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Changing

Religious Attitudes

Toward Homosexuality

REVEREND ROBERT W. WOOD

Delivered via tape at 9th Annual Conference of the Mattachine Society, August 25, 1962 luncheon, Jack Tar Hotel, San Francisco, California.

It is with extreme regret that I am unable to be present with you in in person on this occasion. I had been looking forward to meeting so many of you whom I know only by correspondence and for the opportunity to become acquainted with the city of San Francisco. Your leaders know why it was necessary for me to alter my plans at this late date. I shall miss the opportunity of informal discussion which is so importtant a part of a meeting like this. May I take this opportunity to thank Mattachine for the Award of Merit it voted me in 1960 upon the publication of my book Christ and the Homosexual. Your Award came as a ray of encouragement amidst some dark reactions to the book.

For this Ninth Annual Conference I have been asked to speak on "Changing Religious Attitudes Toward Homosexuality." The casual observer might conclude that there has been no progress in the past ten years between organized religion, which I shall call the Church, and homosexuality. But a second look will reveal some positive dialogue resulting in mutual benefit. Let it be understood that I make my observations and conclusions as one Protestant clergyman and that I am not in a position to know all that has occurred in the past decade in the two areas under study. If I fail to mention some positive accomplishments of which you are aware I hope you will call them to my attention. In my listing of positive changes in religious attitudes toward homosexuality in the past ten years I have placed them in order of over-all importance. In 1955 the late Rev. Dr. David E. Roberts, Professor of the Philosophy of Religion in Union Theological Seminary, New York City, wrote in his Foreword to Dr. George W. Henry's All the Sexes: "Suffice it to say in a sentence, that there are ample reasons in the Jewish-Christian tradition for developing a more effective understand-

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ing of the role of sexuality in human misery and beatitude, and for developing more humane, life-saving, soul-saving attitudes on a firm religious footing." This was one of the first widely publicized statements by a respected churchman which was related directly to a ministry to the homosexually afflicted individual.

The comments by Rabbi Alvin Fine and Bishop James Pike on the now famous television program "The Rejected" were not very momentous in themselves. But the fact that two such spokesmen from the area of organized religion were willing to do this much causes me to list this one little event on the positive side. One hopes it will be repeated by other educational TV channels. I wonder if the Roman Catholic Church does not now regret that it failed to provide a spokesman for this program. Beyond the value of the comments by these two I see a greater value in the encouragement their actions will have for other clergy who may in the future have an opportunity to make a positive contribution. Each year the six Presidents of the World Council of Churches issue a statement to be read in all their member churches on Pentecost. The one for Pentecost 1962, contained this significant sentence: "The Holy Spirit can never preside over a closed society for self-congratulation, but only over an outgoing society of forgiveness and service." More Church thinking expanded along this line will result in further positive changes in the dialogue between religion and homosexuality.

In 1955 the Anglican Church issued the pamphlet "Letter to a Homosexual." While it stops too abruptly in its solution it does show that one segment of Christendom is aware of the problem and is at least offering something in the way of understanding and direction. The Roman Catholic book, Morality and the Homosexual, ends at the same point; but again, it is a positive effort to bring religion and homosexuality in contact with each other. The Missouri Lutherans in "Sex and the Church" also attempt to confront the two areas constructively but failed to get as far as the Anglicans or Romans. But at least they tried. To my knowledge no other segment of the Church has published on either side of this dialogue. What these three have done is quite limited but is at least a step in the right direction.

Itis gratifying to know that the national YMCA has at long last begun to concern itself in a redemptive way with the matter of homosexuality among its members and guests. Only a few years ago Sloane House in New York City was using paid informers and dividers in the shower stalls as its response to the presence of homosexuals in its rooms. Now it has begun seriously to examine the Christian approach to the entire

matter.

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