The Mattachine Society

This morning’s news via the 700 Club contained the information another homosexual minister is to be ordained by the Episcopal Church as a bishop.  That brought up memories which momentarily, at least, supersede more discussion on the chemicals in our food which I had planned to continue!

Approximately 1976, I guess, the charismatic movement was big and I wanted to learn more about it.  Pat Robertson had an Episcopal minister on his 700 Club  many times so when I heard a local Episcopal church was promoting a “life in the spirit” evening class I determined to attend and invited my mother to go with me.  She had resisted being “born again” for some time, said she was tired of having us preach to her, but nevertheless this promised a diversion from sitting home evenings alone, so she said she would go with me.

The first meeting was marred by being in a small stuffy room with no moving air and both the “priest” and his wife smoked!  Not only did it appear unseemly but it was very rude since there was no way for the seated “prisoners” to escape!

I have always been much better at telling people what I think by letter than by voice so I wrote and told him  I could not imagine The Christ delivering the Sermon on the Mount or John the Baptist preaching with a cigarette between the fingers.  As far as I was concerned, I told him in my letter,  he could smoke all he wanted but to do it under those circumstances approached the unforgiveable!

I received a phone call apology in which he said he read my letter to his congregation which had long wanted him to give it up.  At all events he promised not to smoke at the classes so Mother and I attended.   At the end of the week’s  programs an invitation was given at the altar to receive Jesus as Lord and Savior and Momma was the first one there! 

Later,  Mother and I discussed the week’s  program and I mentioned to her I had never attended a high church Sunday service and perhaps we should go at which she admitted she hadn’t either,  so we decided to attend the following Sunday.

The sanctuary was pretty empty when we arrive a bit early.    At Chuck Smith’s Santa Ana church which we attended regularly we always sat on end seats fairly well down front.  This made it easy to leave if we needed to, without crawling over knees. 

Don’t ask me why, cause I don’t know, on this Sunday we had our choice of the entire sanctuary. So we went to the center, sat in the center row in the center as well as from side to side. Seats filled in around us as time for church came closer, so we were pretty well hemmed in by the time church began with a  solemn procession down the middle aisle, altar boys carrying pennants and incense burner which proceeded  up to the altar where the priest wearing  elaborately decorated garments took his place behind the podium.

He had an important announcement to begin the service, that a representative was present to speak to congregants after church on the patio over coffee about ordaining homosexual priests.

I looked at Mother. She looked back at me. I said, “You know if we leave now, we can still get to Chuck’s on time.”

“Okay,” she said, “Let’s go.”

I had feared for a moment she might not agree with me, but my mother was dauntless. So in the midst of the priest’s next announcement, whatever it may have been, I don’t know, we rose.  It wasn’t easy getting past the sets of knees between us and the aisle, proceeding up said aisle to the double exit door, but we made it.  I became aware  total silence fell  over the church, when we stood up in mid-sentence so to speak.  What could you expect from a couple of women who couldn’t tolerate cigarette smoke in a closed room? 

We were just a tad late to Chuck’s.  We didn’t get our usual seats, but we were there! The first time I heard Chuck, he read Scripture to say, “And on earth peace to men of good will—” Not “good will to men.”  It makes a difference.

Not long afterwards  we went to a ladies’ retreat in the mountains given by Chuck's church.  Kay Smith, his wife,  was the leader.  I think it was only 3 days long but when the invitation was given again,  Mother literally ran down to the altar. I am not sure if she thought it might not have taken at the Episcopal Church!

At the Episcopal announcement, I  remembered some years before a man came to my door who reminded me of the descriptions given of Alger Hiss’s nemesis, Whittaker Chambers, shabby and unkempt.   He was looking for a place to stay to finish writing a book about the Mattachine Society of which I had never heard.  He introduced himself as a former reporter for the Los Angeles Herald, so I invited him in to discuss it.  There were some misgivings on my part, but as I recall now from a far distance, he did stay a few days.

A local doctor concerned about what was happening to our country was making arrangements for a permanent place for Fred Seelig to finish his book, Destroy the Accuser. That did happen some time later, but when Fred first came to the door I was somewhat doubtful.

He told me about the secret society, The Mattachine Society, organized to promote homosexuals by a Communist Party organizer, Harry Hay, but to which some prominent people belonged.  Fred sued his wife for divorce when he discovered her practicing her perversion on their children and showed me pictures of her French kissing the little boy. 

He didn’t anticipate having any problems with the divorce so he was astonished when the Judge awarded her the divorce and custody of the children!  This set him out on a nationwide search about this organization, gathering documentary evidence along the way.  In Texas he was seized without papers by U.S. Marshals and removed to the Federal Insane Asylum in Missouri where he spent nearly two years.   I suppose it might have been about 1962-3, as I recall Robert Kennedy was Attorney General.

It was a long sad story before Seelig’s book was published and he sent me a copy.  During that time I found no one had ever heard of the Mattachine Society which came and went and was superseded by an even more radical organization. I noted that Obama’s appointment of Kevin Jennings as one of his Czars, was proud to identify himself as having been mentored by Harry Hay, the Communist founder of the Mattachines.
Hay appeared before a government committee in July, 1955 and took the Fifth Amendment about his Communist Party membership, but made no secret of it, on his website years later.

Anyway, they are all out of the closet now, and Obama  declared last year that June is homosexual month, so the Episcopal Church has added another Bishop.  Their first appointment caused the founding of the Anglican Church which split from them and presumably there will be some more – if there are, indeed, that many people left who care.