Sermon: Proud
Unitarian Society of New Haven
June 24, 2018 10:30 AM
Proud, written by Deborah Pascale
I’d like to begin by reading a poem written by my 8 year old granddaughter, Isabella Marie Sullivan
Go in my shoes
See the world differently
Be Me
See Me
I’m different in ways I can’t even explain
See Me
Be me
You will see differently
Heather Small, soul singer and musician, sings one of my favorite songs, called “Proud.” In it she urges us to ask: “What have you done today to make yourself proud.” It’s an important question for anyone who wants to make a difference in the world. I ask myself that question often, sometimes while lying in bed at night next to my wife, sometimes while driving to work, sometimes after listening to our minister, Reverend Megan preach. Often after listening to Reverend Megan preach.
As a lesbian, living in a straight world I have been trying for years now to make myself proud by living my life as out-of-the-closet as I can. It has required bravery beyond what I thought I could muster. I’ve been denied promotions, spit on and threatened with bodily harm, and still I persisted. I have been called names too vulgar to repeat here, threatened with rape, embarrassed in front of friends and rejected by family, and still I persisted. Why; because I have always felt stronger when I didn’t deny my own self.
For me it all began in 1970. Do you remember 1970? I do!
In 1970 the first Earth Day was celebrated by thousands of schools and communities across the United States, including mine. We walked out of class at our high school to protest the way our country was destroying our precious Mother Earth. Also in 1970 four people were killed by the National Guard at Kent State University and then the next week two more were killed at Jackson State by police officers all while demonstrating for Civil Rights. Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” was the number one song, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin died from their addictions.
In 1970, I was outed to my parents by my girlfriend’s parents who discovered our affair by reading love notes we had passed back and forth to each other in high school. My folks confronted me with their knowledge and demanded that I change. “Change? But this is how I was born” I replied. “This is who I am. I cannot change and even if I could I would not.” My father pleaded with me but I persisted. He became enraged and hit me across the face so hard that my glasses broke and my face was bruised. I left the room in tears determined to stand my ground. I did and I have. I persisted.
On June 28, 1970 the first Gay Pride marches were held in New Your City, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco to commemorate the Stonewall riots of the year before when some very brave gay people rose up in defiance of the NYC police who were trying to beat and arrest them – just for wanting a place to socialize! But these first tributes were not the celebrations of love and pride that we have now. They were protest marches and those of us who went to them wore pink triangle buttons, like the ones Hitler made gay people wear in Nazi Germany. We wore red armbands to signify we were part of a larger resistance movement going on in our country and around the world. We were protesting the immoral war in Vietnam, the utter lack of respect that people of color experienced, rampant poverty, the lack of women’s rights and the destruction of our planet. Since that first march our LGBTQ community has celebrated every year on the last Sunday of June and I am proud to present this celebration here at my spiritual home, USNH.
Over time our movement for Gay Rights became so much more. The gay men and lesbians who started as separate groups quickly banded together. Soon after we welcomed our bi-sexual siblings to our group and this was called the LGB community. Much later the transgender community burst out of the closet and we joined with them to call ourselves the LGBT community. Then, many people including one of the sisters who started the Black Lives Matter movement started identifying not as lesbian but as queer and we became the LGBTQ community.
Do you see where I am going with this? Inclusion, love and acceptance are very important to me and to this movement of people who dance to their own drummer. Inclusion, love and acceptance are what I feel here at USNH. I feel blessed to be among you in such a wonderful community. I don’t feel different but accepted, I don’t feel odd but included, I don’t feel strange but loved. I feel a part of a group that values our differences and celebrates our unique experiences. And this has added so much joy to my life!
Over the years we have made many strides towards full equality for the LGBTQ community. As recently as 1986 the Pride community rallied on the Mall in Washington, DC to demonstrate for our rights. The theme of the event was “Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are.” At the time it was illegal in most states to even be gay and nowhere was it allowed for gay folks to marry or adopt children. Most teachers were in deep closets for fear that straight people would not allow them to educate their children. Even after almost 20 years of protest and political action, we were still isolated in the closet as a community. Our community struggled in the 1980’s with the AIDS epidemic which took so many lives and decimated so many communities. But we persisted! Happier times were coming. In 1993 the Supreme Court of Hawaii ruled in Baehr v. Lewin that the state’s abridgment of marriage on the basis of sex was unconstitutional. The ruling led to actions by the federal government and several states to explicitly curtail marriage on the basis of sex in order to prevent the marriages of same-sex couples from being recognized. One of these actions was the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) passed by the federal government. I was horrified that Bill Clinton signed this despicable law.
Then In 2003 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health that it was unconstitutional for the state to restrict marriage on the basis of sex. From 2004 to 2015, as the tide of public opinion continued to move forward towards support of same-sex marriage, various state court rulings, state legislation, popular referendums, and federal court rulings established same-sex marriage in 36 states. In 2011, national public support for same-sex marriage rose above 50% for the first time. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a key provision of DOMA, declaring part of it unconstitutional and in breach of the Fifth Amendment in United States v. Windsor. The ruling led to the Federal Government’s recognition of same-sex marriage, with federal benefits for married couples. What a long way to come in just 25 years!
And yet friends, there is so much more to do. We need to liberate ourselves from the bindings of false equivalencies such as separate but equal. We need to embrace all people who want to come to our country; we need to overthrow the wanna be dictator that is quickly taking over our democracy; we need to decry the mistreatment and torture of people and animals. As Heather Small urges us, we need to do things every day that make ourselves PROUD.
May it be so.
Blessed be.
Amen.