“Sweet Music”

By Juliana Harvard

“Here’s info from the latest issue of Dimensions,” Teri wrote in e-mail. My online lesbian friend had typed a long list of gay community organizations and phone numbers for Dallas/Fort Worth, along with brief remarks. I perused the list. At the bottom there was a single word—Kinship—with a Dallas phone number and Teri’s remark, “I have no idea what this is <shrug>.”

My heart skipped beat—I knew exactly what Kinship was! For several years, I had been receiving a monthly newsletter from Pastor Jan Marcussen, an independent Adventist minister in Illinois, whose focus was on the Second Coming of Christ. He had even published a well-known book, National Sunday Law, which was being distributed by conservative SDA congregations.

I had seen videos of Pastor Marcussen’s sermons, and was thoroughly enchanted by his sweet, soft-spoken homilies. Only one thing spoiled the picture—his vicious homophobia. He described in detail the horrors of Hiroshima, specifically how those who were unfortunate enough to be in direct sight of the infamous atomic bomb were not only blinded instantly, but felt their eyeballs melt out of their sockets. He then declared that that was what would happen to all the unrepentant homosexuals when Jesus comes. Somehow, even in my deeply closeted state, that concept had very questionable credibility.

But one issue of Jan Marcussen’s newsletter had stood out prominently. The front page displayed a bold headline about a “gay Adventist church” that was being sued by the denomination for using its name in their name, “Seventh-day Adventist Kinship, International.” Jan Marcussen’s purpose in the article was, of course, to point out the high level of corruption that existed in the mainstream church and in society. That the lawsuit was not won by the church totally eluded me as I took a deep breath. There are more church members out there who are like me! Where are they?

For many years, I kept this snippet of knowledge in the back of my mind. Just in case I ever have a reason to find these people. Now, in the spring of 1993, I was still married to my second husband and living with him and our two teenage children. But in the late night hours at my computer, I had I found an entire gay/lesbian community in cyberspace, through America Online and Prodigy. During my inevitable “coming out,” I found other lesbian wives and mothers, like me; and I found other gay Christians.

During that time, I reached a totally satisfactory resolution of my struggle to reconcile my sexuality with my spirituality. I found a whole denomination of open and affirming congregations, the Metropolitan Community Church, and located a local one in east Fort Worth. Through a series of ah-ha events, I became completely convinced that it was okay with God that I am gay. But I had found no gay SDAs. I had looked for Kinship in the yellow pages at the same time that I had looked for a local MCC but had found nothing. Now, before my very eyes, in an unwitting e-mail from a tough dyke in San Antonio, was a real Kinship telephone number in Dallas! So, on a quiet Sabbath afternoon in April, when my husband was at work, I dialed the number with shaky, sweaty hands.

“Hello,” began the pleasant male voice recording on the other end of the line, “if you are calling about the house for sale on Glenview Terrace, please leave your name and number and we’ll get back to you.” Beep. Silence. Click.

I dialed again, more unsure than ever if I really wanted to do this. I listened again to the message, then said, “Hello? I, uh, was trying to reach someone about Kinship—I hope this is the right number. I live in Fort Worth, but I’m a married woman and I can’t give you a number to call me back. So, er, um, I’ll try to call again…sometime.” Panic. Click.

In my next moment of wondering what to do, I absentmindedly flipped through the first e-mails that I had received from my online SDA friend, Pastor Ron, and found something I had totally missed the first time. The sentence that began, “We do have several gay members–open as well as closeted,” continued with, “and one in our area is a leader in the Kinship group. I have written articles for their magazine, and also serve on a special 1-800 crisis number for gays that operates through Andrews University.” I would later learn about Kinship’s monthly newsletter, Connection, and the toll-free 1-800-4GAY-SDA hotline that existed at that time.

Hurriedly, I sent another e-mail to Ron. “Do you ever see that Kinship member who goes to your church?” I wrote excitedly. “Would you be able to find out if there are Kinship members in Dallas?”

Ron wrote back almost immediately with, “Yes, Rosemary and I see Larry often. The Kinship contact in Dallas is Floyd Poenitz and his number is (214) 707-1971.” Same number! Once again, this time with full confidence, I dialed. And, this time, the pleasant male voice answered live.

“Is this the right number for Kinship?” I began.

“Yes, it is,” Floyd responded, and I could hear the cordial smile in his voice. “Are you the woman who has left a couple of messages in the past week?”

I blushed. “Well, probably, but there was this recording about a house for sale.”

Floyd laughed good-naturedly. “Oh, that! Yes, Lloyd and I just bought a new house, but the old one is still on the market. What can I tell you about Kinship?”

I began with explaining about my marriage, my children, and my frantic spiritual dilemmas. “I do want to know more about Kinship and other gay Adventists, but there’s just no way I can have anyone call me or have anything mailed to me.”

“I understand,” Floyd said. “I was married for several years, too. My ex-wife and I are still very good friends. Occasionally Lloyd and I have dinner with her and her boyfriend.”

“Really?” I was astonished. “And do you go to church in Dallas?”

“Usually Central Church,” he answered nonchalantly, “but sometimes we drive out to Grand Prairie or Arlington. Once in a while, we even visit Keene.”

This is truly amazing! This man sounds like he could be a minister, or at the very least a good church elder. Can he really be gay? For the next two hours, I poured out my heart and soul to Floyd Poenitz, who listened patiently, understandingly, and spoke with kindness and lots of common sense.

“We have monthly Kinship meetings,” he told me, “usually at my house. Wish you could come sometime, but I do understand if you can’t.”

I wished with all my being that I could sneak off to Dallas on a Saturday evening, but I knew I didn’t dare. Still… “Are there very many women in your Kinship group?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

“Hmm, well,” Floyd stalled, “not very many. There was one lesbian couple from Keene who used to attend. Haven’t seen them for a while. In fact, I’m not sure they’re still together.” Lesbian Adventists living in Keene?!? This was almost too much to believe.

I sighed, almost trembling. “Oh, Floyd, thank you so much for taking time to talk to me today. You don’t know what a godsend you are!”

“No problem,” he smiled back. “I’m always glad to help a sister or brother. Call any time you need or want to. I’ll keep you in my prayers.”

I kept Floyd’s phone number tucked away in the back of my wallet. Perhaps, someday, I would call him again. That “someday” came sooner than I had imagined. Within the next three months, I went through the emotional trauma of losing my “straight” best girlfriend who refused to admit to her sexuality after I came out to her. I spent a frustrating weekend with a single lesbian I met online and who visited from out-of-state then got “cold feet.” I shared a fantasy week with another lesbian mom from another state and fell in love with her. Then I “lost” my firstborn son to a self-supporting Adventist boarding academy after having spent eleven years homeschooling him.

By the end of the summer, my husband had threatened divorce, suicide, and homicide. Life for me became extremely turbulent. My counselor later described it as “going through a wind tunnel.” I called Floyd to “cry on his shoulder,” even though I had never met him in person. I spent another wonderfully peaceful Sabbath afternoon on the phone with this understanding, compassionate, and thoroughly loving Christlike man.

Then he called me. “Kinship is having a pool party at my house on Labor Day,” he said. “I know you might not be able to come, but I wanted to let you know about it.” Then, “Oh, yes, there is a woman in Keene who told me it’s okay for me to give you her phone number. Her name is Janelle Radclyffe.”

By this time, my husband had ended up in a mental hospital. When he was released after a week, he was given restraining orders to stay away from the house, though I didn’t know for how long. So I called Janelle—the very first gay Seventh-day Adventist I was to meet in person. I invited her over for Sabbath dinner, and she accepted. When I answered the door that bright August day, I was stunned. She looked so normal!

After a meal of Special K® loaf and green bean casserole, we spent a lovely Sabbath afternoon together. We discovered we had both attended the same Adventist college, but we had never met during the one year our college attendance overlapped. We discussed our mutual passions for writing and teaching and John Denver’s music. We laughed a lot. By sundown, we had gone from being total strangers to feeling like we had been very best friends all our lives.

The very next week, Janelle took me to the Labor Day pool party at Floyd’s house. I met David Morris, a former academy teacher and fellow organist. There was Jodie and Tom and Kevin and other Kinship members in Region 5. Later there was my computer buddy Charlene who I worked with at Microsoft. I could share anything with her, from the spoofy country-western song, “I Spent My Last Ten Dollars on Birth Control and Beer, (Life was so much simpler when I was sober and queer),” to deeply serious Bible studies as she pursued her own spiritual journey.

Occasionally, we’d meet Kinship members who were visiting from out of town. There was Walt Elias, who would later become a Connection editor. There was beloved Adventist pastor Mark Edwards who was in the middle of coming to terms with his orientation, and another extremely talented but most necessarily closeted Adventist musician affiliated with a major denominational institution. And, always, I continued to marvel at how “real” and “normal” gay persons are!

Janelle and I attended Kinship meetings together regularly. Month after month, we met on Sabbath evenings, usually at Floyd’s house, for potluck suppers—a most delightful experience when gay men are turned loose in a kitchen! Floyd always had a business meeting to discuss future Kinship plans. Somehow, Floyd even talked me into “doing” the regional newsletter, which we called “Kinship Kalendar,” for a short time.

Many times we had animated discussions in Floyd’s family room as we devoured vegeburgers or spaghetti, freely sharing an assortment of topics, from unabashed humor to the “anti-gay” Bible texts. Sometimes we went to other places, like Putt-Putt or Botanical Gardens or the Black-Eyed Pea restaurant. Other times we watched videos or went swimming. And often we ended up at The Roundup, a country western dance bar in Dallas’ famed gay district, Oaklawn—the Castro of the Midwest. It was there that Floyd—despite being the smooth two-stepper that he is—was a most patient and uncomplaining dance instructor for those of us with two left feet.

Perhaps the best times of all were the Sabbath school and church services at Floyd’s house, with David playing his keyboard, and with meaningful study/discussions, which affirmed that E. G. White admonition to “teach the youth to be thinkers and not mere reflectors of other men’s thought.”

In the course of my coming out over the next year, as I gradually “lost” my good Adventist friends and family members, my new Kinship friends became my family—brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews. Janelle and I fell in love, and she became the closest sister and friend I had always wanted but never knew existed. Through a horrendously ugly divorce that seemed would never have an end, Janelle and Floyd and the others provided a strong support system. Through my desperate quest for The Dream Job—or any job—my Kinship family was there for me. And loved me, no matter what. Whether I needed help to move a four-bedroom house or calming down from worrying about my rebellious 15-year-old daughter, I could count on my Kinship friends.

I no longer live in Texas. My life is in California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. But Janelle and Floyd are still only an e-mail or phone call away. The men and women in our northern California Kinship chapter have become special to me over these past months. And I even attended my first Kinship Kampmeeting in 1997. But perhaps nothing ever has had or will have the intensity of impact on my life or so perfectly fill my emotional, spiritual, and social needs, as did Kinship of Dallas in 1993.

Juliana Harvard writes about finding other gay Seventh-day Adventists through SDA Kinship International, Dallas Chapter.