Wednesday, June 12, 2019

"The Homosexual! The Homosexual!"

Me speaking at Long Beach Pride decades ago.
That's straight ally Rev. Peg Beissert in red.

As a child who loved the television series Superman, I was stunned when the actor who played him, George Reeves, committed suicide. Speculation was that he did so because he had been typecast and thus prevented from playing other roles. Though subsequent conjectures have been made suggesting other causes of his death, including murder, the notion has stayed with me as I became typecast as a homosexual candidate for ordination in the Presbyterian Church.

Presbyterians as well as other Christians usually focused on my sexuality, failing to see me as a spiritual person, a minister, even as a Christian. I insisted on talking about spirituality, viewing the failure of the church to welcome lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people as a spiritual rather than sexual problem.

The occasion for writing of this now “in my latter years” is having just watched the 2018 HBO film My Dinner with HervĂ©, about the actor who played the character Tattoo on the TV series Fantasy Island. Earlier he had played a character in a James Bond movie. As a little person or dwarf,* he coped with being seen as a freak by family and society. Of course I identified with him as a gay man. His story of struggle, missteps, and seeking his due is obviously familiar to most older members of the LGBT community.

Toward the end of the film, based on British journalist Sacha Gervasi’s account, a crowd in a hotel lobby recognize him and encourage him to replay his famous Fantasy Island announcement of incoming guests: “The plane! The plane!” By then the pathos of the limiting expectation is clear, and though HervĂ© Villechaize appears to gladly comply, viewers know that he wanted to be known as more than that character.

“My name is Chris and I’m a homosexual,” is a mantra I’ve never said but plays in my mind occasionally, having been expected to play that role for congregations, church bodies, and secular audiences. Watching the film, I recognized the parallel to being expected to repeat, “The plane! The plane!”

After giving Gervasi what Villechaize ominously describes as his “final interview,” Gervasi’s editor tries to force him to cut it down to 500 words with a humorous slant, even after the actor’s suicide. Pathetic. Tragic. Wrong. The film and the book it is based upon is Gervasi’s retort. He also directed the movie.

Rather than have my own life cut down to 500 words in church history, rather than only be credited with my sexuality and the activism it required, throughout my life I have tried to contribute spiritually to the church and the world beyond. Part of my motivation for writing this blog has been to make clear that I have something to give the Christian and broader spiritual community that yes, grows out of my experience as a marginalized gay man, but also reflects my own passion for spirituality, Christian faith, Jesus, God, justice, the church, and the spiritual life.

What I offer here in this blog the Presbyterian and broader church largely tried to ignore all my decades as a non-ordained minister, activist, and writer. I am grateful to Metropolitan Community Churches for ordaining me when I began serving as an interim pastor toward the end of my professional life, years before the PC(USA) changed its polity to permit it. And I am grateful to God and all of you who welcome me to have this voice in our tradition.


*Dwarf, little person, LP, person of short stature, or having dwarfism, are now all considered acceptable terminology by that community according to Little People of America.

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Copyright © 2019 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.

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