Retreat for Gays, Lesbians Opens

A 22-acre ranch that has been transformed into an ecumenical spiritual retreat for gays and lesbians--thought to be the only one in the country--formally opened Friday, hosting the first known national, multidenominational conference of Christian ministries to homosexuals.

The retreat center, developed by two Catholic laymen, James L. Colburn and Kevin S. Reese--partly as a tribute to their partners lost to AIDS--has been received benignly by this small ranch and farming community, they said. And they surmise that the more culturally conservative Antelope Valley to the east may be unaware of their center’s existence.

The message of the Rancho Amanecer Retreat Center, and its inaugural conference, are aimed at countering an antagonistic climate in the gay community where “we have felt constrained to apologize for being Christian,” said Colburn, the retreat’s principal founder and a former television set decorator.

In a keynote talk tonight at the conference, Episcopal priest the Rev. Malcolm Boyd said he would speak out for the first time against “a minority of anti-religious zealots in the gay movement” for creating a distorted public image in most media “of gays as nonspiritual, anti-religionist hedonists.”

Homosexuals who are moral churchgoers are being maligned, Boyd wrote in prepared remarks. “Our profession of faith within the gay movement has too often led to our being treated as second-class citizens and falsely stereotyped as hypocrites and accomplices in social oppression,” said Boyd, author of 25 books and poet-in-residence at Los Angeles’ Episcopal headquarters.

Although many religiously conservative churches and Christians remain convinced that the letter and spirit of Scripture condemn homosexual intimacy, a minority of clergy and laity in Catholic, Episcopal, Presbyterian, United Methodist and other so-called mainline churches continue to argue for change in Bible interpretation and church policies on this issue.

The Episcopal approach, for example, considers Scripture as basic to faith, but also considers tradition, reason and experience in deciding what to believe and how to act, Boyd said.

Also planning to speak at the weekend conference, which organizers expect will draw nearly 100 registrants, is the Rev. Mel White, a prominent member of the gay-oriented Metropolitan Community Churches, a 30-year-old, worldwide denomination that was formed as an alternative to established denominations still struggling with issues of homosexuality.

Another scheduled speaker is Father Peter J. Luizzi, who heads the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese’s Ministry to Lesbian and Gay Catholics. Luizzi, who is on the new retreat’s board of advisors, said that he has offered his guidance and support to the project.

Gay and lesbian Catholics are able to book existing Catholic retreat centers in the archdiocese for gatherings. The independent Catholic gay group Dignity, which has three Southern California chapters, began a weekend retreat Friday at Holy Spirit Retreat Center in Encino. It is only one of three groups meeting at the wooded hillside retreat, however.

Colburn and Reese contended that Rancho Amanecer will provide a more comfortable retreat setting for gays and lesbians. “They can be themselves,” Reese said. “Their sexual orientation is a nonissue.”

At present, few guests can stay overnight at the retreat; registrants to the conference are staying primarily at Palmdale motels. But Colburn pointed to land across the street--actually, a dirt road named Lost Valley Ranch Road--where housing units will be built.

Colburn said he bought the property after the death in 1990 of his partner, Matthew Rubin, with the hope of eventually turning it into a spiritual retreat. “I saw it as a place for my healing and a place for others--gay or not--who have suffered a loss,” he said.

Both Colburn and Reese are converts to Catholicism, and both used the bulk of their inheritance money from their respective mates to turn the ranch into a retreat. Orchards, gardens and animal enclosures (for two goats, four emus and two peacocks) dot the hillside.

Looking east through a gap in the hills toward Palmdale and Lancaster, retreat-goers can watch the sunrise and, on clear nights, see the lights of distant Victorville, they said.

The pair are in training for their new roles. Colburn is in archdiocesan-backed programs as a spiritual director and director of liturgy. Reese, a mortician at a San Fernando Valley funeral home, plans to enroll in the archdiocesan program for ministry to the bereaved.

Recalling his arrival in Leona Valley, Colburn said that he tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. “I thought I covered my tracks pretty well for the first year and a half,” he said. But he later learned that a number of townspeople knew he was gay even before he completed purchase of the property.

“The local newsletter has written items about me and a party on my 50th birthday,” he said.

“One time the postmistress, an older lady, took my hand and said, ‘It’s so nice to have you boys in the Valley,’ ” said Colburn.

Among their neighbors, a man and woman next-door are planning to marry, and have asked to use the retreat’s chapel for their wedding site, he said.