Justice and Love for Cincinnati:
A Sermon Preached in Honor of Rainbow Sunday

Mapplethorpe and Issue 3 came to a head in Cincinnati because here both liberal and conservative ideologies exist side by side. In a more conservative city Mapplethorpe would never have been an issue because no one would have considered showing it in the first place. Dennis Barrie, the then director of the Contemporary Arts Center that brought Mapplethorpe to Cincinnati, reminisces:

It is true that in Boston my friends know Cincinnati as the city that indicted Mapplethorpe. But before we descend into complete shame it's important to remember that the Corcoran Gallery in Washington D. C., our nation's capital, closed the exhibit before it even opened. At least the Contemporary Arts Center and Dennis Barrie had the courage to open the show. And at least six months later a local jury had the courage to acquit the Center and its director.

This may not seem like much, but there is great division in America about everything related to the GLBT movement. I have to admit that sometimes I don't understand why. Human beings have a continuum of sexual behavior. I can't understand why any human being should have less rights, respect, safety, and opportunity for joy and fulfillment because of sexual orientation. I think of Erin's words "We are the same in theory, in blood, in tears, and death." I can't understand, and then I remember that it is not only about logic. This is about emotions and feelings, and they can be very strong.

Some of us gathered here today are uncomfortable thinking about sexuality. If you are one of these people, I want to thank you for coming. It is a tribute to you that you can go beyond your discomfort to show respect for another human being.

Sexuality is a difficult topic for some of us, but there are other issues out there, like justice and love. Listen to these words

These words are from Barry Goldwater. Yes, that Barry Goldwater, the Barry Goldwater who as a United States Senator, participated in the fight against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the early 1990's, Goldwater came out as an ardent supporter of the GLBT movement. When asked if he would fly with someone who was gay, Goldwater, a retired Air Force major general and WW II veteran replied "Hell yes, as long as [he] could fly."

In Goldwater we have a blunt, articulate spokesman who challenges our ideas about ideology and acceptance. We also have a spokesperson who makes us think. Goldwater has sound logic behind his support. That point there about the Constitution. I think he is on to something. Then there is the part about the Republican party. Why would the party who wants to limit big government, want to increase big government in our private lives?

Goldwater also has feeling. He freely explains that his grandson and another family relative are gay. Many of us here have family or friends who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. Once we know and love someone, it is much harder to hate or discriminate against them for their sexual orientation. Our love calls us to be loving and better people.

And so does Unitarian Universalism. Our Universalist forbearers believed God was too good to send anyone to hell. Their God was a God of love. Because of this, our Universalist forbearers were the first denomination in America to ordain a woman, and one of the first to ordain a black man. Although more theologically conservative than the Unitarians, they were able to make decisions with bold theological and cultural consequences not because they were liberal, but because they believed in love and this led them to justice.

Imagine their audacity in ordaining a woman. Her name was Olympia Brown, and in 1863 she became the only woman in the United States of America officially ordained and recognized as a minister. You better believe this was controversial, and difficult.

When Olympia Brown applied to theological school she was denied by all but one, a Universalist school in upstate New York. The dean accepted her because he couldn't think of a good reason to deny her. I believe his faith called him to be a better, more loving person than he knew how to be. Even more importantly, he accepted her because he never thought she would come.

But she did, and a few short years later their ordaining body was given the challenge of deciding whether or not to ordain her. Of course the majority didn't want to ordain her. They had never done such a thing. No one had. It was impolite, immoral, a perversion of God's law. And beside, it would be absolute revolution against accepted social order. Is this sounding familiar? The committee struggled. They argued, just like we do today over GLBT issues today.

Finally, the committee was swayed because one of their members attended a church where Olympia Brown preached. As far as he could see, she was just as good as any man. So love and justice won the day.

The struggle for acceptance, protection, and equality is no different for the GLBT movement today. The stories are a little bit different, the circumstances vary, but there is little difference between the movements for Civil Rights, women's rights, human rights, and GLBT rights. There is no difference between the lynching of African Americans, and the murder of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man, beaten, and tied to a fence in Wyoming in 1998. Where is the difference? And if you tell me it's in the Bible, I'm going to tell you that the Bible also says it is acceptable to keep slaves. This is the same, old story. Not enough justice and love for anyone different from the majority in power.

The pink triangle is the symbol that many of us associate with the GLBT movement. What many of us don't know is that this was the symbol given to gays and lesbians who were sent to concentration camps in Nazi Germany. They were in the camps with the Jews, the Gypsies, and the mentally ill. We don't tolerate the idea of anti-Semitism. Why would we tolerate it for gays and lesbians? When we make an exception of someone's civil rights, we run the risk of affirming evils that in the past, we have found intolerable.

In one of his speeches the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King said, "The arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice." And it is bending. Erin speaks of a future just beginning to take shape

Two years ago the city of Cincinnati suffered a final defeat on this round, when the Supreme Court refused to hear arguments on Issue 3. Our own friend and member, Al Gerhardstein, fought with great justice and love, as the lawyer representing opponents to the amendment. He responded with these words to the high court's decision "The Supreme Court has given up. That's horrible." Cincinnati "remain[s] as the only community in America where discrimination against gay people is institutionalized in the city charter."

This defeat can only be described as demoralizing, and for some of those who have devoted their lives to justice and love, devastating. Since that ruling a pall has hung over this city, and a sense of shame. My friends in Boston also know about Issue 3. I don't believe that Issue 3 will come off the books any time soon. My guess is a decade, maybe two.

I want to go back to Erin for some encouragement. She writes

This is a daily, sometimes hourly and minute by minute, struggle for those who are gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, or transgender - to not be defined and torn down by the forces of hate. Let us resist the temptation of falling victim to Issue 3 and the people who will never support or understand. Instead, let us change. Let us be pro-active. Let us be creative so the revolution can begin.

I asked Linnea for her thoughts on the future of Issue 3 and she told me that now is the time to build new coalitions with new partners. May I suggest, that in traditional Cincinnati, a new, and maybe unwilling corporate citizen has just entered the fray on the side of love and justice, Proctor & Gamble.

In recent weeks Proctor & Gamble pulled their advertisements from Dr. Laura Schlesinger's fall talk show. I don't really know how to describe Dr. Laura, other than to say that she makes Rush Limbaugh look cuddly and liberal. Dr. Laura, who is Jewish, operates like a fundamentalist conservative on speed. She also has the ear of the American public. Last year one of my local colleagues spoke to a newspaper report about his support for abortion rights. Dr. Laura repeated his name on her show and he received eleven letters of rage and disgust at church, in addition to telephone calls to his house.

P & G chose to withdraw their advertisements from Dr. Laura's program. I am certain they have received thousands of letters in protest. At least one group will be picketing them at the P & G plaza in June.

Well hurray for Proctor & Gamble for exposing Dr. Laura's unacceptable family values. I am proud that they make soap in my city (at least plan to make it here) and that they know how to be corporate citizens. Do you think it would have been easier for them to do nothing, to keep their ads on the show? Absolutely! No one wants to receive hateful, nasty letters and worry about safety and security concerns. I guarantee you that they have had to increase their security since they made their decision, particularly for their CEO, Durk Jager, who is bearing the brunt of this hatred and scorn.

On Monday morning I am sitting down to write Proctor & Gamble, and their CEO Durk Jager, a thank-you. Ed Rider, if you are here today, I will be calling you for his office address. This was a pro-active move that took courage, love and a sense of justice. I encourage everyone here who agrees with me to sit down and write your own thank-you. P & G, its CEO and employees, deserve our support. And they need our thanks.

Someone once told me that Cincinnati is a polite city and people here fear saying what is right and courageous for fear of offending someone and drawing attention to themselves. I believe this is true. I also know that 80,000 people came to the Mapplethorpe exhibit, still a museum record. Maybe they came out of prurient interest, but I think many came to stretch their edges; to consider difference, First Amendment rights, and justice.

Erin says, "I am not a stereotype, I am not someone to be pushed off the face of the earth for who I choose to love." And she isn't. How could any of us here wish her less than a life of equality, justice, and love? I wish her all that and so much more.

This past winter I officiated at a service of union between two men. The sanction I have from the UUA and this congregation to perform same sex services of union, is one of my greatest sources of pride and gratitude. I had been waiting for years for someone to ask me to do a service of union. This couple never thought they would find a minister who would marry them. I want to close with some words I wrote for their service