhattan,” apart from the wealthy and established congregation at the Unitarian Church of All Souls, but neither engaged in social issues from the same perspective of the Community Church of New York, Fourth Universalist would “serv[e] not just the neighborhood but a much broader community, offering something that is distinctly different from our sister churches in New York City” (LRP Report 1971).
In the Fall of 1971, an outside group requested permission to host a “’rap session’ for singles” at the church. Calling themselves “Libwomen & Libmen” – a name later shortened to “Lib/Lib” – the group placed their first advertisement in the Village Voice: “Sick of the sexist Singles Scene? Libwomen and Libmen, an experiment in human relations Friday evening at the Universalist Church. Bring ideas, humor. Contribution, $3.00” (Bowen n.d.). Records from the group, which maintained independence from the church, are not included within the congregational archives; but one of the Lib/Lib leaders, John Bowen, later became a member and took a staff position as the church’s Development Officer. His undated report to the New York State Convention of Universalists on the success of Fourth Universalist’s programming and revenue strategy details the rapid growth of Lib/Lib from 35 to 150 regular attendees within six months. Lib/Lib eventually grew to host three meetings a week, which together brought more than 700 singles into the church during an average week. The church’s growth in membership did not match this meteoric rise – Bowen allows that “perhaps 20 may be church members” out of the 450 singles attending the Friday Lib/Lib group – but many were introduced to Fourth Universalist through the singles groups and began attending Sunday services, with some, like Bowen himself, later joining as members (Bowen n.d.). Most importantly for the future of the church, Lib/Lib donated “all revenues from the program to the church” in exchange for an agreement that Lib/Lib would be “free to do its thing within the bounds of decency without interference from the minister or the Board of Trustees” (Bowen n.d.). Throughout the 1970s, Lib/Lib brought in more revenue for the church than any other single source, including member pledges and contributions; the model was successful enough that delegations traveled from UU churches in Binghamton, Hartford, Philadelphia, and Baltimore to explore replication of the program, and satellite programs were successfully developed in Brooklyn, Queens, White Plains, and Morristown, NJ. Lib/Lib undoubtedly kept the church alive from a fiscal perspective; and whether the majority of singles attending Lib/Lib meetings joined Fourth Universalist or not, the church’s participation in a lively group that tapped into the 1970s urban cultural milieu gave members a feeling that their church was relevant – no longer dying, but in fact matching the spirit of the times.
Just prior to Lib/Lib’s emergence, the issue of homosexuality was brought out in the open as the result of another outside group, Homosexuals Intransigent, from Columbia University. As Rev. Kellaway tells it, a young man representing the group visited the church office early in 1970 and “demanded” use of Fourth Universalist’s space to host a dance, declaring that if they weren’t allowed into the church, they would picket out in front (Kellaway 2010). At that time still working to revitalize a church in decline, Kellaway was thrilled – “any news was good news – nothing would be better than to have a picket line in front of the church, calling attention to us” – but sympathetic to the group, Rev. Kellaway brought the matter before the Board of Trustees at their May 10 meeting (Kellaway 2010). The Board minutes show that a discussion took place and the request was refused due to a policy against public dances, “[h]owever, we might offer use of the church facilities for their regular business meetings since we believe that they have a right to exist on the principle of civil liberty;” the minutes reveal that prior to the meeting, “Mr. Kellaway had polled some trustees and the president,” which may have provided the basis for his decision to speak publically about homosexuality from the pulpit for the first time one week earlier, on May 3 (Board Minutes May 1970). Following his sermon, “Needed: Men’s Liberation” – a meandering exploration of male gender roles that addresses heterosexual masculinity alongside issues of homosexuality – congregants were “invited to attend a panel discussion on homosexuality” (Order of Service 1970). Ed Clifton took part in the service, presumably outing himself to any not already aware of his homosexuality with a reading on “The Male Fantasy of the Wilderness” (Order of Service 1970).
According to Kellaway, the service was well-received, and while he didn’t believe Homosexuals Intransigent ever met at the church, “another group did and it was all very easy and comfortable… there was never a serious controversy in the church at all” (Kellaway 2010). The issue is not brought up again until the following year, when Kellaway published a newsletter note on persecution faced by homosexuals, including gay ministers. Rev. Kellaway’s perspective on the issue is prophetic for the time, insisting as he does that “[h]omosexuality is not a sin and it is not a sickness,” and that “even in this ‘liberal’ movement [Unitarian Universalism] we have a long way to go” (Newsletter Mar 1971).
As the congregation was, according to Kellaway, “still wrestling with the issue,” a second service was organized that Fall to focus explicitly on homosexuality (Kellaway 2010). The sermon in November 1971, entitled “Legalize Sin,” was followed by a talk with the openly gay UU minister, Rev. Richard Nash. As with the sermon on “Men’s Liberation,” the newsletter did not specifically denote that Kellaway would preach on homosexuality, and the sermon itself included the issue of criminalized homosexual activity as just one example of a larger governmental paternalism; but it did advertise the talk by Rev. Nash – “Is There a Place For Homosexuals in Liberal Religion?” – described as a representative of the newly formed UU Gay Caucus (Newsletter Nov 1971). The order of service makes it clear that “Legalize Sin” is in part a response to police brutality and the justice system’s interaction with gays and lesbians, though there is no direct allusion in the sermon to the Stonewall Riots of 1969, which took place a few dozen blocks south of Fourth Universalist on the West Side of Manhattan. Rev. Kellaway’s focus on “legalization” was in keeping with the tenor of the early gay activists in New York City, who “especially targeted police harassment” in their efforts, so that bars and clubs could continue to provide safe havens for the development of distinct gay cultures (D’Emilio 1983, 202). One week later, we see that a new group, the UU Gay Fellowship, began meeting on Sunday afternoons at the church. The news was noteworthy enough to make it into the national UU Gay Caucus newsletter, where we learn that the UU Gay Fellowship “advertise[s] weekly in the Village Voice, as they are located in the “gay ghetto” of the upper west side” (Gay Caucus Apr 1972). The Gay Caucus newsletter also covered Rev. Nash’s talk at Fourth Universalist, telling us that about 60 people attended, “about one-third of these being gay” (Gay Caucus Feb 1972). The national newsletter reports extensively on this group as it met throughout the 1971-1972 church year, showing a wide range of topics addressed including “Do You Have to Give Up Religion to be Gay?” “Relating to Straights,” “Human Liberation,” and a gay women’s discussion on “[w]hat we expect from our gay brothers;” a monthly bulletin called “Gay Tidings” is also mentioned, though no record of this bulletin remains in the congregational archives (Gay Caucus Apr 1972).
The last record of the group meeting, as indicated in public newsletter announcements, is on June 25, 1972. It is unclear whether the UU Gay Fellowship stopped meeting or simply went under the radar at this point, but the UU Gay Caucus newsletter offers some counter-evidence to Kellaway’s assertion that church members were perfectly comfortable with the group, noting “[the Fellowship] would like to hold a dance in the church, but the church’s board can’t handle that idea just yet” (Gay Caucus Apr 1972). Fourth Universalist was not without precedent here – at the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles, where Rev. Nash himself founded a gay fellowship group in 1971, a Gay Religious Liberals Conference hosted at the church was forced to hold their closing dance off-site (Oppenheimer 1996, 83). Indeed, dances held a unique position in the gay and lesbian urban social world; in New York City in particular, their history was tied up in the balls of Greenwich Village and Harlem, dating as far back as the 1910s and attracting unconventional “free love” radicals as well as homosexuals (Chauncey 1994, 236). As noted in their response to Homosexuals Intransigent, Fourth Universalist had instituted a policy against public dances, but some element of anxiety around the salacious and sensational history of the balls may have crept into the congregation’s cultural understanding of what such a dance might mean for the church’s image. Indeed, the homosexual community was by no means a monolith when it came to deciding upon strategies for effective community-building, and gays and lesbians within Fourth Universalist may have held differing opinions over the value of dances; present at the meeting where Homosexuals Intransigent’s request was rejected were Elizabeth Parmelee and Ed Pease, so it is difficult to accuse the Board at large of general anti-gay sentiment. When pressed on the congregation’s response to his engagement with the issue of homosexuality in full, Kellaway allows that “there were about a half dozen people who were maybe uneasy… I think of a couple other people who probably weren’t too happy about it…. but when people see the majority affirming something, then they’re not going to stand up and say ‘I object’ – they’re either going to sulk or just not come in as much as they did before… but I don’t remember any active resistance” (Kellaway 2010).
Through 1973, Kellaway continued to discuss the issue of homosexuality with his congregation, along with other envelope-pushing topics related to sex and intimacy, the dissolution of the traditional family, and open marriage, as adult education courses on “Understanding Your Sexuality” were advertised continuously in the church newsletter (Newsletter Jan 1973). In March of 1972, Kellaway handed over his newsletter space to an openly gay member and founder of the UU Gay Fellowship group, Terry Sparks, to update the congregation on Rev. Nash’s arrest for solicitation in California. Kellaway once more addressed homosexuality directly in his sermon, “Rejection,” preached in January 1973, focusing on the experiences of those who feel “unwanted, unliked, unworthy,” but who “rise above” rejection; an excerpt from the sermon detailing the experience of a friend exiled from his parents’ home because he is gay was re-printed in the UU Gay Caucus newsletter (Gay Caucus Jun 1973). In November of 1973, a “gay service” took place at Fourth Universalist according to the Gay Caucus, and a newsletter note by Kellaway, also later reprinted in the national newsletter, advertised the service and analyzed resistance within the denomination to the UUA’s decision to establish an Office of Gay Affairs, which he himself strongly supported (Gay Caucus Dec 1973). Rev. Kellaway remains out front within the denomination in his support for homosexuals, though his arguments center on acceptance within the UU church, and stop short of extending to support for the liberation movement in the larger society. Still, Kellaway is frank in acknowledging “I have had my consciousness raised radically during the past several years…[w]hat I know now is: some of our best members of this church are homosexual [and s]ome of our best Unitarian Universalist ministers are homosexual… I am glad that so many persons are feeling more free to be themselves in our church community” (Newsletter Nov 1973).
New Leaders Emerge/The Church in a Larger Context (1974-1976)
Some of these persons within the Fourth Universalist community later became gay rights leaders, within the Unitarian Universalist movement and beyond. Jean Powers, a NOW employee who joined the congregation in 1970, is listed in Readers’ Companion to US Women’s History for her role in founding the Gay Women’s Alternative – a social and educational group that began meeting at Fourth Universalist in the Spring of 1973, attracting lesbians from across the New York metropolitan region (Mankiller 1998). Terry Sparks joined in 1972 after helping to organize the congregation’s UU Gay Fellowship. Member Henry Weimhoff is listed in a 1975 issue of the UU Gay Caucus newsletter as a participant in New York City Pride Parade for that year, though his name does not appear on membership lists until 1981. Ed Clifton was one of the long-time members at Fourth Universalist who came out fully after Kellaway was installed; Clifton later became involved with the national UU Gay Caucus as a contact person for other homosexuals seeking fellowship in the New York region, and was centrally involved in the Extended Family group at Fourth Universalist, which provided companionship for those who were isolated or alienated from their biological relatives for various reasons.
As Rev. Kellaway describes it, a handful of members who had been active at Fourth Universalist during Helie’s ministry recognized an ally in Kellaway and began to make themselves known as gay and lesbian – “when I appeared, [Ed Clifton,] who had been absent for a few years ,came back … then various people began to emerge, who had been longstanding members of the congregation” (Kellaway 2010). One of these was Elizabeth Parmelee, born into a prominent family within the church. Parmelee was in her late 60s at the time of Kellaway’s ministry, and served as congregational president for a time; according to Kellaway, she had a partner, but only after the Board’s discussion of Homosexuals Intransigent “did it become clear to me that Elizabeth and Bee were a lesbian couple” – Ed Pease was another member who for a long time “neither denied nor affirmed that he was gay, but if you thought that he was, that was fine with him” (Kellaway 2010). Others, including another long-time lay leader and congregational president, Roland Gammon, were rumored to be gay as homosexuality entered the public vocabulary during Kellaway’s ministry, but never came out within the congregation. The evidence supports Kellaway’s assertion that these men and women were generally accepted within the church. Jean Powers taught 1st and 2nd graders at the church school in 1971 and organized consciousness-raising groups for men and women that same year, while Ed Clifton and Ed Pease both served multiple leadership roles on church committees throughout the 1960s and 1970s. By 1974, both men had joined the advisory committee to the newly formed Office of Gay Concerns at the UUA, working for more strident institutional change within the denomination at large.
Yet despite all the attention paid to gays and lesbians in the early 1970s, homosexuality largely disappears from the church’s public speech within just a few years of the issue’s emergence. The Gay Women’s Alternative (GWA) begins meeting at Fourth Universalist in 1973, but is only advertised a few times in the congregational newsletter; Kellaway himself reports that he was not aware of the group’s founding, nor its long-standing success. In an April 1974 update on work done by Fourth Universalist’s Program Development Steering Committee, long reports are shared on all programs using church space, except for GWA, which is only briefly noted as “offer[ing] speakers and discussion on Thursday evenings averaging 50” women in attendance (APM Report 1974). Yet reports show that quite quickly, GWA proved to be a major income producer for the congregational budget – in 1974, GWA brought in $3,775 and had no expenses, the church’s third most profitable program out of more than a dozen, the first being Lib/Lib ($105,152 net income) and the second Single Again, a group for divorced adults ($21,578) (PDSC Budget 1974). Much like the UU Gay Fellowship, the activities of GWA received coverage in the UU Gay Caucus newsletter, which in June 1974 reported the group had featured “author[s]… a prominent feminist … [and an] instructor of NYU and Yale on homosexuality” (Gay Caucus 1974).
The best records on GWA’s reception within the church come from the Program Development Steering Committee, which in late 1974 described “the insistence of GWA for a guard,” and their request “that names of the GWA steering committee not be given out by church staff,” showing the group may have been subject to threats or backlash from the larger community surrounding Fourth Universalist (PDSC Minutes 1974). When the Steering Committee distributed questionnaires for an evaluation of all active programs that same year, a committee member was assigned to follow up with GWA for a personal interview, to give a report to the committee on its progress. This report was delivered to the Committee in March 1975 and was, despite the high level of scrutiny afforded to the group, overwhelmingly favorable. Betty Ann Welch presented her evaluation of GWA as “a highly effective, worthwhile” program, with “aims… worthy of sustained church support” (PDSC Minutes 1975). At this time, weekly attendance at GWA is reported at close to 175 women. The congregational records include only one item wholly specific to GWA – a letter addressed to church administrator Edith Hull, written by Mary Frances Ardito, a lesbian who attended the groups in 1974. The moving letter offers one example of how important Fourth Universalist may have been to gay and lesbian individuals within New York, providing safe spaces for those who wrestled with “coming out” and struggled to find community as the gay liberation movement emerged across the nation. “I wanted to thank you,” she said, “for making it possible for me, and many others like me, to have a decent place to meet” (Ardito 1974). Noting that GWA was her “first venture into ‘gay’ life,” Ardito cites “[t]he fact that these meetings were held in a church” as central to her summoning the courage to attend – “[f]or me, there’s a special joy in the knowledge that every time I attend a meeting, God is only one flight up” (Ardito 1974).
The location of Fourth Universalist on Manhattan’s West Side did provide a unique venue from which to proclaim tolerance and acceptance for lesbian and gays in the 1960s and 1970s. Rev. Kellaway doesn’t remember a specific response of the congregation to the Stonewall Riots, which happened just before his installation as minister – “certainly we were all aware of it… but I don’t remember it being a congregational conversation, might have been coffee hour conversation, but I don’t remember us as a result saying we ought to do anything” (Kellaway 2010). The Community Church of New York was the closest UU congregation to Stonewall, but the Rev. Donald Harrington did not support gay liberation; his church soon published a pamphlet with an expanded version of his June 1973 sermon that defined homosexuality as a form of mental illness. Kellaway confirmed that Harrington was “known as homophobic,” though he speculates that few congregants left Community Church for Fourth Universalist over the issue (Kellaway 2010). In the early 1970s, Black Empowerment was a much more live controversy in the city, on which Kellaway and Harrington also found themselves diametrically opposed, and quite a few Black members of Community Church did leave their congregation for Fourth Universalist at that time. At All Souls Church, Rev. Walter Kring was “a pretty conservative type” according to Kellaway, and the church’s status within the establishment prevented the congregation from engaging deeply on most radical issues of the day. Fourth Universalist, then, did occupy a niche for the gay and lesbian community in the early 1970s – “the church was known as welcoming; we took referrals from other ministers, so the word was around” (Kellaway 2010). The UU congregation in Brooklyn was also involved in the gay and lesbian movement, with one congregant serving as editor of the UU Gay Caucus newsletter for a time, and out gays and lesbians offering their services as speakers and panelists on the issue; one of these speakers shared an experience leading a discussion at the New York Metropolitan District’s Annual Meeting in May 1975 “where I was the only gay… [e]ven though there were a few antagonistic people involved in the group, some of the supporters took on these people, so that even in that situation I was not totally responsible” (Gay World 1975). Within the District, a questionnaire distributed in 1978 showed that even at the end of the decade, many congregations had not reached the level of discussion on this issue achieved by Fourth Universalist in 1970. One church reported a single service dedicated to homosexuality in 1976; most simply asked for more resources to understand the needs of this newly identified community.
The UUA’s larger discussion of homosexuality was sparked by a resolution passed at the 1970 General Assembly to end “all discrimination against homosexuals, homosexuality, bisexuals, and bisexuality,” which was followed by visible protests and the formation of the UU Gay Caucus at GA in September 1971, with 14 members and about 50 straight allies in support (Oppenheimer 1996, 82). When the first issue of the UU Gay Caucus newsletter was published, only seven UU churches across the country hosted gay groups, putting Fourth Universalist and its UU Gay Fellowship in rare and progressive company. The newsletter itself existed in large part because “the [Unitarian Universalist] World had maintained a profound silence on all things gay for many years” (Oppenheimer 1996, 84). Stories of UU churches rejecting gay groups and their requests for meeting space, as well as hate mail received from UU churches on the Gay Caucus mailing list, featured prominently in the first few issues of the newsletter, and clearly outlined a live opposition to gay liberation within the UU movement in the early 1970s. In 1972, the newsletter quotes a lesbian couple living in New York City who address the ongoing reality of “men and women who are either gay or bi, but must still remain hidden from the members of their own congregations” (Gay Caucus Feb 1972). A September 1972 issue supplement outlines further challenges encountered by UU gay groups: “[i]n one church, for example, the contact between the gays and the congregation is minimal… [i]n another, when an activity of the gay group drew community pressure against the church, that church sided with community prejudice rather than gay rights” (Gay Caucus Sept 1972). In 1973 we see quotes from ministers echoing Donald Harrington’s belief that discrimination against homosexuals is wrong, but also that claims “that homosexuality is a desirable, alternative life style… provid[e] an illusion for the young people who hear the message, a dangerous illusion;” another minister writes that there are “very legitimate questions about the basic mental health of confirmed homosexuals… I have to believe that a human being who is incapable of heterosexual love is a diminished if not a distorted human being” (Gay Caucus Mar 1973). In this context, Rev. Kellaway’s rhetoric takes on an even more radical character. While he may not have led the kind of political involvement and activism that some homosexuals sought in the early 1970s, his support for gays and lesbians revealed a nuanced understanding of the ways in which simple tolerance elided their basic human rights. In reflecting back today, Kellaway acknowledges that “we [at Fourth Universalist] thought we were pretty relaxed and tolerant group already, therefore we didn’t feel a need to do anything specific… [p]art of the lesson that began to emerge after a while was that it’s not enough to say ‘all are welcome;’ you sometimes have to say directly that ‘GLBT people are welcome’” (Kellaway 2010).
New Identities Take Shape (1977 – 1988)
In 1976, Richard Kellaway left the Fourth Universalist Society to become Associate Director of US Programs at the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. He was replaced by the Rev. Joel Schoelfield, installed in October 1977, who brought a much different character to his leadership of the church, interested primarily in religious pluralism, renewed and enriched spirituality within Unitarian
Universalism, and the “celebrative arts” of worship (Newsletter Jan 1979). The congregation maintained an interest in social justice, continuing to engage the neighborhood in service and action projects, and participating in dialogue on race and multiculturalism within the denomination. Membership shrank by a few dozen households upon Kellaway’s exit, and in 1978, Schoelfield made an attempt to reach out to the “mailing list of people who attend Lib/Lib, Single Again and other church activities,” which at this time numbers approximately 700 people; GWA, still meeting at this time, is not mentioned by name here or in most other church records and publications throughout Schoelfield’s ministry (Newsletter 1978). Yet the legacy of the congregation’s involvement with sex and sexuality is ever-present, sealed in the church’s identity according to member Edward Billett, who published “A Litany to our Sanctuary” in the church’s March 1979 newsletter as part of Schoelfield’s celebrative arts program:
“Alas, this room came to us showing its age…
With all of this clutter on Monday, Wednesdays and
Fridays this hall is filled with seekers of
chemistry that would take them out of wells
of loneliness into warm beds.
The Supper Club has been revived, and here on alternate
Tuesdays euphoria permeates our room as we eat,
drink and sing…
I would like to have been secreted at the pinnacle
so that I might have observed each passing year.
Let us all look up with wonder at being here.”
(Newsletter Mar 1979)
Many of the prominent gay and lesbian leaders within Fourth Universalist leave the congregation during Schoelfield’s ministry – Terry Sparks is the first to go in 1976, followed by Jean Powers in 1980. Secondary source material published in 1998 notes that the church “has continued to be supportive” of GWA, which met weekly until 1991 and continued meeting monthly for an indeterminate period of time afterward, but it is unclear whether GWA met at Fourth Universalist for its entire history, or whether Jean Powers continued to attend after leaving the church (Mankiller 1998, 240). Ed Clifton’s name drops off the membership list in 1982, though due to his age it would be even more difficult to speculate that the reasons for his disappearance were specifically tied to Schoelfield or a drop-off in engagement with gay rights issues. There is certainly not sufficient evidence to suppose that a total exodus of gays and lesbians occurred post-Rev. Kellaway; in fact, Henry Wiemhoff, noted in the national UU Gay Caucus newsletter as early as 1975, first appears on the official church membership list in 1981 and stays throughout the 1980s while serving as Communications Director for the Metropolitan New York District’s office of Unitarian Universalists for Lesbian and Gay Concerns, a group which hosts meetings and services at Fourth Universalist in 1987 and 1988. A Lesbian/Gay Subcommittee of the congregation’s Social Concerns Committee is also in place by 1988, representing an important step towards recognition of the need for advocacy on gay and lesbian issues outside the congregation’s walls.
Conclusion
The Fourth Universalist Society in the City of New York is, as might be expected for the time, an imperfect model for Unitarian Universalist churches who are today seeking to ally themselves with the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community. While engaged, outspoken action on gay liberation was not destined to become a part of the culture of this small, defensive, quickly changing and revitalizing congregation throughout the 1970s – a congregation which was, of course, still reeling from its near-death experience in the late 1960s and struggling to find a vision for a way forward – the close- knit community at Fourth Universalist nonetheless helped to plant a seed for acceptance of gays and lesbians that was radical for its own time in the Unitarian Universalist movement. The ministry of Rev. Richard Kellaway, and the quiet confidence and leadership of his gay and lesbian congregants, was crucial in paving the way for the Fourth Universalist Society to emerge as a protective, gay-friendly space in the very early days of the movement, offering faithful affirmation and support to many amidst the burgeoning variety of gay social settings in Manhattan neighborhoods west of the park. A careful examination of Fourth Universalist’s nuanced response shows that the diversity of opinions surrounding a congregation’s proper form engagement on gay liberation issues in the 1960s and 70s went far beyond simple “pro” and “con.” Indeed, Kellaway’s account of the congregation as being led to a kind of complacency in their initial progressive stance – assuming that a general extension of welcome was all that needed to be done – contains the seed of an important lesson worth considering for any of today’s pastoral leaders who seek to create and inspire the conditions for action and social change within their communities. While the Fourth Universalist Society in the City of New York’s initially outspoken, public commitment to gay and lesbian issues proved difficult to maintain, the community’s emphasis on acceptance did constitute another form of radicalism for their time – a willingness to build open and affirming spaces that asked no one to leave their sexuality at the door, and to throw open the church doors to the diverse surrounding neighborhood with a message of universal welcome still heard in our Unitarian Universalist churches today – “come, come whoever you are.”
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