The Root of the Problem
by Jim Spahr (Po)
March 24, 2005
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I am so honored to be able to call Mary Griffith my friend. But, how could
she? How could this woman, so diminutive, almost painfully shy and extremely
private, have had such enormous courage and integrity to not only save her son’s
diaries, but to then share them with the late Leroy Aarons? Mary knew
Prayers for Bobby, the book that Mr. Aarons would write and publish in
1995, would show beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was as complicit in Bobby’s
death as if she had physically thrown him from the freeway overpass in Portland,
Oregon that “warm and cloudy western night” of August 27, 1983.
Prayers for Bobby, A mother’s coming to terms with the suicide of her
gay son, would also illustrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that her Walnut
Creek, CA Presbyterian church and it’s minister were as guilty as she.
Another amazingly strong woman came into my life when I read
her eulogy
to her son that she had posted on the Kaiser Permanente Employees’ Web site in
February 1995. It read....
On January 24th of 1995 on an incoming
tide and facing San Francisco our son Robin [Reed] was seen leaping from the
Golden Gate Bridge. I believe for a brief moment he flew with outstretched
arms, black coat streaming behind, and that his desire was to land in a place of
enlightenment. For him the struggle ended.
Robin was 15 going on 16 years old. He
was sweet, absurdly funny, bright, well read, loved to cook, an accomplished
drama student and was often quiet for long spells at home. We learned 5 days
after his death from his best friend that he was gay.....(
complete text of the Reed’s eulogy)
In November of that same year, at the urging of Robin's
mother, Stephanie Reed, the Petaluma
Elementary and High School District had agreed to hear from a panel of those
concerned for the well being of the Petaluma's lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgendered, intersexed and questioning (lgbtiq) youth at its trustee’s
meeting one evening. The room was packed with community members and at a long
table sat the trustees, chaired by another incredible woman, Elizabeth
Marquardt. Just a few feet away at another table Mary and Stephanie sat
with the late Rev. Rolfe Conrad, a retired Methodist Minister and two young
folks from Positive Images, the Sonoma County support group for lgbtiq youth.
Robin had been a sophomore at Petaluma High School and his death weighed
heavy on this rural/suburban community. At that meeting the local chapter of Parents, Families
and Friends of Lesbians and Gays had purchased and presented to all the trustees
and the Superintendent Chuck Cadman copies of Prayers for Bobby.
Earlier Mary and Stephanie had written personal notes in the trustee’s copies.
The panel’s presentations were personal and thoughtful. The trustees listened
and were clearly moved by the heartfelt expressions of concern from the panel.
Then Elizabeth opened the meeting to those assembled and all the trustees sat
and listened attentively into the wee hours of the morning giving anyone who
wished an opportunity to express their concerns. And the concerns were
expressed. Sadly, most of the comments from representatives of the Petaluma
religious community were filled with ignorance, intolerance and just plain hate.
The following morning after sitting up the balance of the night
reading Prayers for Bobby, Chuck Cadman ordered 50 additional copies
which he distributed to all the principals in his district. As far as
he was concerned, the tormenting of lesbian and gay students in his district
had ended. We only wish it could have been so.
Today, ten years later, it is still risky for any young person to
allow her/is peers to discover s/he may have a minority sexual orientation.
While the schools have worked hard investing significant resources into
combating homophobia, it is almost impossible to wipe it out when the religious
community with only a few notable exceptions, continues to teach ignorance about
lesbian and gay folks.
In Jim Wallis’ God’s Politics, Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the
Left Doesn’t Get It, published in 2005 he writes concerning gay
marriage, “Many in the churches and the society believe that the long-standing
and deeply rooted concept of marriage as being between a man and a woman should
not be changed, but same-sex couples should be granted the rights of ‘civil
unions.’ That’s still my own view.”
Rev. Wallis, a self described evangelical, still doesn’t get it
as it seems
many within the Presbyterian Church, USA do not get it. There is no such thing
as separate but equal. The secular question was decided in this country in 1954
by the Supreme Court decision in Brown Vs. Board of Education.
While the African-American civil rights movement was nurtured by the
African-American churches with occasional support from a few white churches when it finally gained its strength in the last half of the 20th
Century, a reading of such works as the autobiographies of Fredrick Douglas
highlights religion's complicity in maintaining the institution of slavery.
As late as the 1960s in his Letters from the Birmingham Jail, the
Rev. Martin Luther King made clear that white liberal Christians wanted to slow
down the Civil Right struggle. In James Carroll’s Constantine’s Sword, The Church and the Jews,
he clearly outlines the simple fact that it was the Church that created and
sustained anti-Semitism, providing the excuse for centuries of bigotry and that lead to the ultimate horror, The Holocaust.
When the "good souls" of most faith traditions clearly, consistently and
loudly proclaimed that there were no religious justifications for racism and
anti-Semitism, the horrors perpetrated against Jews and African-Americans
dramatically slowed. So too homophobia and its attendant violence will remain until the “good souls” within the majority of
today’s Christian churches find their grit understand that their tolerating the misuse of
Christian scripture is the basis for that homophobia.
Peter J. Gomes, Preacher to Harvard University writes in The Good
Book, Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart, “Although most cotemporary
Christians who have moral reservations about homosexuality, and who find
affirmation for those reservations in the Bible, do not resort to physical
violence and intimidation, they nevertheless contribute to the maintenance of a
cultural environment in which less scrupulous opponents of homosexuality are
given the sanction of the Bible to feed their prejudice and, in certain cases,
cultural ‘permission’ to act with violence upon those prejudices.....The
combination of ignorance and prejudice under the guise of morality makes the
religious community, and its abuse of scripture in this regard, itself morally
culpable.”
Knowing that religious intolerance and misuse of the Koran helped
underpin the terrorists' rationale for perpetrating the September 11th
attacks and the Christian Church’s long
history of being on the wrong side of inclusiveness, I find it astounding that
the “good souls” of the Presbyterian Church, USA would allow the burden of
responding to the misguided allegations by the Reverend James Berkley, of
Bellevue WA to fall upon the Rev. Dr. Jane Adams Spahr.
The “good souls” should be standing between Rev. Spahr and Rev. Berkley
helping Rev. Berkley understand how his narrow understanding of Christ’s message
is wrong. Instead, they have placed Jane between them and Rev. Berkley. As was
once said in another context where zealots were allowed to ruin lives, “Have you
no shame?”
Imagine if you will just what the Rev. Dr. Jane Adams Spahr could have
accomplished in her life of faith had she not been burdened with the need to
defend herself and her family from religion's ignorance.
On the dust jacket of Prayers for Bobby, The Rt. Rev. John S.
Spong writes, “I hope this book will help religious people everywhere face their
complicity in the evil way gay and lesbian children have been treated. Perhaps
then the religious world can repent, apologize, and welcome all our children
into the love of God that we proclaim.”
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Mary Griffith is retired with her husband Bob. She does not maintain a
web site, however. Click here for Bob Bernstein article
about Mary