I wrote this article for OutNow magazine. Since it was published, some
people have suggested I forward this to web-sites with similar
discussions.
John Emery

Separation of Church and State - A Family History
By John Emery Jr

Recently, I decided to explore my ancestral roots and found some
interesting parallels with myself and today's historic events. These
parallels begin in 1635 when the John Emery Jr family arrives in Boston
aboard the "James", along with other religious refuge families who are
seeking relief from the church, which at the time, is controlled by the
crown. In 1640, is made a "freeman" and is appointed to appraise all the
properties in the new town for tax assessment and later serves as
juryman.

His political activism starts quickly after he is brought up on
charges for "excessive merriment" and later for "entertaining Quakers".
The second charge brings a steep fine. He is angered by this sentence
and initiates a petition. In his petitioned appeal, he argues the moral
and legal right of government to restrict the practices of other faiths
that might allow for "merriment" and "entertaining of Quakers". His
appeal was denied.

Later he involved himself with a case of Lt Pike and the crowns
denial to hear his petition for appeal. In this case, they are able to
successfully argue for the right of all citizens to petition government
and the right of all petitions to be heard in court.

Emery's foray into activism also involved a major schism in the
Massachusetts Bay Colonies at the time. The earlier Pilgrims had arrived
seeking religious freedoms while later immigrants arrived for other
reasons. Half wanted the control of the church to reside in the Body
Politic (later known as members of the "Woodman Party" led by John
Woodman) and the other half wanted control to reside with the church
officials and ultimately the crown (known as the "Parker Party"). This
ideological split continues until 1776 when this concept of freedom is
written into the Constitution of Massachusetts and the United States,
allowing for the separation of church FROM state.

As a direct descendant of both Emery & Woodman, I am amazed how
histories repeat.

My lesbian sister Kathy and I were born in the oilfields of the
North Dakota Badlands on one of our dad's forays for cash in the 1950's.
Our northern Minnesota rock farm (about 125 miles northwest of Lake
Woebegone) is an endless money-pit that eventually takes us to Alaska in
the 1960's, where we would later establish a farm near milepost 1,400
Alaska Hwy (about 125 miles from the Arctic Circle). On a neighboring
farm in Minnesota lived a widow with her gay son, Ole Olafson, he's
queer ya-know. Ole Olafson, he's queer ya-know, is a good farmer and
hard-worker and therefore fully accepted into the local community. His
cost of community acceptance taught us a lesson with mixed-blessings.

As teens in Alaska, Kathy and I enroll in the Civil Air Patrol, an
auxiliary of the Air Force that performs search and rescue missions.
Their cadet programs teach both of us to fly and sky-dive. On a CAP
seminar at Moffett Air Field as a teen, I saw the early prototypes of
the space shuttle at NASA's Ames Research Center, and was awestruck. My
goal was NASA, while my sister wanted to become a commercial airline
pilot. I set my sights on the Air Force Academy and join ROTC in
high-school. It is in this time period, and NOT the time period in which
marijuana was legal in Alaska, that I pick up the unfortunate handle;
"space cadet". My "Lt. Colonel." CAP rank and "Airman 2nd Class" ROTC
rankings are no match for my nemesis; a "Captain" in the CAP and
"Lieutenant" in the ROTC. My genetic inability to perform a "right-face
HARCH", would be my downfall. The Alaskan nod goes to the son of a
military family.

My political awareness started after high-school graduation when I
spent the summer of 1973 in Washington DC. With the energy crisis
looming, and the environmentalists nipping his heals, Nixon decided he
needed an expert who could fully understand valet parking and appointed
a wealthy Anchorage hotelier to become the Secretary of Interior. In the
stampede for DC jobs that follow, the entourage of oil-and-gas,
natural-resource and pillow-mint experts included the father of my best
friend. My summer of '73 was spent with a gang of Mormons whose parents
were also highly-connected political appointees.

The Watergate investigation had been stalled by G. Gordon Liddy's
refusal to rat out Nixon. Since Liddy is a completely incompetent
nut-job, few believe he is connected to anyone of significance. Most
assumed he was just an overzealous volunteer to CREEP (the committee to
re-elect the president - their name, not mine). In the summer of '73,
John Dean testified and the rest was history.
Amongst the backdrop of these events, the Nixon spin-doctors trot
out the proud fresh faces of Republican Youth, to counter the thousands
of young protestors across the street. It is at a Rosegarden reception
for Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev (what a toad) and his little
potato-dumpling wife, that I meet a fiery, handsome son of a powerful
Defense Under-Secretary. I begin a summer affair and a lifetime of
homosexual practicing (I seek progress, not perfection). All my hard
work to accomplish my "Lt. Colonel" CAP ranking finally paid off. Thank
God he liked his men in uniform.
The impeccably ethical and professional Mormon appointees were
publicly tight-lipped and privately outraged, by the Watergate scandal
playing out around them. They dutifully and stoically return to work,
straightening the administrative deck chairs aboard Nixon's Titanic. At
the end of this summer, I head off to Brigham Young University with some
of the most loving group of people I have ever met. Unfortunately, these
kids were nothing like the dreaded BYU Security. These straight DC
friends would become my under-ground railroad for the next four years.
My sister drives her motorcycle to Wayland Bible Baptist College in
Plainview, Texas. WHAT were we THINKING?

In the 1960's and 1970's BYU offered gay students (when discovered)
the choice of electro-shock aversion therapy OR excommunication and
expulsion from the university. Since watching erotic images while
vomiting after electro-shock was not the preferred method of watching
porn at the time, most gays stay VERY underground. 30 years later, I am
still haunted by the memories of fellow gays who were graduates of these
Inquisition- inspired, Pavlovian nightmares. Many of these tortured
souls committed suicide. I left BYU quickly in my senior year after
being anonymously reported to BYU security. I returned to Alaska and
began my lifetime career appraising properties and where I was later
appointed to the Board of Equalization.

My first steps in activism began when the City and Borough of
Anchorage decided to unify as a Municipality. This unification required
a new constitutional charter that when originally drafted, included
"sexual orientation" as a protected class. All was well until the
Chain-Sawthern Baptists, thru the Moral Majority, waged a successful
holy war that delayed the unification process and ultimately denied gays
of due process. This Alaskan effort was led by Jerry Prevo, a
Falwell-wannabe, without the bubbly charm. One of our few supporters was
City Assemblyman Tony Knowles (later Governor), a young, successful
restaurateur. As a result of his unequivocal support, the Gay Community
throws itself behind his successful Mayoral bid.
Since there were no gay political organizations in Alaska at the time,
we formed the Alaska Gay Coalition, which took on these battles. Soon
afterward we incorporated Alaska's first gay political action committee,
The Eleanor Roosevelt Club. For years, both of these organizations
matched the efforts of the Moral Majority and their attempts to control
governmental policy. After the gays, marijuana and the subsequent right
of merriment were their next successful targets.

During this period, I was elected to represent Alaska on the
National Steering Committee for the first March on Washington for
lesbian and gay rights in 1979. This was the national lesbian and gay
community's first attempt at a "constitutional congress", elected by the
Body Politic from each state. The national delegate meetings, held
around the country, and the march itself were met with ugly
demonstrations from the religious right. Many of the delegates would die
of AIDS in the decades that followed.

I moved to the Silicon Valley in the 1980's and to nearby San
Francisco in the 1990's. Here I became involved with "The Experience" a
non-profit whose stated goal was "By the year 2000, it will be
absolutely okay to be Lesbian and Gay". Realizing the greatest
impediment to gay acceptance is public awareness, The Experience
produced "coming-out" workshops that supported individuals in their full
expression at work and in their families. The workshop also encouraged
graduates to go back to their communities and provide what was needed
and wanted. It is out of these workshops and participants that I became
involved with the formations of National Coming Out Day and the Stop
Aids Project. For nearly 20 years I worked with The Experience,
eventually becoming the Northern California Director. The Experience
stopped producing workshops after the AIDS deaths of the co-founder Rob
Eichberg and national director Dan Osborne.

Finally, in December 2003, (3 years behind schedule) the Supreme
Court of the United States struck down the laws that invaded the privacy
of the bedroom and lifted the "criminal" status of Gays. Kathy and I,
along with all other gays and lesbians, were instantly made "freeman",
entitling us to all the privileges and responsibilities of those who are
no longer "indentured" nor "criminal". For years, the government used
our "criminal" status to deny us all rights afforded all other
"freeman". Our last barrier to full equality is now the guy carrying a
sign at our holy unions declaring "God Hates Fags".

In 2004, the 25th anniversary of the first march on Washington, we
are yet again facing another holy war. This time, the Catholics,
Baptists and Mormons want their definition of a "holy union" to be set
into the constitution. As a Lutheran, my chosen ministry defines "holy
union" to include couples of the same sex.. The issue is not of gay
rights but the rights of renegade Lutherans (and other religions) to
have their "holy unions" recognized by government in the same way that a
Catholic "holy union" would be.

Americans have come to expect government to treat equally, in the
form of tax law, Lutherans' "tithes" and Catholics' "purchase of an
indulgence". To codify a gay Lutheran wedding as morally inferior to a
Catholic wedding is against everything our constitution stands for. A
Lutheran's hotly debated and ever-changing definitions of "holy union"
and "holy communion" are different than a Catholics, and neither have
ever been regulated by our constitution before now.

Hopefully, most will see that the issue is more than one of lesbian
and gay rights. Whether we struggle with the right of our church to
practice "excessive merriment", "entertaining of Quakers" or
"inter-racial and same sex holy unions" the underlying principle of
SELF-determination is the same. Bush's rallying of the Jihad
Fundamentalists to amend the constitution denying the rights of
Lutherans (and other religions) to define "holy union" as they choose,
is just a 21st century attempt to rescind the Woodman/Parker Debate.

Churches that believe "God Loves Fags" must be recognized the same
as the Churches that believe "God Hates Fags." Like it or not, it is the
inevitable conclusion to our constitution.

Privately, I wonder about the Pandora's box were opening, knowing
the propensity for male relationships to last 2-3 years, and female
relationships to last 2-3 years longer than they probably needed to.
Perhaps we'll teach others in our tailoring of this suit.

In observing Pascal's long conversion to Catholicism, Nietzsche
observed this process to be the "slow suicide of reason". I hope he's
wrong on that one. Like many, I think Christianity is a FABULOUS idea.
And too think it's a crying shame no one has ever tried it.

PS to my daughter: I know it's difficult for the both of us, but
you also must focus your attention away from the cute guys in history
class and I can only pray that you and all of the other students at your
Quaker college find our family history entertaining. Keep up the good
work and always be merry.
It's legal now.
Luv ya, Papa John