CLGS Responds

Reasons for Pride: Reflections on the 35th Anniversary of Stonewall

by the Rev'd Jay Emerson Johnson, Ph.D.
Programming and Development Director, CLGS

June 2004

In the religious tradition of my childhood, I grew up learning the virtues of humility and the dangers of pride. "Pride goes before destruction," the Book of Proverbs reminds us, which certainly makes pride a good candidate for inclusion among the seven deadly sins.

Taking such religious instruction to heart infused my coming out as a gay man with some mixed emotions. Participating in my first "gay pride parade" many years ago in Chicago was both exhilarating and a bit troubling. It was one thing to achieve a healthy sense of self-acceptance as a gay person and quite another to embrace it with pride. Shame was clearly bad, but could pride be in any way good?

In my experience, LGBT people confront this quandary about pride in a number of different ways, some of which tap into lingering bits of internalized homophobia. Our society is inundated with messages of shame—shame about supposedly imperfect or undesirable bodies, shame about sex and sexuality, shame about being different. It takes a great deal of energy and courage not to internalize those shameful messages and to live our lives with dignity. Unfortunately, for many LGBT people this struggle extends only to the hope for tolerance, as if the best we can say to the forces of exclusion is that we're really not as bad as you might think. Yet there is more, much more to say than that as LGBT people.

Thirty-five years ago something remarkable happened in a rather unremarkable place. Back then, civil unions, let alone marriage, were an impossible and unheard of dream for same-sex couples. Back then, the American Psychiatric Association still considered homosexuality a mental disorder and religious institutions routinely condemned homosexual persons as sinners. Back then, and across this country, law enforcement personnel routinely raided gay bars and arrested cross-dressers, gender transgressors and sexual "outlaws."

Then, on June 27, 1969, something happened in a place called the Stonewall Inn, a tiny gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village. As the police moved in for what they no doubt assumed would be another night of routine arrests, some drag queens and stone dykes fought back—with a vengeance. We now refer to that moment as the "Stonewall Riots" and many consider that action as the birth of the modern gay and lesbian liberation movement. For me, learning about that night changed my mind about pride.

I imagine most people are quite familiar with one standard definition of pride, which we tend to equate with an over-inflated ego. What we really mean in such cases is arrogance, which is what the author of Proverbs had in mind. Yes, arrogance and "a haughty spirit" do go before destruction (Proverbs 16:18), but that is not the meaning of the pride that was on display in the "Stonewall Riots." The Merriam-Webster dictionary offers a more helpful definition of pride for us to consider today: "a reasonable and justifiable self-respect." And that's exactly what those Stonewall rebels put into action thirty-five years ago.

As both a gay man and a Christian theologian, Stonewall reminds me of the ways both culture and religion have distorted our sense of pride, our "reasonable and justifiable" self-respect as LGBT people. Coming out as different in a hostile society, either sexually or with reference to gender, is not only an act of courage; it is also a powerful religious affirmation of the creation's fundamental goodness. As part of that creation, Christian traditions insist that each of us is created in the image of God, in all our wonderful and staggering diversity. In this sense, and for communities of faith, the LGBT liberation movement involves much more than the struggle for "tolerance." The Stonewall Riots represent in microcosm a much larger struggle to see and actively affirm the inherent dignity and worth of every human being. And I am, in the best sense of the word, religiously and theologically proud to participate in that larger movement those riots set in motion.

As an Episcopal priest, I am of course immensely proud of Gene Robinson, the first openly gay and partnered bishop of a diocese in the Episcopal Church. I'm proud of how he handled himself with so much grace last summer, under the hot glare of the media spotlight, and I'm proud of how our General Convention coped with such a potentially explosive issue.

As a person of religious faith, I'm proud of how many clergy and religious leaders—both gay and straight—have stood up for marriage equality in this country and elsewhere. I'm proud of religious communities that are not afraid to work for civil rights because their faith compels them to, even over deeply controversial issues.

As an American, I am actually quite proud of our system of government and its founding documents. Even if it takes much longer than most of us would prefer, our nation eventually lives up to its promise of equal protection under the law.

I am also proud to be working for the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry and to be working with the remarkable people I encounter because of the Center's mission. And I am proud of Pacific School of Religion for the courage and commitment it has shown in supporting the Center's work. CLGS is the only center of its kind in the world located at a school of theology or seminary and it has not been without risk for PSR to embrace the Center's vision.

Each of these instances of pride derives from a profound and justifiable sense of self-respect, which I cannot generate or sustain entirely on my own. Indeed, I rely on countless others for reminders of that God-given dignity and pride—my colleagues here at the Center and at PSR, members of the Episcopal congregation to which I belong in Berkeley, the many pioneers in LGBT religious scholarship and ministry, both living and now dead, who blazed trails and opened doors.

All of this comes to mind quite particularly every June—"pride month"—when I remember what happened in a New York City bar thirty-five years ago. As I reflect on that June night and on the kind of religious and political rhetoric currently swirling around in our society today, I am not at all ashamed to turn these reflections into an appeal for money.

I started working at CLGS one year ago this month, not because I needed a job (I wasn't actually looking for one) but because I am committed to the unique and essential projects the Center undertakes. These projects seem even more critical given how many powerful and extraordinarily well-funded religious organizations are trying to convince us we ought to be ashamed of ourselves and of our work. Together, we know better. For that reason, I not only work here, but I am also a contributor to the CLGS Annual Fund. If you're not already, I hope you will be too.

As we take time in this pride month to celebrate and renew our God-given self-respect, I invite you to join me in making a financial contribution to CLGS. No gift is too small—the number of contributors is just as important as the amount of money contributed—and every gift will be well spent. It's my job to make sure of it.

I can well imagine the shock and delight those 1969 Stonewall rioters would experience in witnessing CLGS in action. By making a contribution to the Center you are helping to continue and expand the legacy of Stonewall with work of which you can be rightly, justifiably, and theologically proud.

You can donate online here on this site, or feel free to contact us via mail, phone, or email.

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