Breaking the Barriers That Keep Them From Church

Sylvia Rhue grew up in a traditional black church: an inspirational preacher at the pulpit, a soaring choir occupying the loft, a devoted flock inhabiting the pews. “Many of whom,” Rhue tells a group of USC students, professors and drop-ins who stare up at her as if she herself is installed behind a pulpit, “were gay and closeted.”

As if listening to Scripture, her audience hangs on every word.

While screening a rough cut of her documentary “All God’s Children,” which explores issues of homophobia among African Americans, Rhue’s eyes scan the room, recording the range of response: hands scribbling notes, knowing nods, empathetic sighs.

She hopes the video (which should be released later this month) will not only educate and enlighten, but also provide some framework for dialogue around a subject that makes even close friends and family, at best, skittish; at worst, silent.

It’s a bold plan of action, heretofore untried. The Bible college graduate, who also holds a PhD in human sexuality and is a licensed clinical social worker, hopes to scale the walls of the church, armed with her video and larger master plan. Rhue has heard enough stories of exorcism and suicides to last a lifetime; now she hopes to help dispel dangerous myths and divisive stereotypes.

“As they say, and it’s still true, 11 a.m. Sunday and Saturday, is still the most segregated hour in America,” she says of the hour of worship, quoting her role model, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. And because of that segregation, messages that might easily make their way into one culture may not address issues particular to another.

It was something that filmmakers Dee Mosbacher and Frances Reid thought about when the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force approached them to embark on a documentary about spirituality and homophobia that would target a black audience. The duo previously produced an Academy Award-nominated documentary, “Straight From the Heart,” a collage of coming-out stories.

Because she is white, however, Mosbacher was anxious about doing a film addressing black culture. Consultants she assembled led her to Rhue. “She’s just tireless and involved,” Mosbacher says of co-producer Rhue. “She had connections to African American gay and lesbian folk . . . and brought a huge number of ideas.”

Rhue had long questioned or grappled with issues surrounding sexuality and race, and where they intersect, be it in her academic papers or her previous videos-- “Women in Love,” “We Have a Legacy” and “Women and Children: AIDS and HIV.”

“It’s not homosexuality. It’s sex,” Rhue explains a few days later, relaxing in her sun-dappled L.A. living room. Her red leather Bible sits an arm’s length; the sheet music for Handel’s Messiah rests against the music stand on the living room’s baby grand.

“Sex and religion are two things that are hot buttons. Parents can’t talk about sex with their kids. It’s sexuality that brings up the anxiety and the stumbling around,” she says. “And if that’s hard, you know that issues of homosexuality are even more difficult for people to sit down and talk about when there is so much slander . . . [and] fear factors out there.”

The video will act as entree: Gay men, lesbians and their families relate their personal stories, intercut with prominent African American clergy, legislators (Rep. Maxine Waters) and pundits (Cornel West, Jesse Jackson) discussing the importance of breaking through the barrier of homophobia.

The next step, Rhue envisions, is a program that will allow her to travel the country, not only visiting ministers and their support staffs, but training them to lead post-video discussions.

Rhue herself has struggled with the church as an institution, and wandered away at age 25. “I was turned off by organized religion,” says Rhue, now 48. She remembers bristling at instances of racism and sexism she too often found woven into the folds of the sermon. “There are people who just can’t see beyond their beliefs. Their religion gets wrapped in a book, whereas spirituality and God are bigger than dogma.”

Although this project has brought her back to a church home, she still sees many sensitive issues in conflict.

“I wanted to address biblical illiteracy, which is pandemic in our society,” says Rhue, armed with the stats that most trouble her. “Eight in 10 Americans say they are Christians, but only four in 10 know that Jesus, according to the Bible, delivered the Sermon on the Mount. This lack of Bible reading explains why Americans know so little about the Bible, which is the basis of faith for them.”

This is key, Rhue suggests, because so many gay men, lesbians and bisexuals have suffered at the hands of a verse misinterpreted or one that simply doesn’t exist. The timing is critical, she says, as challenges come not only from within the four walls of the sanctuary, but from without:

“The ministers who are progressive really know what’s going on out there . . . with the religious right trying to make inroads in the black church. . . . [They] want to do something and are glad for any help. . . . People know that a lot of people in the pews are closeted gay, lesbian and bisexual.”

Rhue hopes to find a way to encourage these parishioners out of hiding by dispelling fear while creating a safe place for them to step into.

“I think anything that lessens tension between people of different mentalities, cultures or ethnicities is a divine thing,” says Rev. Cecil Murray of First A.M.E. Church. “I think that we are going into the 21st century and we don’t need antiquated 16th century concepts guiding us.”

There are strong counterforces. The most prominent is the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition, chaired by the Rev. Lou Sheldon. Its 1993 video “Gay Rights / Special Rights,” compares and contrasts King’s 1963 march on Washington to the 1993 gay march on Washington and is being distributed to school districts and local, state and federal policymakers.

Additionally, Sheldon reports, “Thousands of them have gone into the church--from the storefront Pentecostal to Catholic.” The video attempts to underscore why gay men, lesbians and bisexuals should not benefit from civil rights gains hard won by African Americans. Because, Sheldon maintains, “homosexuality is a behavior-based lifestyle, not a minority status.”

Rhue doesn’t classify her video as a response to the coalition’s: “It’s more an action.”

Still, with this and other opposition to gay rights, producers expected difficulty in getting people to talk on camera. Rhue says she was shocked by the participants’ eagerness to help. She approached theologian/philosopher West during a busy book tour: “I told him real quickly about the project and said I would send him a video, and he said: ‘Don’t send me a video. Just tell me when you need me.’ ”

That quality of openness allowed for growth on both sides of the camera, Mosbacher points out. “It helped me confront my own racism. There is this stereotype that there is more homophobia in the African American community. But when you looked at the voting record of the Black National Congress or the work of the Rainbow Coalition, you began to see that that is not true. I too thought there was more. But what there are, are some cultural differences. It’s qualitative, not quantitative.”

Phill Wilson, founder of the L.A.-based National Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum, agrees that the difference is the way in which homophobia manifests.

“I would venture to say every black person in America, if they sat down and talked about it, would find that someone [who] is an important part of their life doesn’t talk about it [but] they are gay or lesbian,” says Wilson, who is working on the video’s accompanying training manual.

What feeds this silence is the fear of losing one’s safety net, one’s spiritual comfort zone. The unspoken understanding, says Wilson, is, “We don’t care if you do it. We don’t want to know about it.”

Coming out threatens that safety, the unity. And the fear of breaking rank, Wilson points out, is very real. So real that even sideline supporters worry that they will be ostracized in much the same way as the target group.

Deborah Johnson, a board member of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, agrees: “It’s that club that is held over people’s heads that prevents them from coming to the forefront. Even though they think it’s the right thing to do. . . . For some of us [African Americans] on the black issue we have a certain sense of moral authority because of the civil rights movement. . . . But too many [black] gays and lesbians on the moral issue don’t think they stand with authority.”

First A.M.E.’s Murray, who is in the video, wants to see this change: “I don’t think the legitimate church can do anything but help people through. Gay bashing and homophobia are not the provinces of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. . . . If you know who you are, you make allowances for people to be who [they] are.”

This is why the support of family, clergy and policymakers is the linchpin--a point the filmmakers underscore not just in the content, but in the video’s structure.

Like an unfolding screen, each panel a story, this wide range of subjects--parents and children, politicians and constituents--sends a tacit message: Families celebrating their children’s spirit, wandering sheep happy to have found a welcoming church home.