Rev. Gomes obit: worth reading very carefully.

[Smarmie Doofus]

Rev. Peter J. Gomes Is Dead at 68; A Leading Voice Against Intolerance
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN
Rev. Peter J. Gomes, a Harvard minister, theologian and author who announced that he was gay a generation ago and became one of America’s most prominent spiritual voices against intolerance, died on Monday in Boston. He was 68.



Erik Jacobs for The New York Times

The cause was complications of a stroke, Harvard said. His death, which was first reported by The Harvard Crimson, was confirmed by Emily Lemiska, a spokeswoman at Massachusetts General Hospital, where Mr. Gomes had recently been treated. He lived in Cambridge and Plymouth, Mass.

One can read into the Bible almost any interpretation of morality, Mr. Gomes liked to say after coming out, for its passages had been used to defend slavery and the liberation of slaves, to support racism, anti-Semitism and patriotism, to enshrine a dominance of men over women, and to condemn homosexuality as immoral.

He was a thundering black Baptist preacher and for much of his life a conservative Republican celebrity who wrote books about the Pilgrims, published volumes of sermons and presided at weddings and funerals of the rich and famous. He gave the benediction at President Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration and delivered the National Cathedral sermon at the inauguration of Reagan’s successor, George Bush.

At Harvard, Mr. Gomes was the Plummer professor of Christian morals at the School of Divinity and the Pusey minister of Memorial Church, a nondenominational center of Christian life on campus. For decades, he was among the first and the last to address undergraduates, greeting arriving freshmen with a sermon on hallowed traditions and advising graduating seniors about the world beyond the sheltering Harvard Yard.

Then, in 1991, he appeared before an angry crowd of students, faculty members and administrators protesting homophobic articles in a conservative campus magazine whose distribution had led to a spate of harassment and slurs against gay men and lesbians on campus. Mr. Gomes, putting his reputation and career on the line, announced that he was “a Christian who happens as well to be gay.”
More at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/us/02gomes.html

[janet118]

1. I knew Peter Gomes and he was one of a kind . . .

He came forward as a gay man when it was still difficult to do so - even at Harvard. A gay, Christian, Republican (until 2006 when he changed his party affiliation to vote for Deval Patrick, Massachusetts' first black governor and Gomes' former student at Harvard) who could raise the roof and your spirits with his sermons and eulogies and speeches. Although he spoke at the funerals of the rich and famous, he also eulogized my neighbor Bunny Thorne and came to Plymouth's annual Martin Luther King breakfasts regularly. He loved the town of Plymouth and was in the midst of planning its 400th anniversary celebration when he died.

Anna Deavere Smith captured the essence of Rev. Gomes in her performance "Let Me Down Easy." Her imitation of his voice and gestures was right on target. Ironically, she quotes him talking about death. His appearance on Stephen Colbert's show a few years ago was a classic. He and Colbert were right in sync.

I mourn his passing and hope he is still raising the roof in heaven.