Reactions to the article have already started to hit the blogosphere: Elizabeth Kaeton's Telling Secrets, Mark Harris' Preludium, and Episcopal Cafe's The Lead are the first three I happened across. The story hasn't yet hit the conservative blogs I usually read, nor even that place I try not to visit. I'm sure it won't be too long before it does. Nor will it be long before some of the liberals also start to rip the good bishop to shreds. As Elizabeth writes:
I hope we're proved wrong, but knowing the blogosphere...There will be rending of garments and much wailing and moaning and gnashing of teeth on both sides of the aisle about this book and her revelation.
Some will cry that many LGBT people could have been helped and the church's journey to greater social justice advanced years sooner "if only he had told the truth."
Others will cry that the church and his legacy is soiled by this truth that should have remained secret - that nothing good can come of any of this.
There will be those who will laugh and scorn the Body of Christ in its incarnation as The Episcopal Church and say this is but one more piece of evidence of its 'internal decay' which provides them with one more reason to leave 'this apostate church.'
Still others will say, "I told you so!" and smirk, "See, Gene Robinson is not the first gay bishop. He's the first honestly gay bishop."
I met Paul Moore three times, and only after he had retired as Bishop of New York. The first time he dropped in on a friend of mine, while I happened to be visiting. The second time that same friend and I were walking in Greenwich Village and ran into him on the street. The last time was at my parish when our new rector, who happened to be Paul's godson, invited his godfather to preside at the first Easter Vigil held at the parish.
Honor's public revelation of her father's sexuality was not a surprise to some of us. It had been more or less an open secret in some circles. But it wasn't knowledge to be shared outside the circle. Given his generation, it was simply the way life was and is, even though our society has become more open about matters of sexual orientation and identity.
Reading the excerpt of Honor's book was a rather more personal experience for me than I imagine it will be for many (but not all). I don't know why that should have surprised me, but it did.
My father, a respected school teacher, lived a similar life. I learned about his secret at 13 when I stumbled across some of his porn collection, not unlike Honor finding a book in her father's study. My mother made a similar discovery nine years later, shortly after I'd come out to my parents during Christmas break. The resulting strain on our family manifested itself in many ways. More secrets were revealed over the next few months, but others remained untold until after Dad died.
I give my parents a lot of credit for the way they worked through that period. They remained amicably married, for the most part, until my father died of Pancreatic Cancer 10 years later. I know there were rough patches, and sometime I picture them as being somewhat like Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt after they weathered their own difficult marital problems. Each of my parents was also instrumental in helping me heal my strained relationship with the other.
My mother and I had always been close, but during college, as I came to terms with my sexuality, we grew distant. At one point she wrote me a letter letting me know how badly she felt that I didn't confide in her any more. My reply was a rather undeserved lashing out, in spite of the fact that I rewrote the letter three times before sending it. I don't think we'd be speaking even now if I'd sent either of the first two drafts! My father was furious. No matter what went on between the two of them, he was always fiercely protective of my mother. He told me in no uncertain terms that he expected me to go to Chicago while Mom was there visiting her parents. I resisted, but he was adamant. Finally, I said I'd go. It was a long, silent weekend, but it was the beginning of the healing of our relationship.
My father and I had never been really close, and after the family turmoil of my college years, we drifted even further apart. Then one year I was planning a vacation trip, one of the Windjammer Cruises I'd been wanting to take for a while. Brian wasn't going with me that year, as our work schedules were such that our vacations fell at different times. At some point during the planning process, Mom came to talk to me. Dad, it seemed, really wanted to go on the same cruise, and would I consider traveling with him. I hemmed and hawed. Given our relationship, I just couldn't picture the two of us sharing one of those tiny cabins for a week. Mom pleaded, reasoned, and kept after me until I finally relented. I was NOT a happy camper. Traveling alone with my father was not the way I wanted to spend a vacation.
As it turned out, Dad and I had a great time. We were good traveling companions. We had some time to talk. We found we could enjoy each other's company. By the time we returned home our relationship relationship was well on its way to wholeness. I have always been thankful that Mom pushed and prodded until I agreed, because for the last two years of his life, Dad and I had a good father-son relationship.
I'm not sure why Honor chose to tell her father's story now. That she tells it in the context of their relationship is tremendously important. As this article, and then the book, become the topic of conversation, critics on all sides of the issue must remember that other people are involved. We can argue until we are all blue in the face about the rightness and the wrongness, the opportunities missed or not missed, and every other permutation of this particular aspect of Paul Moore's life. What we must not forget is that he was a human being in relationships with other human beings. As was my father. As am I. As is Honor.
It is not our place to judge. It is our place to love.
Peace,
Jeffri
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