1
6.2003
ik’ iu u i ; iv j
Great Loan Rates
+ a Donation:
25% of my origination fee
donated to your charity
Cascade AIDS Project
Our House of Portland
Basic Rights Oregon
or any charity o f your choosing
PD X Automotive is a certified
Eco-Logical Business.
(5 0 3 ) 282-3315
503 481-6581
-
a u t o m o t i v e
Machantes WNh A Consdanc*
Mark Humphrey
Home Capital Funding
2915 S.E. Division St.
Portland, OR 97202
Onton cartfWd 0€0 woalr M to
Gerard Lillie *5 9 3 4 N.E Halsey
P O R TLA N D AR EA
H IV S E R V IC E S C O U N C IL
SEEKS N EW M EM BERS!
This volunteer group
identifies HIV care needs,
prioritizes $3.3 million in
federal funding, and
conducts long-range planning.
Multnomah County Chairperson
appoints members; 1/3 must be
persons living with HIV. Please call
for information. Deadline for
applications is Ju n « 11, 2003.
For information and applications,
plaasa visit hivportiand.org or
Portland Arsa H IV Services
Planning Council:
(5 0 3 ) 988-3030, ext. 226
‘IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD’
TRAIN YOUR BRAIN.
CHANGE YOUR LIFE.
7 have to date lost
22 lbs and am off Zoloft.
All thanks to you.
You are a goddess ."
-D on Clarkson. M ayor (M osiar. O R )
and Personal Coach
If you are struggling with
depression, anxiety, panic
attacks, attention issues,
stress, sleep problems, mental
clarity, or are seeking a peak
performance edge contact.
Nora Qedgaudas
Neurotherapist
Nutritional Specialist
s i n i t t i -------- * M
.i i . „ i a i ■ i i,
rvonnwesi weuroreeaDaCK
Johnson Street Proteesionel Building
1020 N W Johnson Street.. Suite 100
Portland, O R 97200
Office: 503-274-7733
Fax: 503-274-7770
cal lor a tiaa conauSatton
hflp^lani.noi1lwaa*najnlatdback.coin
“Darling, you would
look marvelous
in a new car!”
NEW • USED • LEASE
Glximorux
503 807-6455
-
for a fabulous deal!
Be Safe
Drive Safe
L ike F ather , L ike S on
Journey toward personal acceptance helps gay pastor and his family
by Ja c k T u rteltau b
erby Lauderdale, a man of many
accomplishments and the pastor of
Peace Church of the Brethren, is
grateful for the life he has lived. As
Portland Pride always coincides
with Fathers Day, he reflects on raising four
adult children, one of them also gay, and going
on his first date with his partner during the fes
tival 21 years ago.
For Lauderdale, it wasn’t easy being gay even
though he knew early on (“at age 11 or 12” )
that he was attracted to men. He admits he was
terrified about his own feelings. It was never
easy growing up gay in the ’40s and ’50s, even
in the movie capital of Los Angeles. There were
no gay role models and no gay bars in those
days, and the word “gay” meant something
entirely different.
“It paralyzed my life— to he so drawn to
males and yet so unable to do anyth,ng about it
in the way of fulfillment," he recalls. Raised hy
his father and stepmother (his mother died 10
days after he was bom) in a fairly tolerant
home environment and in a tolerant Baptist
church, he successfully repressed his feelings
until college.
When Lauderdale finally fell in love and
had an affair with a male roommate at Univer
sity of California at Berkeley in the early ’60s,
it was before the free speech movement, the
Summer of Love was years away, and the
Stonewall riots that would bring gays out of the
closet in the United States was at the other
end of the decade.
It was not surprising, then, that the academ
ically gifted Lauderdale found he could not
Kerby Lauderdale (right, with grandson
maintain his gay relationship when his studies
Damian)
is the first openly gay man
took him to Purdue University in Indiana to
to
serve
as
pastor of a Church of the
study forest economics. He remembers that he
and his lover “didn’t see a way toward a rela Brethren congregation
tionship. We had no images in the community.
Any conversation about it with a counselor was “felt drawn to his wife in a platonic, sisterly way.
My real longing was forbidden."
met with a disease diagnosis that confirmed our
Before proposing marriage, Lauderdale made
own self-doubt."
a point of telling her about his previous feelings
For Lauderdale, the alternatives to marriage
for men, but he also told her— and, at the time,
were bleak: The prospect of almost complete
believed— he could change through his mar
isolation and stigmatization as sick and immoral
riage, and he dedicated himself to making a
held little attraction. “Soon after I returned
(from California], I felt my only possibility for future with her.
avoiding pain and loneliness was heterosexual
^ T ogether the couple began building a life.
marriage."
Now, looking back 40 years, Lauderdale has
X Their next stop was Salt Lake City, where
Kerby entered a doctoral program in economics
a perspective that maturity and societal change
have created. “All these years...I’ve pondered
at University of Utah.
something you feel so intensely, that is so com
In his spare time, Lauderdale earned money
pelling— how could you conceive of that as
by working in a nursery. It didn’t take him long
changeable?"
to realize he didn’t want to be an economist, and
Lauderdale says that when he developed sex in the meantime his focus had gradually shifted
to divinity school, in keeping with a distinct
ual feelings as a teen-ager, it was “a whiplash
spiritual bent.
change in your life. For me, the frightening
part— it was in such opposition to social norms.
Lauderdale was interested in the Church of
For the other hoys, it was all playful. For me, it
the Brethren, an Anabaptist sect that stresses
was horrifying."
the importance of personal conscience and that
is explicitly pacifist. Having served in the Utah
Lauderdale attributes some of his reluctance
to accept his gay feelings to his personality.
National Guard to avoid a tour of duty because
he did not support the Vietnam War, he was
"Pleasing people and being accepted were a
pleased to receive an honorable discharge upon
strong fix us,” he notes. “Even in high school
and junior high, I worked very hard to date girls
his admission to Bethany Theological Seminary
in Chicago.
and I had no trouble ‘passing.’ ’’
After graduation Lauderdale accepted a pas-
At Purdue, Lauderdale met his future wife,
torite in North Manchester, Ind., and the cou
Linda. He says he met the woman who would
ple
began to build a family through adoption.
become so central in his life on a double date;
First came Thomas in 1970, followed hy two
she was dating the other guy.
other hoys and a daughter.
“Linda and 1 hit it off in terms of values,
In 1976 Lauderdale stepped down from
style, interests and background,” Lauderdale
the pastorite to work full time on a nursery
recalls. “We became good friends.” He says he
K
PHOTO BY
Mechanics
■ that fixll
everything^
llwclMdlnal
I yours
consM
Benefit
the Community
with
your Mortgage
m ew s