Inclusiveness on Trial

In a world awash in the wages of sin, we find ourselves not only forgiving the sinner but also redefining the sin. “The Presentment,” D. Paul Thomas’ new play premiering today at the Pasadena Playhouse, is about the sin-we-dared-not-talk-about--at least until this decade, when homosexuality was brought into our living rooms as sitcom material and rendered nearly banal. It is also the story of a family in crisis, a forte of American drama.

Thomas’ inspiration came from a real case, the presentment brought against Bishop Walter C. Righter in the Episcopal church three years ago. “I found it stunning that, circa 1996, there would be a bishop actually brought up on charges of heresy,” says Thomas, a burly man with a theatrical turn of speech.

“Ed Bacon, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church [in Pasadena], and I and a gay activist friend attended the pretrial hearing in New Jersey--that was a surrealistic experience if there ever was one!”

“A presentment is an actual trial,” explains Bacon, reached by phone on his way to New York to plan an upcoming conference on the role of gays in the church. “It’s church language for an indictment of someone charged with committing a heresy, a transgression of church law.”

In the landmark 1996 trial--only the second in two centuries of Episcopal church history--the charge against Bishop Righter was that he had ordained an openly gay man, Barry Stopfel, as a deacon. This occurred in 1990, and Stopfel was subsequently made priest by the bishop of Newark. However, in 1995 10 conservative bishops brought charges against Righter for transgressing church laws, referring to a prohibition passed by the church in 1979 prohibiting the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals.

The case was meant to provide an object lesson at a time when same-sex unions were being blessed and gay clergy ordained with increasing frequency. Conservatives felt moral chaos was threatening the church and hoped the trial would set things right. As A. Hugo Blankingship Jr., lawyer for the prosecuting bishops, said at the time: “This case is about authority, about order and about doctrine, especially the Christian ideal of marriage and faithfulness. It is about knowing who we are as Christians.”

The statement also just about sums up “The Presentment,” in which the gruff patriarch Rev. Samuel Jennings (played by Jerry Hardin) and his wife Eleanor (K Callan) come to stay a night at their son Michael’s (Daniel Nathan Spector) apartment in New York. Jennings has arrived armed with a briefcase of evidence against the Rev. David Thompson (John DeMita), who is accused not only of blessing gay unions, but also of being gay. Thompson’s former boyfriend, Jonathan Malone (Jeff Allin), was once the organist in Jennings’ home parish in Iowa and is now suffering from AIDS. He is also a long-term guest in Michael’s house.

The ladies try to smooth the bumpy path--Eleanor by being sweet and agreeable and drinking a little too much; Michael’s wife Rebecca (Maura Vincent) by cheerfully steering the dinner conversation away from sexual politics. But the clash of ideas, and egos, is inevitable.

Samuel Jennings is the only character of the six who stands for traditional church doctrine--or traditional morality, for that matter. Using biblical text, he attempts to demonstrate that homosexuality is repugnant in God’s eyes--and thus should be repugnant to us too. “Homosexuality is a sin,” he says, “and it’s not the business of the church to be in the business of blessing it.”

Nevertheless, both playwright Thomas and the play’s director, Richard Seyd, who directed “Present Laughter” at the Playhouse last year, thought it important to portray Jennings in a sympathetic manner. Otherwise, they say, he would merely collapse into a cardboard target, easily dismissed.

“This is a play about important ideas, and the challenge is to make the ideas come alive in the characters,” says Seyd during a break in rehearsals at the Playhouse. “You have to create a psychological complexity. For me, the most interesting thing in the play is that the arguments are strong on both sides.” Seyd has attempted to flesh out the characters’ strengths and foibles, both through casting and direction. Now, for example, the underlying struggle between the domineering father and his underachieving son is more pronounced.

In the real-life presentment, the scheme backfired, Bacon says. After a furor of pulpit drama and publicity, charges against Righter were dismissed, 7 to 1. Righter was already in retirement and wrote a book about the experience, “A Pilgrim’s Way,” published last year by Knopf.

“I compare the presentment in terms of effect with the independent investigation of Kenneth Starr and the impeachment of President Clinton,” Bacon says. “What the process revealed was the mean-spiritedness of the fanatical right.”

*

Church policy affects even those who are not churchgoers, Thomas says. “The church has played a huge part in creating an atmosphere of acceptability, from the most horrific hate crimes to the subtlest of prejudice [against gays] that exists within the culture. So it’s profoundly relevant.”

Thomas, a member of All Saints, believes that the church can actively participate in the process to turn such attitudes around. “The church should be taking the lead in this,” he says. “It should be the prophetic voice declaring that human sexuality in its rich variety and complexity is a private matter, and one that we will embrace and affirm.”

Bacon is among those vocally pushing for the “inclusion” of gays in the Episcopal church--both as laity and as clergy. He believes that the attacks on gays and gay lifestyles are baseless. “Most of us have relatives or friends who are gay, or are gay ourselves,” he says. “For the fanatical right to concentrate on these kinds of breaches of conduct is a distraction from what’s really important in life.” Bacon is helping to plan an April conference in New York around these issues, titled “Beyond Inclusion.”

However, the reality is that while some churches, including his own All Saints in Pasadena, welcome gay parishioners and celebrate same-sex unions, others continue to shun and condemn them. In August the Judicial Council of the United Methodist Church declared the blessing of same-sex unions a violation of church law. Two months ago, in bold protest against this edict, 95 Methodist clergy converged in Sacramento to bless the union of two lesbians, Jeanne Barnett and Ellie Charlton, partners for 14 years and already in their 60s.

Foundation-shaking issues were raised at the 1996 trial, one of them being the immutability of church law. “Is doctrine fixed and never-changing?” asked one judge, pointing to changes in Christian attitudes toward divorce. Another said, “The church once accepted slavery, and devalued women, and used scripture in support. Didn’t our position change?” Blankingship argued that changing doctrine would be to “sow the seeds of anarchy.”

Righter’s lawyer, Michael Rehill, presented yet another point of view: Was there indeed a church doctrine prohibiting the ordination of homosexuals? Did the 1979 resolution speak with the force of doctrine? Charges against Righter were dismissed, but the larger debate rages on, and “The Presentment” presents a microcosm of that debate.

“There are those who think this is an issue over which the church will be brought to the altar of liberation, kicking and crying all the way,” Thomas says. “They may be right.”

*

“THE PRESENTMENT,” Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena. Dates: Today, 5 p.m. Regular schedule: Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 5 and 9 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends April 25. Prices: $13.50-$42.50. Phone: (800) 233-3123.