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Rev. Jeff Bert Addresses Vigil

Rev. Jeff Bert's remarks to the vigil before the federal trial of Proposition 8:

Good morning! My name is Jeff Bert and I'm the associate pastor at Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco. My duties as a pastor revolve primarily around providing pastoral care to people in our congregation and greater LGBT community who are struggling with various emotional and spiritual issues.

Without a doubt I can say that the number one, deeper issue behind most of the issues I hear stem from poor self-esteem caused by emotional abuse from family members, churches, and society telling my congregants that there is something wrong with them—that they're somehow "less than." In order to cope, survive and gain a better life, many of my congregants have had to leave behind families and churches because there was no way that they were ever going to hear a constructive, helpful message from them.

That's a difficult and sad choice, but it is a choice that one at times has to make, and can make. One can walk away from abusive relationships, one can walk away from abusive churches.

But apart from moving out of the country, my congregants can't walk away from an abusive government, which continues to tell them that they are "less than," that continues to deny equal protection, equal access, equal treatment to them as LGBTQ citizens, that continues to deny 1100 federal rights and responsibilities to those who are in committed, loving, responsible relationships.

And even those who got married before Prop 8 are not afforded the full dignity of their rights, the full dignity of equals at the table of civic life in this country. Even they are abused by the conferral of a second-class marriage that is not recognized across the borders of California. As a pastor I love and care for my people. As a pastor of God I must complement my prayers for equality, with demands for justice. In the name of the God who sides over and over again with the marginalized and oppressed, the God who sets prisoners free, I demand that this government stop abusing my people!

Stop abusing them by withholding their God-given rights to equal protection and obligation under the law. In the name of God, I demand that this local, state and federal government treat my people as truly equal under the law, and celebrate their gifts and their lives as full and equal partners in democracy. Thank you, God bless you, and may God save the United States of America from the blight of abuse.

Rev. Lea Brown's Letter to President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Senator Feinstein

Rev. Lea D. Brown, Senior Pastor
150 Eureka Street
San Francisco, California 94114
www.mccsf.org
Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco

January 24, 2010

Dear President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Senator Feinstein:

I am writing to you in my position as the Senior Minister of the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco (MCCSF). MCCSF is a congregation of several hundred members, representing and serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities and our allies. We are the second oldest church in the denomination of Metropolitan Community Churches, founded in 1970.

On Sunday, May 25th of 2008, the sermon I shared with my congregation was about the war in Iraq, and about the discriminatory policy of our country known as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT). I shared with them my convictions that we have a moral responsibility to take a stand against the war and the prevalent state of apathy in the U.S. toward the conflict, as well as to speak out against the suffering caused by DADT.

In my sermon I made a pledge to our church that I would fast on the 25th of every month until two things occur: first, that the vast majority of our troops are brought home from Iraq, and second, that DADT is brought to an end. I shared with them that each month I would fast in memory of one U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq, one Iraqi citizen killed in the senseless violence that is continuing, and in memory or in honor of those nameless gay and lesbian military personnel who are also losing their lives and their careers in service to their country that will not allow them to be honest about who they are.

On Sunday, May 24th, 2009 I renewed my commitment to continue fasting until our troops are brought home, now from both Iraq and Afghanistan. The lives of thousands of lesbian and gay servicemembers are continuing to be destroyed by DADT, and so I continue to fast and pray for an end to this terrible policy as soon as possible as well.

Today, Sunday, January 24th, I am fasting in memory and in honor of:

U.S. Army Sergeant Keicia M. Hines, age 27, from Citrus Heights, CA, who died on January 14, 2004 in Mosul, Iraq. Sergeant Hines was an only child and the only grandchild on her mother’s side. She planned to start a family with her husband when her tour in Iraq was over. Her mother said, “The loss is tremendous…she was just so honorable.”
Athra'a Shakir, an adult female, age unknown, a doctor, December 25, 2009, in Kinda, Kufa, near Najaf.
Former Army Sergeant Bleu Copas: Copas was a decorated sergeant and Arabic language specialist. He was discharged from the U.S. Army under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," although his accuser was never identified. Copas was "outed" by a stream of anonymous e-mails to his superiors in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. An eight-month Army investigation culminated in his honorable discharge from the Army - less than four years after he enlisted, motivated by a sense of duty to his country in the days following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

I am fasting today in memory and in honor of these individuals and in support of those who love them, and I am fasting as an act of prayer, that both wars and this unjust policy will be brought to an end as soon as possible. Please know that you are in my prayers, that you will have the strength, courage, and moral will to lead our country during these very challenging times.

Sincerely,

Rev. Lea D. Brown
MCCSF Senior Minister

MCCSF Speaks Out

Rev. Brown's speech at City Hall following the announcement that the California Supreme Court had upheld Proposition 8, which denies the right of marriage to same-sex couples:

On behalf of the people of the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco, where we have been performing same-sex weddings since 1970, I am honored to stand here with you this evening resolute in my determination that the California Supreme Court has not had the last word on marriage equality. For months we have been hearing that the day of decision was coming, but what has not been said is that this day of decision does not belong to the highest court in California. Even though injustice and discrimination have prevailed for the moment, the bigger truth is that May 26, 2009 is really the day of decision that belongs to you and me. NOW is the moment when we have the opportunity to decide who we really are, and what we are called to do in the face of the tyranny of the majority that will continue to hurt our people until Prop 8 is overturned once and for all.

In his lifetime, our gay brother Harvey Milk made the decision to believe in the power of hope. In her lifetime, our lesbian sister Audre Lorde made the decision to speak truth to power. Every day, our heterosexual ally Judy Sheppard makes the decision to choose compassion and love over hatred and revenge against those who killed her son Matthew. What decision will you and I make today?

We have the opportunity right now, to decide to rise above the ignorance and misunderstanding of others, and to choose to march and demonstrate with a commitment to non-violence. We have the opportunity this night to decide to turn our anger into action, and our rage into a righteous power that will give us energy for the long battle ahead. We now have a golden opportunity to decide to take this experience of injustice that has been perpetrated against us, and use it to broaden our understanding of the suffering of all those who live every day under the burdens of racism and poverty. This is our chance, right here, right now in these streets together, to decide that this adversity is only going to make us stronger, more committed to making justice real for all people, and more determined than ever before to celebrate our fabulous queer ways of love and life and community every day.

My brothers and sisters, let May 26, 2009 forever be known as the Day of Decision of our people—the day we chose together to step fully into our calling and our ability to create hope, to speak truth to power, to believe in the sacredness of our love and our relationships, to never give up, and to trust that the day is coming when same-gender marriages, and life, and love will truly be celebrated all over this world in which we live.

Comments delivered by Rev. Lea Brown on Sunday, May 17th at a Castro neighborhood rally sponsored by Gays Without Borders and Rainbow World Fund to address escalating violence against LGBT people in Iraq:

On behalf of the people of the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco, where we seek to be a house of prayer for all people and a home for queer spirituality, I am here today as the leader of a spiritual community who is appalled that once again, our people are being beaten, tortured, and murdered in the name of God. Their murdered bodies are being labeled with the word “pervert” but it is not our fallen gay brothers and transsexual sisters who are perverts…the true perversion is that committed by others who insist hatred against any one group of people is the will of God.

The true perversion – the true abomination is not men who love men, or the expression of gender of our trans brothers and sisters, but it is what is done in the name of God all over the world. The true abomination is Christians who label all Muslims everywhere as terrorists, and Christians who also kill LGBT people in the name of God. The true abomination is Muslims in Iraq or anywhere who believe that LGBT people deserve only death. The true abomination is anyone, anywhere, of any faith who lives not by unconditional love, but by hate, and by violence against the oppressed.

On behalf of my congregation I am here to say that we stand in solidarity with Gays Without Borders, Rainbow World Fund, and our queer sisters and brothers in Iraq, and we are speaking out against the abominations being perpetrated against our people all over the world. And I am here to say this as well: don’t let what is happening Iraq, what is being done in the name of God – don’t let it destroy your own faith and spirituality. Our people are not only being physically killed in Iraq, they are being killed spiritually as well – and how many of us have also suffered religious violence at the hands of those who say they act for God? Don’t let anyone deprive you of your spirituality and spiritual power. The queer people in Iraq need us to step into that power, to bring peace and healing to our world. On their behalf, let us work to create a world where all people know they are created in the image of the Divine, and where all queer people know they are sacred and that we bring great joy to the heart of God.

Comments shared by Rev. Lea Brown at an Interfaith Service at Grace Cathedral on the Eve of Day of Decision:

I share with you tonight on behalf of the people of the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco, where we have been performing same-sex weddings since 1970.

As we continue to open our hearts in prayer, I invite all of us to hear these words by Marge Piercy:

Alone, you can fight...

But two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction.
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.

A dozen make a demonstration
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.

Please pray with me...

Holy One—under our chuppas and in our churches, in the presence of Gods and Goddesses and in the name of Allah, we have asked for your blessing on our holy unions, our commitment ceremonies, and on our weddings. As your people gathered with great hope for justice we ask your blessing upon us now, that by this time tomorrow we will be filled with your Spirit and dancing with joy in the streets as you celebrate with us.

But if this is not to be, Mother and Father God of all creation, we ask that you would bless us with holy indignation and sacred fire, that we might do what needs to be done, with love for our enemies and compassion for those who oppose us, until your justice is poured out upon us like a mighty river, and your righteousness like an everflowing stream.

May we embrace your power that we have together, and may we be filled up with your desire for peace and equality for all people. Holy One, expand our vision of what it means to say "We," that we might ever connect our experience of discrimination and oppression with all those who suffer due to poverty, racism, and hatred. As we struggle to bring hope to all those who live in the shadow of oppression, we ask that you would protect us from discouragement, and fill us with hope, that together we might understand and fully embrace our power and our calling to bring healing to our world. In your many names we pray, amen.