In the late 1960s and early 1970s, an underground network of gay (mostly male) Friends formed as more gay Quakers learned about one another through the wave of responses to

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, an underground network of gay (mostly male) Friends formed as more gay Quakers learned about one another through the wave of responses to Bradford’s coming out letter in Friends Journal.[1] Bradford and Ron Mattson (1936-2012), a Quaker pastor from Minneapolis who had recently come out to his congregation, asked another gay Quaker in Philadelphia to hold a meeting in his home when members of the informal network of gay Friends were expected to be in Philadelphia for an AFSC event. At that first meeting, plans were made to form a caucus of gay Friends at the next conference for liberal Quakers, the annual summer gathering of the Friends General Conference, an association of Quaker yearly meetings. The group met soon afterwards at Race Street Meetinghouse in Philadelphia to make more detailed arrangements. When a representative of the group tried to reserve a room in the meetinghouse, he was asked the name of the group, but it did not yet have one. Through a stutter he uttered the closeted name: “The Committee of Concern.”[2] The group ended up liking the name because it helped them protect the anonymity of its members. Similar to Bradford’s reasons for using pseudonyms, the group that formed the Committee of Concern were nervous about the consequences of being out in a world that often caused them harm. At the second meeting of the Committee of Concern, the group made plans for the first national caucus of gay Friends to be formed at the FGC annual summer gathering, which was scheduled to be held at Ithaca College in upstate New York.

In August 1972, the Committee of Concern’s dreams for a gathering of gay and lesbian Friends from across the United States were realized. Gay and lesbian Quakers shared a block of housing in the dormitory and sat with one another in silent worship on each of the days of the FGC annual summer gathering. During this unprecedented event, gay and lesbian Friends frequently broke the silence of worship to express their vision for a fully inclusive Religious Society of Friends. Mattson, the gay pastor from Minneapolis, seems to have led the collective outpouring of hope and optimism. One Friend said that Mattson took the group “to the mountaintop, and together we saw the Promised Land.” This evoked one of Rev. Martin Luther King’s speeches, drawing a strong link between the civil rights and gay liberation movements.

At that same historic FGC gathering in Ithaca in 1972, Stephen Donaldson (1946–1996), also known as Robert Anthony Martin Jr., organized a spontaneous workshop with over 130 people about the experiences and concerns of bisexual people. Donaldson was a skilled community organizer, having previously co-founded the Student Homophile League, the first gay student organization in the United States. The Quakers in the workshop organized by Donaldson wrote the Ithaca Statement, which is heralded as the first positive statement in support of bisexuality in the United States by a religious assembly. Donaldson later published the Ithaca Statement in Friends Journal and the Advocate, a national gay periodical based in Los Angeles.[3] He also briefly chaired an FGC committee on bisexuality before he cut his ties with Quakers in 1977 to become a Theravadan Buddhist monk.

After Stonewall, many more Quakers got involved in organizations striving for gay liberation. In September 1972, Henry Weitzer joined the Gay Activist Alliance (GAA) in a zap of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC). In the early 1970s, the TLC required that gay taxi drivers provide a letter from a psychiatrist that could prove they were fit to drive a vehicle. To resist this policy, Weitzer and his GAA collaborators snuck a lavender couch into the Taxi and Limousine Commissioners office while dressed as delivery men, only to change into robes to imitate psychiatrists. They proceeded to scribble on clipboards while they offered the commissioner various cures for homosexuality, going so far as to suggest that he might consider a lobotomy. Meanwhile, dozens of GAA members held placards and marched in a picket line in front of the building. Under pressure, TLC leaders agreed to meet with the activists, and soon after they repealed their discriminatory policies.[4]

In Philadelphia, relationships between Quakers and the GAA were also developing during the early 1970s. Out of a building on Lombard Street that had been used as a mental health clinic, Friends in Philadelphia rented space to the local Gay Activists Alliance for dances, social events, and meetings to organize zaps against anti-gay politicians. Philadelphia’s first gay pride march, held in the summer of 1972, was organized by GAA members in the same Quaker-owned property on Lombard, indicating that Quakers played a key role in the development of the first gay pride parades in two major U.S. cities.[5] In 1973, when most landlords refused to associate themselves with gay rights organizations, Philadelphia Friends rented a second property they owned on Third Street to the GAA. There, the GAA opened a Gay Coffeehouse, which became an important social venue and political organizing space for gay and lesbian groups until 1976. At that location, the GAA also established the Eromin Center, a mental health service for LGBT people, and the Gay Switchboard, which offered legal, counseling, and social work referrals.

Notes