Southern Bellwether
Walk into Covenant Community Church of Birmingham, Alabama, on a Sunday morning, and you’ll see a scene reminiscent of any other evangelical church across the state. The sanctuary is crowded with congregants greeting each other before the service. The minister chats with the deacons, the organist arranges his music on the stand, and children escape their parent’s grasp momentarily to run up and down the aisles. But Covenant is unlike most churches in Alabama. Its pastor, J.R. Finney II, is gay. So are most of its congregants. Founded in 1981 with 12 members in an unmarked storefront, today Finney preaches to a flock of 350 in a two-building complex that can barely contain the congregation’s growing numbers. And, while Covenant is the largest gay church in the state, it is not alone. From major cities like Montgomery and Huntsville to working-class towns like Gadsden, gay-led, gay-founded churches are flourishing in the heart of the conservative South, providing gay Alabamans with a supportive environment in which to worship. Across the state, there are six gay-focused churches, and even more “open and affirming” Episcopal, Unitarian, and United Church of Christ congregations.
Yet these churches represent more than the spiritual side of Alabama’s gay community; they act as its political center. Since 1969, when the rebellion at New York’s Stonewall Inn gave rise to the modern gay rights movement, gay communities across the country have fought for equal rights mostly through secular organizations. But, in Alabama, where 78 percent of residents identify themselves as born-again Christians, these churches are at the forefront of the gay rights movement.
Last November, Patricia Todd became the first openly gay politician elected to the state legislature in Alabama history, after winning the Democratic primary by only 59 votes. Members of Equality Alabama, the premier secular gay rights lobbying organization in the state, lent their support to her campaign, filling many key volunteer positions on her campaign committee.
And, while that support was crucial, it was arguably Covenant that put Todd over the top. Located in her Birmingham district, it is the representative-elect’s “church of choice.” During Todd’s campaign, Finney invited her to the pulpit to address the congregation. And, in the weeks leading up to the election, Finney urged his congregants to go out and vote. “His leadership was instrumental,” Todd says, and, because of it, “probably more people went to the polls than normally would.” Following her election, Todd asked Finney to serve on her district’s advisory committee.
That kind of activism is par for Covenant’s course. In 1999, when gay Alabaman Billy Jack Gaither was murdered, the victim of a brutal hate crime, Covenant organized an anti-hate rally and memorial service that drew 500 people. When Equality Alabama held a rally against the proposed ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage just before the vote in June 2006, 70 percent of attendees came from Covenant. (The church cancelled its Bible study so members could go.) And, in 2002, Equality Alabama’s leadership asked for Finney’s help when they held a rally in Montgomery to protest the state’s sodomy law. “We were able to get 60 people in two days’ time, and that’s 90 miles away,” Finney says. They accounted for the majority of the 100-person crowd at the demonstration.
And Covenant is far from alone. Huntsville’s Spirit of the Cross Church is also central to gay political organizing in the state. “Typical ‘queer Bob’ and ‘lesbian Lisa’ might not know that Equality Alabama exists,” Spirit’s pastor, Richard Barham, says. But “most of them would know about the church.” In 2002, when Chief Justice Roy Moore of the state Supreme Court issued a ruling condemning homosexuality as “inherent evil” and calling for the state to use its “power of the sword” to fight sodomy, Barham railed against the opinion in his Sunday sermon. When he demanded volunteers to help formulate a state-wide response, Barham says that, out of a congregation of 100, “I had 60 or 70 volunteers within 15 minutes ready to do whatever” was needed. In Montgomery, when the Montgomery Gay and Lesbian Alliance needed a place to meet and recruit members, Reverend Jo Ann Crisco opened the doors of New Hope Metropolitan Community Church. “We gave them space to meet, and [the congregation] turned out en masse,” Crisco says.
Some church leaders worry about being too political. “Our first job is to do church,” Barham says. He is also careful to note that his congregants are not a “standing army” of activists, though he admits that, “if there is an issue like Roy Moore or a particular bill, we can mobilize.” Others aren’t so concerned. “That’s part of who we are,” Finney says of Covenant’s political advocacy.
But, even by simply “doing church,” these pastors and reverends advance the cause of gay rights, acting as ambassadors to straight Alabama. In a place where “there’s people who won’t buy a tire from someone who’s not a Christian,” as Reverend Renee Carroll of Gadsden’s Cornerstone Metropolitan Community Church puts it, a shared religious vocabulary is vital for making the case for gay rights—something secular groups lack.
Finney recalls a recent visit to an evangelical church that Covenant was considering purchasing, since it has outgrown its current location. After the visit, he received a call from the bishop’s sister, who told him “how blown away they were by us, by the love of our congregation.” She not only invited Covenant’s choir to come and sing at the inaugural service of their new sanctuary, but she also suggested that the two churches join forces in HIV/AIDS ministry. “This never would have happened under normal circumstances,” Finney says.
Oakwood College, a fundamentalist Seventh Day Adventist school in Huntsville that prohibits “violation of the biblical teaching regarding sexual morality” in its student handbook, invites Barham to speak to social work classes. The classes also regularly visit Barham’s church to dispel stereotypes about the gay community. And, while Howard Bayless of Equality Alabama and Finney often appear together on panels, Finney is the one who groups like Oakwood call when they want someone to address spiritual issues. “That’s important,” Finney says, “because, sometimes, it’s easier to make an impact in that situation then a political situation.” At least four times a year, professors at Samford University—an institution the Princeton Review ranked one of the top ten least gay-accepting schools—invite Finney to speak to their classes about his theological views and his experiences as a gay minister. “Almost every time I do it,” Finney says, “someone comes up to me to say I’ve made them rethink what they were taught.” A local, predominantly Black religious radio station invited Finney, who is Black, to speak about issues facing gay Christians for a live program. There was such a huge response that the station brought Finney back the next week.
Reverend Felicia Fontaine of Soulforce Alabama, a pro-gay interfaith group with members all over the state, also finds that shared religious values can open doors that might otherwise remain closed. “The fact that I’m a Christian lends me greater credibility—absolutely,” she says. Even Roy Moore agreed to meet with her to speak “Christian to Christian.” “He took that very seriously, and he said so,” Fontaine says. Time and again, she recalls, especially in the course of working with the family pastors of gay AIDS victims, “pastors have told me, ‘I thought I was pretty clear on these matters, but I’ve got to admit I’ve got to take another look, because I can’t deny what I have seen.’” Fontaine says that the pastors saw that “not only were these ‘aliens’ not evil—they were loving, spiritual, and often explicitly Christian.” They saw “gay pastors doing the same things they do with their congregants.”
To be sure, secular organizations contribute greatly to Alabama’s gay rights movement. Equality Alabama reaches 2,000 people through its e-mail list and has experience lobbying the legislature that the churches lack. But, with just a handful of gay-friendly representatives in the state parliament, its influence is limited. In Alabama, where there are more than 8,000 same-sex couples—four times the number in Vermont, which became the first state to grant civil unions in 2000—the fundamental problem is invisibility. “I had my own legislator tell me there were no gay people in his district,” Fontaine says. According to one Covenant member, “Many [gay] people still believe what they were taught—that we’re unworthy of God’s love and that we’re second-class citizens.”
The church, however, convinced fellow church member Luwanna Rhodes to speak up. “Several years ago, I never thought I would be political,” she says. “But as I’ve grown spiritually and realized that God is OK with who I am, I can be a voice for people that are not able to come out.” With that mustard seed, a new kind of gay activism is taking root across the state of Alabama.