Gina Blanton, Timothy Beauchamp, and Manda Adams

[00:05] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: My name is Timothy Beacham. I am 54 years old. Today's date is Sunday, November 3rd, 2019. The location is Dallas, Texas. The name of my interview partners are Gina and Manda and I'm friends with Gina and Manda is my pastor and my cousin.

[00:32] GINA BLANTON: Hi, I'm Gina Blanton I am 51 years old. Today is Sunday, November 3, 2019. We are in Dallas, Texas. The name of my interview partners are Tim and Manda who are both my friends. And Manda is additionally also my pastor.

[00:49] SPEAKER C: And I am Manda Adams the Reverend Manda Adams I am the pastor of First Community United Church of Christ. I'm 42 years old. 42. And today is Sunday, November 3rd, 2019. And we are in Dallas, Texas today. I'm here with Tim and Gina who are members of my church. And I'm also proud to call Tim a cousin and Gina a friend. And we are just glad to be sharing our story together.

[01:21] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: Well, Amanda, you were the first in Faith of Texas as our pastor and you brought us in. Let's see what led you to Faith in Texas.

[01:32] SPEAKER C: So I have long believed that the purpose of church is to serve the community. In fact, today we celebrated our 70th anniversary, first community church in East Dallas. And we actually heard some a recording from one of our former pastors, W.B.J. martin, who in that recording said, is the purpose of a church to be a community or to serve the community? And it doesn't mean that being a community isn't important, but being a community church means we are, we exist to serve the community around us. And one of the most important ways to do that is to partner with others in the larger community to work for justice. Faith in Texas drew me in the beginning. In 2016, late 2016, I was invited to show up for at the mosque in Richardson for an event because the current administration was trying to ban people from a number of Muslim countries. And so we had a show of solidarity at that mosque. My spouse is Muslim, as you know. And so we decided to show up together and that was my first chance to get to know other people. When I showed up there and saw Jewish and Muslim and Christian people together and people of all different races and backgrounds, I knew these are my people. Faith in Texas also brings together people from all different congregations. And it is not a top down organization. It is an organization that's built from congregations and communities. And so the campaigns that we run, the work that we do, all comes from doing directly affected people. And so I felt that our church needed to plug in and be part of that. I knew, however, at the time that Faith in Texas was. And the larger Faith in Action Network was not on board with or directly interested in addressing issues that impact the directly impacted group of LGBTQ people.

[04:16] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: I remember.

[04:17] SPEAKER C: Yeah. Which all three of us represent. In fact, our justice team has lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer.

[04:26] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: Y.

[04:26] SPEAKER C: And so I specifically said to you all, I know this is going to be difficult, but. But we can't keep ourselves from showing up for racial and economic justice for other people just because they're not ready to show up for us.

[04:43] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: Exactly.

[04:44] GINA BLANTON: Right.

[04:44] SPEAKER C: So what was that like for you in the beginning, Gina

[04:54] GINA BLANTON: It. Well, it just seemed like the natural thing to do. I mean, it never occurred to me what it might be like. It's just we're. We're going to partner with, you know, this organization and these congregations and, you know, and this is where we are right now. But, you know, it ultimately became a question of do they support justice for everyone or not? And, I mean, it was. It never occurred to me what it might be like or what it was like in that moment. It just seemed like the natural thing to do. That all means.

[05:35] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: All right.

[05:38] GINA BLANTON: And I remember Timothy bringing that up at the seminar that we had last summer.

[05:43] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: Right. And.

[05:46] GINA BLANTON: We really liked the platform they were laying out, but there was a conspicuous absence of the LGBTQ community. Absolutely not everybody was on board with it initially.

[05:57] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: Right.

[05:57] GINA BLANTON: They weren't social. There were socially progressive. I mean, you know, socially progressive churches that were very biblically conservative.

[06:07] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: Mm. I remember getting a lot of side eye when we first showed up. Not necessarily when we first showed up, but when we decided. Because they were not. They were not mentioning us as any protected category. And we knew about that time, we were well aware of the teacher that had just been fired from her job for being a lesbian here in Texas. So I remember Gina and I discussing that and saying, hey, our group is really legally discriminated against here in Texas, and they are not addressing it. And then I don't know if it was Manda but somebody mentioned us being more visible, and we showed up the next day wearing all of her gay T shirts, making sure that they knew some of us don't present necessarily. A lot of people don't see us as gay unless we are deliberate about showing that.

[07:16] GINA BLANTON: Well, the other thing that was interesting about that, too, was the number of people that came forward and they just thought that we can get married now. So the end of that discussion. Right. Remember that There was a lot of that. That they just didn't realize. It's not that, you know, it wasn't even that they were reticent to support equal rights for the LGBTQ community. I just thought with, we got it, Oberfeld, we're there.

[07:38] SPEAKER C: I remember that you both shared at that Freedom Summer training. You both shared some deeply personal stories about your experience. Gina would you share a bit more about your housing experience?

[07:54] GINA BLANTON: About housing? So. Well, when I first came out, sodomy laws were still a thing in Texas. So it was actually illegal for two women to live together in a single bedroom apartment. So that immediately was an issue as far as finding housing at the ripe old age of 19 that we could legally live in and afford. So that just wasn't feasible. So there was, you know, there was a lot of just, you know, just sanctioned discrimination right off the bat. But even after that, I mean, there are laws in place, let's say you're not supposed to discriminate. But I've shown up for, you know, to rent a home and had looked at it, filled out all the paperwork, dotted all the I's, crossed all the T's, and all that was left to do was just sign the lease and pick up the keys. And when I showed up with Paula, my wife, now, she was my domestic partner then, but when I showed up with her to sign the lease, all of a sudden there was a problem with the application. And of course, half the deposit is non refundable, and the other fees are non refundable, and. And that was that. And that's happened more than once. So, I mean, yeah, it's an interesting thing, being Christian and gay in this part of the country. You're kind of a person without a community because no small number of Christian churches would condemn you to hell immediately. And then the LGBTQ community understandably, has some. Well, they're angry with the church, righteously so. And sometimes I lost friends over being Christian. You know, I mean, it's a problem here trying to find that.

[10:08] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: Reconcile.

[10:09] GINA BLANTON: Reconciliation. Yeah, to find that space in between where we fit.

[10:14] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: Right, Exactly.

[10:16] SPEAKER C: That reminds me, Tim, of your story about your church in Oklahoma. Would you share a little bit about that?

[10:24] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: Well, I first came to the UCC denomination because I was. I had most. A lot of my friends die of AIDS in the 90s. And I noticed there was this one pastor who kept showing up, you know, to help care for my friends. Her name was Leslie Penrose, and she was an associate pastor at a Methodist church. And I just couldn't believe it, because back then, I mean, nurses wore Spacesuits. When they went into my friend's rooms at the hospital, she would walk in without anything. And I was just like, okay, whoever this pastor is, I am going to her church. Because I'd almost given up on Christianity because I had been involved in that Exodus outreach where they try to cure gays, prayed away, and that really turned me off to Christianity, period. And I was studying Buddhism and all sorts of other things, but I still believe in some of the tenets of Buddhism. That's what I like about the UCC and Manda's church. You know, we can question, we can study other faiths. That's, you know, that's just part of our church, you know, her acceptance, radical inclusion. But anyway, she showed up. So I showed up at her church, and I noticed there were a lot of HIV AIDS people that were there, and we all sat in one section. It was like we were not really accepted in that church. I didn't realize and, you know, but I was like, wow, we're being segregated. So she was having a huge issue because most of that church, the main pastor, was hearing a lot from the other congregants, and the United Methodist Church ended up kicking her out for being a heretic or something of that nature. And the UCC brought her in and said, hey, you can have a church with us. And so she started the Community of Hope. And that's why I started attending the ucc. And then, of course, I met Manda at a cousin's funeral, and we connected there. And I hadn't gone to church for a couple years since moving to Dallas. The other church was in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And so, yeah, I started attending church and knew that would be my new home. Amanda.

[13:04] SPEAKER C: Yeah, so it's interesting. I love the way that you both shared your stories in Faith in Texas. And I realized that I wasn't as vocal or visible either. Being a queer person married to a straight man, it's easy to show up and fly under the radar. And I realized I was not pushing from where I sat as a member of the Clergy Steering Committee for Faith in Texas, I wasn't, you know, doing my part as well to stress that, as Fannie Lou Hamer said, none of us are free unless all of us are free. And so. But I think, though, that something that's really special about our justice team, which also includes Tristan and Caleb, is that you all still showed up anyway and said, you know, we're going to be visible and be our full selves. But you didn't let that stop you from Showing up, especially for racial justice. And there is a problem with racism in the LGBTQ community. A severe problem. And given that most of us on the justice team, except for one, are white, it would have been easy for us to just sit back and be comfortable in our whiteness. And I think faith in Texas gave us an opportunity to show that we were going to actively be anti racist. So I'm curious about. What is it about racial justice that really draws you and immigrant justice? I know. Gina you had shared a story about when you were a construction worker.

[15:09] GINA BLANTON: Oh, yes. Okay, so a moment of full disclosure here. 25 years ago, I was not the same person that's sitting in front of.

[15:18] SPEAKER C: Me over 25 years.

[15:23] GINA BLANTON: I was working. I was working as an electrician, and we were doing that big subdivision out of Valley Ranch. And periodically, immigration would come out there to do immigration raids, and it would make me angry because as soon as they showed up, you know, you have people, well, literally running for their freedom, right? And in that panic, they didn't.

[15:51] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: They.

[15:51] GINA BLANTON: They were just looking for anywhere to go. And I got knocked off my ladder one time, and I was mad and was. You know, and I blamed immigrants for it, all right? But I happened to notice over a period of time working out there that the immigration raids always happened on Fridays. And then I noticed that there was one particular foreman that was always hanging out by the trucks. So I got. With my curious self, I got to digging around and talking around, and as it turned out, what was happening is this guy, he was. He was a foreman for the. For the roofers. And what he was doing is he was going to the labor corners on Monday and hiring day laborers and telling them that payday is Friday. You'll get paid cash on Friday. And then he was calling immigration on Thursday. And before he paid him on Friday, immigration would come to a roundup. So he was effectively using. Not effectively. He was, you know, he was slaving. I don't know, a really underhanded way to do it, but he was slaving. And I think the really underhanded way probably just makes it all the more pernicious.

[17:08] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: Right?

[17:09] GINA BLANTON: But, yeah, so at that moment, I started rethinking a lot of the ideas that I had about race and, you know, just a lot of those backwards social ideas that I had at the time. And fast forward 25 years, and here we are. I can't stand injustice of any sort as much as I can't stand injustice within our own community. The immigrant community has an even smaller voice than we have. And so especially the undocumented community. And I mean, literally, speaking up can cost them their freedom. So I just felt like whatever tiny bit of privilege I do have, I was going to use it as a commodity to do the most good that I can. So that's. And then one Sunday, Manda stood up in front of church with this crazy idea to put together a justice team, and we were going to focus on immigration rights. And I just. I don't. That was the thing. I knew it instantly as soon as she said it. Yep, that's what I want to do.

[18:24] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: I think with me. I think that what happened with me was after Exodus International, I ended up becoming involved in a group called Soul Force, which is Mel White's group. And I learned a lot in that group because we studied Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and also Jesus Christ and the symbiotic, or how the messages were. A lot of the tenets were the same. But most importantly, that's where I learned solidarity. To suit up and show up for other minorities and to be present and to show what minority you're from so that they'll see you and hopefully suit up and show up for you and your issues.

[19:19] SPEAKER C: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. When I. I grew up with a father who was a recovering addict. When I was very young, he was addicted to alcohol and drugs, and he thankfully moved towards recovery. And he later became a substance abuse therapist in Houston, Texas. And I remember we would have long conversations after he got off work, and I remember him telling me stories about the justice system. And he would often be called upon to testify on behalf of clients of his and to tell the judge whether the client had been keeping up with their program or whatever. And he shared once that he had seen the same judge, same court, where a black man was given prison time and a white man given community service for the same drug offense. And he shared those kind of stories and helped me to see that the system itself is unjust and unequal. And I didn't learn words like privilege or even solidarity until much later in my life. But those kinds of lessons that he instilled in me and the way that he pointed out those injustices shaped me and shaped my faith. And I also noticed when I moved back to Dallas in 2016, I noticed that while a lot of churches, white churches, would show up for LGBTQ rights, very few showed up for racial justice. And so I started. I decided, I'm going to show up. I can trust that there will be people, my colleagues and others, who will show up for queer Rights, but I need to show up for Black Lives Matter. I need to show up for immigrant rights. Because at some point, we can't just have a standoff where we're saying, I'm not going to show up for you unless you show up for me. And I'm not going to show up unless you show up for me.

[22:09] GINA BLANTON: Somebody has to take that first step.

[22:11] SPEAKER C: Yes. And so I'm so proud of you all for taking that step. I'm curious, can you talk a little about our discernment process that we had around just housing and how it came about that we. That Faith in Texas Dallas cluster, decided to have a truly inclusive housing campaign?

[22:33] GINA BLANTON: Through six hours of hammering on the nail, it was. Yeah, I mean, it just. All of us got together and sat down and talked and split up into groups and talked some more and came up with ideas. And this is. I don't know. And, you know, eventually, after sifting through all the various things that we thought might be affecting communities and that we know are affecting each of our communities, it became pretty obvious pretty quickly that affordable housing in Dallas was a major concern. And of course, the next thing was, okay, so how do we tackle that?

[23:26] SPEAKER C: Can you talk a little bit about what you came to learn about affordable housing in Dallas? Like why it is a problem, who's.

[23:34] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: Being affected, that sort of thing.

[23:35] GINA BLANTON: Who's being affected? Okay, right off the bat, Dallas has laws that prevent discrimination against. Based on immigration. Immigration status. But if you are undocumented, you still can't access housing. So that was initially one of our big concerns, is to.

[23:56] SPEAKER C: Because you can't get an id.

[23:58] GINA BLANTON: Because you can't get an id. And even if you have. Even if there's laws preventing discrimination, if you can't prove who you are when you go to try to get housing, you can't access the housing system through legal means.

[24:10] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: Right.

[24:10] GINA BLANTON: Nothing like safe housing anyway. There's always a landlord that'll be willing to rent to you, but that's so substandard. So that was one of the things that we wanted pushed for, is for municipal IDs, for, well, whomever. But specifically with the undocumented community in mind. We sat and we talked. Like I said, it was six hours of hammering on nails. But through sharing our stories, you know, we reached an understanding where people came. Over the course of the day, it became obvious that the fight for the people of color and the fight for the immigrant community and the fight for the LGBTQ community was all the same fight.

[25:06] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: Right.

[25:07] SPEAKER C: And I'll throw in. So this was after we have a number of congregations in what we call the Dallas cluster, which is basically the city of Dallas, and that including some of the southern sector county of Dallas outside the city. And these congregations are Jewish, Muslim and Christian. Unitarian Christian communities include Catholic, Seventh Day Adventist, United Methodist, of course, United Church of Christ and others. And those congregations, including us, had done listening campaigns in their own communities to ask their neighbors and their members, what are the issues that you are concerned about in your community? And housing was one of the top issues because there are not only around discrimination based on income source, based on gender and sexuality, although there are laws on the books, those are not consistently enforced. Also criminal history. So those who have a felony on their record can have a very difficult time finding housing. And we know that our prison system over imprisons people of color. And so that adds to the housing disparity for black and brown people if they have a history on their record, a criminal history. So we had looked at all these things and then we came together. About 30 people hosted at our church. And those 30 people were so diverse, representing all those communities I named earlier. And we spent those six hours in true prayerful discernment. And we decided by consensus, unanimous consensus. And not only. So we were. We had one place where we were stuck between are we going to prioritize housing or are we going to prioritize immigration, which included things like driver's licenses. And finally, someone very wise, I think it was West Helm, said, what if we make it a truly just housing campaign and we say we are not going to leave anyone behind, we will not leave behind our immigrant siblings, we will not leave behind our LGBTQ siblings, We won't leave anyone behind. And every single person in that room agreed. And it's been very powerful as we've begun doing more research and working on this campaign together.

[28:24] GINA BLANTON: It was a powerful thing to watch that day. I mean, because if you listen to the naysayers, just the fact that we were all in a room peacefully together shouldn't be able to happen. I. Not only. I mean, besides all the different communities that you said there was, there were, you know, English speakers there and non English speakers, you know, and from all the various Abrahamic faiths and the different sects of those faiths.

[28:55] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: Right.

[28:56] GINA BLANTON: And still we all came together and talked like grown ups. I came to. I mean, it was nothing short of just miraculous for me to witness that that day.

[29:07] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: And consensus is not easy to meet at all. It just takes one person.

[29:14] GINA BLANTON: Just.

[29:14] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: Yep, one person.

[29:16] GINA BLANTON: And so, I mean, it was it was. It was beautiful. I walked out of there and just went home and cried about it because I was just so touched that it. The thing that should. Not that it's not supposed to be able to happen, happened.

[29:32] SPEAKER C: So, Tim, what's it been like for you and for your faith to be involved with faith in Texas?

[29:44] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: I believe it's an evolution. I can see the arc of my life leading to this service work. My faith has been Protestant. I served on a submarine in the Cold War. I was called to be a pastor there, even though I did not want to be. That was not my job. But they basically forced me. And then they forced me. They basically said, okay, you're going to be the pastor, and you can't say no. And I didn't want to out myself, so I. Because at the time, it was don't ask, don't tell. And so I did become the pastor, and I learned a lot. And then I was discharged from the Navy for being gay. I was outed. And then I joined the church, the church I told you about, Leslie Penrose's. And then I came here to Texas. But throughout, like Soul Force, my studies with Martin Luther King, about Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Jesus Christ, all of their messages, it led me to this point to be involved in faith in Texas. Do you have anything to add, Amanda?

[31:08] SPEAKER C: Well, I think it's just been really special to be sharing this journey with you all and to get to be your pastor, because you all just move me. And really, it's a privilege to. I know when I. When I came to you guys and I said, I know they're not going to be ready to show up for us yet, but it's really important that we show up anyway and that you all said, yeah, that's the right thing to do.

[31:46] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: Right.

[31:47] SPEAKER C: That showed me what kind of commitment to justice that you have. Gina was there anything else for you that this experience has meant to your own faith journey?

[32:05] GINA BLANTON: Well, like I shared last night when I reconciled with God, that verse from James about faith without works is dead. It lodged itself in my heart when I heard that verse. And so, I mean, besides the tremendous camaraderie and respect that I feel for all of us, I feel better about my relationship with God. I feel much more centered in my faith when I have my hands in it.

[32:49] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: Yep.

[32:50] GINA BLANTON: So, I mean, everything that we do just serves to, for me, serves to reinforce that faith. I live to bring God's glory to light, and this work makes that possible, and it's. It means everything.

[33:13] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: As for me, you know, when you said hands, it really struck a chord with me because I decided that I could not be a member of a church that wasn't the hands and feet of Christ.

[33:24] GINA BLANTON: Right?

[33:25] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: And when Amanda started telling me about her church, I thought, okay, that's a hands and feet of Christ church. And I'm going, yes.

[33:32] SPEAKER C: Explain what that means. A hands and feet of Christ.

[33:35] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: Hands and feet of Christ is being the church outside the walls of the church and actively engaging and trying to bring forth the kingdom. Not the kingdom, but the kingdom of God. And that's what this church does. You know, we actually move outside the walls of the church, and we are a very powerful part of that, a part of that movement. And it's so important to me to be a part of a congregation that does that.

[34:09] SPEAKER C: Amanda, I'm glad that you both are. It's a real privilege, as I said. And I think it's also, for us, been humbling in some ways where we have had to, because the three of us are white, and we have had to be challenged at times by black and brown people saying, you know, exactly, you need to step back. And sometimes we've had to challenge people who are straight and cisgender and say, you need to step back. So we are all learning together. And I think that humility has allowed us to continue to grow in this. And I am excited to see what happens with the Just Housing campaign and this movement we've been building, both with our church, but especially with the larger movement of faith in Texas. I think we just have the power of the spirit of God with us. And I think that whether people have faith in a deity or not, everyone of good will, I think, hopefully believes that all people have a right to safe, affordable, accessible housing that will provide them the shelter that they need to be able to live a decent life. People should not be worried about whether they can have, you know, whether they have electricity working, whether they have protection from the elements, and whether they can. They shouldn't have to choose between shelter and food, shelter and medicine. So I think we're building something really powerful in Dallas, and I think that hopefully this will be the blueprint for all our other work to come with faith in Texas.

[36:22] TIMOTHY BEACHAM: Amen.