Jim Andris, Facebook

Rev. Carol Cureton (MCC St. Louis)

Carol Cureton's Remarks and Introduction of Rev. Troy Perry

When I was very young and naïve adolescent, I was growing up in a small town in Southeast Missouri, a little town called Poplar Bluffs, if anybody out there is from that area. [Funny comment. Laughter.] I grew up not knowing that people were sexual, much less homosexual or heterosexual. [Laughter.] I found out. [Laughter, applause.] I first found out when somebody called a very good friend of mine a queer. I didn’t know what that was, ‘n I said you’re going to translate that for me, ‘n they said “homosexual’; I didn’t know what that was either. [Laughter.] I went to the library I’d been to before and I looked it up. What I found, hurt a lot, at least for a little while, but what I found said that gay people, in black and white, mind you, could never be happy. It told me that all gay people were sick, they look at themselves in loathful terms. They could never have stable relationships. They spent 25 hours a day in bed with at least 48 different people. [Laughter, talking.] It also told me that when gay people reached the age of about 35, they all disappeared. [Laughter, applause.] They told me that gay people like to molest children, but they haven’t appealed to me much anyway. [Laughter.] And a whole list of other attitudes that we’ve all heard too much.

What I did was close those books and put them back on the shelf and said, “No way, that’s not me.” What that did was make me nowhere. ‘Cause I knew I was not heterosexual, ‘cause I knew what that means. [Laughter.] By the definition in those books, I was not homosexual either. That leaves you very alone, very isolated, and very afraid, not even being able to talk to another human being on this earth. That’s the condition that I was in when I left here and went out to California. Contrary to popular opinion, it is not Mecca and it is not paved with gold. But some of us find in strange spaces like California things that we can bring and share with others. I found that after a period of time I was working in Los Angeles in a very, very closeted atmosphere. But I had to do more with my life than just watch the educational station on television and read the Los Angeles Times and work. There’s more to life than that.

I’d call my parents that were still living in Missouri, and they’d say “How are things going?’ and I’d say “Fine” and they’d say “What are you doing?” ‘n I’d say “Working.” [Laughter.] ‘Cause for a long time, that’s all I was doing. Then one day I decided that there had to be just a little bit more of me than a person who’d punch a time clock. So I looked in the phone book under ‘homophile organizations’. and I found what I hoped would be the least threatening of all homophile organizational organizations, and the name I came up with to contact was “Gay Women’s Services Center.” I wanted to be around happy people anyway. [Laughter then applause.] I was afraid to call on the telephone—and don’t ask me about this inverted logic—so I wrote them a letter. [Laugher.] I asked them to describe all their activities for me. I picked out what I thought was going to be the least threatening of their meetings, and you’ll see how naïve I was, I picked out a Thursday evening in Caborford [?] [Laughter.]

Now I drove 30 miles to get there at 7:309 on a Thursday evening, and I parked across the street and I watched, because I wanted to see them go in. [Laughter.] And I watched, and I didn’t see any of them. So I drove back home. The next Thursday I was back down there at 7:30; I was parked across the street. Again I watched, and I didn’t see them. For three weeks I drove down there and I … [Laughter interrupts. Applause.] Finally I saw that wasn’t going to work, so I went home and got enough courage to call and said, “Are you really meeting at 7:30 evening on Thursday?” So on the fourth Thursday evening I walked up to that door, and it had the address above it, put my hand on the doorknob, and promptly was mesmerized for some time, I can’t even imagine, cause it was probably the most frightening moment of my life. Because I realized that at that time I had to stand up and be somebody or something. I knew I wasn’t heterosexual, and I sure didn’t want to be homosexual if that description was right. And I swallowed all the myths that I had heard about.

What I expected to see was a pack of gay women, half of them in black leather jackets, hobnail boots with their motorcycle helmets, [Laughter.] and the other half wearing tutus. [More laughter.] What I got when I opened that door was the most pleasant surprise you could imagine. Because when I opened that door, I saw a room full of women who looked pretty much like any college classroom I’d been in, very much like the set of services I see around here all the time, very much like the audience like we have here tonight. I saw people, real, honest-to-goodness people. Multifaceted people who did more than just pass the time of day, who did more than just polish their black leather, who did more than sit around and worry about who they were. The were just living their lives and being them.

There was still a hollow inside me because I had grown up in a very, very religious atmosphere. I still couldn’t reconcile going back to church, ‘cause I’d only got used before. Not particularly because I was gay, although at times that may have had something to do with it. I wrote off church, and said that I would never go back inside the doors of a church, because I sat and listened to Sunday sermons preached about the love of God for all people, and yet would not let certain people inside the church. And I watched when they quietly slipped around some young woman—white woman dating a black man—and said, “Would you please not come back?’ And I watched when they kicked out the young pregnant teenager who was not married, would not let her back inside for fear that our reputation in our district would be shot. And I watched. And I saw that kind of discrimination [?]

And I said, “God is alright,” big of me to say that. “God is alright,” but only not if you have missed the boat, because that’s not what God is supposed to be like. [?] And I said there was still something hollow in this item. Took a long time and [?] So I went to the Gay Community Center and saw something about this big on the bulletin board, and it said “Metropolitan Community Church. Services open to all people. No dress codes required.” That told me a lot right there, ‘cause the church I grew up in, I had to consider whether my white gloves and my patent leather purse matched my pumps [Laughter.] than whether I could go inside and worship. So I’m always more keen on organizations when they say there’s no dress code requirement, ‘cause I firmly believe that what is inside people is far more important than what’s on the outside. What you wear is your business and your business alone. As long as you wear something. [Laugher.]

I went to that church very petrified, not knowing what to expect again. Of course, the description I heard was probably the description that each one of you has heard at times. In LA it was "a bunch of queens out there playing church." Here in St. Louis, “It’s those dykes that run the church.” [Laughter. Applause.] I had to go inside to find out, and what I found once again is that the stereotypes were not true. And I look around here and I find once again that the stereotypes are not true.

I knew by the time I went to MCC the first time. That lightened my soul pretty much and filled that void in my spiritual life, too. I always knew that God loved me, ‘cause I grew up with that, ‘n I knew. But, somebody stood in the pulpit of that Los Angeles church and told me that I could love God. I could be me doing it. I could be a whole person; I didn’t have to put part of me outside and say “Wait out in back.” I could walk in as who I am and proud of it, realizing that gay pride starts on the inside, on the inside of you. You can be just as proud as anyone ever anywhere else. You may not have full civil rights, but you will one day, and one day you will, but you can have pride, because that starts inside of you. And I know that, and you know that. [Long Applause.] You’re not waiting on someone to give you gay pride. Stand up and look and see. You have something to be proud of. Even when you stand in front of a mirror, and you look, you will see a human being, and that human being is you, and you have a right to be, and don’t let anyone ever tell you any different. God spent a lot of time creating you just as you are. Why waste your time trying to round off those edges to try to fit in somebody else’s mold? Be you.

Carol Cureton's Introduction of Rev. Troy Perry

The person who convinced me to be me, the Rev. L. Troy Perry. I bring him to speak to you tonight.
[Long applause. Thank you. Thank you.]

Transcribed by Jim Andris August, 15, 2017 from a copy of a tape made of the event provided by John Hilgeman.