The Washington Area Council on Religion & the Homosexual

 
In the mid-60s, contemporaneous with the work of San Francisco's Council on Religion and the Homosexual, the Mattachine Society of Washington (MSW) organized a series of meetings with local clergy, held at American University, which led to creation of the Washington Area Council on Religion and the Homosexual.  A key participant was Dr. Leroy S. Graham, Methodist Chaplain of American University.  Leading the organization from MSW's side was Jack Nichols.  Dr. Graham and Nichols were to continue their partnership in this dialogue for several years, appearing together on local television to refute charges that homosexuality was a malfunction or illness.

Nichols, who had long been interested in and challenging of organized religions, chaired MSW's Committee on Religious Concerns.  According to Nichols, the committee set the groundwork between 1963 and 1965 for the groundbreaking meetings at American University in 1965.  Nichols also credits a series of speeches given in 1964 by local Unitarian-Universalist clergy.  During 1964, Nichols' meetings with local clergy prepared the way for the first formal meeting on March 22, 1965 at American University.

Methodist clergy were prominently involved on the East Coast as they were on the West Coast. The support of local Methodists followed on the 1964 support of the national leadership of the United Methodist Church San Francisco's Ted McIlvenna and the Glide Urban Center's outreach to local homosexual leaders.  American University, a Methodist-associated institution, hosted the Washington group's meetings.  During the same period, the United Methodist Church's youth magazine motive became increasingly supportive of feminist, counter-culture, civil rights, and antiwar causes, culminating in the final gay liberation and lesbian/feminist issues of 1972.

At the initial meeting at American University, eleven clergymen met with five members of the Mattachine Society of Washington.  For the Methodists, Dr. Graham was joined by three other Methodist leaders.  Three Catholic priests attended.  Also attending were representatives of the Lutherans, Presbyterians, Swedenborgians, and a local rabbi.  Dr. Franklin E Kameny of MSW set two goals for the meeting:

to remedy the alienation and estrangement existing between the homosexual and the religious community and
to enlist clergymen's support for homosexual civil liberties and human rights.

The clergymen participated expressed support for homosexual's civil liberties and equal employment opportunities.  The Catholic representatives insisted that homosexual acts were not condoned, however none of the clergy attending thought that homosexuals should be excluded from their congregations.

The first meeting led to a second meeting on May 24, 1965, which established the Council as a continuing series of meetings grappling with religious institutions' relationship to homosexuals and to the oppression of homosexuals.

Both Dr. Kameny and Nichols were delegates to the 1966 meeting in New York City of homosexual leaders and representatives of the National Council of Churches.
 
 
 

Reports of the founding of the Washington Area Council on Religion and the Homosexual: (You will need Adobe Reader to access these.)
 

Eastern Mattachine Magazine, Volume 10, No. 5, June 1965

Eastern Mattachine Magazine, Volume 10, No. 6, July 1965

The Homosexual Citizen, May 1967