Standing on the Side of Love/
An Intergenerational Service for Pride Sunday
El estar parado en el lado del amor/
Servicio para todas las edades para el domingo de Orgullo
Sunday, June 10, 2007, 9:30 a.m. / Domingo, 10 de Junio 2007, 9:30 a.m.
First Unitarian Church of San José
Worship Leaders: Rev. Nancy Palmer Jones and Rev. Geoff Rimositis
Worship Associates: Carol Stephenson, Roberto Padilla

*Learning/Aprendando           # 1030 Siyahamba                       led by Claire Wagner
                                         (We Are Marching/Caminando, sung in Zulu)

*Song of Welcome/Canto de bienvenida    Come, Come, Whoever You Are
Come, come, whoever you are, wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving.
Ours is no caravan of despair! Come, yet again come.
Ven, ven, cual eres ven, nómada en búsqueda si amas la vida.
La nuestra es la caravana de amor. Ven, otra vez ven.

Call to Worship/Llamado a la Devoción                                 Rev. Nancy Palmer Jones
At the end of every worship service, we stand and hold hands for the Benediction; it’s like we are creating one spiraling circle, one breathing body, one community of love, compassion, forgiveness, and hope. And isn’t this, at least partly, why we’re here? The theme of this year’s San José Pride says it all: we are “Stronger Together.”
Well, I believe we need a similar practice to help us ease our way into worship, to begin to form that circle and feel that connection. So I invite us to use this “call to worship” to bring ourselves fully here. Today let’s try this: please place a hand on the arm or the shoulder of someone near you—or, if you like, take the hand of the neighbor on either side of you—and let us spend a moment in centering meditation. We’ll begin with words and then move into silence. Please join me now in the spirit of meditation:

Here we are again. Still sleepy … or jangling a little from the rush to get up and get ready and arrive. We come in carrying everything that happened to us and everything that happened around us—this morning, yesterday, all week long. It’s a lot to carry.
But here we are: we made it. We are alive, and we are here—and that is enough to celebrate. Now we can lay those burdens down. Now we don’t have to do anything but listen and receive, open our hearts, open our minds, listen, sing—and breathe. And so may we enjoy this silence.

[at least a minute of silence]

Que así sea. May all this be so.

Story for All Ages/Historia para todas las edades                       Rev. Geoff Rimositis
WWUUD?  (What Would A Unitarian Universalist Do?) by Rev. Geoff

Betty was having a great old time at the park.  First she swung on the swings.  Higher and higher she went until she didn’t know where the sky ended and the earth began.  1-2-3.  On the upward swing she went out as far as she could and then Betty let go of the swing and yelled out:  “Cowabunga!”  She moved her arms and legs in mid air as she went thump on the ground.  She teetered, stumbled, hopped and skipped. But she didn’t fall.  She raised her arms up in the air and said,  “Yeah. mission accomplished.  Ranger Betty here to save the day.”

Unfortuantely, there was a boy who didn’t share her enthusiasm.  And to tell you the truth he was a little bit jealous of Betty because he was afraid to jump off the swing like Betty.  Betty walked by Pete with a big ear-to-ear grin and I’m happy to be alive walk in her step.  And just as Betty past Pete, Pete called out,  “You’re so gay!”

Betty wasn’t sure what that meant.  But by the tone of Pete’s voice she knew it wasn’t good.  It was as if Pete had taken a pin and popped Betty’s balloon.  Betty’s good mood became sour.  Her smile became a frown.  What was up was now down.  Betty decided she was going to stay away from Pete.  He was a rotten apple.  A fly on the butter.  A pebble in your shoe.  

Betty ran over to the jungle gym.  She’d get away from Pete and climb to the top.  She put one foot on the bar and a hand on another, and then another foot on the next bar and the next and the next until she was sitting at the very top.  Betty imagined she was a great explorer who had just climbed the tallest mountain in the world.  She sang to herself: 

“`I`M SITTING ON TOP OF THE WORLD,
JUST ROLLING ALONG,
JUST ROLLING ALONG.
I`M QUITTING THE BLUES OF THE WORLD,
JUST SINGING A SONG,
JUST SINGING A SONG.

Betty’s father loved old songs.  Al Jolson sang about a sweet little honey that made him feel gay.  Was I Pete’s honey?  Is that why he called me gay? No!  He didn’t use a honey voice.  His gay was not sweet.  It was sour!  Betty decided that all this nasty stuff left a horrible taste in her mouth. She needed a drink of water.  So she climbed down from the jungle gym and headed over to the water fountain.  And wouldn’t you know it. She walked right past Pete again who was watching her on the jungle gym.  Pete was afraid to climb as high as Betty did on the jungle gym.  And just when Betty walked past Pete, he again in his most nasty, mean and horrible voice barked out:  “You’re so gay!”

Betty was getting angry now and wanted to turn to Pete and tell him to shove it!  Shove it back to Baltimore and don’t come up for air, you dirty little weasel!  But she controlled herself and got a drink of water.

It finally dawned on her where she heard the word gay—at church!  At church there are men who love men and women who love women and some people call them gay.  But not in a mean way but in a happy way.  In fact the church is so happy to have gay people it flies a rainbow flag outside on the front steps to let everybody know that gay people are welcome here.  And the church says that every person is special and should be treated with kindness. In fact it is their first principle.  It believes in the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

Betty stood there and looked down at the bracelet that was around her wrist. It had been give to her by one of her teachers on Sunday morning.  On the bracelet where the letters WWUUD?  It stood for “What Would A Unitarian Universalist Do?   It was supposed to help Betty remember to do the right thing when she found herself in an unpleasant situation like she was now experiencing with Pete.  What would a Unitarian Universalist do? thought Betty to herself.   Well, our church teaches us that if we see something wrong we shouldn’t turn the other way but speak out and use our words.  And that is what Betty decided she would do.  Betty marched right over to Pete, looked him straight in the eye and in a strong and clear voice said:  “Some of my best friends are gay.  But you say it with a mean and nasty voice and I don’t like it.  So stop it.  It is disrespectful.”

Pete stood there in shock.  He knew that it wasn’t right what he said.  He felt guilty and ashamed.  He couldn’t look Betty in the eye but he did manage to say:  “Okay. I won’t say it again.”

We can all follow Betty’s example when we see someone who is saying or doing something wrong.  We will not stand by.  We will use our words.  Because that is what a Unitarian Universalist would do.

Reflection/Reflexión         Roberto Padilla, Spanish-Speaking Ministries Coordinator
                              [Please see below for English translation.]
Hola, buenos días.

Muchos de ustedes me conocen desde hace algún tiempo y algunos de ustedes también saben que yo en México estudie medicina y trabaje como médico por muchos años.

Mi vida fluía como la de cualquier profesionista en cualquier país del mundo, con los contratiempos normales de todos los días, sin embargo cuando exprese abiertamente que era homosexual, creyendo que los que me rodeaban podrían entenderlo, me encontré de la noche a la mañana sin empleo.

La decisión de mi ex jefe de separarme de mi trabajo fue porque el creyó que yo era un peligro para los pacientes que acudían a mi diariamente. En ese momento no importo que tan preparado yo estuviera en medicina, ni cuanto hubiera hecho por la institución en donde trabajaba, lo más importante era cortar de raíz con un potencial peligro.
 
Ahora estoy viviendo aquí en los Estados Unidos y mis libros de medicina están cerrados, acumulando el polvo del miedo hacia algo que no se ha logrado entender aun como normal.

Yo he estado viviendo en San José desde 1998 y antes de ser el coordinador de los ministerios en español, empecé a trabajar como mesero en un restaurante local, a unas cuantos cuadras de aquí. Pero la historia no ha cambiado mucho, ya que mis actuales compañeros de trabajo, también son homofóbicos, tanto los latinos como los americanos, por lo cual, como en otras ocasiones lo he expresado, yo sigo viviendo dos vidas al mismo tiempo, una aquí en la Primera Iglesia Unitaria de San José, donde soy aceptado como yo soy, por lo que valgo como persona, y otra allá afuera, donde me convierto en un hombre “heterosexual común y corriente”.

Por supuesto, ya estoy super entrenado en entrar y salir del closet sin ninguna dificultad, cuando la ocasión lo amerita, pero no dejo de preguntarme ¿porque no puedo ser gay aquí y allá afuera, sin tener que esconder parte de mi forma de ser?

Un día, a un amigo alguien le pregunto que ¿qué se sentía ser homosexual? y el contestó, ¿qué, yo voy por la vida preguntándoles a ustedes que  se siente ser heterosexual?

Espero que algún día haya el respeto por las personas sin importar su condición social, económica, cultural, su color de piel, su religión o su preferencia sexual.

Reflection                                Roberto Padilla, Spanish-Speaking Ministries Coordinator

Good morning.

Many of you have known me for quite some time, and some of you also know that I studied medicine in Mexico and I worked as a medical doctor for many years.

My life went by like that of any professional in any country in the world, with the normal challenges of every day. But when I came out as a gay man, thinking that those who surrounded me were going to be able to understand it, I suddenly found myself without a job. My boss decided to fire me because he thought that I was a threat to the patients I used to see every day. In that moment, it did not matter that I was very well prepared in medicine, nor did it matter what I had done for the institution in which I had been working for over a decade. For him, the most important thing was to cut the threat from the root.

Now, I am living here in the United States, and my medicine books are closed, accumulating the dust of fear toward something that has not been understood as something normal in our societies.

I have been living in San José since 1998, and before becoming the Spanish-Speaking Ministries Coordinator, I started working as a waiter in a local restaurant, a few blocks away from here. But the story did not change much, because my current coworkers at the restaurant are also homophobic, both those who are Latinos and those who are Americans. Thus, as I have expressed it many times, I continue living two lives at once: one in the First Unitarian Church of San José, where I am accepted for who I am as a person, and the other outside, where I become “a common heterosexual man.”

Of course, I am already super-trained in entering and leaving the closet without any difficulty when the occasion demands it, but I do not stop asking myself, Why can I not be gay both here and there outside, without having to hide a part of myself?

Some time ago, a friend of mine was asked, “How does it feel to be homosexual?” and he replied, “What, do I go through the life asking you how does it feel to be heterosexual?”

I hope that someday everyone will have respect for other people without regard for their social, economic, or cultural condition, for their color of skin, their religion, or their sexual orientation.

Thanks.

*Song of Hope/Canto de esperanza     # 1014 Standing on the Side of Love    
Chorus/Coro, vv. 2-3:
Estamos del lado del amor, mano con mano, en un corazón.
Fuertes en la fe, proclamamos que estamos del lado del amor ...

Reflection/Reflexión                                                              Rev. Nancy Palmer Jones

A few days ago I received two e-mails back to back—I know a number of you must have received these same e-mails because they went out to our whole Welcoming Congregations list. From one of these e-mails, we got the great news that the California State Assembly on Tuesday, in a 42 to 34 vote, passed the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, which would give “all California couples the dignity, legal protections, responsibilities and social support that only come with [the institution of civil] marriage.”1
Of course, now the bill has to pass in the California Senate and then successfully cross the governor’s desk in order to become law, and that will be an uphill battle, but still, the state Assembly passed this bill this week. They named marriage as a right for all couples. It is something to celebrate.
In the second e-mail, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force told us a little more about the background of Dr. James Holsinger, the current nominee for surgeon general of the United States. In 1991, Dr. Holsinger, as a member of the Committee to Study Homosexuality in the United Methodist Church, wrote a “paper titled ‘Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality,’ which essentially equates homosexuality with disease,” as the Task Force describes it. The Rev. Troy Plummer—Executive Director of the Reconciling Ministries Network of United Methodists—goes on to say that Dr. Holsinger “has used his power” on the “supreme court” of the United Methodist Church “to disregard the Constitution of the Methodist Church and block from membership faithful gay and lesbian Christians. As a pastor, he has promoted ‘reparative therapy’ — a practice that is nothing short of torture of gay and lesbian people and is not condoned by any professional psychological association; in fact, many call it medical malpractice.” This is the background of the person currently nominated to be “America’s chief health educator, giving Americans the best scientific information available on how to improve their health and reduce the risk of illness and injury.”2
Two e-mails, back to back: a bill passes the California Assembly that would grant equal marriage rights; a known homophobe gets nominated to become the U.S. Surgeon General. As a friend of mine from divinity school once said: the world is a “streaky” place. Good news and bad news; love and fear—all mixed up together. Sometimes it seems like, as Roberto said, the “same old story” just goes on and on—from Mexico, where fear without basis colored his boss’s decision to end Roberto’s medical career, to San José, where fear and ignorance infect his coworkers in the restaurant. The same old story. How will it ever change?
            Today I’d like us to think about the power of naming—the power of speaking aloud what is true. I heard Rev. Toni Dunbar yesterday, at the Celebration of Spirit worship service over at the First Congregational Church—I heard her say that once a true and good word has been spoken, it cannot be unspoken. It cannot help but return to us bearing fruit in some way. So she said, in some ways it doesn’t matter whether the Senate and the governor sign that bill for equal marriage rights this year or the next or the next; “we will still marry,” she said. The word of love has been named. When in our story Betty looks at her WWUUD [QHUUU] bracelet, “What Would a Unitarian Universalist Do?” and tells Pete that what he’s saying is not right, is not good, the word of love has been named.
The opposite of naming that word of love is not just silence but a kind of active denial that refuses to name the loss of life, physical and spiritual, that continues to occur daily because of fear, prejudice, dehumanization, and oppression of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. This is the kind of denial that says that hate crimes, bias-motivated crimes, against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people don’t need special attention; that they are already covered under existing laws. Such denial erases the lived experience of our kin from view. It’s the kind of denial that the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah meant when he said, “They have treated the wound of my people carelessly,” crying, “Shalom, shalom”—peace, peace—when there is no peace [Jer. 6:14].3 Such denial, my friends, leads to despair and paralysis—not only for those most directly affected but for a whole society.
But we move out of denial and into hope-telling when we name publicly people’s real experiences. This week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007, House Resolution 1592. This bill expands the categories of bias-motivated crimes that the federal government would have the authority to prosecute, if the state or local government didn’t do its job in protecting all its people. In other words, to the categories already covered by the federal government—bias-motivated crimes based on someone’s race, color, religion, or national origin—H.R. 1592 would add certain bias-motivated crimes based on a person’s sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability.4 It names these categories because not all the states in our United States provide such legislation—and because not all the law enforcement people in our United States follow up on those crimes. It breaks through the denial; it names the truth and offers the hope of justice. It makes real the lives of our BGLT brothers and sisters.
            The White House says that if this Matthew Shephard bill passes through the Senate, the president will veto it—because, so they say, we don’t need those expanded categories; they’re already covered. And to that I say, “They have treated the wound of my people carelessly,” crying, “Shalom, shalom” when there is no shalom [Jer. 6:14]. I just signed an interfaith clergy letter to our Senators that says, essentially, just that.
            So, I believe—and I know that not everyone will agree with me—but I believe that civil rights laws can help to cut through societal denial, that they name the true, they speak the word of love that cannot be unsaid, and that this begins to change “the same old story” into a new story.
            So yes, it’s a streaky old world, with good news and bad news, love and fear all jumbled up together. But still we can speak that word of love, we can name what is real and true. And this is why we march, or show up to watch others march—to name that word of love with our very bodies. To change the story, to create the tipping point. And to celebrate—to celebrate that last January the Pacific School of Religion became the first Christian seminary to host a conference focusing on transgender issues; to celebrate that a few weeks ago Newsweek printed a cover story on gender identity and transgender lives; and to celebrate the life-saving, life-giving bills that passed this week in our state and federal governments. And most of all we march, or watch the march, because it feels good—it feels good that we are alive today, that we have come this far by faith, and we’re not gonna turn back now. We are “Stronger Together”!

And to that may we say, “Que así sea. May it be so!”

Blessing of the Feet/Bendición de los pies
So now let us bless these feet of ours, grateful that they have carried us (really or symbolically) thus far, grateful that they bring us here to stand on the side of love, grateful for where they still may go.
Would all who would like to have your feet blessed, please come forward up this center aisle and come to Geoff, Roberto, or me to have your feet honored, and then please return to your seat until all who wish have been blessed? And if you need to stay in your seat but would like a blessing, just raise your hand and we’ll come to you. 

Blessing of the Feet       
We bless these feet for where they have been, for where they stand now, and for where they may go. May all your choices guide your feet toward love.

*Song of Commitment/Canto de compromiso  # 1030 Siyahamba
                                                                           (We Are Marching/Caminando)