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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 18, 1998)
I KEEPING +HE fAI+H C ontinued from page 1 7 Catholicism has played a part in Deas life since his birth in Portland in 1947. From spiri tuality to culture to education, the church has been there, and its left Deas with an unwaver ing faith. “1 don’t know that there’s room for conflict as much as there’s room for my own individual conscience,” says Deas, referring to how he incorporates his homosexuality with his faith. “There’s not conflict in my faith in the church. 1 can live my life as a gay man without con flict... . The church does not say it’s wrong to be a homosexual"— but it does say to practice homosexuality is wrong. W hile Deas may have no spiritual conflict, church politics are another issue. “I’ve had priests.. .tell me to leave the church,” says Deas, explaining that he’s been a thorn in the sides of some clergy with his unyielding advocacy of queer Catholics. One archbishop, says Deas, suggested Dignity U SA members take an easier path by breaking away and beginning their own denomination. Some queer people indeed do leave the church, and that’s the thorn in Deas’ side. “W hen I see people leaving the church I become frustrated,” he says. “We need people from within to make change happen. My greater frustration is not so much with the church, but with the church driving people away.” Despite the church’s formidable infrastruc ture, Deas says he’s hopeful that Dignity’s efforts will lead to a more accommodating tomorrow. “We do have a hierarchy that we have to deal with and answer to,” Deas acknowledges, adding that change “is going to happen from the bot tom up.” He adds: “I’m very excited as I see the future, because the church now is more moving toward the center point; they’ve always been to the extreme right. I’m seeing more and more parish es becoming welcoming.” And his Catholic faith, it seems, will be a source of strength in his efforts. “It’s given me a very strong sense of my own personal being, of my self worth,” says Deas. “I feel very good about who I am and where I am in my spiritual life.” Nelly Kaufer ‘T h e r e ’ s A REAL D IFFEREN CE BETWEEN SPIRITUALITY AND R E L IG IO N ’ f anyone should be nominated spiritualist- at-large, it’s Nelly Kaufer. T he self- described “Jew-Bu” (a person bom to Jew ish heritage who has strong Buddhist leanings), says that when she arrived in Oregon in 1970, spirituality was not considered politically cor rect. “I was tom apart for talking about it,” she says of her experience at Womanshare, a piece of lesbian-owned land in Southern Oregon. “But it was there that I looked at the hillside and T he Rev. Cecil Prescod felt a sense of how connected I was. I began teaching meditation, and started understanding things, and consequently it’s not my primary what it was like to experience this thing called community.” life.” Her primary community, she says, is equally This thing called life is something Kaufer has accommodating but still not fully understand embraced wholeheartedly. Since her early days ing. as an Oregonian, she’s put her degree in “My friends respect my spirituality, but they transpersonal counseling— “teaching people don’t understand it, so I feel a little split,” she how to be present to themselves as a way to deal says. “I’m always trying to bring these different with the craziness of our modem lives,” as she parts of my life together, but I think that’s pret describes it— to work as a therapist for individu ty much what everyone does.” als and couples. She wrote a book, A Woman’s Guide to Spiriti4al Renewal (Harpers, 1994), and is currently at work on a book about mindful ness. u l t ir a c ia l She is also an active member of P’nai Or, which she describes as a Jewish renewal congre o p e n gation. “W hen I was growing up in the 1950s, Judaism was pretty bankrupt for a lot of us,” she says, explaining her thirst for renewal. “There’s a t’s a peculiar turn of events. real difference between spirituality and religion. “Back then we burned them at the Spirituality is making a deep connection with stake,” says the Rev. Cecil Prescod face yourself and something greater. Hopefully com tiously. The ordained minister with the United munities can nurture that, but often times they Church of Christ is answering the question of don’t, and that’s where my story starts.” whether the U C C shares any similarities with Kaufer describes P’nai Or as a wonderfully Quakers. inclusive community, citing the dropping of the He adds, ironically, “Historically the U C C word “he” and sensitivity around issues such as has been a denomination that’s put a heavy homophobia. focus on social justice.” Still, she says, her spiritual journey is far from Prescod, who is African American and bisex complete. She feels a definite split between her ual, is quick to offer more examples of how the lesbian community and its spiritual counterpart. U C C has grown and departed from its violent “My religious community is very welcoming past. He points to the church ordaining an and supportive, but I feel different,” she says. openly gay person in 1970. “I’m not getting married and doing lots of other “I was raised in the U C C — a liberal, Protes tant denomination,” adds Prescod, explaining that the church has always been part of his life, though to varying degrees. The New York City native recalls going to Sunday school, being raised in the church, but not feeling particularly spiritual until he was about 16. “When I was a teenager, I experienced an epiphany, a conversion experience,” Prescod says. “I became aware of a personal God and came to experience the love of God through Jesus C hrist.... Prior to that experience, I’d pret ty much decided I was agnostic." Because of the U C C ’s brand of progressive theology, his newfound faith posed no problems with newfound sexuality. “In the church I was raised in, you never heard any anti-gay rhetoric. It wasn’t an issue,” Prescod says, adding a clarifi cation: “At the same time, while I never heard any anti-gay preaching, I never heard anything pro-queer. But it was an environment that was affirming of human rights.” Today, Prescod worships at the Ainsworth United Church of Christ in Northeast Portland. I ‘M AND AFFIRM IN G’ I , He describes the church as “multiracial, open and affirming.” As a reverend, though he currently leads no parish, he has had the opportunity to inject a pro-queer element into theology. “A lot of times there are certainly people, and maybe more than one category, who have questions about their sexuality,” Prescod explains. “I try to help them work through their process and get to a place where they can affirm who they are. Then there are people who’ve been injured by what they’ve heard in churches.” Such injuries in mind, Prescod is aware of a perception that traditionally African American churches have sometimes been labeled as less tolerant than even some mainstream churches. “I certainly think it’s a misconception,” he says. “I think homophobia is in all of society. It’s man ifested differently in different organizations.” What makes the charge so inappropriate, says Prescod, is that “traditionally...African American churches have taken in those who’ve been rejected, persecuted. African American churches have a history of welcoming the stranger and the oppressed.” Prescod does grant that these days he sees “more of an influence of white religious conser vatives” in some African American church communities. “W hen that occurs,” Prescod warns, “it’s really important to look at the history of those...religious conservatives— who’ve histori cally been on the wrong side of civil rights.” ‘ I HAVE PASSION FOR G od ’ he Rev. Berdell Moffett remembers a picnic in Las Vegas in 1983 when she met her partner, the Rev. Casey Chaney. “W hen I met her,” recalls Moffett, “she didn’t have any beliefs.” Chaney agrees. “Berdeli was more spiritual at the time,” she admits. “I was mainly a hostile agnostic. Berdell said, ‘Maybe your God is too small. Maybe you need to look at God in anoth- * »♦ er way. Chaney says she did that, but not till she got to a very low point in her life. “During a painful time, I was sitting alone,” she relates. “I said, ‘OK, God, whoever you are, whatever you are, if Continued on page 2 1