Transgender teaching sub won’t return in NJ
Lily McBeth, a substitute teacher from Little Egg Harbor Township, became a national symbol of acceptance for transgender Americans in 2006 when the Eagleswood and Pinelands Regional school districts kept her on the job despite protests from some parents.
But McBeth said the number of teaching assignments she got from both school districts dwindled from 10 to 20 calls when she was William McBeth to just one or two calls per semester. McBeth sent a letter to Eagleswood Township officials stating that she will not return in the fall and she plans to send a similar notice to the Pinelands Regional School District.
“I’m trying to get out with grace and dignity,” McBeth, 74, said in a phone interview Wednesday. “It’s just a shame the school district - they had an opportunity … to teach the students and the staff something about tolerance and diversity, and they look good for putting me back on the list. But what they did with me once I got on the list was hang me out to dry.”
McBeth added that she wants to keep her decision to leave “calm and peaceful.”
“I’m not interested in stirring up a hornet’s nest,” she said.
McBeth, who grew up in Atlantic City, had gender-reassignment surgery in 2005.
Detlef Kern, superintendent of Pinelands Regional, declined to comment when reached by phone Wednesday.
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Family says closeted gay sailor killed Provost
The aunt of August Provost, a bisexual Navy seaman from Houston found murdered at Camp Pendleton last month, told Dallas Voice this week that the family has received information suggesting that her nephew’s killer is a gay sailor who somehow feared being outed by Provost.
Rose Roy, of Beaumont, the sister of Provost’s father, said in a phone interview Tuesday, July 14 that she’s “not at liberty” to identify the source who provided the information to the family. But Roy said the source told the family Provost had a heated argument with the suspect a week before his murder, and that the sailor now being held as a person of interest by the Navy has a history of mental illness.
“This guy went the extra mile to make sure that my nephew would never be able to speak about his [the killer’s] sexuality,” Roy said. “My nephew died for reasons other than what the military is saying.”
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California appellate court rules La Crescenta property belongs to Los Angeles diocese
A California appellate court’s June 9 ruling was the latest in a series of recent developments that return disputed church properties to three California Episcopal dioceses.
On June 9, the San Diego-based Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled unanimously that the Diocese of Los Angeles is legal owner of property currently occupied by St. Luke’s Anglican Church. The congregation had cited theological differences when severing ties to the Episcopal Church (TEC) in 2006 and realigning with an Anglican diocese in Uganda.
In unrelated agreements, displaced Episcopalians will return July 1 to two other disputed properties, St. John’s Church in Petaluma, in the Diocese of Northern California and St. Paul’s Church in Modesto in the Diocese of San Joaquin.
“The long history of the Episcopal Church in La Crescenta will continue with new leadership and the potential for sustained growth, and as an open source of full inclusion for all humanity,” Bishop Jon Bruno of Los Angeles said June 9 after learning of the court’s decision.
“It is important that we preserve the essence of St. Luke the healer and the ongoing maintenance of the historic church building. It is a jewel in the crown of La Crescenta, and a blessing to the people of the Diocese of Los Angeles.”
Los Angeles: ‘property held in trust’ for wider church
The appellate court ruling affirmed a 2007 trial court decision that the church, located about 15 miles north of Los Angeles, was held in trust for the mission of both the local diocese and the wider church. In issuing the ruling, the ten-member panel cited a January 5, 2009 California Supreme Court decision, which returned St. James Anglican Church in Newport Beach to the diocese. Attorneys in that case, New v. Kroeger, have appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
John Shiner, chancellor for the Diocese of Los Angeles, said a timeline for transition will advance in accordance with court procedures.
The Rev. Rob Holmann, rector of St. Luke’s Anglican Church, declined to comment June 10. “I know the general direction of the ruling, but I am withholding all comment until I see it” and until he could speak with attorneys, he told the Episcopal News Service.
A few days earlier, Holmann had told the Glendale News Press that he and the 200-member congregation “would very much like to stay” in the 83-year-old river-rock building, considered a cultural, architectural and historic local landmark.
Bruno said the future mission of St. Luke’s, now under his direct pastoral control, will be to focus on “deepening our understanding of what it means to be reconciled, welcoming and healthy people of God.”
Petaluma and Modesto: Episcopal congregations set to return July 1
After a bitter split and three years of “homelessness,” members of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Petaluma are returning July 1 to the 118-year-old church, the Rev. Norman Cram said in a telephone interview June 10.
“We are jubilant, overwhelmingly jubilant,” said Cram, priest-in-charge. “We celebrated our homelessness and we overlooked the inconveniences of living and worshipping out of a laundry basket but now that these things are almost behind us, it’s almost overwhelming.”
Citing disagreement over the ordination of a gay bishop, a majority of the 250-member congregation in December 2006 had voted to sever ties with the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Northern California but declined to vacate church property. They formed St. John’s Anglican Church, displacing about 55 continuing Episcopalians who initially met in homes.
The Rev. David Miller, rector of the Anglican congregation, had sought a transfer of his canonical residence to the Argentina-based Anglican Province of the Southern Cone and was eventually deposed by the Rt. Rev. Jerry Lamb, then bishop of the Diocese of Northern California.
Miller did not return ENS telephone calls June 10. Mike McIntosh, parish administrator for the disaffiliated group, said a news release would be issued eventually, but declined further comment. The congregation’s last service in the church will be Sunday, June 28.
The continuing Episcopal congregation eventually began meeting on Sunday evenings at the Elim Lutheran Church in Petaluma who “magnificently sheltered us,” said Cram. He added that he hopes: “to present a healthy Christian perspective of love, compassion and kindness to our community, to be the yeast for the values of unity and inclusiveness in Petaluma.”
Meanwhile, Bishop Jerry Lamb of San Joaquin told ENS that discussions are underway with St. Paul’s Church in Modesto for return of that property by July 1, which several years ago affiliated with the Anglican Mission in America.
The Rev. Michael McClenaghan, rector, did not return ENS calls.
Lamb was already planning an organizational meeting, seeking lay leaders to begin the work of transition. “I have been making calls this week to laity who are or have been members of St. Paul’s and have signaled their desire to remain in the Episcopal Church,” he said in a statement posted on the diocesan website.
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Artist Tim Miller gets the gay ‘Lay of the Land’
Performance artist and gay activist Tim Miller likes to think of himself as a “flag monitor” who uses his art to keep tabs on acts of bigotry and discrimination perpetrated in the name of the country to which he pledges allegiance.
Miller comes to Tallahassee this weekend to deliver a State of the Union address — make that a State of the Queer American Union address — in the form of his solo piece, “Lay of the Land,” at the Mickee Faust Clubhouse in Railroad Square Art Park.
He arrives days after New Hampshire became the sixth state to sanction same-sex unions. It ought to add an extra fillip of irony to his performances of “Lay of the Land,” which references Florida’s Amendment 2 and Proposition 8 (from Miller’s home state of California), which aim to prohibit gay marriage.
It’ll be his first visit to Tallahassee, but Miller has done his homework.
“Florida and California have such a weird and complicated link in the national imagination,” Miller said in a phone interview. “There’s the image of the sun and orange trees and the veneer that both states have of free thinking and loving nature — and exporting homophobia.” See Artist gets the gay ‘Lay of the Land’
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