We Celebrate Louie Crew Clay's 80th Birthday with a Surprise

On December 9, 1936, exactly 80 years ago today, in Anniston, Alabama, God dropped a blessing into the lives of Erman Louie Crew, Sr. and Lula Gaines Hagin Crew. That same blessing would impact this world and would shake many foundations and rattle many cages over the course of the next 80 years. The child born that day would help reshape The Episcopal Church and secular society in ways never imagined at the time. Today is the 80th birthday of Erman Louie Crew, Jr., better known to us as Louie Crew Clay.

Happy Birthday, Louie!!

Integrity USA has chosen to honor Louie’s milestone birthday by creating the Louie Crew Clay Fund for Lifelong Learning. Louie’s life has been devoted to teaching and learning. He has learned where the Holy Spirit has been leading him. In turn Louie has sought to teach others. His gentle spirit and cheerful demeanor has educated and inspired thousands about how it is possible for any LGBTQ person to be a true follower of Jesus Christ.

If you would like to make a contribution to this fund in Louie’s honor, please go to this link.

Early in 2017, the Board of Directors of Integrity USA will send your contributions and a resolution to the Executive Council of The Episcopal Church requesting that a special trust fund be created bearing the title of “The Louie Crew Clay Fund for Lifelong Learning.” That trust fund will become a source of income to Trust Fund (TF) 514.00 (Marie Louise Constable) aka “The Constable Fund” created in 1939 to be used for the purposes of The Episcopal Church, preferably for work of religious education not provided for within the budget of the church. After the creation of that trust fund, contributions may be made directly to it through the Church Center.

Louie founded Integrity in 1974 and thus began a long journey toward bringing the full inclusion and equality of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons into the life of The Episcopal Church at all levels of ministry, both lay and ordained. The journey was never an easy one. It faced opposition from many who could not conceive of LGBT folks ever having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as their Savior.

Even more inconceivable to some was the idea that LGBTQ folks would ever be ordained deacons, priests and bishops in the church. Still further beyond even the imagination of many was the possibility that same gender couples would be married by The Episcopal Church, in the church, using liturgies approved by the church.

Yet, today, despite some pockets of resistance, these milestones in ministry have been achieved. What Louie began continues to gather into the church those who are among the outcast and marginalized of both society and church. It was through both learning and teaching that issues were peeled away to reveal the faces of the children of God. The human face is infinitely more difficult to dismiss than an issue.

Louie’s ministry has been supported by his beloved husband Ernest. Without that support, without that partnership, the journey would have been too difficult to imagine. Integrity USA asks God’s blessing on Louie and Ernest as they celebrate the 80th anniversary of Louie’s arrival into this realm.

An Open Letter

An open letter to those concerned about the impact of the decisions reached at the recent meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion at Canterbury England.

So, let’s talk amongst ourselves.  What does the statement of the Primates call on us to do?  Aside from our response to their statement, there is more for us to do as members of Integrity, as members of The Episcopal Church, and as followers of Jesus Christ.

The Primates issued their statement with its “consequences” outlined therein.  As you are aware, we, Integrity USA, responded with what was, for all practical purposes, a somewhat “political” response/portion of the discussion.  Yet we have a more important discussion:  the pastoral implications and needs for ourselves and others.

What will we do to provide pastoral support to each other and to our sisters and brothers in less hospitable provinces of the Anglican Communion?

We will continue to "Love one another as I have loved you."

We will continue to "Forgive your enemies and those who hate you."

We will continue to "Forgive 70 times 7."

Why will we do these things?  These are the words Jesus spoke to His followers.  Jesus calls us over this tumult.

Jesus calls us to forgive those who hurt us, those who hate us and seek to injure us whether in body or mind or soul.  If we claim any authenticity as followers of Jesus we must confess that forgiveness is central to our identity as Christians.  These are some of the things we must do if we are to be Jesus people in a Jesus movement.

This calling is now even more important to us as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people as the result of the release of the statement by the Primates. Their words are painful to all LGBTQ people everywhere who know ourselves as beloved children of God. Their words are also painful to The Episcopal Church which has taken the risk of the Gospel in the full inclusion of all God’s children in the sacramental life of the church.

This is not the first time the Primates have inflicted pain on LGBTQ people and The Episcopal Church. I doubt it will be their last attempt. And yet, we will persevere.  We have been to the foot of the cross before and we will be there again.  That is where we find the strength to endure being there. It is where we find redemption, release and healing and the ability to forgive.

We will find forgiveness – 70 times 7. Such is the cost of discipleship.

We will find healing for our broken hearts, for there is a balm in Gilead.

We will find hope for our weary spirits. Such is the promise of the resurrection.  And, like the first disciples, we will find the courage to open the eyes of our hearts to see the fullness of love in the empty tomb.

More importantly, we will share that hope and continue to be a beacon of the unconditional love of God in Christ to our LGBTQ sisters and brothers in the very provinces where these Primates continue to oppress and persecute them.

The decades of discussion, debate, and attempts to exclude, have given both The Episcopal Church and its LGBTQ members a level of spiritual maturity that allows us to be clear about where we are, who we are, and whose we are.

Our own Primate, the Most Reverend Michael B. Curry has and I suspect will continue to remind us that we are Jesus people and part of a Jesus movement.  The President of our House of Deputies, the Reverend Gay Clark Jennings, has been clear that we will continue to be part of the Anglican Communion and will fulfill our responsibilities on the Anglican Consultative Council, the more legislative of the instruments of communion.  Integrity USA is in full support of the work and the statements of the two individuals who are the presiding officers and the chief pastors of The Episcopal Church.

So, we have and will continue to endure the cost of discipleship that comes with following what the Holy Spirit is calling us to do.  We can take no other stance if we claim to follow Jesus.  It is a price we have paid and are willing to continue to pay.

The struggle continues. We do not struggle alone.

Bruce Garner
President
Integrity USA

An Autumn Request For Your Support

It is has been an incredible sixteen months for LGBTQ people since The Episcopal Church's last General Convention. We have a same-sexmarriage rite, canon law protecting the inclusion of transgender and non-binary people in the Church, and a strong position against bullying in our schools. In the secular world we have not only seen states like California and New Jersey get the freedom to marry; we have actually seen DOMA struck down and some of our brothers and sisters enjoy full federal marriage benefits. With all of these victories it can sometimes feel like our work is over.

The fact is, though, it isn't.

Nearly 70% of Americans still live in states without the freedom to marry, with more than half of states having constitutional amendments banning same gender marriage. LGBTQ people are still used by many politicians as a wedge issue, vilifying us to shore up their own political power. At the so-called Values Voter Summit, former Governor Mike Huckabee was perfectly happy to attack queer children simply to advance his political goals.

Gay, lesbian, bi, and transgender people still face poverty at significantly higher rates than heterosexual people. Violence against LGBTQ people is still a constant threat for many. In the New York area alone there have been five anti-gay and trans* murders in past few months.

Within the Church, despite the amazing steps forward that we have taken, there are still diocese and parishes where gay and trans* people do not feel fully understood or welcomed. There are still people within our Church who feel that they may not be allowed to follow God's call to ministry in their lives for the simply reason of who they love or their gender identity.

Outside the Church there are many people, both LGBTQ and straight allies, who can't imagine finding a home in Christianity because of their fear of homophobia and transphobia from the Church.

Integrity is continuing to do the work of the Gospel to stand up against that, to continue helping the Church move forward towards a Christ-like love and inclusion of all people. Through our Believe Out Loud workshops we are helping Episcopalians not only to love LGBTQ people and to welcome them into their congregational home, but to give Episcopalians the language to tell their own stories of celebrations and acceptance.

Our Believe Out Loud program gives parishes the opportunity to announce their love for LGBTQ people to the world, to invite the people in their neighborhoods to a loving, welcoming community

Our chapters are doing the work of addressing local challenges, working on freedom to marry campaigns, working on LGBTQ nondiscrimination campaigns, working to end anti-LGBTQ violence in their communities.

And national leaders continue to work to change Episcopal policy and practice to make the Episcopal Church a sanctuary for all the people of God.

We are in a time where we see incredible change. More than that, we see the potential for even greater change. It is up to us as followers of Christ to see how far towards the kingdom of God we can push our world. If you agree that we still have work to do, please consider supporting the Integrity as we open the Episcopal Church to all of God's beloved. You can simply visit our donation site at: https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/integrityusa

We are deeply greatful for anything you can spare to further our work.

Thank you for your support,

Vivian Taylor
Executive Director, Integrity USA

CALL for ACTION: Equal Immigration Rights

by The Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall

When I immigrated, a little over twenty years ago, I was well-educated, white and had a British accent. Even with those advantages it was hard for me to get a green card. I lined up early one morning at the Arlington INS office in order to be one of the few people who would even get an interview. There was a couple ahead of me – they were there so that a non-American wife could get to live here with her husband. I was there alone. Even if we had been legally married, the INS would not have accepted our lesbian marriage as valid for immigration purposes.

We all know there’s an immigration bill in the Senate Judiciary Committee right now. We also know that it’s not fully comprehensive – it leaves out a very specific segment of the population – gay or lesbian families. Family reunification has always been an important plank of this country’s immigration policy, but once again we are being told that our families are less important, our families are not “real” – we don’t count.

It is estimated that there are 32,300 bi-national, same-sex couples residing in the United States today, more than 45% of whom are raising children. We believe that these families share the same right to dignity and fair treatment as other families, and therefore deserve to have their status as a family recognized and protected by our nation’s immigration laws. That is why Integrity worked hard at last year’s General Convention to help pass D011 “Reform Unequal Immigration Law” through which the Church pledged to support legislation that would expand our nation’s definition of family under immigration law to include the same-sex permanent partners and spouses of U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
 
This resolution also committed our dioceses and congregations to renewed advocacy on behalf of families and individuals of all sexual orientations who are facing unwanted moves, deportation or separation due to our nation’s immigration laws. We know from experience that getting a resolution passed by General Convention is only the first step – in order for it to have teeth, we have to do the hard work in our dioceses and congregations to make it valid on the ground.

The Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations is working on our behalf to support two amendments proposed by Senator Leahy. The first would allow Americans in same-sex relationships to sponsor green cards for their foreign-born partners. The second would provide the same protection to legally married bi-national same-sex couples that is afforded to others under existing immigration law. We can do our bit by asking our Senators (or members of the Senate Judiciary Committee) to “support the inclusion of same-sex partners and spouses in comprehensive immigration reform by supporting Leahy amendments 6 and 7.”

Please make the call or send an email today.

You can get more information about the Immigration Bill at

• The Immigration Equality Action Fund
• Human Rights Campaign

Caroline Hall is President of Integrity USA and serves as priest-in-charge at St. Benedict's Episcopal Church in Los Osos, CA.

Up & Down the Escalators

From our team member Cameron Partridge, of TransEpiscopal:

What a day! It started out early this morning, when Deputy Dee Tavolaro and I testified in support of D090, a resolution that Dee got in just before the deadline last week. It calls upon the Episcopal Church to adapt its various forms, paper and electronic, to be inclusive of people with various gender identities. All too often, people who identify as neither male nor female (which numerous people within the trans community do), or who might use more than one term to articulate their gender, encounter forms that turn them away just as surely as a closed door. As part of his testimony, Dee told a story of a recent difficult experience filling out a form in a church body (which I hope he might post here). I emphasized that while I have encountered forms that attempt to include transgender people by having three options—male, female, and transgender—the option of simply giving a space for someone to write in their gender, along with their name and preferred pronouns is preferable. The committee asked thoughtful questions, and the subcommittee was very receptive, even sharpening the language slightly to push the church more. The final version was:

Resolved, the House of Deputies concurring, that this 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church recommends and encourages all bodies of the Episcopal Church to utilize all available resources to revise and adapt forms to be fully inclusive of all people: by including lines not only for one's legal name, but also for one's preferred name as well as one's gender identity and pronoun preference.

The subcommittee then took up resolution D032, submitted by Dr. Louie Crew, on refusing to discriminate against lay church employees on the basis of "race, color, sex, national origin, age, familial status, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity." The subcommittee supported it and added "gender expression."

When both of these resolutions went to the full committee, they were unanimously voted to go to the House of Deputies. So at that point, the count of trans related resolutions stood as follows:

1) C061 "Amend Title II.1.2" (World Mission) (originating from Diocese of MA)
2) D012 "Support of Transgender Civil Rights (National and International Concerns) (sponsored by Byron Rushing, Sarah Lawton & Dee Tavolaro)
3) D090 "Inclusive Church Paper Work" (Social and Urban Affairs) (sponsored by Dee Tavolaro)
4) D032 Non-Discrimination in Lay Employment (Social and Urban Affairs) (sponsored by Dr. Louie Crew)

There were two others that had been left behind in the committee on World Mission: C001 (which basically duplicated #1) and C046 which added the same language as C061 to Title II.1.3.



Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the House of Deputies yesterday approved D025, a long, nuanced resolution that would move the Episcopal Church Beyond B033, and sent it to the House of Bishops. I sat in on the House of Deputies during their morning session, however, because there was a possibility that C061 (which would add "gender identity or expression" to the ministry canon) might come to the floor. As it turned out, that didn't happen. After lunch, I returned to the HoD for the same reason. But halfway through the session, I learned that the House of Bishops was beginning to debate C025. So I made my way up the two long escalators to the third floor of the Anaheim Conference Center, where the House of Bishops is stationed. I arrived amid a steadily increasing crowd, and parked myself amid the Integrity contingent. Michelle Hansen was already there, though I couldn't see her for all the people. Donna Cartwright, meanwhile, was keeping an eye on the House of Deputies below.

And because the Episcopal Church Women were holding their triennial meeting in the room next door, snippets of cheerful song occasionally wafted through the walls with oddly appropriate incongruity.

You can find out more about the debate in the House of Bishops here and here. The closer it got to 5pm, the more likely it seemed that the day would come to a close without the Bishops bringing the matter to a vote. Debate was still going strong, well after 5pm, when I got word that at the last moment the House of Deputies had indeed taken up C061, the ministry canon resolution.

I busted out of the House of Bishops, nearly running over a stately ECW delegate, and headed to the escalators. There was no way I was going to miss this debate.

By the time I got into the HoD, Michael Barlow had just begun eloquently testifying in favor of the resolution. What I had missed was an introduction to the resolution by Gay Jennings, the chair of the World Mission committee, which had included a reading of a definition sheet that had been prepared for us by Lisa Mottet of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

I sat down and listened, my heart in my throat, as Michael Barlowe finished and Dee Tavolaro began. What an incredibly proud moment it was to hear Dee speaking as an openly trans deputy. Heck, how amazing was it to even hear the word "transgender" spoken on the floor of the House of Deputies. I had run into someone from the diocese of Massachusetts earlier in the day, and when I told her that a trans-themed resolution had never come up before, she was genuinely surprised. Dee's testimony will be posted here in the coming days, but suffice it to say that he spoke of what a beacon of hope the Episcopal Church could be if it explicitly included transgender people the sentiment famously expressed by Presiding Bishop Edmund Browning that "there will be no outcasts in this church."

Sarah Lawton then told a beautiful, poignant story of her sister, who is a transgender woman. I cannot express how moving this was, and I sincerely hope Sarah will let us post her testimony on the blog as well.

After Sarah finished, someone asked Gay Jennings to re-read the definition of "gender expression". He was apparently uncomfortable with this concept, namely the expression of one's inner gender identity which, come to think of it, is not unlike the definition of a sacrament: "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace"... He then moved an amendment to strike the words "gender expression" from the resolution. In the debate about this amendment, one person, a man from the diocese of Long Island, spoke. He spoke against the amendment and for the resolution itself, and very strongly at that.

The amendment was then soundly defeated.

About this time, a current of people started flowing into the HoD. Had I heard, an Integrity comrade asked? The House of Bishops had voted in favor of D025 (the amended text of the D025 after the House of Bishops finished with it is ">here)! The Spirit felt like it was seriously blowing in the Anaheim Conference Center.

At this point, the Deputies were turning to vote on the resolution. They voted by orders in their deputations, which are made up of equal numbers of clergy and laity. A so-called "divided vote" in which there are equal numbers for and against, counts as a "no" vote. Otherwise the majority wins within each deputation.

Then we had to wait. Earlier today, and in previous days, the electronic voting machines have had technology problems, causing frustrating delays. While we waited, the Secretary of the Connvention made several announcements.

.....And then the session was adjourned without us finding out the results! They should be announced first thing in the morning session, which starts at 9:30 a.m.

So tomorrow (Tuesday) should prove to be quite a day. In addition to learning these results, the HoD should take up D012, the Transgender Civil Rights resolution, not to mention D025 (the huge Beyond B033 resolution). And if C061 has passed, it should be sent to the House of Bishops. Before it can become the mind of the Convention, it must pass both houses.

But I have to say from this exhausted but exhilarated perch at 3 a.m., it's been an amazing day. I'm so grateful for the witness of the Deputies who spoke in favor of the resolution, for the support of Michael Barlowe and Ian Douglas within the World MIssion Committee, for the open hearts of those committee members who heard our testimony last week, and for the positive feedback we've been getting around Convention. Blessings abound.

UPDATE:

The results of the vote on C061: Passed with 75% support in the laity, 66% in the Clergy.