"Thank you for inviting me to speak. I am here because the first speaker who was asked couldn't. James Hormel was to have been our speaker, but as the first openly gay man to be appointed as an American ambassador, he has agreed during his nomination process and tenure as ambassador to Luxembourg not to participate in any kind of gay political activities. In the sense that everything ultimately can be described as political, I suppose we could call this conference political. But I am not here as a politician or an expert of any kind. I am here to tell you how the pervasive undercurrent of homophobia in our society has impacted my life. I see it as an evil cancer in our social fabric that damages, even kills, those it targets and corrupts and damages those who live with such hate in their hearts. I believe this is a moral and spiritual issue much more than a political one. Because if we reach a resolution morally and spiritually, the political side will follow."

"I am here because for ten years I was married to James Hormel. We had five wonderful children during those years. We now share 13 grandchildren. He gave me a pillow a few years ago that says "If I had known how much fun grandchildren would be I would have had them first". I am sure some of you can share that same joy of grandparenting. Never in two years of dating and ten years of marriage did we discuss James' true sexual identity and only at the end of our marriage did I manage to break through the multiple walls of my denial and his collusion in that denial."

"I am also here because of the wonderful support of my husband Jim Turner, a gynecologist and sex therapist, who long before I met him was trying to educate and enlighten his students and the public about the truth of same sex sexuality. He has supported me as it has proved to be increasingly pressing for me to express my feelings about the need for full acceptance and inclusion of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender persons into society. He has encouraged our whole family in building the strong friendships that bind us together. James Hormel is his dear friend."

"I am here because I too am a victim of homophobia. Let me tell you my story and hopefully that statement will begin to make sense. My ex-husband's decision to marry came after he was told by his Presbyterian minister that if he found a nice girl, got married and had children his attraction to men would go away. He believed this minister and followed his instructions - But it did not "cure" him of his lifelong attraction to people of the same sex. What drove him to seek this cure? Surely shame, guilt. Not wanting to be different. Wanting to make a name for himself as his father and grandfather before him had. His two older brothers had disappointed their father with their pursuit of careers in the arts. He was the hope of the family. A regular steady kind of preppy guy. But to be the person society and his family wanted him to be he had to hide who he was even from the people he loved the most. Always I lived with this dark shadow, this hiddenness within him, always feeling that it was my problem and I blamed myself for wanting to get too close. I somehow felt that by inquiring further I would be ripping his very soul from him. In my growing awareness, that my husband was probably homosexual (in those days the term gay was not used) I concluded that it was obviously my fault. I was not loving enough, sexy enough, interesting enough. When I summoned my courage and asked questions, I met with denial. He shared in later years that whenever the subject of homosexuality came up he felt I was so disgusted and so homophobic that in trying to share anything about his sexuality he knew he would be met with total rejection. He was probably right. I was ignorant; I was afraid of the truth; I too had absorbed the stereotypes of my time. I, who considered myself open and liberal and accepting of all diversity (I guess they call that the sin of pride) regarded gays and lesbians as second class citizens. This is the first time in my life I have admitted to myself or anyone else that I harbored that kind of prejudice in my heart. As I look back I know that most of what made up that feeling of disgust or hate or whatever we want to call it, came from fear. Came out of ignorance, came out of the darkness of the unknown; a place where light never enters. A godless and terrifying place. So as our marriage continued, we both retreated into being increasingly lonely and trapped people."

"Perhaps it is good to put this in context. We were very young and it was the early sixties. There was absolutely no written information, no resources, no one to turn to, no one to talk to. We had on the surface what the world saw as an ideal marriage. We had colluded in creating a fabulous image. Inside we were tormented, on the outside everything looked perfect. The silence of our pain to this day is deafening. Our divorce was devastating not only for us and our family, but for our friends and associates. You certainly don't have five children together and not plan to live together for life. Eventually, the divorce freed James to come out of the closet and for me to remarry. Our lives took new directions."

"I would like to tell you that the fear and darkness went away. Instantly. But everyone here knows that is not the way it works. We both struggled, blamed each other and were much like many divorcing couples. However he was grappling with his outness in the gay world, I was grappling with raising five children and then a sixth born from my second marriage. When James came out a year after our divorce, my so called friends who had blamed me totally for the divorce and banished me from their lives, turned back to me with great sympathy. However, it was often a sympathy that came from a place of homophobia; not a place of love and compassion. It took a long time for me to get beyond my sense of entitlement, being the injured party, the wronged one the one who had been hurt by what some of them saw as an aberration on James part. A long time to get to a place in my heart where I saw how hurt and fearful he had been. Saw how we had both been victimized by a society that had taught us that homosexuality in any of its forms was a sin, something that only dwelt in the murkiest parts of human experience. We were both condemned to silence."

"Thirty five years later we have reached a place of true reconciliation with each other. I am hopeful that that is helpful for our children. It has certainly brought light into our lives. We understand each other's pain. He understands my sense of being abandoned and kept from the truth; my helplessness at having no control over the situation. I understand his helplessness about not being able to create himself in society's image. His devastation at losing his family. His having to walk into a world where he had to face derision, scorn and once in the deep South narrowly escaping being murdered. It has taken courage to go on, on our own paths. For our children it has taken courage, hard work and a depth of love and openness to accept the follies of their parents. They in a way were the ultimate victims. They have worried about their father; the kind of lies and accusations that appeared in the media and on the internet during his nomination process was hideous. They however have been his strongest supporters and the whole family went through the nomination process together, a united front. We are a diverse family but we are a strong, loyal and loving family. We are proud of the paths that each of us has taken. James Hormel has been a fervent advocate for the rights of all citizens and in his work and philanthropy helped tens of thousands of people. I know he respects the work I chose as a counselor. From this vantage point we can say we have come a long way from that time when we were both trapped in silence."

"So I ask myself how have things changed. We are here today discussing all of these issues openly. Now there are books to read. A whole recent issue of Newsweek is devoted to gay and lesbian issues. Politicians debate gay rights. Virtually everyone knows someone, either a relative or a friend, who is gay or lesbian. In doing a recent workshop I discovered that younger people in thier thirties have had a great deal of interaction with people with same sex orientation and consider gay rights almost a non issue. But consider this. Today my ex-husband is silent. Granted he agreed to be silent while he served his ambassadorship but he is not here. In the military we have a "don't ask don't tell " policy. A very recent study shows that homophobic practices are rampant in the military services. The Charlottesville School board has not included discrimination against same sex orientation persons in its list of persons whose rights must be protected in our schools. Yet thirty percent of teen age suicides are homosexuals. Often where there is tacit "intellectual" acceptance people find the whole topic uncomfortable, disagreeable, something to be avoided; lets just not talk about it. Churches whose congregations are open to differences of other sorts, hesitate to come out and openly be welcoming churches for gays and lesbians. In short we have only come a part of the way."

"Why have I chosen for the first time to share my private life so publicly now in this space and time. First of all I am speaking in a place, St. Paul's Church which has been my spiritual home off and on, all my life. This I believe is the place where I learned that God expects me to speak the truth as I know it. It is a church that over the years has been willing to take on socially and spiritually difficult issues. It is the place where I did my initial survey of church related attitudes toward homosexuals in 1981 in preparation for my doctoral thesis. This is a place where reconciliation and healing can take place and we can, whatever our faith, hear God's call for us to listen to each other, The Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the U.S. has called for 'graced conversations' on this subject and that is what we are doing today. The second reason I am compelled to speak today comes from the intensity of the opposition to my ex-husbands nomination to be the first openly gay ambassador. As I have said it was a wake-up call for me and for our family. I feel compelled to make some little bit of difference, if I can."

"As I have searched my own heart I find myself asking what keeps us from listening to each other? Obviously fear, rigidity, an assumption of being right. We assume positions which are fueled by the power of myths, myths which exist in their own right often distorting reality, more often totally detached from reality. One myth that particularly concerns me is the myth of choice. As in 'he chose the gay lifestyle.' If my life has taught me anything it has taught me that there are some things we can change and others we can not and as the prayer of St. Francis asserts we pray to have 'the wisdom to know the difference.' I choose to wear a spring color on a spring day, treat my grandchild to ice-cream and kiss horses on their noses. I did not choose to be five feet two and have green eyes and a serious mathematical deficit disorder. I didn't choose to be heterosexual. I just am. My ex-husband chooses to be a political activist, to play tennis and fly in planes too often but he did not 'choose' to be gay. He just is. A dear friend of ours who happens to be gay said to me recently at a dinner party 'Alice, who in their right mind would choose the gay lifestyle if they had a choice. Choose to be ridiculed and isolated and treated as a pariah by a good part of the world. You'd have to be crazy.'"

"Judd Marmor, the past president of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, says 'People do not choose to be homosexual or bisexual any more that they choose to be heterosexual. In almost all instances the basic factors that determine sexual preference are established in early childhood before age six.' He goes on to say, 'An enlightened society must ultimately be able to accept understandingly and non-prejudicially the millions of men and women who through no fault of their own find themselves erotically responsive to members of the same sex.'"

"There are so many myths that swirl about this subject. My son in his twenties was dating a lovely young woman. She got a call from her Mother who warned her that she needed to end this relationship forthwith. Didn't her daughter know that being gay was hereditary and even though it didn't look like Jimmy was gay now, it would clearly come upon him later on, probably sooner rather than later. My son laughs about it now. (he did marry someone else and now has two marvelous children; a little grandmotherly pride there)."

"So how do we disentangle ourselves from these myths. First of all we must end the silence. Last year here at St, Paul's I quoted a statement made by the Chaplain of Trinity College in Connecticut at the time of Matthew Shepherd's brutal murder, I have found it to be the most powerful statement I have read or heard and I must quote it again. He said,

'I would like us all to consider Matthew's death... not through… the shouts or cries of anger but through the silence... the silence of that young man hanging on his cross of pain alone in the emptiness of the Wyoming night, the silence that killed him as surely as the beatings he endured.

...The silence of Christians who know that our scriptures on homosexuality are few and murky in interpretation and far outweighed by the words of the Savior whose only comment on human relationships was to call us never to judge but only to love. The silence of well meaning educated people who pretend to have an enlightened view of homosexuality while quietly tolerating the abuse of gays and lesbians in their own communities... We are men and women surrounded by the silence of our own fear, Our fear of those who are different. Our fear of being identified with the scapegoat Our fear of social and religious change. Our fear comes in many forms but it always comes silently a whispered joke. A glance away from the truth.... With silence we condemn scores of our neighbors to live in the shadow of hate... we must resolve to never let (silence) to have the last word.'"

"So how do we end the silence. Partly by doing what we are doing today. Speak out in our churches synagogues and neighborhoods and wherever we gather together. Speak to our friends and to those who do not understand. Speak in a spirit of love and reconciliation always understanding that basically we are all so much more alike than we are different. Celebrate our differences. Celebrate our maker who made us in such a rainbow of colors and even gave us diversity in our sexual persuasions. We need to teach tolerance. It does not happen in a passive environment."

"And listen. Listen. In a Lenten reading Henri Nouwen reminds us that the first discipline is listening and that listening with great attention in Latin is ob audire which transcribes into English as the word obedient. He is speaking of listening to God. I would like to extend that notion to listening to each other. If we listen with great attention you will hear my fear; I will hear your pain. In that kind of openness we will actually hear each other. When we truly listen we recognize each other and that is what reconciliation and healing is all about."

"As long as we are silent the fear and the darkness will settle in around our very souls. When we break the silence and in a spirit of God's love listen to one another we are surrounded and filled with light. Thank you. May it be a light filled afternoon and may you carry that light with you wherever you go."