Happy 50th Anniversary! – Celebrating Rev. Ed Egan and the Founding of PFLAG
Third Sunday After Pentecost ● June 18, 2023
Reading: Hebrews 11:1-3, 32-34, 36-40 (Inclusive Bible)
Rev. Jeff Wells © 2023
You can view the full worship video recording here.
Today, we celebrate the founding, 50 years ago, of “Parents of Gays” – which today is a called PFLAG. It is now a thriving organization with more than 500 chapters and 250,000 members across the U.S. Eric Marcus, the author of Making Gay History and host of the podcast by the same name, estimates that PFLAG has directly benefited the lives of tens of millions of people over the past five decades.
Parents of Gays was founded in our building, when the congregation was called, Metropolitan Duane United Methodist Church (MDUMC, or “Met Duane”). Not only did it meet here first and for many years thereafter, but the pastor at the time, Rev. Ed Egan, was an important founding member and remained active in Parents of Gays for many years.
So, I want to tell you an exciting story – it’s partly my story of solving an historical mystery and partly the story of those in the early history of Parents of Gay who continue to learn from and be inspired by – including Ed Egan and leaders of the Met Duane Church. I will relate some pieces of history that are well known and share new insights I have uncovered by piecing together bits of evidence.
Many of you have heard of Ed Egan before because in June of 2017, we held an event to remember and celebrate him, along with Rev. Paul Abels of the Washington Square UMC, both of whom were forced out of ordained ministry by our denomination for being gay.
Also, we succeeded in getting the NY Annual Conference of the UMC to pass a resolution recognizing and repenting for the injustice that had been done. I am indebted to former member, Lina Landström, for bringing Ed’s story to my attention. Lina and I met with Ed’s partner, Russ Morin, in April 2017 and got to hear many stories and peruse Ed’s extensive personal archives. Last year, I learned that Russ died in 2018.
Ed Egan graduated from Yale Divinity School in 1954 and served five congregations – concluding with MDUMC from 1971 to 1977. When Ed arrived in 1971, a leader of the church estimated that the congregation was about 50 percent Gay and Lesbian. It is important to recall that in 1972, the General Conference of the UMC voted to include in the Book of Discipline the putrid phrase, “We do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider this practice to be incompatible with Christian teaching.” While Ed was closetted within the New York Conference of the UMC, he was pretty open in other arenas. By the mid-1950s, when he was still married, he was already actively advocating for Gay and Lesbian humanity and dignity.
Ed became a leading member of the Mattachine Society in New York in the late 1950s. Mattachine the first major Gay organization in the U.S. He gave lectures, offered counseling, published articles, and was listed on New York Mattachine’s letterhead as a member of the Advisory Board. He also served as a spiritual counselor for the Daughters of Bilitis – the first major Lesbian organization in the U.S., which shared office space with Mattachine in lower Manhattan. At their 1964 national convention, Ed was honored for his contributions with the title “Son of Bilitis” – a recognition that was comically labeled, the S.O.B. Award.
Mattachine has often been labeled as timid and reformist yet, for its time, it made important steps forward. A major example is that Mattachine played a significant role in getting homosexuality removed as a mental disorder from the diagnostic manual of the American Psychiatric Association in 1974. Through its activism and organizing over 25 years, it laid the groundwork for and evolved along with the more radical advocacy that blossomed after Stonewall in 1969.
Ed participated in many public presentations and conferences like the 1973 clergy panel on homosexuality shown below.
As Lina wrote about Ed, “[It is] amazing how he seems to have had such a long involvement in the Gay rights movement, even long before he came out…. It’s a shame he’s been so erased from history.” Because of our efforts, Rev. Ed Egan is now recognized on the LGBT Religious Archives Network.
When Ed died in 1994, the NY Conference Journal included a clergy memorial composed by Russ, along with Ed’s daughter, Trudi Hendrichs, his son, Dana Egan. I encourage you to read the memorial. It provides a wonderful, well-rounded picture of the generous and committed person Ed was and much more biographical detail than I have time to share. You can find a link to it in the Zoom chat and printed copies at the back of the sanctuary.
When I first read the memorial in 2017, I found a cryptic and tantalizing reference that said Met Duane UMC had provided space for, “the Parents of Gays group, of which he [Ed] was a founder” (emphasis added). Then, I was even more intrigued by this historical treasure hunt, but it wasn’t until two years later that I had time to do more research. When I did, I began to discover the extent of his role in envisioning, initiating, and promoting “Parents of Gays” (POG). Not only was Ed a founding member, but in 1976 and 1977, he composed the major written work for his Doctor of Ministry degree based on this experience – a 105-page paper titled, “Parents of Gays: A Demonstration Project.” This included conducting, recording, and transcribing dozens of interviews with parents and Gay children over a six-month period. He began this project less than three years after the founding of Parents of Gays and while he was still very active in the organization and attending every monthly meeting of POG held at Metropolitan Duane UMC. His “Site Team” – an advisory body for the project – included three members of Met Duane (Jerry Paige, Ray Johnson, and Beverley Berry), three members of Parents of Gays (Richard Ashworth, Rae Kameny, and Morty Manford), and a long-time friend and collaborator in social justice ministry (Robert Roy Wright).
Of course, the seed for the idea of Parents of Gays came from Jeanne Manford and Morty, her adult Gay son. Morty was a leader in the generation of Gay activists who came after Ed’s generation. After Stonewall in 1969, he became an outspoken leader of the Gay Activists Alliance. Jeanne began a public defense of Morty and his activism in an April 1972 letter printed in the New York Post.
In June of that year, she and Morty marched together in the third annual Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade, with a sign that read, “Parents of Gays: Unite in Support for Our Children.” There was an immediate and powerful response from the crowd and Jeanne and Morty began to dream of creating a support organization for parents and their Gay children.
In his paper, Ed wrote of how that dream became a reality:
“Parents of Gays, New York, began as follows. On Monday, January 22, 1973, under the auspices of his Homosexual Community Counseling Center, Dr. Ralph Blair held a symposium in Manhattan featuring a panel of parents and their Gay children. Among these were Jeanne Manford and her son, Morty, later to become a member of my Site Team; Roy Byrd (pseudonym), the mental health counselor…, and his parents. In informal conversation after the symposium, we sensed the need for an ongoing work with, by and for parents of Gays. We agreed to meet at MDUMC on Sunday afternoon, March 31, 1973, open as to where we would go from there. That date marked the beginning of a series of monthly meetings which has continued for four years. From the outset, POG seemed to meet a deep need among those attending, ranging in number from six on a cold Sunday in January to around 50 in the wake of wide press coverage in the New York Post.”
He was referring to a New York Post and wire service article in March 1974 that drew widespread attention to POG. In addition to Jeanne and Jules Manford, Parents of Gays continued to attract a core group of capable leaders, like Dick and Amy Ashworth, Sarah Montgomery, Rae Kameny, and a few others. Ed wrote that his demonstration project “plugged in” to the work which had begun four years earlier “and which has been admirably carried out by a committed nucleus of parents and Gays in New York City, to their own benefit and to the comfort and enlightenment of untold others reached in person and by the media. Almost two years was required for the emergence of this committed core group. The Steering Committee of POG/NY came into being in August of 1975 after the group had been in operation 2½ years.”
While, at first, POG evolved and grew slowly, a Parents of Gays group formed in Washington, DC in May 1974. And by the time Ed submitted his project in April 1977, there were 20 chapters in 16 states. Parents of Gay continued to hold monthly meetings in the Met Duane church until at least 1984.
In February and March of 1975, Bishop Ralph Ward of the New York Conference and District Superintendent, Rev. H. Burnham Kirkland, received two letters from an anonymous “committee of nine concerned persons” in the Metropolitan-Duane congregation. The first letter complained that “our present pastor…is flagrantly homosexual…having occupied the parsonage apartment ever since he came to us with a male ‘spouse,’ Mr. Russell Morin. They have ‘gay’ parties, with all male guests – even some transvestites….” Moreover, they grumbled, “He uses his budgetary allowance for ‘continuing education’ to attend homosexual conventions.” Both letters demanded a change of pastor and threatened “to expose the homosexual situation” to the public if the Bishop did not act. Ed rightly labeled these “extortion letters.” Although Bishop Ward was personally opposed to ordaining Gays, Ed was reappointed to Met Duane in 1976 and 1977. Also, he maintained the support of the majority of the MDUMC leadership, including the Pastor-Parish Relations Committee and the Administrative Board. However, when Ward was about to take over as President of the Council of Bishops in 1977, he forced Ed to take a leave of absence and then compelled him to retire in 1978.
After being forced into retirement, Ed and Russ moved permanently to their home on the Hudson River, where Ed continued to be active in various causes, including editing the newsletter of Affirmation (an LGBTQI advocacy organization formed in the UMC in the early 1970s), and volunteering with SAGE – a support organization for older LGBT persons. He was also an accomplished sailor, photographer, genealogist, and amateur archeologist.
There is so much more I have learned about Ed and about PFLAG that I would love to share. I encourage you to come to the Village Preservation Society celebration of PFLAG on Thursday, when I hope to expand a bit. For the longer story, you will have to wait for the article I plan to write – or maybe the book.
Why should we dig up this old history, anyway? Because we need to cherish the prophets and heroes who came before us. As the Letter to the Hebrews says, their efforts, courage, sacrifices, and patient work were the pathway to our own continuing efforts today. That’s true for our church and for PFLAG. I am so grateful to the long and enduring connection between our organizations.
Ed Egan was a quiet, private hero. Not just a Gay hero, but a hero for all humanity and not just anybody’s hero, but our hero. When it was risky to do so, Ed stood out in front, a prophetic voice speaking truth to power. We need to preserve and learn from our history and celebrate the best parts of it. I am inspired by the examples of the Manfords, the Ashworths, Sarah Montgomery, Rae Kameny, Ed Egan, and so many hundreds of thousands of others who joined, led, and continue to spread the news about Parents of Gay and then Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gay, and now PFLAG. We still have plenty of work to do, but because of their efforts, we are surely in a much better situation today than what they faced in 1973 or before Stonewall or before the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis initiated their open struggle for liberation. Ed knew as we know, that God desires for us and is with us in the struggle for radically inclusive and all-encompassing love. As the Church of the Village and PFLAG, let us celebrate the privilege of leading in love.