Remembrances

REMEMBRANCES OF MY ONGOING WORK FOR LGBTQ RIGHTS

Rev. Kit Ketcham, retired

December, 2019

The first person I ever knew to be homosexual came out to me in 1976.  She had been a close friend in college and I had lost touch with her over the years since my graduation in 1963.  But one day, when my son was 4 and we were living in Denver, I received her letter:  “I don’t know how you’ll feel about this, Kit, but I’m tired of living a lie.  I tried to commit suicide by driving off a bridge in Portland, but EMTs patched me up and I’m recovering.  I am a lesbian, I love women, and I’m sick of pretending.  Can I come visit you when I’m in Denver?”

How could I say no?  Fern had been one of my favorite people in college, funny, artistic, smart.  I wrote back that I would love to see her; we had room for her in our little house and it would be great to show her around.

After the letter went in the mail, I started agonizing.  Was she coming on to me?  It didn’t feel like it but I didn’t know what to think.  I’d never had a gay friend before…except, of course I had!  Not only Fern but very likely high school and college friends, friends who were, like Fern, pretending.

Fern’s short visit a few weeks later was clarifying.  She was the same person I’d known in college with the added characteristic of being more open.  I could ask her questions and be open with her as well, even daring to ask if, well, if---you know---if,

But she knew exactly what I was trying to ask and answered before I found the words: “Kit, I am not coming on to you---I don’t do that to straight friends”.  Ohh…

As a junior high school guidance counselor, I often met with students who were depressed to the point of suicidal ideation, even attempts.  Later I’d find that they had come out of the closet and I felt I had a glimpse of their despair but did not know how to ask that very personal question.

A colleague at my school came out to several of us who knew her well, clarifying her relationship with her “housemate” and eventually the school district quietly made it known that “gay was okay” as long as people were discreet.

A PFLAG presentation to an inservice for counselors opened my eyes to the sheer numbers of gay students in our district and the kind of help they needed from us as their confidants and teachers, and my office door proclaimed “Gay is Okay” here from that day on.

And yes, finally one young woman, athlete, star student, came into my office, shut the door firmly, and said, “I’m a lesbian and I’m not ashamed of that, but I don’t have anyone to talk to about it.  So you’re it.”

The aforementioned colleague had joined a Denver area mixed G/L/B/T chorus and invited us all to hear “Boys and Girls With Stories”, the musical production by David Maddox.

Listening to the stories and songs in this poignant musical drama changed my hesitation about being “out” as an ally, and I began to be very public about my support for the GLBT Community.  I realized that many of my friends and colleagues had same-sex partners, far more than I would ever have guessed.  (My so-called “gaydar” has never been very effective.)

In 1994, working with my minister at the time at Jefferson Unitarian Church in Colorado, the Rev. Robert Latham, we decided to host a small ensemble from the Harmony Chorus, the group that had offered “Boys and Girls”, at a Sunday Service, to bring up the topic of same sex relationships and bring it into the light as an important social issue that we as a congregation needed to address.

I offered a homily entitled “My Friend Fern” and the die was cast.  I was solidly an ally, no longer anxious about whether someone might think I was gay, and making sure to be a safe person to talk with about relationships.

In 1995, I applied to Iliff School of Theology, to answer my call to the ministry, and entered a milieu that was well-populated with students and faculty from a diversity of backgrounds----color, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender transition---all clearly members of the seminary community.

It was here that I realized that, though UUism had formalized its acceptance of GBLT persons and welcomed diverse candidates into ministry, many denominations were still struggling with this dilemma.  Many of my fellow students were gay or trans and they were preparing for ministry in which they might never be ordained, required by church law to take lesser roles in a church community.  

This was a clear dilemma for them and a number of my student colleagues decided not to continue with their studies or to prepare for a less valued role.  Several were still closeted, sometimes even to themselves and were afraid to come out at a UMC seminary.

During my seminary days, two experiences broadened my understandings of the LGBT world:  Clinical Pastoral Education in which I came face to face with patients in a hospital setting where their sexual orientation or gender identity was not respected, and the murder of Matthew Shepherd in the small Wyoming town of Laramie, 150 miles away.

In my first pastorate in Portland OR (Wy’east UUC), 1999, GLBT issues were in the forefront of the first election (2000) when a local homophobe, Lon Mabon, tried to get a referendum passed that would prevent GLBT issues from being discussed in Portland Public Schools.  As a former junior high school counselor, I was strongly opposed to this political stance and strenuously objected and protested publicly with members of the congregation.  This referendum was soundly defeated.

Four years later, I found myself in Seattle, ministering to two Puget Sound island congregations, Vashon Island Unitarian Fellowship and the UU Congregation of Whidbey Island, ferrying back and forth from my home base in Seattle.

Both congregations were engaged in the struggle for equal rights for sexual minorities and I had their backing as I joined the Religious Coalition for Equality, an Marriage Equality coalition based at First Baptist Church in Seattle.  

My colleague the Rev. Jon Luopa of University UU Congregation had invited me to be part of the organizing team and as such I was a member of the RCE board, an interfaith coalition which was active in supporting marriage equality legislation in Washington State.

I moved to Whidbey Island after about three years of being the “ferry godminister” for VIUF and UUCWI, and resigned from VIUF a year later, as my work with UUCWI increased and marriage equality became a major issue in WA politics.

I was a co-founder of the Whidbey Island PFLAG group, hosting meetings in the UUCWI sanctuary, offering free holy union ceremonies in our sanctuary for same-sex couples who wished to sanctify their unions, as the WA legislature debated the Marriage Equality issue.

Our Island County senator, Mary Margaret Haugen, held a town hall meeting on the island during this state-wide debate, and this open event attracted a large crowd from the GLBT community.  I decided at the last minute to speak to Senator Haugen publicly at that forum and am including a link to that two-minute plea for her to be the deciding Yes vote on the legislation coming up in the State Senate later that month. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2pD1W9uVbg

Senator Haugen graciously received my words and the applause of attendees and did demonstrate her moral courage by becoming the 25^th Senator to vote in favor of extending Marriage Equality benefits to all loving couples in Washington State, which was enacted as law later that session.  It survived a referendum vote during the next election and was roundly approved by Washington voters shortly before Marriage Equality was made the law of the land in the United States.

When I retired from UUCWI in June of 2012, I moved to the North Coast of Oregon and while ministering to the Pacific UU Fellowship in Astoria during the next several years, I performed several marriages for same-sex couples, spoke at the first PRIDE festival and, with the Fellowship, participated in PRIDE events and planning each year.  I’ve published an op-ed in the local newspaper describing my journey “From Apathy to Activism”, as I learned more about civil rights for all people

I am now 77 years old and getting a little worn around the edges but am still on my feet and staying strong with resolve for my many former students, friends, parishioners, and the host of new friends I have made over the years because of my activism with GLBT issues.

My personal motto has become “I will do what I can with what I have for as long as I have.”