Out Of The Shadows I

This is an enterprise series that I did while I was at the News-Register. It ran October 2007. It won numerous awards from the Society of Professional Journalist as well as awards from the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association.

This series includes an introduction by me explaining why I undertook the project. I am going to publish each story separately, they are long, though I am combining the the intro with the first story.

This material is copyrighted by the News-Register.


Gay series grows from most personal of roots
Published: October 9, 2007

I try to imagine what it must be like to be in love with someone, but unable to reach out and touch that person in public. To be denied the chance to hold hands or exchange a quick kiss. 
Yet, for most gays and lesbians, this is very much the case. 
In today's paper, you will find the start of a series on the local gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community. 
I felt moved to write about this community for the most personal of reasons:

My father was gay. 
Born in 1932 in Mississippi, in an era when being "queer" meant social ostracism at best and a painful death at worst, he faced a lifelong struggle. So he found ways to prove his "masculinity," feeling that defined his value in life. 
He served in the Marine Corps during the Korean War.

Afterward, he married and fathered two children. 
He and my mother stayed together for 16 years. It wasn't until they divorced that he allowed himself the luxury of male companions. 
Even then, he was careful to call them "friends," never admitting to a "partner," "lover" or "boyfriend."

Our culture never gave him an opportunity to be himself in the open. 
I was fairly young when my parents divorced. Still, it didn't escape my notice that dad was gay. 
He could call his companions whatever he wanted. I knew what they were to him and never let it bother me. 
I knew my dad was gay, that he preferred men over women. I had pretty much grown up with it, so had no trouble accepting it. 
He was the gentlest man with me and my brother - so much so he never knew quite what to do to discipline us. 


He loved us completely. He always let us know how proud he was of us. He died at the age of 47, falling victim to hepatitis. 
But he was a wonderful man, as are many of the members of the LGBT community. I hope that shows in this series.

Gay community finds church home 
Published: October 9, 2007

By DEE MOORE

Of the News-Register 



The Fireside Room at McMinnville's First Baptist Church seems utterly ordinary, just to poke your head in and look around. 
But twice a month, it hosts a rather extraordinary gathering, representing a goodly share of the local gay community.

That community has found a welcoming, nurturing home in the church's Together Works group, still going strong after 20 years. 
Settling into overstuffed sofas, members gather on Monday nights to indulge in desserts, coffee and chat. Sharing companionship and camaraderie, they greet one another with hugs and kisses.


The gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender support group got its start in the mid-'80s under the auspices of the Rev. Bernie Turner. And it has continued to find a safe harbor under Turner's replacement, the Rev. Kent Harrop. 


This week's Monday night meeting took a Halloween theme, in keeping with the season. Participants swapped tales of Halloween pranks - outhouse tippings, toilet papering forays, snipe hunts and the like - mostly from the simpler times of childhood. 


In the big world outside, they often encounter prejudice and bigotry, slights and slurs. They often face legal challenges, personal challenges and political setbacks. 


Here, in the confines of the Fireside Room, they meet with nothing but understanding and acceptance - a welcome relief for an often-oppressed minority. They can engage in spirited hijinks and silly shenanigans if they like, because they are among friends. 


The group has become something of a surrogate family for many of its members, and there is a practical reason for that. They have often been rejected by their biological families as a result of their sexual orientation. 
Here, kinship runs deeper than blood.

Here, it's the tie of understanding and acceptance that binds. 
Together Works was created by the church and has enjoyed its unwavering support through good times and bad. 
Many members also attend the church. In fact, some of them serve in leadership positions. However, church membership, or even involvement, is not a requirement. 


Over the years, Together Works has claimed members from faiths like Buddhism, which fall completely outside the Christian spectrum. It has even welcomed atheists. 
Its two main aims, closely related, are outreach and fellowship, which it defines as reaching out to other members of the GLBT community and welcoming them into a fellowship of acceptance.

It takes the view that no one should be forced to live a life of fear, dread, shame and isolation, but realizes many do - particularly those reluctant to come out publicly for fear the price they pay may prove too high. 
Turner began his preaching career during the time of the social revolution.

Under John F. Kennedy's Camelot and Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society, he sought to ensure that all people, regardless of their differences, were socially equal. 
A participant in the civil rights marches, Turner saw early on that the selfsame rights were being denied to members of our society based on sexual orientation.

So when he was approached by a young lesbian mother who wanted acceptance along with her spirituality, Turner was quick to help. So began a local experiment in religious and social equality. 


Turner retired from the active ministry in 1993, but Harrop embraced the commitment with equal dedication when he took over. And that was no accident on either side. 


Together Works had members serving on the pastor review board that chose Harrop. And he said one of the things that led him to apply in the first place was the fact gays and lesbians were welcome here.

Harrop said he was, in fact, seeking an actively inclusive church - one willing to invite, even encourage, all comers to sup at God's banquet table. 
First Baptist's quest for a new pastor represented nothing less than a call from God to Harrop. He calls it the final step in his own spiritual evolution.


Through personal experiences with gay family and friends, Harrop came to see the exclusion based on sexual identity as a violation of Christian values. It was not the way Christ had lived his life and encouraged his followers to live theirs, he said. 


Turner said today's broad church acceptance was not achieved without struggle, however, particularly in the early days. And he acknowledged the congregation lost members over it. 


"In some ways it was a very lively time, a time when everybody had to come to terms with how they thought of this issue," he said.


Turner's willingness to perform commitment ceremonies for gay and lesbian couples proved especially divisive. 
Harrop has continued that tradition, and done it with the church's blessing.

"It's a good half-step forward," Harrop said, though acknowledging it falls short of marriage sanctioned by the state - something heterosexual couples enjoy. 


Harrop said his goal, for both himself and his parishioners, is "getting to know people beyond the labels, seeing gay folk like everyone else." And that means allowing them to make long-term commitments as couples. 


Together Works couples making such commitments include businessmen Bob Bannister and Dan McCoy of Ballston, who have been together 10 years; Eloise "Lou" Hickey and Martha VanCleave, a math professor at Linfield, who had been together more than 15 years when Hickey died in December; and retirees Don Hutchinson and H. Lee Swantek, who had been together more than 40 years when Swantek died in 2002. 


Many of the Together Works members actively participate in more than just worship services. Currently these members hold positions on numerous service and organizational committees, on the board and assisting in lay ministry positions. 


While many of the group's members have made their sexual orientation known to their friends, their families and the larger community; some have not, still fearing retribution from neighbors and co-workers. And even those who have acknowledged their orientation often avoid calling attention to it for fear issues will arise to complicate their lives. 
That makes Together Works an extremely important haven, even in today's more accepting times. And they have used it to reach out to others in like situations, including members of the gay and lesbian support groups active at McMinnville High School and Linfield College.