Brett Webb-Mitchell
Rev. Dr. Brett Webb-Mitchell is an openly gay Presbyterian pastor in the Portland area serving as the part-time LGBTQ+ advocacy coordinator for The Oregon-Idaho Conference of the UMC. He can be reached at brett@umoi.org. Become a subscriber to the Greater NW Pride blog to get Greater NW Pride in your email box!
Blog Posts
Greater NW Pride: Moving the Needle - 2/25/2021
Moving the Needle When I was first hired to be the LGBTQIA+ Advocacy Coordinator of the OR-ID UMC Conference, Paul, one of my close friends, said that my job was “to move the needle.” What needle? On the “gauge” of LGBTQIA+ justice and equality in life, on one end of the gauge it might read “empty” or “few,” as in separation or segregation and exclusion of LGBTQIA+ people, and on the other side of the dial is “full” as in all The United Methodist Church congregations in the OR-ID UMC ...
Greater NW Pride: Is God Gay? - 2/17/2021
Is God Gay? My answer, as the blogger, is yes. This is not the view of any official theological position of any denomination, including The United Methodist Church or Presbyterian Church (USA), which is the denomination in which I am ordained. And my response to this rhetorical question is yes. God is gay. Background. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the increased use of non-gender specific language in society and in the Church (universal) in terms of how we address one another. Many ...
Greater NW Pride: Recognizing NBHAD (National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness DAY) - 2/9/2021
Recognizing NBHAD (National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness DAY) February 7th was NBHAD, National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. As Drs. Stephen Tang and Giffin Daughtridge wrote on hivplusmag.com, it “is a day to highlight the disproportionate impact of HIV on Black communities, to celebrate the work of Black HIV advocates, and to support Black people living with HIV in America. We also celebrate the efforts of our local and federal partners, the HIV workforce, and community advocates who have ...
Greater NW Pride: “My Name is Pauli Murray” - 2/2/2021
“My Name is Pauli Murray” For over twenty-five years of my adult life, I lived in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. My Ph.D. came from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), in special education with a focus in the humanities. My doctoral studies were split evenly between UNC-CH and Duke University in Durham, NC. I got to know the “Tobacco Mile,” as the road was called between the two campuses, well. I lived in Durham, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Pittsboro, NC. ...
Greater NW Pride: LGBTQIA+ Young People and the Church - 1/26/2021
LGBTQIA+ Young People and the Church “When did you know you were gay?” is a question I am often asked in this work as the LGBTQIA+ Advocacy Coordinator. As I’ve said before on this blog and in many conversations in many church groups, I was either in the second or third grade at the time. I simply found myself more interested in young boys my age rather than young girls. Here was a pseudo-test for figuring all this out. Many people are asked when they kissed or wanted to kiss a person ...
Greater NW Pride: Symbols Matter - 1/22/2021
Symbols Matter Symbols and signs in our culture matter. They are indicators of what direction a people and a culture are taking. The difference between a symbol and a sign is that “a symbol can convey a deeper and more complex meaning than a sign. A sign is an indicator or marker for something very specific, very concrete and, in general, unambiguous in meaning. ... A symbol conveys a message of deeper meaning and is open to interpretation.” Another way of saying it is that symbols, more ...
Greater NW Pride: Inclusive Language: Update (Again) - 1/12/2021
Inclusive Language: Update (Again) When I was born, and during my early, formative years of life, the Bible that I read, and the society in which I lived, used words such as “mankind” and “men” as all-inclusive words. "Father God" was normal language. Even in 1969, the astronaut Neil Armstrong uttered the phrase on the moon: that’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” And women were to feel included in such phrases. The idea of anyone being non-binary gender was not on ...
Greater NW Pride: Landmarks - 1/5/2021
Landmarks In a recent, year-end, issue of Portland’s alternative newspaper, Willamette Week, there was a review of the changes in Portland in 2020 since the arrival of the COVID 19 pandemic. New leaders sprung up around the city. New habits we have picked up (masks, anyone?). New issues came to the light of day that had long been hidden. And landmarks around Portland had closed. One of those landmarks is well-known in the Portland LGBTQIA+ community: CC Slaughters. Reporter Shannon Gormley ...
Greater NW Pride: Pondering - 12/29/2020
Pondering In the Gospel of Luke, the word, “ponder” is used twice in the first two chapters. The first time is when the angel Gabriel visited Mary, saying, “’Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greetings this might be” (Luke 1: 29). The second time was after Mary was visited by the shepherds who came with a message from the angels, in which “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart”(Luke 2:19)....
Greater NW Pride: The Ten Year Anniversary of the Repeal of DADT - 12/21/2020
The Ten Year Anniversary of the Repeal of DADT On December 22, 2020, we as a nation, especially in the LGBTQIA+ community of US citizens, will have something to celebrate. We will celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the repeal of the dreaded, awful, Rube Goldberg-inspired, compromised and compromising DADT policy in the US armed services. What is DADT? For those not familiar with this abbreviation it stood for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” It is an historic practice that was evil. A bit of ...
Greater NW Pride: On Being an LGBTQIA+ Parent - 12/15/2020
On Being an LGBTQIA+ Parent In 2007, my book, On Being a Gay Parent was published by Seabury Press/Church Publishing Group. It was a first in many parts of the publishing world. I wrote the book and hosted/wrote a blog with that name, simply because there were very few books in the world that spoke about being a gay man of faith, ordained as a pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA), raising his children with his partner and the children’s mom in the same town, and living life fully as a ...
Greater NW Pride: Gay Hallmark Holiday Movies and Me - 12/8/2020
Gay Hallmark Holiday Movies and Me While I was aware of the presence of Hallmark movies during the pre-cable days, when television merely had stations—yes, I’m that old—I’m also aware of the Hallmark Channel that can be streamed, with 24/7 viewings of Hallmark movies, along with Lifetime, Amazon Prime, Hulu, TLC, HGTV, and Bravo. The formulaic script for these Hallmark Hall of Fame movies are well known in our middle-class, white, suburban, straight, cisgender society. By and large, the ...
Greater NW Pride: World AIDS Day, December 1, 2020 - 11/30/2020
World AIDS Day, December 1, 2020 In the rush of good news of three possible COVID 19 vaccines in the last week, the impact of such news is not lost among those who are alive and HIV positive (HIV poz). Indeed, many lessons about how to deal with this pandemic have come from dealing with the epidemic of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s. Testing, contact tracing, and other preventative measures that have been executed during the COVID 19 pandemic’s early days are straight out of the book(s), articles, ...
Greater NW Pride: Calendars, Remembrances, and Thanksgiving - 11/24/2020
Calendars, Remembrances, and Thanksgiving I carry two paper program calendars with me from my respective homes in the Presbyterian Church (USA)(PCUSA) and The United Methodist Church (UMC). Each one tells me the holy days in the life of the Church, the secular holidays like Veterans Day and Thanksgiving, as well as the programmatic special days, like “World Communion Sunday,” “Youth in the Church,” and “Disability Sunday,” to name a few. On my iPhone, I also have a calendar that reminds me ...
Greater NW Pride: Role Models - 11/19/2020
Role Models In 1980, I went to Princeton Theological Seminary to pursue an M. Div. My call to ministry was somewhat split between pastoral ministry and an interest in how people with intellectual disabilities understood or knew God if they were unable to communicate using written or spoken language. Having been a music therapist, I knew that the young people I worked with, many who were labeled as autistic, knew the world through music, but not necessarily through spoken, let alone ...
Greater NW Pride: Quitting Church - 11/10/2020
Quitting Church In an article this week on religionnews.com website, “Study finds that queer Christians quit the church twice as much as others,” Kathryn Post writes of a study by Brandi Woodell (sociology professor at Old Dominion University) and Philip Schwadel (social profession, Univ. of Nebraska-Lincoln), published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion that reports that “same-sex attraction, behavior, and queer identity is strongly associated with a decision to step ...
Greater NW Pride: A Rushed Wedding - 11/3/2020
A Rushed Wedding The below post started to spring up all over my Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts in the last few weeks. I lost count of how many times this message, or something like it, sprung up, with pastors, ministers, rabbis, and priests from all denominations and religions, including some retired bishops of both The United Methodist Church and Episcopal Church, some who never “showed their hand” about where they stood on marriage equality before, offering officiating ...
Greater NW Pride: Two Dads Coffee, LGBTQIA+ People, and the Church - 10/27/2020
Two Dads Coffee, LGBTQIA+ People, and the Church Those who know me well will not be surprised when I write that I like to drink coffee in the morning, and sometimes into the afternoon, which I am currently doing as I write this blog. I prefer a dark roast, without half and half or sugar. Along the way I’ve collected mugs as well for drinking my coffee. And wherever I’ve been on pilgrimage around the world, I’ve tasted some great coffees, from Machu Pichu in Peru, to Spanish coffee in ...
Greater NW Pride: Pope Francis and the United Methodist Church - 10/22/2020
Pope Francis and The United Methodist Church This is not the blog I was going to post this week. But one thing that I’ve learned in writing newspaper columns and personal essays is to go with the flow of the news when big events happen. The other blog that I was working on will be great next week as well. The big news yesterday, October 21, 2020, happens to be Pope Francis making a pastoral move in the movie, “Francesco,” in which he says, on camera, that “homosexuals have a right to be ...
Greater NW Pride: Happy National Coming Out Day! - 10/12/2020
Happy National Coming Out Day! Yesterday, October 11, 2020, was National Coming Out Day! My Facebook and Instagram accounts, along with Twitter feed, have been full of stories of coming out starting on Saturday night, Oct. 10, and are still popping up this morning on Oct. 12th. National Coming Out Day started in 1988 to mark the anniversary of the first LGBTQIA+ March on Washington, DC, and is a day of affirmation, acceptance, and sharing the truth of one’s life with family and friends....
Greater NW Pride: What the Church Can Learn about Welcoming LGBTQIA+ People from “Schitt’s Creek” - 10/6/2020
What the Church Can Learn about Welcoming LGBTQIA+ People from “Schitt’s Creek” When I am in a period of doing some concentrated work and need a diversion and blow off steam, I often turn to TV comedies to get me through a certain span of concentrated times. During seminary, it was the televised version of “M*A*S*H”. In coming out of the closet and working in an insanely intense homophobic environment, it was “Will and Grace.” Transition from North Carolina to Oregon? "Modern Family." ...
Greater NW Pride: A Program Update - 9/30/2020
A Program Update: Trailer to “Called to Love One Another,” an LGBTQIA2S+ Folx OR-ID Conference Wide Event, And Looking Forward to 2021 In mid-March 2020, six months ago, the world around me, and the way of life that I had taken for granted, came to a stop. We closed the Conference Center building, “until further notice” because of COVID 19. Working from home on our computers became the new norm. The major projects I was working on with “Q Camp: High School,” an all LGBTQIA2S+ camp for high ...
Greater NW Pride: Happy Bisexuality Visibility Day! - 9/23/2020
Happy Bisexuality Visibility Day! Yep, you read this correctly: Happy Bisexuality Visibility Day! While not readily advertised or celebrated in many churches, there are many people who would self-identify as bisexual, or perhaps pansexual, on this day, were our churches a safer place to be “out” and part of a community of faith. What or who is a bisexual? After all, it is the “B” in the LGBTQI+ alphabet. A person who self-identifies as a bisexual finds one’s self romantically ...
Greater NW Pride: Lifetime and Hallmark Channel Holiday Films and the Normalization of the LGBTQI+ Movement - 9/16/2020
Lifetime and Hallmark Channels, Holiday Films, and the Normalization of the LGBTQI+ Movement I’m going to take a break from the documentary filmmaker David France mini-marathon, begun with a review of the 2020 HBO film, Welcome to Chechnya last week, and go to some unexpected news. Lifetime films is making one of their classic Christmas movies with a gay couple-falling-in-love film! While I am not necessarily drawn into holiday, Christmas films on Hallmark or Lifetime channels because of...
Greater NW Pride: Welcome to Chechnya: A Film Review - 9/9/2020
“Welcome to Chechnya”: A Film Review Like many who read this blog, I’ve become quite the film and tv critic during the COVID 19 pandemic, especially of LGBTQI+ films, series, tv shows. I’ve watched the last episodes of the re-boot of Will and Grace on Hulu/NBC; I watched episodes of Euphoria on HBO and was stunned by the power of this series, featuring the new young transgender actor Hunter McShafer. I got caught up on Schitt’s Creek on Netflix, and laughed and cried at the wedding ...
Greater NW Pride: There's a Difference - 9/4/2020
There’s a Difference When I was a music therapist, one of the songs I sang, in a circle, with a mixture of students who were living with a disability and those who were not disabled was “Alike and Different.” The ditty went like this, with clapping hands of course, and was a chant: “Alike and different, alike and different, we are alike and different!” At the end of the chant we would turn to the person on our right and say how we were alike, and on our left, how we were different. And then ...
Greater NW Pride: God’s Abundant Love for LGBTQI2S+ People - 8/24/2020
God’s Abundant Love for LGBTQI2S+ People I was delighted to read of the actions of a Carmelite nun, Sr. Monica Astorga, in Argentina who did the Godly thing of opening up a housing complex specifically for transgender women. I wasn’t the only one who was delighted of this news. Last week, Pope Francis responded to an email from Sr. Monica, informing him of her latest project—the establishment of this housing for transgender women in Argentina, and the Pope, in a handwritten message, told ...
Greater NW Pride: Cancel Culture, Transgender Lives, and the Church - 8/20/2020
Cancel Culture, Transgender Lives, and the Church One of the popular phrases today in modern culture is “cancel culture.” What is cancel culture? It refers to, “the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. Cancel culture is generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming” (dictionary.com). In the current politics of this land, there...
Greater NW Pride: Performative Allyship and LGBTQI+ People in the Church - 8/10/2020
Performative Allyship and LGBTQI+ People in the Church This is kind of one of the “terms” or “new words” for 2020: performative allyship. Definition and description of performative allyship: First, allies are helpful. An ally is someone from a non-marginalized group who uses one’s privilege to advocate for a marginalized group. Being an ally is a good thing. In the LGBTQ+ community we welcome and appreciate our non-LGBTQ+ allies. Second, performative allyship is problematic. It is ...
Greater NW Pride: Being a Person of Faith, Queer, and Civic Minded - 8/4/2020
Being a Person of Faith, Queer, and Civic Minded I am part of the Portland Interfaith Clergy Resistance (PICR) group. There are around 100 + of us. Feel free to join us. The group started to come together in Portland during the Black Lives Matter protests that started soon after the death of George Floyd in May 25, 2020. There are several friends in the movement who are clergy and queer who were noticing how some in the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) were especially brutal to people ...
Greater NW Pride: They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love - 7/30/2020
They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love One of my favorite storytellers is the Seattle-based sex-columnist Dan Savage, with his Savage Lovecolumn that appears in various free weekly publications, like the Portland Mercury. In an interview on the website salon.com, Amanda Marcotte talked with Dan Savage about the power of stories in an article, "Dan Savage Knows a Great Sex Story When He Hears It." Savage told her that “people like to hear other people’s stories. Particularly other ...
Greater NW Pride: Happy Non-Binary Gender People Day! - 7/15/2020
Happy Non-Binary Gender People Day! Actually, Non-Binary Gender People Day was yesterday, July 14, 2020, which is the day I began working on this blog posting. Like so many other birthdays and anniversaries in life, I am belated in this celebration. Nevertheless: Happy Non-Binary Gender People Day! In a world of binary (false) choices—male and female, Republicans and Democrats, pink or blue, us and them—breaking through the façade that there are only two choices, there are those who are ...
Greater NW Pride: Hate Crimes, LGBTQ2S+* People, and the Church - 7/7/2020
Hate Crimes, LGBTQ2S+* People, and the Church On June 29, 2020, Christian Council, an Oklahoma City realtor, was beaten up and left unconscious by two people, Amery Dickerson and Bennett Stone, who used anti-gay slurs as they hit him in the head. I have seen pictures of Christian’s beaten face on several of the LGBTQ+ sites that I go to daily, e.g., Towleroad.com, Queerty.com, and Advocate.com. Christian and a friend arrived at his home in an apartment complex. As they tried to park the...
Greater NW Pride: Pride Month Moments: Marriage Equality Anniversary - 6/28/2020
Pride Month Moments: Marriage Equality 5th Anniversary! I begin with a note of personal privilege: Christian and I are getting ready to get married in the summer of 2021. We figured out the place we plan to get married in Portland. It will be an outdoor, garden wedding, so probably July. We are praying to God that the pandemic will be over by then. The two witnesses have said yes, along with an officiant or two. A list of who we would like to invite grows daily. There’s family, and ...
Greater NW Pride: Pride Month Moments: Black Transgender Lives Matter and Tony McDade - 6/23/2020
Pride Month Moments: Black Transgender Lives Matter and Tony McDade A few weeks ago, I posted about the story of Stonewall Inn and Marsha Johnson, a transgender woman of color who is seen as one of the lead figures in the Stonewall Inn riot that began the LGBTQ+ rights movement. Actually, there were two transgender women of color: Marsha Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who, on June 28, 1969, fought back against police harassment, sparking a week of rioting. And in the last few weeks, another...
Greater NW Pride: Pride Month Moment: Transgender Rights, Title VII, and the Church - 6/17/2020
Pride Month Moments: Transgender Rights, Title VII, and the Church Dear Church (Yes, that is Church with a big “C” so I mean universal Church), In this Pride month, on Friday, June 12th, and on Monday, June 15th, two important decisions were made by parts of the federal government--the executive and legislative branch, and judicial branch--which the Church should sit up and take notice of, because it is going to have an impact upon the life of congregations. Remember, the decision made ...
Greater NW Pride: Pride Month People: The Prophet, Larry Kramer - 6/11/2020
Pride Month People: The Prophet, Larry Kramer When I think of LGBTQ+ activists, and was considering the position of LGBTQ+ Advocacy Coordinator with the UMC folks in the OR-ID Conference, one of the first people who came to mind was the writer, playwright, and HIV/AIDS activist, the late-Larry Kramer. Larry Kramer died a few weeks ago, and his presence in this world is deeply missed by many of us. Larry Kramer was a prophet in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible sense. Consider the following...
Greater NW Pride: Pride Month Moments; Stonewall Inn Riot - 6/4/2020
Pride Month Moments: Stonewall Inn Riot June is “officially” Pride Month in the United States. The usual salutation is “Happy Pride!” as we see and great each other within the LGBTQ+ movement. Happy Pride! In a pre-COVID-19 world, we would be getting ready for all the Pride parades, lunches, parties, festival booths, picnics, and firework displays. Rainbow bunting and flags would be festooned everywhere in large cities and small towns across the US. And in my role as both organizing ...
Greater NW Pride: Resisting Evil: Violence Against LGBTQ+ People Around the World - 5/26/2020
Resisting Evil: Violence Against LGBTQ+ People Around the World In the United Methodist Church (UMC), the Baptismal Covenant begins with these words, “Resisting evil…” While the UMC is in the midst of struggling with the way of moving forward, together, with some wanting the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy and same-sex marriages in UMC buildings, while there are others in the church who do not want these things, nevertheless there is continued violence being perpetrated against LGBTQ+ people ...
Greater NW Pride: Come Out - 5/22/2020
Come Out! In the last week, I’ve had two opportunities to publicly, on pod-cast and television, “come out” as a gay man, again. It’s a weird kind of phenomenon that non-LGBTQ+ people don’t get, simply because non-LGBTQ+ people didn’t and don't have to come “out” in a largely non-LGBTQ+ society. The norm in non-LGBTQ+ societies is most everyone is non-LGBTQ+, unless someone is otherwise, um, out about being LGBTQ+. Otherwise, it is not known or a "secret," in which only your mom and ...
Greater PNW Pride: What CNN's Anderson Cooper Might Teach Us About Being Church - 5/13/2020
What CNN’s Anderson Cooper as “Dad” Might Teach Us About Being Church There is no other comparable experience like becoming a parent. It is simply overwhelming. Being present at the birth of my children, holding their mom’s hand, breathing with her through her contractions, being in the birthing room, cutting the umbilical cord of both children, and then holding them in my arms as their mom was taken away to be cleaned up, is seared into my memory. While their mom had nine months to ...
Greater NW Pride: Giving Blood, Plasma, and Discrimination Against Gay Men in COVID-19 Pandemic - 5/5/2020
Giving Blood, Plasma, and Discrimination Against Gay Men in COVID 19 Pandemic Last week’s blog covered discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in health services. One person wrote back the same day I posted the blog, asking, “How are LGBTQ+ people being discriminated against in terms of health services?” Here’s how gay men in particular are currently discriminated against by health services in the US: your Red Cross bloodmobiles and blood drives, many of which are sponsored by your friendly...
Greater NW Pride: First, Do No Harm and LGBTQ+ People - 4/29/2020
First, Do No Harm and LGBTQ+ People While our divided and undivided attention is focused on the local and national response to COVID 19, it is important to remember that in other parts of the government, business is being done in our name. Several offices have not shut down, even if people are obeying a shelter-in-place order. And works of justice, or injustice in this case, are proceeding as if there was no COVID 19 pandemic. For example, the Trump administration removed a policy put ...
Greater NW Pride: Christian Privilege in the COVID-19 Pandemic - 4/21/2020
Christian Privilege in the COVID-19 Pandemic In writing this blog, I write it as a white, cisgender, Christian, gay, able-bodied, middle-class man in a partnered relationship. I am a living intersectionality of many “privileges” in this American life. Admission: Being white, cisgender, middle-class, partnered, and male is an enormous privileged class in Portland, in which being gay is, in some circles, even more of a privilege than being non-LGBTQ+, save for some churches and denominations....
Greater NW Pride: Holding Hands - 4/14/2020
Holding Hands Since one of the first days that he showed up in my life, my partner Christian has reached out and held my hand in public. The first time it was in the Portland Saturday Market, and it was fun in its novelty, and sweet as a romantic gesture. We have held hands when walking in airports around this country, cafes, in Disney’s Animal Kingdom and Universal Studios-Orlando, in Boston, Atlanta, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Salem, Massachusetts. Why do we hold hands? It is a ...
Greater NW Pride: Rainbow Time! - 4/8/2020
Rainbow Time! One of the news items that received much buzz on social media, e.g., news websites like Huffpost, Daily Kos, Joe My God, CNN, MSNBC, BBC, along with main stream press/media like network television was the rare appearance of Queen Elizabeth. The Queen gave a rare addresses to her nation and the Commonwealth. It was outside of the usual end of year/Christmas addresses, which is to be expected annually. There have been only five times during her reign that she has given such a ...
Greater NW Pride: Idaho, People who are Transgender, and Transgender Day of Visibility - 3/31/2020
Idaho, People who are Transgender, and Transgender Visibility Day March 31 is international Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV). This is an annual event dedicated to celebrating people who are transgender and raising awareness of discrimination faced by transgender people worldwide. It is also a day to celebrate the contributions people who are transgender bring to society. Happy Transgender Day of Visibility! And Idaho wanted to show us how to celebrate this day by two new laws ...
Greater NW Pride: Blame the Pandemic on the Gays - 3/25/2020
Blame the Pandemic on the Gays In surfing the mainstream media websites, Face Book page, and Instagram stories, along with listening, watching and reviewing National Public Radio (NPR) PBS News Hour, all who are covering the presence of and strategies for dealing with the Coronavirus COVID 19 pandemic, one of the old red herrings brought forth by certain so-called “evangelicals” (aka, extreme religious right/Christian fanatics) has come roaring back. It is the proposition that “homosexuals...
Greater NW Pride: Learning to Be Body of Christ in the Age of AIDS and COVID 19 - 3/19/2020
Learning to be Body of Christ: The AIDS Crisis and COVID 19 Living in this time of a world-wide pandemic of Coronavirus COVID 19, one of the similar stories that has come forward to teach us about how to survive this pandemic where we live are stories of the early days of AIDS, when no one even knew how it was transmitted. A picture of the AIDS virus is above. People like activist Peter Staley and playwright Larry Kramer, along with many others, with much of their stories captured in ...
Greater NW Pride: Idaho vs. Transgender Rights - 3/11/2020
Idaho vs. Transgender Rights One of the ways those of us who are LGBTQI+ try to understand what is going on in our lives, especially those of us who lived or are living in closets, is by watching, listening, sensing, feeling the life of those who are portraying LGBTQI+ people in the arts: film, movies, music events, plays, dance, musicals, and visual arts, to name a few, popular mediums. Among these artistic expressions, film has always been, for me, a social gauge as to where we are as...
Greater NW Pride: Gathering - 3/5/2020
Gathering Last week, in Nashville, Tennessee, there was a national gathering of the Reconciling Ministry Network (RMN), “Connection 2020,” a gathering of United Methodist Church (UMC) LGBTQ+ people and non-LGBTQ+ allies. Over 200 people gathered at Belmont UMC Church from Feb. 27-29, 2020, with a thirst and hunger to hear and receive good news as the UMC goes forward into the General Conference of May 2020. Each day included sessions for delegates of the General Conference to meet and ...
Greater NW Pride: Showing Up - 2/25/2020
Showing Up There is an adage in the world that I keep coming back to: “90% of life is showing up. Sometimes it is easier to hide home in bed. I’ve done both.” I thought of this quote as I read about Zachary Ro, a 9-year-old boy, who asked Democratic Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg, aka, Mayor Pete, to help him tell the world he’s gay, too: “I want to be brave like you.” Zachary was attending a rally for Mayor Pete in Denver, Colorado on Saturday night. Mayor Pete responded, “’I ...
Great NW Pride: Vashon Island, LGBTQ+ People, and the Church - 2/18/2020
Vashon Island, LGBTQ+ People, and the Church Last Saturday, my partner Christian Halstead and I had a chance to visit the Vashon Island Heritage Museum on Vashon Island. The Museum was housed in a former Lutheran church, one of the oldest church buildings on Vashon. The front half of the Museum was dedicated to the native people who lived on the Island before white settlers—farmers, actually—came and moved onto the Island. Today, it is a lovely Island with wineries, a cute downtown with ...
Greater NW Pride: Confession and Forgiveness - 2/13/2020
Confession and Forgiveness In the past month, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California made history in posthumously pardoning black, gay, civil rights pioneer Bayard Rustin—the right-hand man and aid to Martin Luther King, Jr.—for past criminal offense of being jailed for “lewd behavior,” and arrested for “having consensual sex with men” in 1953 in Pasadena, CA. Gov. Newsom then offered others pardons if they were arrested for consensual sex as LGBTQ+ individuals up to and throughout the 1950s and ...
Dear Evan Hansen and the Church - 2/5/2020
Dear Evan Hansen and the Church Last night, I attended a performance of Dear Evan Hansen, performed by the national touring company of the Broadway show at Portland’s Keller Auditorium. Dear Evan Hansen has won many awards, including the Tonys and a Grammy. The musical focuses on the teenage years in modern America, with loneliness, mental illness, drug use, suicide, and family dysfunction dancing all around the stage and through all the songs. AH, the high school years at Beaverton High!...
Greater NW Pride: The Pink Triangle - 1/28/2020
The Pink Triangle Now and then, when working with a group on LGBTQ+ issues and the United Methodist Church, often one of the questions that emerges is, “Where did the pink triangle come from to represent the LGBTQ+ community?” Today, the pink triangle is a sign of LGBTQ+ identity, power, and pride. It was a symbol that was adopted in 1970 as a way of identifying our liberation and freedom to be the people God created us to be, without apology. I have plenty of pins, t-shirts, pamphlets, and...
Greater NW Pride: Seeking Sanctuary - 1/23/2020
Seeking Sanctuary As a man of Christian faith who is an ordained pastor, parent, grandparent, partnered and gay, the last few week's news has been an emotional roller-coaster, as are most days of the week, weeks, months, years when it comes to LGBTQ+ folks around the world. By “emotional roller-coaster,” I mean there are some stories in the media that celebrate progress being made by those of us who are LGBTQ+ and our non-LGBTQ+ allies, as well as those stories that feel like “two steps ...
Greater NW Pride: A Busy Year Ahead! - 1/16/2020
A Busy Year Ahead As many of us do at the end of the year, we post all the accomplishments of the past year. This being “2020,” what some people decided that it was the end of not only one year but one decade, and the beginning of a new decade, so they posted on Facebook and Instagram photos of all that they did in ten years time. It is always powerful to "look back" and see where we've been. And now it is time to look at the days and weeks and months and year before us! This began for ...
Greater NW Pride: The Next Day - 1/10/2020
For most of this week, I, along with every other United Methodist in the world, have been reading and listening to the comments being made about one of the latest plans presented for the upcoming General Conference in 2020. The Protocol for Reconciliation and Grace Through Separation that was revealed last week has received a lot of news of late. It has had fairly favorable reviews from many people in the United Methodist Church on my Facebook page and other social network websites I read ...
Greater NW Pride: Justice - 12/31/2019
Justice Yesterday, I spent over an hour in the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, Georgia with my partner and his family. In this sacred space, I was reminded of the complex story of the particular city where I was visiting, namely Atlanta, and the general area known as “the South,” as well as the contemporary events of civil and human rights around the world today. The first floor of the Center reminded the viewer of the 1940s through to the 1960s, and ...
Greater NW Pride: LGBTQ+ Families and the Holy Family - 12/23/2019
LGBTQ+ Families and the Holy Family With “Merry Christmas” on the lips of many in many churches in the US in the past few weeks—with simply a pause to first wish you a “Blessed Advent” first for those in the theological and church-holy-day “know”—the focus on December 24thand 25th, is all about family. Granted, it is the date that was chosen generations ago to be the day that we would celebrate the birth of the Christ child, though biblical scholars continually remind us that keeping sheep...
Greater NW Pride: #Resist Harm - 12/9/2019
#ResistHarm UMC The Revised Common Lectionary reading from the Old Testament for the second Sunday of Advent was Isaiah 11:1-10. The Prophet Isaiah foretold of a child from the “root of Jesse,” in which “the spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but ...
Greater NW Pride: Growing Churches Welcome LGBTQ+ People - 12/4/2019
Growing Churches Welcome LGBTQ+ People Part of the joy of my position is every day I read about what is going on in other denominations concerning LGBTQ+ issues and their respective churches. Along with More Light Presbyterians and Covenant Network in the Presbyterian Church (USA), I’m always interested in what is going on in the United Church of Christ (UCC). When I lived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, I attended United Church of Chapel Hill, NC, a UCC church, and my partner is a member ...
Greater NW Pride: World AIDS Day, 2019 - 12/1/2019
World AIDS Day, 2019 As we come to the closing hours of December 1, 2019, I wanted to post a blog about World AIDS Day. In my life, I have had many friends in the Church and outside of the Church have lived and died being HIV+(positive or poz) and dying of one of the AIDS related symptoms. Some phenomenal ministers, church administrators, priests, pastors, organists, and youth directors, all close friends, have died. Those who are closest to me today, personally, are HIV+, in which the ...
Greater NW Pride: Queer Pride Camp: High School, Aug. 6-9, 2020, Camp Magruder, Oregon! - 11/23/2019
Queer Pride Camp: High School, Aug. 6-9, 2020, Camp Magruder, Oregon! This blog post is really an announcement this week. In 2019, I led and was part of a great team of LGBTQ+ clergy persons and straight allies in the United Methodist Church’s Western Jurisdiction (UMC WJ), who brought about a very unique camping experience: Queer Pride Camp for young adults, ages 18-25 years old. The camp was held at Camp Sky Meadows in the San Bernardino Mountains of southern California. 26 campers—all...
Greater NW Pride: Being Church - 11/14/2019
Being Church Since the specially called General Conference meeting of February 2019, with the decision to go with the Traditional plan, there’s a lot of activity within the United Methodist Church as our members are trying to figure out the way forward on this pilgrimage of faith. For example, as I write this, the Bishops of the Western Jurisdiction came out with the aspirational vision of the “Safe Harbor” declaration, welcoming out and closeted LGBTQ+ clergy and families to find a ...
Greater NW Pride: Microaggressions - 10/31/2019
Microaggressions I’m in the process of becoming a Docent with the Portland Art Museum. This 36-week training course is part art history class, part education class, and part cultural awareness seminar. On October 28, 2109, we had a “Building Inclusive Practice through Anti-Racism,”workshop, led by Keonna Hendrick and Marit Dewhurst of Brooklyn, New York. Because of the work we do as Docents, and how we interact with the works of art and the people who come to the Museum, it is helpful in ...
Greater NW Pride: One Step Forward - 10/23/2019
One Step Forward: The Art of Pilgrimage in Life I recently completed walking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in Peru. It was amazing! This is the 20th year I’ve gone on a pilgrimage. Call it a spiritual practice/continuing education event/a source of life and living that I began soon before I left teaching at Duke Divinity School. Here was the situation: While I kept writing about pilgrimage in my books and essays and sermons regarding people with disabilities and the Church, I had two ...
Greater NW Pride: LGBTQ+ Missionary Pilgrimage in Southern Idaho, 2019! - 10/2/2019
LGBTQ+ Missionary Pilgrimage in Southern Idaho, 2019! By the time I got on my Alaska Air flight back to Portland via Seattle and sat down, I knew I was tired from traveling many miles. Yet a big grin came across my face as I leaned against the window side of the small prop plane. What an incredible, short pilgrimage I went on across the southern, broad, part of Idaho! I called it the LGBTQ+ Missionary Pilgrimage, although on Facebook I called it the Queer Missionary Pilgrimage, spreading ...
Greater NW Pride: Violence - 9/19/2019
Violence In opening up Facebook, reading the New York Times and Washington Post, watching CNN and MSNBC, listening to NPR, and reading towleroad.com and joemygod.com on a fairly regular basis, I was struck by the presence of violence upon LGBTQ+ people that is a constant in our life as queers in straight American society. There is the physical, emotional, and religious violence that is perpetrated on us daily. In other words, the violence is systemic. It is the in the very institutional-cul...
Greater NW Pride: On Writing As a Gay Man - 9/12/2019
On Writing As a Gay Man In the recent documentary of the life of the late-writer Toni Morrison, Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, I was struck by a quote about who her audience is in terms of who she is writing to in her novels and essays. I was struck by her candor: she writes to and for black people. It made me think about who I write this blog to and for: I write this blog to and for straight cisgender people, not for LGBTQ+ per se. That’s because this blog is part of the United ...
Greater NW Pride: Amateur Sports and the Church - 9/4/2019
Amateur Sports and the Church This Sunday morning, Sept. 8, 2019, I’m going to be preaching at Hillsboro United Methodist Church at 10 am, and I’m looking forward to it. I enjoy my time visiting UMC churches as the LGBTQ+ Advocacy Coordinator, visiting congregations and seeing what is happening in and around the Conference. I’m also signed up to be paddling with my Dragon Boat Team, Golden Dragons, and there is a Grand Master Race (over 60 years-old) at 10 am that morning as well. I’ll ...
Greater NW Pride: Called to Love One Another: A Video Documentary Project - 8/29/2019
Called to Love One Another: A Video Documentary Project “Called to Love One Another” is a video documentary project that collects the stories of three congregations and pastors who have been on a faithful pilgrimage of movement towards being an open, affirming, and reconciling congregation, along with the story of three LGBTQ+ United Methodist Church members, whose pilgrimage is a movement from the closet to being open and a members of a local United Methodist Church. In both movements—the...
Greater NW Pride: Queer Pride Camp Reflections - 8/21/2019
Queer Pride Camp Reflections On Sunday afternoon, Aug., 18, 2019, after a weekend together with each other, I drove a van full of queer young adult campers to a restaurant in Redlands, just down the “hill” from Camp Sky Meadows in the San Bernardino Mountains, where we were all part of Queer Pride Camp, a first camp of its kind in the United Methodist Church’s Western Jurisdiction. Twenty-six all-queer campers and eleven staff—all the camp leadership staff were queer—had a fabulous time ...
Greater NW Pride: What "Pose" Teaches Us About Being Church - 8/14/2019
What Pose Teaches Us About Being Church On Tuesday, Aug., 13, 2019, I read a Facebook entry by the Rev. Anna Blaedel—an openly queer United Methodist minister—who was facing an investigation and possible trial by the Iowa Annual Conference into her ordination because homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching, and she is a “self-avowed and practicing homosexual” (Book of Discipline, Paragraph 2702.1[b]). In all honesty, as an openly gay Presbyterian pastor, I even cringe as I ...
Greater NW Pride: Camp Queer Pride 2019 - 8/6/2019
Camp Queer Pride, 2019! From Friday, Aug. 16 to Sunday, Aug. 18, 2019, the Western Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church is holding its first LGBTQ+ camp for young people, from ages 18-25-years-old who live in the Western Jurisdiction, as well as those LGBTQ+ who are outside of this Jurisdiction and need to come to a safe place for a few days. We are gathering at Camp Sky Meadows in the San Bernardino Mountains area. This is the first camp or retreat of its kind in the United ...
To Be Family - 7/31/2019
To Be Family The definition of family, according to Merriam-Webster: the basic unit in society traditionally consisting of two parents rearing their children. Also, any of various social units differing from but regarded as equivalent to the traditional family. I was struck by the need to clarify what is a family after listening and reading about a story regarding a gay couple who have been denied a US visa for their baby who was born through a British surrogate. The story caught my eye...
“Single-User, Gender-Neutral, Accessible, Lockable Rest Rooms” in UMC Churches by 2020 - 7/25/2019
“Single-User, Gender-Neutral, Accessible, Lockable Rest Rooms” in UMC Churches by 2020 On Tue., July 23, 2019, in my former home-state of North Carolina, The State Supreme Court ruled that the state of NC cannot use House Bill 142 (which replaced the hated HB 2) “to prevent transgender individuals from using public restrooms and other facilities in state government buildings that match their gender under an agreement approved today by a federal court.” For years, NC was well-known for “...
Greater NW Pride: The Moral Arc Bending Towards Justice and LGBTQ+ People - 7/17/2019
The Moral Arc of the Universe is Bending Towards Justice and LGBTQ+ People Martin Luther King, Jr., once stated that, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I was reminded of this quote as I read the current news regarding churches, denominations, and LGBTQ+ people. After the US Supreme Court ruled in the Obergefell v. Hodges landmark civil rights case, that we who are LGBTQ+ have the right to marry, guaranteed by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal...
Greater NW Pride: Stealing Rainbows - 7/12/2019
Stealing Rainbows This past Wednesday, July 10, 2019, I met up with some United Methodists from the Vancouver-Camas, Washington area, to talk about issues confronting LGBTQI+ folks and straight allies in local Methodist congregations in light of the decision made during the specially called General Conference of The United Methodist Church in St. Louis, MO. It was a great conversation with two pastors from the area and lay leaders, some straight and others LGBTQ+. What struck out to me was ...
Greater PNW Pride: Godly Resistance! - 7/3/2019
Godly Resistance! At last month’s Annual Conference gathering of the Oregon-Idaho United Methodist Church Conference in Eugene, Oregon, there were people wearing t-shirts—including the Bishop—that quoted part of the baptismal covenant used within the UMC. The words that stand out on this shirt, in various rainbow colors, are “Resisting evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.” The people wearing the shirts are saying that they are resisting evil, such as ...
Greater NW Pride: My Blood Is Wanted - 6/27/2019
My Blood is Wanted: The Red Cross, Giving Blood, HIV, and Being Gay My blood is wanted. To be more exact, in the last few days, a lesbian friend reminded me on Facebook about an opportunity to give blood to the Red Cross. She spoke about giving blood as one of the more noble causes and activities in her life. Giving blood is for a good purpose, namely saving the lives of others in need of blood. Giving blood is one of the ways we can fulfill what Jesus is calling us to do in loving one ...
Greater NW Pride: So Much Love! - 6/21/2019
“So Much Love!” Last Saturday, June 15, 2019, I had an educational experience of being in two very different cultural contexts, both located on Interstate 5 in Oregon. In the morning, I participated and observed the last day of Annual Conference of the Oregon-Idaho United Methodist Church (UMC) Conference in Eugene, Oregon. That afternoon, I drove north to Portland, OR to the festival area that was part of the Portland LGBTQ+ Pride festivities, participating in the parade the next day (June...
Greater NW Pride: Building a Better World, for God's Sake - 6/14/2019
Building a Better World, for God’s Sake I write this blog post in the middle of the third day of the Annual Conference of the Oregon-Idaho United Methodist Church Conference (OR-ID UMC AC) in Eugene, Oregon. It has been exciting to listen and watch to the changes afoot in this Conference as more out-LGBTQ+ people and people of color and allies are voicing their concerns while celebrating life. People are wearing their self-identity with rainbow buttons and t-shirts, “He/Him/His,” “...
Greater NW Pride: Happy Pride and Happy Pentecost! - 6/4/2019
Happy Pride and Happy Pentecost! This coming Sunday is Pentecost, the day the Church celebrates the descending of the Spirit upon the earth. This was no ordinary event, by any stretch of the imagination! With Jesus having ascended into the heavens, there came not a quiet breeze, but the sound like the “rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where (the disciples_ were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them ...
Greater NW Pride: Preferred Gender Pronouns and LGBTQ+ People in the Church - 5/30/2019
Preferred Gender Pronouns and LGBTQ+ People in the Church When growing up in modern American society, I remember as a young adult—who was identifying as white, cisgender, straight, male at the time—I would get letters addressed and sent to me as “Mr. Brett Mitchell.” The young woman I was engaged to at the time would get letters addressed to her with “Miss.” When we got married in 1978, soon letters were sent and addressed to us as “Mr. and Mrs. Brett Mitchell.” As she pointed out to me that...
Greater NW Pride: Pride Parades and Your Church - 5/22/2019
Pride Parades and Your Church This last weekend I was blessed and happy to be working with the great folks at First United Methodist Church, Ashland. On Sunday morning, as I was entering the church to preach, I spied a beautiful, big rainbow flag fluttering in the breeze attached to their front sign! The flag reminded me that the time is coming up for LGBTQ+ Pride Parades, often held in June, which is LGBTQ+ Pride Month in the USA. And if you and your individual United Methodist Church want...
Children’s Literature, LGBTQ+, and Church - 5/14/2019
Children’s Literature, LGBTQ+, and Church I am preparing for a trip to visit my granddaughter on the east coast in the coming weeks and started to shop around and see what I might bring with me in my new role as the grandfather who spoils his grandchildren. On one of the websites I scan daily, mombian.com, there was a new book that made me smile: A Plan for Pops! by Heather Smith and Brooke Kerrigan. It is one of the first gay grandparent books that I’ve seen publicized, and also...
Greater NW Pride: Schism - 5/9/2019
Schism The word, “schism,” means “division or disunion, especially into mutually opposed parties” (dictionary.com). Schism is a theological or “church” term, used to describe those groups that break away with a church and establish a rival church. According to Britannica.com, the term originally referred to those divisions that were caused by disagreement over something other than basic doctrine. “thus, the schismatic group was not necessarily heretical. Eventually, however, the distinctions...
Greater NW Pride: From Toxicity to Grace - 5/3/2019
From Toxicity to Grace The contrast couldn’t be greater when looking and reading the two groups of stories on Facebook this morning. The first set of stories reflected the current toxicity within The United Methodist Church, in which many out-LGBTQ+ and allied clergy are facing charges for simply being out and LGBTQ+ or supporting LGBTQ+ members of their respective churches. The first story in the Tampa Bay Timescovered the Rev. Andy Oliver of Allendale United Methodist Church, ...
Greater NW Pride: Coming Out Pilgrimage - 4/24/2019
Coming Out Pilgrimage "Seventeen years ago I awoke early one morning and began my coming out pilgrimage. Though I had long imagined what it would be like coming out, the very act of coming out of my closet brought both unbridled joy and literally scared me to death. It was these polar opposite feelings that effectively stopped me from leaving the closet’s narrow, loathsome confines. I was paralyzed emotionally, wanting to embrace the emotional, relational, intellectual, spiritual, and physical...
Greater NW Pride From Closet to Resurrection - 4/17/2019
From Closet to Resurrection In a recent Facebook posting (April 16, 2019), from “Friend of Dorothy Book,” there was an entry called “Reasons not to stay in The Closet: 1. It’s dark; 2. It smells; 3. It’s lonely; 4. It’s only big enough for one person; 5. It’s exhausting to lie all the time; 6. You might end up in Narnia." https://www.facebook.com/FriendofDorothyBook/photos/a.343204645768504/2110528405702777/?type=3&theater On “The Rachel Maddow Show” on April 15, 2019, in Rachel’s ...
Greater NW Pride: Publicity! How to Affirm LGBTQ+ People in Our Churches - 4/10/2019
Publicity! How to Affirm LGBTQ+ in Our Churches In a recent article published on-line in The Advocate, Sam Brinton, who works with the Trevor Project, wrote an interesting article about the difference of being a “welcoming” community of faith, which simply “welcomes” those of us who are LGBTQ+ , and nothing more. Meanwhile, an affirming church affirms that God created us all—male, female, and non-binary, LGBTQ+ —in God’s image. In other words, God is not only male, female, and non-binary, but...
Greater NW Pride: Transgender Visibility Day and Other LGBTQ+ Days - 4/4/2019
Transgender Visibility Day and Other LGBTQ+ Days Happy Transgender Visibility Day! After seeing all the rainbow bunting, flags, t-shirts, and stoles on so many United Methodist Church websites, Facebook posting, and Instagram accounts after the vote taken by the UMC General Conference in February 2019, I thought it would be helpful to share with those UMC churches who are supportive of LGBTQ clergy, lay leaders, and lay members other ways of supporting those of us in the LGBTQ+ community. I...
Greater NW Pride: What Does it Mean to be an “Ally” in the LGBTQ+ Movement? - 3/25/2019
What Does it Mean to be an “Ally” in the LGBTQ+ Movement? From time to time, in and among my LGBTQ+ friends, we joke about getting our “membership card” when we come out of our respective closets, receiving a list of what is the “gay agenda,” in which we strive for ultimate world power, somewhere between waking up, coffee brewed, showering, going to work, work, lunch break, take over the world, work some more, coffee break, and going home to make a “fabulous” meal before we turn in and go to...
Greater NW Pride: What Does LGBTQ+ Mean? A Primer - 3/21/2019
What Does LGBTQ+ Mean? A Primer Language matters. And naming and labeling matters. One’s “sexual orientation” is a social construct and context dependent, which we all use to identify and self-identify just one part of our life. So, I am a gay, cisgender, white, male, Christian, who prefers the personal pronoun “he/him/his;” I am able bodied and hearing. Our gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, age, ability, hearing, being deaf, disability, socioeconomic class, and religion also matter and ...
Greater NW Pride: Beyond the Rainbow Flag - 3/12/2019
Beyond the Rainbow Flag (Or “Once the Rainbow Flags Are Down, Then What?”) Since the vote taken by the delegates at the United Methodist Church’s (UMC) specially called General Conference, my Facebook page with other UMC contacts exploded with images of rainbow flags, banners, bunting, pics of whirligigs, candles, hats, pins, ribbons, hair bows, and tassels. Everywhere I looked on various UMC websites, there were more rainbow memorabilia, with banners draping church signs, rainbows flags ...
Greater NW Pride: What St. Harvey Milk Has to Say to Queer UMC Folk - 3/7/2019
What St. Harvey Milk Has to Say to Queer UMC Folk Above my desk in my office space in the OR-ID United Methodist Church Conference Center is a modern-day icon of St. Harvey Milk, one of my heroes in the LGBTQ movement, painted by the local artist Chris Haberman. In this moment of change within the United Methodist Church, I’ve asked myself, “What would Harvey do?” After all, he was in the nexus of change in modern American society, and his story, like many other stories of LGBTQ people in ...
Greater NW Pride: Solidarity in Love for and with LGBTQ+ United Methodist Clergy and Members - 2/26/2019
Solidarity in Love for LGBTQ+ United Methodist Clergy and Members In Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church, the pastoral part of Paul talks about the incredible nature of the body of Christ in terms of the interconnectedness and solidarity we are to practice with one another. What came to mind as I watched the decisions being made by the delegates of the United Methodist Church’s General Conference (UMC-GC), are these verses: “But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to ...
Greater NW Pride: Prayer, Patience, and Perseverance - 2/21/2019
Prayer, Patience, and Perseverance In the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA), the lead up to our amending our Constitution (Book of Order) in 2011 to welcoming and affirming LGBTQ people as out and ordained as Ministers of the Word and Sacraments, Ruling Elders, and Deacons, was dramatic, long in coming, and drawn out. Our process of amending the Book of Order begins with an amendment beginning from a church’s session, followed by its approval by a Presbytery Committee (Conference), followed by ...
Greater NW Pride: Who's Going to Get It Right? - 2/18/2019
Who’s Going to Get This Right? Something amazing is going on concurrently involving the LGBTQ community and the Church. More specifically, something is going on this week in both the Roman Catholic Church and the United Methodist Church and their respective relationship with LGBTQ people, having to do with the matter of including and integrating us into their largely cisgender and straight faith communities. In the Roman Catholic Church, columnist Frank Bruni of the New York Times focused on...
Greater NW Pride: Valentine’s Day in the LGBTQ+ Community - 2/14/2019
Valentine’s Day in the LGBTQ Community My partner Christian and I celebrated Valentine’s Day early this year because he was going to be in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Valentine’s Day, and I was going to be in Portland. It was also our first Valentine’s Day as a couple! I surprised him with chocolate, red wine, a card, and an orchid, and he gave me a card last week, along with numerous gifts of shirts, meals out, and love! The card was huge, as he said to me after I opened his card to me, “I usually ...
Greater NW Pride: Inclusion, or Who is Including Whom into Which Community? - 2/6/2019
Inclusion, or Who is Including Whom into Which Community? “Inclusion.” Noun. Mirriam-Webster on-line dictionary defines inclusion as the act or state of being included. “Include” is a transitive verb. It means to enclose; to shut up; to take in or comprise as a part of a whole or group; to contain between or within. In the previous blog, I focused on the act and art of hospitality, of welcome. To act hospitable, or to welcome is the first move towards inclusion and, finally, integration. ...
Greater NW Pride: Hospitality: Welcoming People with Disabilities and LGBTQ+ People in the Church - 1/31/2019
Hospitality: Welcoming People with Disabilities and LGBTQ+ People in the Church In the Rule of St. Benedict, we read that “all guests who arrive (are to) be received like Christ, for he is going to say: I was a stranger and you welcomed me (Matt. 25:35), and to all let due honor be shown, especially to those who share our faith (Gal. 6:10) and to pilgrims…In the reception of the poor and pilgrims, the greatest care and solicitude should be shown, because it is especially in them that Christ is...
Greater NW Pride: Separate and Not Equal - 1/24/2019
Separate and Not Equal: People with Disabilities and the LGBTQ+ Community There is no secret in the community of people with disabilities that, up to and through 1990 with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, life in modern American society has been “complicated,” to say the least. Through the 1950s and 1960s, people with disabilities—which then included the deaf community; people who were visually impaired or blind; people with physical disabilities of various kinds; people ...
Greater NW Pride: From Separate to Welcoming, Inclusion, and Integration: Parallels Between the Community of People with Disabilities and the LGBTQ Community in the Church - 1/18/2019
Since assuming the role as the LGBTQ+ Advocacy Coordinator, and attending local churches and Reconciling meetings, regional Annual Conference of the OR-ID UMC Conference, and attending the national Reconciling Convention, I’ve been inundated by the use of words like “separate,” “welcoming,” “inclusion,” and “integration,” wondering if everyone was on the same page about using those terms, and where the movement towards full integration of LGBTQ+ people was headed in a largely oppressive ...
Greater NW Pride: A Kiss - 1/8/2019
A Kiss A few weeks ago, sailor Bryan Woodington came home to Jacksonville, Florida, after seven months at sea on the USS Sullivan, and kissed his husband Kenneth, dipping him, like the iconic V-J Day kiss in New York City’s Times Square in 1945. The photograph, which showed both on Facebook and a local television network news feed, while garnering much praise, also drew critics and negative responses by those who were offended by two gay men kissing. All this, because two men kissed, and the...
Greater NW Pride: New Year’s Resolutions in 2019 - 1/3/2019
New Year’s Resolutions in 2019 In an article from Psychology Today, “Why We Really Celebrate New Year’s Day,” writer David Ropeik writes that New Year’s Day is, logically, simply the movement of the clock, from Monday to Tuesday. However, we put special, symbolic, and emotional charge to it, making one day “2018” and the next day, “2019.” The reason we celebrate New Year’s Day is something that is ubiquitous, tied to something intrinsic to or in our DNA as human beings, in which we give all...
Greater NW Pride: Forward Together, Not One Step Back in 2019 - 12/31/2018
Forward Together, Not One Step Back in 2019 In the Raleigh (NC) News and Observer newspaper, one of their traditions is to identify a citizen of NC who is “crowned” as the Tar Heel of the Year. This year, 2018, the Tar Heel of the Year is the Rev. William Barber of Goldsboro, NC. He is also well-known for his work with the Moral Monday movement, in which many of us—myself included—participated in ongoing rallies in Raleigh, the capitol of NC, protesting against the Tea Party Republican ...
Greater NW Pride: Re-Hearing the Magnificat as a Gay Pastor - 12/20/2018
Re-Hearing the Magnificat as a Gay Pastor This coming Sunday, Dec. 23rd, is the fourth Sunday of Advent. The Gospel reading is Luke 1:39-55, in which the latter part of this reading (vs. 46-55) is the famous Magnificat. The passage opens up with Mary setting out and, “with haste” makes it out to a Judean town in the hill country, where she has fled to the house of her relative, Elizabeth. These two women—both outsiders to the dominant culture because of their gender—share joy in their ...
Greater NW Pride: Baptismal Affirmation and Transgender People - 12/13/2018
Baptismal Affirmation and Transgender People The Church of England recently issued rules to their priests on ways of being “creative and sensitive” as they welcome transgender people into the Church. Benjamin Fearnow wrote that the Episcopal Church’s “House of Bishops approved the pastoral guidance document that advises Anglican clergy to address trans individuals by their chosen names, rather than their birth names. The move to welcome more transgender individuals into the church, the BBC ...
Greater NW Pride: World AIDS Day 2018 - 12/6/2018
World AIDS Day 2018 December 1 was World’s AIDS Day. Dec. 1 was founded as World AIDS Day in 1988. We have had 30 years of World’s AIDS Day, in which this is a day to unite against HIV, with people showing their support for people living with HIV, as well as to commemorate those people who have died. Currently, there are approximately 34 million people who have the virus, which was first identified in 1984. Over 35 million people have died of HIV or AIDS. These are the facts. Then there...
Greater NW Pride: Reflecting on Thirty-Five Years - 11/27/2018
Reflecting on Thirty-Five Years The invitation: “The Presbytery of Boston invites you to a celebration of joy and peace as Brett P. Webb-Mitchell is ordained as a Minister of the Word and Sacrament at Valley Community Presbyterian Church on Sunday, Nov. 27, 1983, at 10:30 am…and installation as Assistant Pastor at First Presbyterian Church of East Boston, Sunday, Nov. 4, at 2:30 pm.” On the outside of the invitation was a small boy in a too-large Genevan gown, with these words from the ...
Greater NW Pride: LGBTQ+ People and the Caravan - 11/21/2018
Being LGBTQ and the Caravan With Thanksgiving before us, focusing on the religious pilgrims who sought freedom to practice their religion, and their first harvest meal in October 1621, that we now honor as a nation with a federal holiday. 90 native people and 53 settlers attended the first harvest festival that became our Thanksgiving. In light of this holiday, as a nation we are also aware that more settlers are on the border of California and Mexico, as a caravan of thousands of people ...
Greater NW Pride: "Boy Erased" and the Church - 11/14/2018
At the center of the book and movie, “Boy Erased”, written by Garrard Conley, is the so-called conversion or reparative therapy. Conversion or reparative therapy is the dangerous psychological practice of “attempting” to turn a person who self-identifies as LGBTQ to being “straight,” with the underlying misnomer that “straight” is normal and good, and same sex attraction is evil or bad. The 19-year-old college student, Jared (who is really Garrard) is sent to an ex-gay Christian ministry, ...
Greater NW Pride: In Search of a New Home Church for a New Family - 11/8/2018
In Search of a New Home Church for a New Family I am writing this blog with a new title in my life: I am a grandpa, or as I am calling myself, “Pops.” My daughter Adrianne and her husband Scott are celebrating the birth of their daughter, Edie! The news of the pregnancy was a note of coming attractions. The actual arrival of the child gave “birth” a whole new and dramatic shift in the tectonic plates of my family’s life. Upon Edie’s delivery into this world, new titles “birthed” too. The next ...
Greater NW Pride: Lessons from the Life of Mathew Shepard - 10/31/2018
Lessons from the Life of Matthew Shepard In 1998, outside of Laramie, Wyoming, two men—Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson— beat up and robbed Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old college student who happened to be gay. Matthew was pistol whipped and left for dead for 18 hours, tied up to a fence on a remote Wyoming prairie outside of Laramie. He died five days later without regaining consciousness. For two decades, Shepard’s parents—Judith and Dennis—kept their son’s ashes near their home in ...
Greater NW Pride: Changing the Definition of Gender Matters to LGBTQ+ People - 10/25/2018
Changing the Definition of “Gender” Matters to LGBTQ People In 1941, there was the creation of a scientific definition of “mental retardation” by Edgar Doll that was approved by the national body known as the American Association on Mental Deficiency (AAMD), and the federal government. This definition considered a person “mentally retarded” based on social incompetence due to mental subnormality, which has been developmentally arrested, which obtains at maturity is of ...
Greater NW Pride: The Rule of St. Benedict, Hospitality, and LGBTQ+ People - 10/18/2018
What the Rule of St. Benedict, Hospitality, and LGBTQ+ People Have in Common
Greater NW Pride: Honoring National Coming Out Day - 10/11/2018
In Honoring National Coming Out Day
Greater NW Pride: Being LGBTQ+ and new insights to Scripture - 10/4/2018
Being LGBTQ+ and New Insights to Scripture
Greater NW Pride: In Search of a Connection with a Community of Faith - 9/27/2018
In search of a connection with a community of faith.
Greater NW Pride: Colonialism, LGBTQ+ People, India, and the Church - 9/20/2018
Colonialism, LGBTQ+ People, India and the Church In the last two weeks I had an opportunity to be on pilgrimage in India. When I arrived there on Sept. 4, 2018, “homosexuality” was considered a criminal act under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which banned any “carnal intercourse against the order of nature.” In other words, even as a gay man on a pilgrimage in India, it was best that I not say anything about being gay. That all changed on Thursday, Sept. 6, 2018, when the India ...
Greater NW Pride: Lessons from Camp Hope - 8/23/2018
Lessons re-learned about advocacy with people with disabilities and Camp Hope.
Greater NW Pride: The UMC It Gets Better Campaign - 8/15/2018
What would a UMC "It Gets Better" Campaign Look Like?
GNW Pride: A Presbyterian Version of the One Church Plan - 8/9/2018
One Church Model, Presbyterian Style.
Greater NW Pride: More of my story, more of our story - 8/1/2018
In his second installment of his blog, Rev. Dr. Brett Webb-Mitchell dives deeper into his own personal story, while thanking those who have had the courage to be "out" in a sometimes unwelcoming church environment.
Greater NW Pride: Welcome to Greater NW Pride Blog: Storytelling - 7/12/2018
Welcome to Greater NW Pride!