On The Outside IV

On the Outside - Man on a mission

Published: August 25, 2005

John Boersma of McMinnville reads from his Bible at his church, Bethel Baptist. A property investor and manager, the Linfield economics grad has taken it upon himself to establish, finance and operate a halfway house for ex-offenders, particularly sex offenders. He says he's responding to a calling from God. Tom Ballard/News-Register

Editor's note: Yamhill County Community Corrections allowed News-Register reporter Dee Duderstadt to join its sex offender parole and probation team on courthouse interviews and home visits. The only stipulation was that names and personally identifying details be withheld. This is part three in a three-part series.

By DEE DUDERSTADT
Of the News-Register

When the sex offender reached out to McMinnville's John Boersma for help, it changed his life.
Boersma, not related to the family with deep roots in downtown retailing, found his thoughts turning to a favorite biblical passage: "I saw God in you and his works in you."
The man had molested his own child. It had destroyed his marriage and pretty much destroyed him.
But Boersma, a Baptist and a Gideon, saw something worth saving. And he poured his energy into saving it.
The man had been living in a little travel trailer. Now he's living in a halfway house Boersma owns and manages in McMinnville.
"He'll do anything for me," Boersma said. "He pays rent, and he's more than willing to be there in any way he can."
The God-fearing real estate investor has extended his hand to many others with criminal backgrounds in recent years, including other sex offenders. He's offered them housing when no one else would.
"Jesus had only one leper who returned to say, "Thank you,' " Boersma noted.
But he's been thanked a thousand times over. "That's what keeps me going," he said.
"I've let people come whether they have any resources or not," Boersma said. "I've allowed them to make payments if and when they can.
"It helps them to have an investment. It makes them work harder to maintain."
---
For nine years, Boersma also has been leading Bible study classes at the county jail. In conjunction with that, he lends an ear to men needing someone from the outside to talk to, and perhaps lean on.
Those who know him call him a man with heart, but he prefers to see himself as a man with conviction. He views his ministry with offenders as nothing short of a calling from God.
That's not to say he hasn't been taken for a ride on occasion. He readily admits that he has.
"We're not playing games here," he says. It happens.
But the high school teacher turned real estate mogul, a Linfield economics graduate, is undeterred. "I don't have much," he said, "but what I have has met the needs of the people."
Boersma has a particular empathy for sex offenders, perhaps for the very reason that few others do.
Due to the nature of their crimes, they are most prone to finding themselves homeless. And that's precisely where he can be of greatest help, thanks to his real estate holdings.
His mission, as he sees it, is to help meet needs that others don't, can't or won't see.
"I saw the need at the jail," he said. "I've been going there for many years, seeing the same old people. I determined there was a need for a halfway house."
There was talk among government officials and social service providers about developing one, he said, but nothing came of it. So he set about putting a system in place on his own.
"I realized I had some places that could be used for shelter, places to be dry and warm, places they could wash their clothes," he said. But it took some adjustments on his part.
"Because of their addictions, they were not experiencing the freedom Christ offers," he said. "No one was holding them accountable. I knew I was going to have to be very involved."
---
He has long and deeply held affiliations with two religious organizations - McMinnville's Bethel Baptist Church and Gideon International, known for its work distributing Bibles to hotels, motels, hospitals, schools, jails and prisons. But he's not been shy about reaching out on his own.
Without Boersma's aid, officials working in corrections say, many offenders would not have a safe place to stay. And that would make it all the harder for them to find jobs and successfully reintegrate into society.
It is particularly important that sex offenders have a stable location known to authorities, they say. And Boersma provides that.
Yamhill County Parole and Probation Officer Randy Settell, who specializes in sex offenders, sees Boersma as a working partner in local rehabilitation efforts.
"John Boersma has been a great silent supporter of Yamhill County Community Corrections and the offenders we supervise," he said. "John has provided housing for the offenders we supervise when there appeared to be little or no options in the community short of living on the streets."
Settell said, "The word on the streets of McMinnville, from the offenders we supervise, is this: 'If you are clean and sober, and you have a sincere desire to change your life, but you have no job and you are homeless, you can call Boersma. He will see if he can assist you with temporary housing until you get on your feet.'
"To have a person in the community willing to assist with these difficult issues - and, at times, difficult offenders - is a tremendous blessing. We can't thank John enough for his generosity and his willingness to work with the offenders we supervise."
Clancy Hinrichs, who serves as Community Corrections chaplain, agrees wholeheartedly with that assessment.
"In my mind, John is one of the unsung heroes of McMinnville," he said. "For a number of years, he has gone well out of his way to provide shelter for men and women recently released from jail or prison.
"I can say without hesitation that were it not for John's generous heart, many men and women would be living on the street. Often, he has provided shelter for these individuals at his own expense.
Hinrichs said Boersma has even found work for some of the men. "In addition to providing shelter," the chaplain said, "it is not unusual for him to offer them employment - even when he doesn't necessarily need them."
---
There is an element of proselytizing in Boersma's mission, but he keeps it low key.
His faith runs deep, and he's more than willing to share it. But he doesn't force it on his beneficiaries.
"I help them even if they don't come around to my point of view," he said. "It's between them and God."
He prefers to make a statement about his religious faith by example, first and foremost.
"It's amazing how faith works," he said. "I'm just another part of the puzzle. The housing and the job needs.
"Basically, what everybody is looking for is love. Christ showed love and someone believed."
Boersma would like to find a spiritual partner to help him with his daunting mission. It has gotten to be an enormous undertaking, particularly when he already has a full-time job managing properties.
"It's a real challenge," he said. "I am endeavoring to get people to assist me.
"I've had a pretty successful business. And if this were a business, then I'd be pretty successful at it, too."
But he could use some help.
"If churches would set up a benevolent fund to help these people out for a month," he said, "it would demonstrate God's love to anyone, anywhere, anytime. People have to see they can have a better life.
"So many of the people that I've been around have had a religious background. God has been at work in their lives; they just didn't see him. Like Ezekiel says, we need to go and seek out the lost sheep."

On The Outside III

Victim travels long road back

Published: August 25, 2005

Christine Ulery and her 5-year-old daughter, Daviana, draw with sidewalk chalk at John Boersma's halfway house in McMinnville. Ulery is a resident of Boesma's personally subsidized shelter. And thanks to his ministry, she has found faith both in God and in herself. Tom Ballard/News-Register

By DEE DUDERSTADT
Of the News-Register

Christina Ulery is one of John Boersma's success stories.
When she was just a child, Ulery was molested by a family member. And it knocked her off her bearings.
She led a wild adolescence in California, fueled by marijuana, methamphetamine and alcohol. "I was out of control," she says.
She went straight at 17. In conjunction with that, she made the move up to McMinnville, where she had a stronger family support system. But it didn't take, not even after she gave birth to a baby girl.
"For two years," she says, "I was high on myself, not drugs." That led her to believe she could handle anything that came her way. After all, she had overcome so much.
"Things kind of went downhill from there," she recalls. "I just made the wrong type of friends."
Ulery's on-again, off-again boyfriend of two years was one of those wrong types. He led her back into drugs.
"He was put in my life to teach me a lesson," she says now, looking back. "He was somebody to fill the void, but he corrupted me. When I sobered up, after using with him, I realized we had nothing in common."
Ulery found her bearings again in God, but he wanted no part of that. So she wanted no part of him any longer.
During the dark days of her two-year relapse, she stole her parents' credit cards and ended up getting jailed for theft. When she went to jail, she lost her daughter.
---
Now straight again, she's gotten off to a rough start in life. Her first couple of decades have been anything but smooth.
And while she accepts personal responsibility for that - she feels she has to - she traces it back to the abuse she suffered in childhood.
She figures it prevented her from having a normal childhood, a normal adolescence and a normal introduction to adulthood. It's her horrible little secret - one she seldom shares.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, she's by no means alone in that. Almost one-third of women ending up in American prisons were sexually abused at some point during childhood, its studies show.
Research also demonstrates a strong correlation between sexual victimization and subsequent drug use.
"Sexual abuse is strongly linked with substance abuse," according to Dr. Kenneth Kendler, member of the medical school faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Psychologist Nancy Faulkner, a nationally recognized expert in the sexual exploitation of children, ties it all together this way: "Long-term effects of child abuse include fear, anxiety, depression, anger, hostility, inappropriate sexual behavior, poor self-esteem, tendency toward substance abuse and difficulty with close relationships."
Ulery understands that all too well. But she is determined to overcome her past and move on.
Not all of the old scars are going to heal. She's working on it, though.
She's made amends with her family. And she's regained custody of her daughter, who will be starting kindergarten in the fall.
---
The young McMinnville woman owes a lot of it to a McMinnville man who's made it his mission in life to help offenders rebuild their lives - real estate investor John Boersma.
Boersma, a devout Baptist and dedicated Gideon, saw a crying need in Yamhill County for housing and jobs to help offenders get back on their feet.
He felt a calling from God to set about it. And his real estate holdings gave him the means.
Boersma specializes in helping sex offenders like the man who sent Ulery's life spinning off track in the first place. But he also helps offenders like Ulery - people who've turned first to drugs, then to theft to keep the drugs flowing.
A Linfield grad who taught high school before getting into real estate, he's helped her regain her moorings both physically and spiritually. She sees him as her mentor and role model in rebuilding her life.
Ulery is now living in a halfway house Boersma owns and manages on his own. And she helps out there in any way she can, anxious to repay him for his kindness.
"I do it willingly, she says. "I help him keep the place and the people clean."
"John is a constant reminder of the need for sobriety. No words can say what it means to me. I could cry."
She chokes up just thinking about it.
"He is very much a father figure," she says. "He's open-minded. He tells you how he feels about things, but he's so forgiving."
Ulery feels she's reached a turning point in her life.
"I feel joy, cleansing and hope. I feel strong mentally and physically. I have more self-control."
Child sex abuse exacts a terrible price. It's something the offenders never seem to take into account, at least not at the time.
Ulery is living proof of it, but she figures she's ready, willing and able to put it all behind her now. She's ready, finally, to move on.

On The Outside II

Making the rounds

Published: August 23, 2005

Daphne Bach and Randy Settell, Yamhill County parole and probation officers, check out a duffle bag full of items they use when contacting parolees in the field. Tom Ballard/News-Register

By DEE DUDERSTADT
Of the News-Register
Randy Settell has only one employer, Yamhill County's Community Corrections Department. But he has two jobs, a day job and a night job.
By day, he meets with the sex offenders on his parole and probation caseload in his office in the county's jail and courthouse complex downtown.
One of two P.O.s specializing in sex offenders, his caseload typically runs 100 or more. He likes to get an early start, generally coming in at 5:30 a.m. and meeting his first offender of the day at 6.
But it's important for him to visit offenders in their home environment as well - particularly troublesome offenders deemed most likely to return to their old ways. That's a night job, so he and partner Daphne Bach periodically set aside a night to pay some of their clients home visits.
On this night, he has agreed to take a reporter along for a firsthand look at the sex offender's world.
---
The first stop is a dilapidated Victorian with fading paint and a sagging porch.
A tired old place in a poor state of repair, it's set in a field choked with weeds, grass and hay standing as tall as a grown man. A wheelchair maintains a precarious presence on the front porch, simultaneously seeming both oddly out of place and oddly appropriate.
The place resembles the setting for an Alfred Hitchcock horror classic. It's a fright to behold.
Settell's knock on the door goes unanswered for what seems an eternity.
Then a grizzled man getting around with the aid of a walker peers out the front window. He's framed by a set of scalloped drapes whose once pristine whiteness has long since turned a sickly yellow.
Settell and Bach wait patiently as he slowly makes his way to the door. He opens it in a white undershirt, black shorts, black socks and brown house slippers - the uniform of an old man.
The man invites them in.
But he's not the one they've come to see. They're here to see a younger man - a man Settell calls the one true pedophile on his long roster of offenders.
Settell isn't sure what the older man's relationship is to the younger. He thinks the association may be through a church. But no matter.
---
Inside, the contents of the house pay homage to everyday life tenfold. Books, newspapers, magazines and all manner of objects known to mankind lie here, there and everywhere.
Stuff is piled on every surface, taking up every corner and filling every chair. It is even mounded up on the dining room table.
Cans of all kinds lie among a vast collection of odds and ends. And lying on top of it all sit unwashed plates and unrefrigerated leftovers.
The stench is overpowering. The smell of rot and decay permeate everything.
Settell asks to see the younger man. "Is he here?" the officer asks.
The old man nods affirmatively, then picks up a cast iron skillet.
A former athlete, Settell stands 6-feet and weighs 280. But he steps back instinctively as the man winds up to swing the large, heavy skillet.
But the old man takes aim at the wall, not at Settell. "It's how we communicate," he explains as the skillet thuds against the plaster.
---
Shortly, a door opens in the middle of a living room wall. Out steps the younger man, who has come downstairs in response to the older man's summons.
Settell asks if it's all right if he goes on up and has a look around the offender's room. He gets the go-ahead, but finds he can barely squeeze his massive frame up the narrow staircase.
The steps are warped, and it's easy to see why.
Buckets line the steps, and each is full of dirty brown water. Water stains spot the walls above.
The paint is peeling and the plaster is crumbling. The narrow stairway reeks of mold, dust and mildew.
The climb is made all the more difficult by the old house's precarious leftward tilt. It resembles the Fun House at a carnival.
His room differs in no important respect from the rest of the place.
A collection of toys fills a makeshift shadow box. The box has been fashioned out of old printing press trays.
Everywhere, there is clutter, clutter, clutter.
Falling plaster has left a gaping hole in the ceiling. And the stench matches that of the old man's downstairs quarters.
Cases of Mountain Dew fill one part of the room. At least, some of them contain Mountain Dew. A quick look confirms that some of them now contain urine instead.
This is a common practice for certain types of sex offenders, and it has been an ongoing problem with this one. It seems they derive some sort of satisfaction from saving up urine.
---
The man is thin and slightly built. Barely 30, his babylike face would make him seem even younger if it weren't half-covered in full beard.
He looks neither intimidating nor imposing. His manner is soft and gentle.
His harmless look and manner have proven useful to him in approaching children to perpetrate his crimes.
He recently slipped a note to a 12-year-old girl asking her to perform a sex act on him.
"What did you ask her to do?" Settell asks.
When he answers in terms not printable here, Settell follows up by asking, "Don't you know this is wrong?"
"Yes," the man mumbles.
"Then why did you do it?" the officer asks.
"I don't know," the man responds.
Settell reminds the man that bad decisions like this have led him to his current situation. But the offender offers all manner of excuses.
This wasn't the man's first offense. Settell hopes to make it his last, but it won't be easy.
He checks the room for porn, for children's photos, for anything that could conceivably be an object of lust. Finding nothing, he issues a final warning and leaves.
He'll be back. He doesn't trust this one.
---
Unbelievably, the second stop is as warped and surreal as the first.
Smack dab in the middle of suburban McMinnville - a stone's throw from a new housing development, a heartbeat from an elementary school - is something even Hitchcock would have been hard-pressed to dream up.
Settell's Dodge Durango turns down a driveway snaking behind a pair of homes, bursts through a dense stand of trees protecting polite society from the sight and comes upon a profusion of travel trailers and makeshift outbuildings.
All turn out to have inhabitants. These are people curled up in the meanest of circumstances.
There is no running water. That rules out taking a bath or using a toilet.
There is electricity, but it arrives here by extension cord. Bags of garbage have been stacked against the side of one of the makeshift hovels.
Several old burn barrels lie here and there, standing like silent sentinels. Oily standing water, covering the ash and embers of old fires, reflects the moonlight when one peers in.
The rusting metal skeletons of devices that outlived their usefulness many years ago litter the landscape. A stench resembling that of rotting meat permeates the place.
---
The man Settell and Bach have come to visit molested his daughter. They quickly locate him in the aging travel trailer he calls home.
He looks like a cross between an absent-minded professor and a mountain man.
The stench is even worse inside than out. Closed up in close, unventilated quarters with a man who neither bathes nor cleans, Bach soon finds herself gagging reflexively.
The place is crammed with all the man's worldly possessions. There is hardly room to turn about.
A bare yellow bulb provides the only light, but wires run everywhere. And one of them connects to an ancient hulk of a computer.
From his jacket pocket, Settell pulls out a floppy disk containing a program called STEALTH. Designed to search a computer's hard drive for evidence of access to pornographic websites or storage of pornographic files, it is an invaluable tool for parole and probation officers.
---
Settell plugs the floppy into the antiquated computer, a hand-me-down from his son. It chirps and clatters as it chokes to life.
"What do you use the computer for?" Settell asks, as he waits for the program to perform its search.
"I type my assignments for class on it," the man responds, referring not to a college class but rather to his mandated group therapy sessions.
"Is that all you use it for?" Settell asks.
"Pretty much," the man says.
The computer is so old and dusty, it hums audibly and processes files with an astonishing lack of speed.
The P.O.s wait. And wait. And wait.
The hard drive only holds three-gigabytes of files, but the program churns away for 15 minutes without substantial headway. This could take all night.
There have been no hits, so Settell decides to call it good. If there had been any Internet activity, surely something would have turned up early on.
As Settell and Bach troop back to their truck, they suck in deep breaths of the fetid air hanging over the camp. By comparison, it smells like a pine forest.
---
The third stop on tonight's tour stands in stark contrast. It's a nice, well-kept middle-class home.
It's decorated with silk roses, doorway swags and a china hutch filled with delicate cups and plates of porcelain.
It has a feminine touch totally absent from the night's earlier stops.
The family they have come to look in on is just sitting down to eat their evening meal. Sliced carrots and fresh broccoli grace their dinner table.
They clearly resent the intrusion.
They are defensive. They are upset. But they grudgingly cooperate.
During a home visit last year, the P.O.s found all sorts of porn, including child porn, on the family computer. So they confiscated the hard drive.
Legal issues arose that prevented prosecution. The sex offender specialists have been patiently biding their time ever since, figuring the opportunity will present itself again eventually.
As his wife and child stand by, the offender tells the visiting officers he's experienced a breakthrough in his therapy. "There are no more secrets," he says.
His wife of 20-odd years seconds the assessment. She says there was always a good man inside and "God has finally let him out."
"Secrecy is a sex offender's biggest problem," Settell says as he walks through the man's home, politely seeking permission to look here and check there. Finding nothing amiss, he thanks the family for the cooperation and apologizes for interrupting dinner.
---
Settell thinks the man may have made some real progress, but Bach's not convinced.
"I'd like to check his computer at work," she says as she fastens her seat belt. "I just don't trust him."
Transformation or not, continued scrutiny can keep a man from resuming old habits that are hard to break.
"If I can prevent just one offender from re-offending," he says, his voice trailing off. "That's why we do it every day."

On The Outside I

This was the first enterprise series I wrote for the News-Register.  This is actually the second story in the series. The paper's data base appears to be messed up and I am going to have to scan in the other story when I find it in my own hard copy files. 

This series came about in a rather interesting way. I was assigned to cover a town hall meeting put on by the county corrections department and local politicians. There was a heated debate regarding public safety and registered sex offenders on supervision. In fact our local state representative and one of the corrections officers got slightly nasty with each other. I stayed after the meeting to speak to the officer and ask more questions about how he and his fellow officers monitored SOs and protected the public and the job of protecting the public and supervising these individuals. 

The story was very "meaty" and generated quite a bit of public interest. I spoke with the officer the next day. While I was on the phone asking him questions, he offered to allow me to follow him and his partner around while they did their jobs to clear up public perception of danger faced by the community from sex offenders. I asked my boss who said yes. What follows is a series of stories based on his offer. It also won me numerous awards. Additionally I received emails, letters and phones calls from a stalker or stalkers. It turned out to be a somewhat dangerous affair.

Sex Offenders: On the Outside

Published: August 20, 2005

'On the Outside,' published in August 2005, gives insight into the handling and behavior of convicted sex offenders.   Editor's note: Yamhill County Community Corrections allowed News-Register reporter Dee Duderstadt to join its sex offender parole and probation team on courthouse interviews and home visits. The only stipulation was that names and personally identifying details be withheld. This is part three in a three-part series.

A daunting task

Published: August 20, 2005
By DEE MOORE
Of the News-Register

It's Dan Brown on the line. The Amity police chief has located a sex offender who's been on the lam since November.
YCOM's 911 dispatch center has patched a call through to parole and probation officers Randy Settell and Daphne Bach, the county's sex offender specialists. It's their job to help Brown bring the man in.
The man's list of offenses has been adding up. It has come to include moving without registering, failing to report to his parole officer, having contact with minors and making contact with his victim.
A tenant in his apartment building has turned the man in. Brown has raced to the scene and set up surveillance.
Maneuvering his Dodge Durango through McMinnville's rush-hour traffic has Settell's teeth on edge. He finds the delay frustrating.
When Settell finally pulls up with his partner, they find Brown waiting out front. Brown can hear the TV playing in the upstairs flat, so he figures the man is in.
The sound of a TV commercial mixes with the sound of traffic whizzing by outside on busy Highway 99W as the law enforcement officers make their way up in the company of the landlord. They have stationed a lookout below the man's second-story window in case he tries to beat a hasty retreat the hard way.
Brown places his hand on his weapon as they position themselves beside the door and announce their presence. Then they have the landlord let them in.
The TV is playing all right, but no one is there to watch it. Their man is out.
---
The tenant who provided the tip suggests they try a local auto body shop where he has family working. "He hangs out there a lot," the tenant tells them.
At the body shop, Brown takes the front while the pair of P.O.s take the back.
It shares a warehouse-style structure with other businesses and there are children playing out front. That doesn't make for a good situation.
Working the building from both sides, they search cars, lockers and every other conceivable hiding space without success.
Questioning employees of the body shop, they learn the man's wife works at a local restaurant. So they head there and repeat the process, Brown again working the front while Settell and Bach work the back.
Settell is sweating. It's a hot summer day and he has body armor hung on his 6-foot, 280-pound frame.
Bach is petite by any measure, and looks all the more so in the company of her massive partner.
They draw their stun guns, ready for anything. But the tension quickly eases. Their man isn't here either.
The man molested his own daughter, but his wife isn't about to turn him in. She's standing by him.
"Things are getting better," she tells Settell and Bach. If it weren't so, she says, "I wouldn't risk my kids."

_____
They're heading down to the police department when they get a call. He's returned home.
Back at the apartment building, they run through their original routine again. And the man surrenders without incident.
As they load him into a squad car in handcuffs, they give him their standard lecture. "You can run, but you can't hide," they tell him.
"In Yamhill County," Settell tells the reporter tagging along with them this day, "we work together to keep people like this off the streets."
When they get a chance to interview him, the man fingers everything but his own actions for his troubles. He blames the parole officers, the community and the system first and foremost.
"Did you hear that?" Bach asks, shaking her head in disgust. She's his P.O., so she's heard it all before.
"It's the poor, pitiful me routine again, including the tears," she says. "He did that every time he would come into my office."
But she takes a lot of satisfaction in the collar. He's off the streets, and she figures the county is just a little bit safer as a result.
After all, that's why they do what they do.


Copyright owned by the News-Register

Out Of The Shadows VIII

Activists fuel change on campus
Published: October 15, 2007

By DEE MOORE
Of the News-Register 



After finishing her year as president of Fusion, a gay, lesbian and transgender support group at Linfield College, Julianne Oothoudt spent her summer in New Orleans helping residents of the flood-stricken city with their ongoing efforts to rebuild. 


Now a senior, she plans to dedicate her post-graduation life to international service. She wants to make the world a better place. 
Fusion's new president, Sydney Abbott, shares that commitment. She is driven to devote as much of her time as possible to social activism. She, too, wants to make the world a better place. 


Both young women have been involved in the group, which also counts supportive heterosexuals among its membership, since coming to Linfield.

Fusion meshes its efforts with those of Together Works, the larger community's oldest and strongest support group, which came into being more than 20 years ago at McMinnville's First Baptist Church. 


The term "queer" was once the ugliest epithet members of the straight community could hurl at members of the gay community. However, it is a term that has increasingly been embraced by young social activists like Oothoudt and Abbott, particularly on college campuses. 


There are Queer Alliances and Queer Resource Centers hosting Queer Pride Weeks on campuses across the country these days. Even Oregon State University has a Queer Pride Week. 


Abbott sees this as an outgrowth of a growing political movement for equal rights - something akin to the civil rights battles black Americans began mounting in the '50s and '60s. She sees Fusion joining with groups of like mind to seek equal legal and political rights for a coalition representing gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered interests under a single umbrella. 


There is a difference in "being equal but different" and simply being "equal," Abbott said. She said she won't rest until she sees the time when the larger society embraces her right to marry the person of her choosing. 


"I try to be as active as I can," she said. 


Abbot said she has plenty of first-hand experience with discrimination. 


She grew up in a conservative church tradition in Arlington, Wash. When she came out, her church, her family and her circle of friends all reacted badly, sending her into a severe depression, she said. 


"It made me so depressed I wanted to kill myself," she said. 


Oothoudt's experience was just the opposite. Her family and friends were very supportive. 


An older sister came to the realization that she was gay, she said, and confronted her about it. But she wasn't ready to come out to her family then, and her sister respected her privacy. 


"I told my parents after my freshman year," Oothoudt said. "I was hesitant and fearful, but they were really wonderfully supportive. My family was really great about it." 


Though she comes from a family with progressive views and liberal attitudes, it was still difficult, she said. She could only imagine how difficult it must have been for someone like Abbot, who faced much more challenging circumstances. 


Oothoudt had been open about her sexuality in high school, but found it more difficult in college. She didn't come out publicly at Linfield until she had told her family. 


Her coming out at college coincided with passage of Measure 36, banning gay marriage in Oregon. And she didn't take that as a good omen in terms of her relationship to the larger society. 


Looking back, Abbot said the impact of her coming out has been "mostly good, sometimes bad."

Oothoudt seconded that assessment, saying, "We've had mixed responses." 


They said members of Fusion have had fliers defaced and cars vandalized. They've also had both epithets and objects hurled their way on occasion. 


That has tested their mettle, they said, but also renewed their determination. They said they are dedicated to making the world a safer place for people of all sexual orientations. 


Abbot said she is committed to continued social activism "because I care too much not to." Struggling to suppress tears, she said, "When someone else hurts, it hurts me." 


She acknowledged the tears, but said they are as much tears of anger as anything else. Whenever her thoughts turn to destitution, poverty and suffering, it brings her to tears, she said. 


If you aren't part of the solution, Abbott said, you're part of the problem. She said she tries to live by the words of Indian peace activist Mahatma Ghandi, who said, "You must be the change you want to see in the world."

Copyright owned by the News-Register.

Out Of The Shadows VII

Sexual orientation not a matter of choice
Published: October 15, 2007

By DEE MOORE

Of the News-Register 



More than 30 years ago, the medical profession concluded that homosexuality is neither a choice nor an illness. It is an orientation predicated either at birth or in early childhood. 


That finding countered the predominant belief of most religions that one chooses a gay lifestyle and thus descends into a form of sexual deviance. 


"It has been 33 years that the APA, American Psychiatric Association, made it official that homosexuality was not a mental illness," said Dr. Sally Godard, a psychiatrist who practices in McMinnville. "It saddens me that we are still debating the issue. 


"The medical community - health care professionals, professional educators, psychologists and psychiatrists, all professional groups - has come out with the stance that to be gay or lesbian is not a disorder or an illness. It is not a question in medical or psychiatric circles." 


Though the scientific community has yet to determine how sexual orientation is set in the developing fetus or child, it has developed theories. And research continues. 


Godard said sexual orientation is, more than likely, a result largely of genetics. However, cognitive and environmental factors during early development may also play a role.


"It is a complex interaction we have not sorted out with science," she said. But she was emphatic on one point: "This is not a choice, not a lifestyle decision, just like it is not for the rest of us." 


She acknowledges this is a concept not embraced by everyone - not by any means. "I think there needs to be a whole lot more education," she said. 


Exposure to scientific literature has an important role to play, she said, but in her view, "The best education comes when people begin to meet other people who are gay or lesbian. Once they start to know gay or lesbian people, a lot more understanding begins." 


Most people know someone who is gay or lesbian, Godard said, but are quite often unaware of it.

"There are an awful lot of people who aren't willing to out themselves, because they aren't willing to risk the isolation," she said. 


"In small communities, and in certain parts of the country and world, it is hard to come out sexually as being gay or lesbian. The emotional turmoil is very tragic. They need support in their community." 


Godard said individuals struggling with their sexual identity often come up against damaging stereotypes, leading to religious intolerance, family rejection and even insistence that they can overcome their sexual inclinations if they simply make the effort. 


She said some religious groups have organized so-called transformation ministries reputing to offer conversion therapy. 


"These have really blossomed in the past years," Godard said, "and they do more harm than good. They use the approach, 'You will never be happy if you are gay or lesbian.' It indicates there is something bad or wrong with you. 


"It is psychologically devastating. This amounts to emotional abuse, religious abuse." 


Godard said many professional organizations, including the American Psychiatric Association, have come out against reparative or transformation therapies.

They have concluded these therapies are not going to be effective in the long run, and are likely to inflict much harm along the way. 


"There are no unbiased studies that have come out to prove these programs work," she said. "They can cause self-destructive behavior, along with anxiety and self-hate. It is unethical." 


Godard recommends individuals struggling with their sexuality seek out professional psychological counseling instead. 


"They will get the most back from the appropriate therapy," she said. "They have to realize they do not have to try to change, that this is the way they are, and learn to cope with this even though it may be a struggle." 


"We need to be giving people who have different sexual orientation full rights and benefits. I've never had anyone come to me to ask for change." 


Godard said many in the larger community also are under the misconception that churches uniformly reject gay or lesbian parishioners.

That may once have been the case, but it is most definitely not the case today. 


"Some churches are accepting of gays or lesbians," she said. "Though we hear a lot about Christian groups that are not supportive, the majority of Christian groups are."

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Out Of The Shadows VI

Preaching the 'Gospel of Inclusion'
Published: October 15, 2007

By DEE MOORE
Of the News-Register



The Rev. Kent Harrop likens an open church to the great banquet table that Jesus describes in the gospel of Luke. 


Longtime pastor at First Baptist, he believes his church exemplifies this table by inviting all to partake, regardless of sexual orientation. 


"At the great banquet table of the Scripture, all of the broken, forgotten people are welcome," the 51 year-old minister said. "I have tried to create that great banquet table. We all try to be at the table."


Harrop took the helm 12 years ago. He followed the Rev. Bernie Turner, a pioneer of openness who laid the perfect foundation for Harrop to build on. 


"Bernie Turner had created that sense of openness, and I really appreciate it," he said. "It is a commitment that I have tried to continue. It was one of the things that attracted me to the church." 


As a parent, he saw this openness as a distinct advantage for his two young daughters, now 13 and 16. A far cry from his own upbringing. 


"I grew up in a very homophobic culture," he said. 
"It has been wonderful for their development to grow up in a church that was not homophobic," he said of his children. "It's a really healthy environment, a model of God's inclusive love." 


Harrop points to longtime partners Don Hutchinson and Lee Swantek as the perfect example of committed gay partners. Openly gay members of the church, they celebrated 47 years together before Swantek's death in 2002. 


"They were as loving as any couple I have ever met," Harrop said. "When Lee died, we treated and honored Don as his partner. 
"He was not closeted in his grief. How sad that our society does not value and honor that love." 


Unlike Turner, Harrop has worked from the inside out, leading by example. As he has grown in his own personal understanding of Christ's example of love and acceptance he has come to "see beyond the labels, seeing gay folk like everyone else." 


The church has not limited its role to providing a spiritually uplifting environment, though. It has also reached out in other ways. 


The foundation of its outreach to the gay and lesbian community is Together Works, a support group Turner founded more than two decades ago - an era when it was a much more radical undertaking than it might appear today. And Harrop has continued to embrace the group during his tenure. 


He said First Baptist remains one of the few churches in the area that is inclusive. It is the only known church in Yamhill County with a ministry to the gay and lesbian community that does not teach change or redirect their sexuality. 


Though some members split from the church when Turner began the overture, those who remained, and those who have followed, have been consistently supportive. 


"The congregation as a whole values an environment that is inclusive," Harrop said. "We value and respect differences. 


"An open church is a safe place for those of us who have gay family members. It fosters a culture of openness." 
Harrop said it's all about "getting to know people beyond the labels, seeing gay folk like everyone else," he said.

"They don't have to hide who they are to be accepted as part of our congregation. We value and respect them." 


Thanks to Turner, he said, the church not only set a powerful precedent in the community. It become a leader nationally in the American Baptist Convention. 
And Harrop has pushed hard to carry Turner's vision on during his stewardship.


"I am drawn to the gospel of inclusion and hospitality," he said. "The inclusiveness is biblically based. 
"We try to live it and invite all. In my opinion, Jesus would have us welcome and include them." 


He likes to quote Matthew 25:40, where Jesus says: "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

Harrop said he came to his understanding of the gospel over an extended period of time. It was not a sudden revelation. 


"My evolution has been a gradual one." 


He recalled shutting down once when a friend tried to come out to him. He refused to accept what he was hearing, telling his friend it simply wasn't possible, he didn't believe it. 


"The church I served in Ohio for seven years had a 'don't ask, don't tell policy,'" he said, and he accepted it at the time. 
"I was a product of the culture I grew up in," he said. "I continue to evolve." 


He said parishioners there would confide to him about gay family members, but would not share that with fellow members of the congregation for fear of being ostracized.

Here, he said, "We have moved beyond this policy to the point where gays and lesbians are welcome and their families can be open about it." 


Harrop said the issue of sexuality continues to haunt America's religious landscape, and it's a shame in his view.


"It's very divisive, in some regions more than others," he said. "It's a sad commentary. It's a value, a value that defines. 
"These churches are losing out in having some of the most fabulous members they could have in their church. They are impoverished." 


Even in his own church, "There are some who do not agree from a biblical perspective," he said. "We're still evolving." 
But he said, "We try to bring everybody to the table. No one should be excluded from Christ."

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