The Gay Cloth
Pat Bumgardner |
Lesbian Priest Seeks Greater Inclusion
By Lee Landor
How’s this for traditional: an Indiana farm girl from a close knit Roman Catholic family grows up to become a lesbian minister in New York.
That’s Pat Bumgardner’s story.
Today, Bumgardner is the pastor at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Community Church, which welcomes members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. It is a multi-cultural community of faith where people from various religious backgrounds can come to find support and continue to practice their beliefs.
“Like Jesus, we welcome everyone into the fellowship,” Bumgardner said.
The church was formed in California in 1968 by the Rev. Troy Perry, an excommunicated Pentecostal reverend who was stripped of his priesthood because of his homosexuality.
The first worship service in the LA suburb was a gathering of 12 people in Perry’s living room. It has since grown into a movement of Metropolitan Community Churches across the world, with 300 congregations in 22 countries and more than 43,000 members. The New York City MCC alone has a congregation of 450 people, many of whom are from Queens and the metropolitan area.
The church has “laid the foundation for open and affirming congregations,” Bumgardner said. “We have forever changed the landscape of the discussion in the religious context.”
They have also created a safe haven for LGBT persons who feel lost or as though they can no longer be part of their religious communities – an experience Bumgardner knows well.
After studying at the Catholic Theological Union in the master of divinity program, Bumgardner came to New York City, came out as a lesbian and attempted to find a Catholic community of which she could be part.
Her search was fruitless, but it led her to a better place: MCC, where she was ordained 21 years ago.
Finding MCC was confirmation to Bumgardner that she chose the right path for her life, she said. Now she preaches to a large congregation and helps others find their spiritual paths; she and the church act as companions to those who’ve been rejected, much as Bumgardner herself was by her parents.
She and her brother, who came out two years before she did, have minimal contact with their parents, who view homosexuality as immoral and who believe that their children have done something wrong.
“We are who we are by the grace and design of God,” Bumgardner said. “That’s not a choice.”
Those who choose to reject this are “rejecting the presence of God in me and closing themselves off to the incarnational experience and the call of the gospel: to love as Jesus loved,” Bumgardner added.
According to her, God loves all people and there is nothing specific in the bible that condemns homosexuality: it’s all interpretation. Some people have twisted the text and “use the bible to justify their own beliefs, as opposed to searching the text to find what’s really there.”
But this is human nature, the Rev. said.
“The way people define themselves is narrow and not inclusive,” she said. And it is for this reason that prejudice against gay people is still tolerated. The discussion that is currently taking place throughout the country about equality for LGBT persons is just a diversion tactic, according to Bumgardner, who said she believes the bigger issues, such as genocide in Darfur, are being ignored.
This nature of discussion itself is testament to that concept, according to Bumgardner.
“It’s more like ultimatums and reactions,” she said. “It’s a fight, it’s an argument, it’s a battle. It’s not a discussion.”
When all come to the table as equals, open and ready to listen, a real discussion can begin.
To reach MCC, call (212) 629-7440, visit 446 West 36th Street, New York, NY or check out mccny.org.
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