Minutes of the 24 Feb 2008 BYM/FUM Session at Bethesda Friends Meeting
Our two guests were Martha Gay, former clerk of Adelphi Meeting and a member of the BYM Ad Hoc Committee on Gender and Sexual Diversity Concerns, and Joyce Ajlouny, head of Ramallah Friends School.
Those attending offered numerous suggestions for changes in the draft letter to BYM, which were duly noted by its grateful drafters. A revised version will be posted on the BFM Web site and/or e-mailed before next week's business meeting.
A Friend said that she'd learned from BYM clerk Howard Fullerton that our yearly meeting intends to circulate each meeting's responses to the FUM concerns once they are collected. No definitive action on BYM-FUM relations is likely before this summer's BYM annual meeting at the earliest, she said.
Another Friend noted that our BFM draft letter cited our 2004 position on FUM's policy against volunteer leadership or staff positions for gay persons and cohabiting couples. He said it was unfortunate that we seemed not to have evolved significantly in four years. Others agreed.
Martha Gay urged us to keep in mind the range of views within and among meetings in both FUM and BYM. Especially important, she said, was remembering that FUM is a broad coalition of yearly meetings. She estimated that about a third of FUM's membership held what could be called an East Coastal view on the personnel policy, a third could tolerate it and a third could not abide it.
A Friend added that the Richmond Declaration, a popular statement for many conservative Quakers, had not been adopted by many of FUM's meetings or incorporated into their—or BYM's—Faith and Practice. She called the declaration irrelevant to us.
Stephanie joined a second Friend in urging that we turn our attention to how the issues raised by our FUM conversation apply within our own meeting. She urged us to examine how we invite, accept, welcome and embrace diversity. How we deal with this issue is a measure of the spiritual state of our meeting, she said.
A Friend urged that we think especially hard about the values that we teach our children and what we say in First Day School. She said that while BFM regards itself as liberal, it would seem anything but to most people under 30. They'd find any debate over tolerance of workplace discrimination based on sexual preference to be ridiculous, she said.
Co-clerk Michael Morfit said his effort to understand the circumstances of GLBT persons had been aided by a Sidwell Friends sensitivity session in which a gay teacher spoke. The teacher said that every encounter, every day required him to ask himself how open he could be with the particular person or group, whether the environment was safe for him, and how much he could trust his company. He said it was exhausting to do this and that the only answer was for schools, employers and meetings to declare their tolerance explicitly and openly. Being an equal opportunity employer was not enough, he said.
A Friend noted that some congregations are expressing openness in their names by calling themselves reconciling churches, for example. Another suggested that BFM assess its hospitality to newcomers through exit interviews with people who'd turned away from the meeting. Their responses could remain confidential, she suggested, and still be useful to our thinking. (In the only specific case cited, a visitor reported to a BFM friend that he'd been spoken to by no one after meeting and skipped potluck—and any further contact with us-- because no one offered to take him.)
Another Friend wondered whether our deliberation over support of FUM didn't in itself send an unwelcoming message to those offended by its policies.
The concern about offending isn't limited to sexual orientation, Martha Gay said. What about the marginalizing of the Christian segment of predominantly Universalist meetings? Or of ignoring the centrality of Christian traditions in Quakerism? A second friend responded that Christians hardly suffered the same minority standing that GLBT people and others do.
Another Friend said the seeking after God in every one should not leave beyond the pale Friends who disagree with us on FUM personnel policies. Another Friend responded that she could love and work with such Friends while refusing to support them.
A Friend said she'd learned to believe in patience when, while she was a teen, her family remained part of a swim club that rejected its first black applicant for membership, hoping to change the policy from within. The club accepted the second black family a year later, she said, which showed patience's virtue, but she said she could find no good reason for BFM's money to support continued discrimination.
A Friend urged us to reconsider the matter by rephrasing the position that we welcome diversity to express instead how much the meeting benefits from diversity. She urged that the meeting's youngest generation be encouraged to teach us what they know. Several said this suggestion spoke their minds.
Ramallah's Joyce Ajlouny was asked how she squared the circles presented by FUM's policies. She said that she'd been asked her views on FUM's personnel policy in her job interview and had responded that she disagreed with it. The matter was not discussed further nor mentioned in the contract that she signed, she said. She said she believed the policy did not stand in the way of doing good work at the school and that changing the policy was best done from within.
In her experience, Joyce said, the overwhelming majority of U.S. FUM Quakers and many of FUM's seasoned leaders, disagree with the personnel policy and would like it to go away. The more extreme conservatism of Kenyan Quakers with whom they've declared themselves equal partners stands in the way, she said. She speculated that change from within would entail separation of U.S. and Kenyan Quakers on this matter. She thought this might be a five- or ten-year effort, not a consumer of generations. In the interim, discrimination would continue.
In response to a question, Joyce said that she alone made hiring decisions and without reference to FUM's personnel policy. She said she could not say whether she'd hired anyone who's gay because it's a taboo topic in Palestinian culture. Joyce also said she might have experienced extensive discrimination within and outside the school community had she not been seen as heterosexual.
Another Friend noted that when Frank Massey applied to be head of Ramallah Friends School, he'd been rejected after saying that he disagreed with FUM's personnel policy. That Joyce was appointed despite a similar statement of disagreement was a sign of progress, she said.
A Friend said that discrimination against openly gay Americans persisted, even in her federal workplace. She said the pre-requisite for progress was coming out, risky as that is, whether in the U.S. or Kenya. She called on Friends to stop supporting what she called a fundamentally immoral policy. We cannot say that we do good things and at the same time suborn prejudice and violence against other people, she said. She characterized FUM's policies as on a continuum that could ultimately include bodily harm and violence, which it tacitly condones. The Friend urged that BFM withhold all money from FUM and sever our ties with them.
One Friend asked whether others in the meeting were prepared to lobby the Maryland Legislature on a same-sex law now under consideration. Another urged that more in the BFM community attend Baltimore Yearly Meeting in August to press our views.
We adjourned after a period of silence.
