This week, we are celebrating Gay Pride in London. Tonight (Sunday), the Soho Masses congregation will be holding our annual Pride Mass, one of the highlights of our year. As we mark our progress, however, let us also remember the dark days from which we have come, in London and elsewhere.

Remember that pride itself originated in what was then a very ordinary, commonplace act of oppression, a routine raid on a gay bar. Even the origins of what are now known as the Soho Masses coincided with tragedy. On the same day that the first Mass was held in a North London sitting room, April 3oth 1999, The Admiral Duncan, a gay bar in Soho, was bombed, in what was later shown to be clearly motivated by homophobia. Six people were killed. The Admiral Duncan is by no means the only gay or lesbian bar to have been damaged by hate crimes. In South Africa, a similar attack on the Blah Bar in Cape Town’s gay neighbourhood came the same year, just a few months latber.

In addition to those who died in the Admiral Duncan bombing, like Matthew Shephard and countless others who have died in homophobic or by their own hands as a result of bullying or misplaced religious guilt, may be regarded as secular martyrs - martyred for their honesty and public witness to their orientation, refusing to collaborate in their own oppression by hiding in a closet. Because so much of this violence is inspired or justified on the grounds of spurious religious arguments, some even backed by religious leaders who really should know better, this may be described quite specifically as martyrdom not for Christ’s church, but by the church.

Others who have suffered modern martyrdom by the church, have done so not literally, but metaphorically. These are the people who have suffered professional death, been forced out of careers in priesthood and ministry, or refused entry in the first place, on the grounds of their sexual orientation, or for writing which challenged the formal doctrines of the establishment. These were martyred by the church specifically as Christians who were out and honest, but did not suffer physical death.

Among all the modern martyrs, the victims of the Upstairs Room arson attack strike me as unique, combining all the strands I have picked out above. They suffered a real, horrifying death in a bar room arson attack, seemingly because of their sexual orientation, and simultaneously for their Christian witness. The Upstairs Room was not only a gay bar, it was also an early venue for worship services by the Metropolitan Community Church, witnessing to the possibility of being both Christian, and gay or lesbian.

On the last Sunday in June, 1973, a gay bar in New Orleans called the UpStairs Lounge was firebombed. The resulting blaze killed 32 people. At the time, the bar had recently served as the temporary home for the fledgling New Orleans congregation of the Metropolitan Community Church. Founded in Los Angeles in 1968, the MCC was the nation’s first gay church.

It was the third fire at a MCC church during the first half of 1973. The church’s Los Angeles headquarters was destroyed on January 27, five days after the U.S. Supreme Court announced its momentous decision in the case of Roe v. Wade.

- Erik Osem ,Huffingon Post

The Lounge had just hosted its regular services for the gay-friendly Metropolitan Community Church, then the bar held a free beer and all you can eat special for 125 people in the afternoon. Now that evening had come, about 60 patrons enjoyed David Gary’s piano playing and discussed the bar’s upcoming MCC fundraiser to help the Crippled Children’s Hospital.

Then, at 7:56PM the bartender Buddy Rasmussen heard the downstairs buzzer and asked Luther Boggs to go check the door. Normally cabbies would ring the buzzer to tell people that they had arrived, but when Boggs went to answer the door, he found no cab driver. Instead he found the flames of a molotov cocktail engulfing the wooden staircase and climbing towards the bar.

-Queerty

In the use of fire as the weapon of execution, this attack carries chilling echoes of the steady stream of bonfires of the sodomites which spread across Europe, and later other forms of execution there and also in the new colonies, in the name of religion during the Great Persecution, in which many thousands of men (and fewer women) were killed for sexual non-conformity. Although physical murder is no longer explicitly promoted by the churches, at least not in Europe or North America, religious rhetoric is often quoted as justification by the perpetrators of the modern violence against us. Even the slurs in common speech may carry echoes of these past horrors. Consider, for example, this description, which I have taken from an email message:

The building acted as a kiln when the only (wood) stairway entrance and exit to the second floor was set on fire as a point of origin. I also remember talking to workers clearing charred debris from now burned building that housed the Upstairs Lounge who were hesitant to go into the building – not because it was not safe to enter but because some of their co-workers told them they could hear people screaming inside.

I had never thought of this massacre as a burning at the stake but it begs the question how the English term faggot – a bundle of sticks - morphed into an American derogatory slur for homosexual male, men were thought of as overtly effeminate. The words “throw another faggot on the fire” however historically incorrect the association still comes to mind when I think of the New Orleans fire, the deadliest in the city’s history.

-Lynn Jordan, personal correspondence

I began this post with a positive note on this weekend’s Pride celebrations in London, and would now like to return to a more positive note.

It is tragic but true, that the path of progress to equality and inclusion has been fertilized by the blood of our martyrs, just as the early Christian church did. A routine police raid on a rather drab, insignificant bar in 1969 has led to the explosion of gay pride celebrations in major cities and small towns, right across the globe. The accompanying visibility of out and proud gay/ lesbian and trans people of all ages and backgrounds has in turn contributed directly to major advances in legal protections at all levels of government, from the recent UN Human Rights Commission declaration on discrimination, to local government ordinances, from employment practices to marriage and family equality.

The deaths of Matthew Shephard and others, and the suicides of queer teens, have contributed directly to the spread of hate crimes legislation, and the formation of gay-straight alliances and other initiatives to protect the lives and mental health of our LGBT youth.

The exclusion from ministry of people like John McNeill and Chris Glaser have given us instead, powerful writers on gay theology and spirituality, freed from the direct or indirect censorship of their denominations. As free agents, they are able to proclaim the truth, and also to reproach those who abused the ecclesiastical power they hold, in attempting to silence them. We are all the richer for their new freedom.

The Metropolitan Community Church, the specific target of this attack, has moved beyond this and other arson attacks of the early years, to become an established and recognised part of mainstream religion. Its pastors and theologians have contributed greatly to the wealth of published material on gay/lesbian or queer theology, its example of conducting same sex church weddings long before these were legally recognised, and in places where there is still no legal recognition, provided an early impetus to the marriage equality movement, and its ordained pastors have provided a parallel impetus to the move to inclusion in ministry in so many other major denominations.

Today, the MCC is said to be possibly the fastest growing Christian denomination. It has been accepted as a member of the World Council of Churches, and its influence permeates interdenominational LGBT bodies like the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, which was so prominent in yesterday’s parade for London Pride.

May the MCC continue to grow from strength to strength.

(This post was prompted by a personal email from Kittredge Cherry, who reminded me of the attack and provided the useful links. She has included a paragraph on the Upstairs Room to conclude her post on Stonewall, at Jesus in Love Blog. Thanks, Kitt.)

Books:

Townsend, Johnny: LET THE FAGGOTS BURN: The UpStairs Lounge Fire

Related articles

• Stonewall, and the Progress to LGBT Inclusion in Church
• Lest We Forget: Remember the Ashes of Our Martyrs
• Joan of Arc, Cross-Dressing Martyr
• Harvey Milk, Secular Gay Martyr
• Joan of Arc: Cross-dressing Martyr
• Reclaim Our History, with the “Calendar of Queer Saints and Martyrs”.
• 35 Years as LGBT Catholics: Looking Back, Looking Ahead (3: Internal Contradictions in Church Teaching)

• Gay Weddings and 32 Funerals: Remembering the UpStairs Lounge Fire (HuffPost)
• Not To Ruin Your Pride, But Today Marks The Deadliest Gay Massacre In US History (Queerty)
• The Upstairs Fire 25th anniversary memorial service (includes names of the victims who died)
• Hands Around the God Box: Prayer and protest for LGBT religious rights (jesusinlove.blogspot.com)