“WHERE DO THE MERMAIDS STAND?”

A Homily for the Welcoming Congregation Program
By the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, November 11, 2007

In his famous book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kinder-garten, UU minister Robert Fulghum tells of a time early in his ministry, when he was given charge of a group of energetic and rambunctious Sunday School children. On the spot he invented a game called “Giants, Wizards & Dwarfs.” He told the kids, “You have to decide now which you are – a gi-ant, a wizard or a dwarf,” and he showed them where to stand in the class-room. At that point, a small girl tugged at his leg and asked, “But where do the mermaids stand?” “In this game, there are no mermaids,” he replied and the little girl bravely rejoined, “Oh yes there are – because I’m one.”

Now this little girl knew who and what she was and she was not about to give up on either her identity or the game. She intended to take her place wherever mermaids fit into the general scheme of things. Where do the mer-maids stand? Where do they fit, all those who are different, all those who do not fit into the prefabricated social boxes and pigeonholes and categories? “Answer that question,” wrote Fulghum, “and you can build a school, a nation, or a whole world.”

With the Welcoming Congregation Program, we are not so grandiose to think that one church alone or one religious denomination alone will build a nation or a whole world, but we do aspire to build one welcoming congregation, this one. Our aim is to be formally declared by the UUA that we are a church that is open and welcoming to people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersexed, and queer.

Many of you may wonder why we need the designation as an official Welcoming Congregation, feeling that since we have a statement of nondiscrimination in our By-Laws, and since we have so many open b/g/l/t/i/q persons as leader, and since we have had 3 openly gay ministers, we are already hospitable enough. I remember that about 16 or so years ago, when my son was around 9, he heard the word “lesbian” on TV for the first time. Stevie asked me what it meant, and I explained the term by pointing out the women-who-loved-women in this church, whom he knew and whose homes he had visited, with whose children he played. Stevie’s response showed me how First Church had completely normalized this – he shrugged and said, “Oh, I didn’t know there was a word for it.”

But since our church has never gone through the Welcoming Congregation program and then taken a congregational vote on the topic, people seeking a Welcoming Congregation on the UUA website would not find our church listed. Without that “imprimatur” or seal of approval, newcomers to the church have no way of knowing that we think we’re a pretty welcoming lot. Being on the list means something.

While it is true that in recent decades our church has been a warm home for b/g/l/t/i/q individuals, those with long memories will recall that we have not always been so open. In the early 1980s, the question of whether or not our church would co-sponsor a Gay Pride Celebration was so controversial that a church policy had to be written about public support for potentially contentious issues. Other long-timers might remember that in the late ‘80s, in a survey of the members and friends prior to a ministerial search, a large but minority percentage of respondents said they would be uncomfortable with a gay or lesbian or transgender pastor. (To its credit, the Search Committee that year did interview and seriously consider a lesbian candidate.)

It’s not just where do the mermaids and others who are different from what society’s norms stand, but where do they go to church? Where can b/g/l/t/i/q people worship in religious community and be accepted and welcomed for who they really are? Where can they offer their gifts? We UUs love to say how we celebrate diversity, and that is indeed a very good thing, but becoming officially a UU Welcoming Congregation makes it a concrete and formal reality, just as going through an anti-racism program makes us better able to confront and deal with oppression based on skin color.

In my boasts about this congregation over the years – and God forgive me, I have bragged about this church – I have always talked about this church’s willingness to grow and change, to move always in the direction of being more open, more inclusive, more hospitable to the stranger. I have always felt it was in the pioneering spirit of our founding pastor Parson Clapp, part of our historic efforts to always be on the forefront of social justice issues, and true to our historic name as the Church of the Stranger. I have to say, I was surprised to learn on arriving back here that the congregation had never taken the step of voting to be an official Welcoming Congregation. I’m sure there are a thousand good reasons for that, including the thought that the church was already as welcoming as a UU church could be. But now, in this new era for our church and for our city, we are called upon to make things right, not just in our minds and hearts, but also on paper and on the UUA website, to make things formal and definite now that have been in our spirits and our practice for quite some time. Let’s talk together in the coming months about what it means to be welcoming to all the “mermaids” out there, and then, when the time is right, let us vote as a congregation to be designated by the UUA as truly Welcoming. Let us do this because it is to our benefit, and much more importantly, because it is the right thing to do, and because not to do so would be to perpetuate gonizing pain for countless people, some of whom we already know and love. AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!