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Minister's book seeks blessings for gays
Sunday, February 28, 1999 By Ann Rodgers-Melnick, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
A United Methodist minister from Pittsburgh has written a book urging churches to bless gay relationships.
The book, "More than Welcome," places the Rev. Maurine Waun, associate pastor at the First United Methodist Church of Pittsburgh in Shadyside, openly at odds with the doctrine of her denomination, which holds that sexual activity is for heterosexual marriage only. Although the national church is badly torn over this issue, the United Methodist Conference of Western Pennsylvania has a history of strong support for traditional Christian sexual morality.
Waun, who has never made a secret of her advocacy for gays in the church, said she had not heard from her bishop about the book. Before the book was published, she had requested a leave of absence for family reasons, due to start in June.
"I don't get up in the morning and ask myself, 'How will I fly in the face of tradition today? How might I jeopardize my career today?' " Waun said of her decisions to work in ministry with gay people and to write "More than Welcome."
"I try to stand with people in their pain."
Waun, 54, grew up, finished college, married, divorced, taught school and embarked on a second career in ministry without ever being aware that she knew anyone who was gay. Her intellectual introduction to the topic came when she decided to write a paper for a seminary class supporting the traditional Christian ban on gay relationships - because she thought it would be easy. She was shocked when the professor deemed her paper shallow.
So for another class she chose the other side of the case, and squeamishly sought advice from a gay minister then enrolled in a doctoral program at the seminary. Meeting him forced her to confront prejudices she had never realized she had. That might have been the end of her interest in gay concerns had she not been assigned to First United Methodist, which is in a neighborhood favored by gay Pittsburghers.
"My feeling is that when you are appointed to serve a church, you look out the window, see who's out there and open the door," she said.
"More than Welcome" was published by Chalice Press, the denominational publishing house of the Disciples of Christ, and costs $15.99. Waun will sign books at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Squirrel Hill.
The book is not a theological treatise. An appendix refers readers to other books that argue why Christians should not be bound by biblical proscriptions against homosexual activity. Waun writes only that there is no unchanging biblical sexual code because polygamy and divorce are acceptable in some parts of the Bible and not in others.
Nor is the book an in-depth pastoral guide to issues that nonheterosexuals may seek spiritual guidance for. The parishioners whom Waun writes about are sympathetic characters, most of whose problems stem from others' rejection of them. But unlike most writers who defend the morality of gay relationships, Waun does not completely reject "ex-gay ministries" that try to change homosexuals into heterosexuals. Although such groups are futile or harmful for most gay people, she says, some participants do seem to benefit.
She wrote the book for the "moveable middle." That is her term for the large group of churchgoers who are uncomfortable with the idea of homosexuality but are not ideologically committed to opposing it and are willing to consider nontraditional ideas.
The book introduces readers who may be as ignorant as she once was to nonheterosexuals who long to be part of a church family. The parishioners and acquaintances she writes about include a gay couple who adopt a baby (Waun baptized the child), a lonely transvestite suffering the indignities of hospitalization and a man who is guilt-stricken because a gang of gay bashers killed a young man he had invited out on a date.
She recounts her efforts to organize wholesome church-based social activities as an alternative to the gay bar scene. But Waun offers more questions than answers about sexual morality.
"Most of the time in the church we are afraid to ask these kinds of questions. We are afraid of what the answers may be," she said.
She is still trying to figure out what the moral measure of Christian sexual relationships should be. She is no longer fully convinced that all sexual minorities should be held to the same standard of monogamy as heterosexuals have been.
The one thing Waun is sure of is that "our moral code now is simply inadequate," she said.
"I am contributing my 2 cents' worth, but I don't have the answer."
During her June leave of absence from ministry, Waun plans to look after her two young grandchildren. She also hopes to write another book.
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